Think Like a Teacher

A new school year provokes two conflicting impulses: to survive on the tried-and-true or to seize the chance to change. Teachers everywhere feel the push-me-pull-you of these two forces every fall (at least I know I did for 27 years).  This week I enjoyed reading about the changes one of our TeachersFirst review team members made. It got me thinking about the energy and courage required to change, especially in isolation. I am not sure anyone can go it alone.

A  base-runner deciding whether to go for another looks to a coach before changing his/her path (Little League world series in my mind…).  A widow or widower after the death of a life-long spouse must decide what to do the same way and what to change– and friends support them in the process. Middle schoolers decide where they sit for lunch on the first day of school: last year’s friends or new ones? They are steered by peers.

Where does a teacher get the support to change? For some risk-taker teachers, it happens every year, but they are most likely the minority. Risk-taking personalities don’t usually choose teaching as a career. For many, “change” is thrust upon them by the latest initiative from the top, leading to performance of the same script in a new costume, a teacher exercise in “let’s pretend.”

Teachers are usually left to find their own support if they elect to try changes. They use peers, online communities, resources from web sites, and their own inner strength to guide the decisions and test new ideas. The courage they show is heroic. No wonder so many turn away and choose to remain in safe sameness. One person has only a finite amount of energy, and this heroic effort is exhausting.

Pro-Keds (ROYAL COURT BOMP POP)Originally uploaded by linguistone

If I could wish teachers one thing as this new school year begins, it would be the smell of new sneakers and the jungle gym we had when we were seven: the feeling that we could jump higher and climb anything this first day of school. Being on the playground with so many others  AND my new sneakers made me feel safe enough to risk things I had never tried before.

Once again I find myself (as TeachersFirst editor) and our entire web site playing the role of a utensil, in this case a sifter. We just completed a “chunk” of new content for the site on Internet filtering in schools: Sifting Through the Filters. Why? because we see a need to help “sift” the information about filtering into a teacher’s context and experience, perhaps providing ways for teachers to open dialog about it “within the system” they deal with daily. I especially like the section on “Key Issues About Filtering” for providing a variety of perspectives. I hope it will help some folks who are trying to make changes to the way their students learn.

I don’t think any topic was more vehemently discussed by frustrated educators at the Princeton conference, NECC, and TF’s most recent advisory board meeting than filtering. But I rarely hear any “average” teacher do more than express frustration and  occasional confusion about web filters and why they seem to do everything except HELP students learn wise use of the web. Some teachers erroneously believe that the filters will prevent any “bad” stuff from entering their classrooms. Others simply have no idea what the tech magicians behind the curtains do or think in setting up this “filter” and how it blocks certain content. Just about every savvy teacher has encountered the dowsing of fired-up lesson plans that comes from finding a terrific site at home on Sunday night, then discovering (in front of 30 itchy sixth graders) that it is inaccessible in school. Shame on them for not checking, but come on…sometimes we get so busy we forget.

I hope TeachersFirst’s role as a utensil is exactly that: useful, practical, and accessible. We know our audience pretty well: willing teachers who may or may not be “cooks” with technology on their own but who constantly seek new recipes and who learn from each time they cook up a new way to use technology as a learning tool. We do not seek to inspire the most chic technology chef, but we know our utensils well. And we know good technology cooking. Eventually anyone can create a master recipe with the right utensils and some practice.

Bon appetit! I’d love to hear your reviews of this new utensil.

I can’t help thinking that perhaps “quarantine” denotes disease instead of wellness, and therefore Scott McLeod may have chosen the wrong word. Nevertheless, his advocacy for an ed tech “quarantine” to sort out meaningful technology innovations from the latest “tech toys” is dead on.

I note with some humor that my busy life prevented me from READING his post for 6 weeks, but such is the speed and volume of technology. No RSS reader can really allow me to “catch up” or “stay abreast.” Time is often my ed tech quarantine.

But back to the concept: Teachers don’t have time to play with toys– ANY toys, including the latest way to twit, tweet, snick, bleat, or whatever a developer in Romania or the Bay Area calls its latest doo-dad. But there are early adopters willing to waste a Friday night figuring them out and ready to come into school Monday morning after redesigning an entire marking period’s goals to use the innovative tool so intriguing. Without the adventurers, we would still eat library paste and chalkdust.

Scott’s commenters add dimension to the concept, including the need to include practicing teachers, even students into the “quarantine” process to figure out if/how/under what circumstances the tool might actually be useful for learning. I regularly look for these people to join the TeachersFirst Edge team: to play, review, and imagine with new tools. They experiment, imagine how the tools might fit into their classroom context (these are “real teachers,” after all), and add the dimension of managing within the dreaded school policies and filtering. In the end, the review process takes time- a temporal “quarantine” before a TeachersFirst Edge review appears. Does the TF Edge review process meet Scott’s specifications for the quarantine and the additional recommendations of his commenters?

Pilot-test-experiment? Yup.

Identify mainstream uses? Yup.

Pilot-test-experiment again? Yes, some. Sometimes by sharing a useful example as part of the review.

Identify best ways to train/introduce staff? Well, we assume that our teacher-friendly way works at least with the willing followers who come to us as a trusted source (yes- we still “push out” info…). We could do better here.

Include students? Sometimes, depending on the reviewer. Would LOVE to do more!

Translation into language that makes sense to teachers? Absolutely.

Answer essential questions:

Why should I do it, is it worth it? (What is the benefit to me and to my students?)
Can I do it? (Where do I use it and how do I use it?)

Definitely! 

Sure, even the Edge team is occasionally guilty of getting too excited too fast. Our mistakes are marvelously balanced by the financial realities that make both good and bad web tools disappear just as we become excited. I always figure that’s our reminder that our TF Edge “quarantine” will never be the panacea for moving education forward, just another positive force.

Anybody who would like to join our disease-free quarantine will contact me, I hope. Think of the TeachersFirst Edge as an edtech petri dish, allowing ideas to grow in a healthy lab setting.

I was playing with this tool, Placespotting, and had to make one to include in my blog, since I refer to the lake so often. The embed code does not seem to work in this version of Word Press, so here is a link. I will include a link to the TF review as soon as it is online. Enjoy!

I am following up on my previous post about TagUrIt, my mythical tool to pull all outside feedback and response into a single place for a learner to synthesize feedback received from all products and projects, no matter what the medium. Lifestream apparently does this. (I have a vague memory of reading about Lifestream a couple of months ago….so my “dream” tool in the previous post may really have been a figment of foggy memory.) Once again, somebody already thought of my great idea. I wonder if it can pull a feed from tagged email, as well. For a TRULY one-stop shop, I’d want to be able to include feedback emails, too.

 Of course, I don’t see Lifestream rushing to market themselves as a tool for education or personal learning network/professional development. If they are interested in a powerful use of their tool, they should talk to our team at the TeachersFirst Edge. We know how to learn from web2.0 play: bridging the gap from web2.0 into learning. I guess there’s a better market in building customers’ egos or helping them track their social web presence than there is in making webworld a wide-open classroom. Or maybe they never thought of it?

Thank goodness for teachers (like those on our Edge team and the earlyadoptereducators who hang out in places like Twitter) who see the freebies and find amazing power in applying them in new ways. I can’t wait to see them all at NECC where the bloggers cafe and laptop users seated on the floor in public spaces are always abuzz with new toys. It’s hyperstimulation of the highest order: Thoughtstream.

I was away at a conference for several days over last weekend and early this week(LONG hours in the exhibit hall). But for the last two days I have been mulling over my plans for a pre-conference workshop for teachers at Pennsylvania Association for Gifted Education’s (PAGE) annual conference. Back in the days when I taught gifted (for over a dozen years), our group of teachers often talked about our role as “guide on the side” and on gifted ed’s propensity to try out new ideas before general ed and teacher ed picked them up. We were, many  times, a proving ground, and we pretty much exclusively taught using constructivist, project-based models. I was a “general contractor” on site as my classes built learning. The students did the heavy lifting, crafting everything from the actual foundations to the cabinetry trim of learning. I planned the schedule, made sure the materials were there, and gently but firmly redirected the process when it appeared that the structures might fail.

This week brings me a new chance to promote the model of teachers as general contractors: both at the PAGE workshop and in the announcement of a FREE cooperative pilot project from TeachersFirst and TRIntuition’s workBench: The Building Learners Project. (Actually, the logo image for this project was what got me started on the contractor analogy.) I could not be more pleased to see such opportunities for teachers to act as general contractors for the learning in their classrooms– even some learning of their own. Learning new tech toys/tools is part of being a good contractor, and it’s OK to figure them out along with the craftspeople on the job site. I am looking forward to getting my hands a little dirty, as well.

We’ve been pretty busy planning a new project at TeachersFirst called Building Learners. We’re working together with a new web2.0 tool developer to offer an amazing project. The announcement is scheduled for about ten days from now, and I am actually pretty excited. It’s free, it’s creative, and it’s open-ended. I would love nothing more than to have it grow beyond what we have imagined (or are capable of “managing.”) It really is intended as a launch more like a solar-powered passenger balloon: theoretically self-sustaining and destined to go where the wind takes it and the passengers steer it. We’ll stay on the ground, ready to radio up help and tracking via every means possible. But the kids and the teachers will be driving this puppy. In a very real sense, they ARE the pilot(s). Can’t wait!

Recently, I have had several conversations with teachers and the TeachersFirst Educator Advisory Board about school Internet filtering. I even dreamed about it one night (ARRRGH!) Today I find that Teachers Teaching Teachers has a terrific (though long) podcast on Locating the Tyranny of Filtering, including interviews of several people who hold the reins on web filtering in  schools of various locations and sizes, even New York City schools. For a teacher who has no idea how sites magically “disappear,” the podcast gives an intermediate level explanation of how the technology works. It also provides a few examples of HOW teachers can request an “unblock” of a web site in some schools. One especially productive discussion occurs about 26-27 minutes into the discussion, addressing teacher perceptions and feelings about finding a resource blocked and the feeling of powerlessness that comes with this “hand slap.” Several bottom lines from the podcast:

1. Teachers balk at any barrier that adds bureaucratic steps to their day (see the principal to request an unblock).

2. Timeliness matters.

3. Teachers do not understand the technologies behind the filtering and may assume that sites that only work partially do so because they (the teachers) are doing something “wrong.” Voicethread, for example, may SHOW on the screen but not actually play the sound, all because of filtering settings.

4. More enlightened filtering models favor the judgment of actual educators over technology experts.

5. The philosophical issues behind filtering run long and deep (Do we limit students’ vision with blindfolds or teach them how to look critically and decide? Is filtering merely a substitute for classroom management?).

6. There has to be a PROCESS in place (thank you to this voice on the podcast–Lee Baber?).

7. Teachers leave workshops (or web sites, or new articles) having learned about web2.0 tools, only to find that these very tools are blocked.

8. The power to make decisions locally is quite legal and practicable. Teachers need to ask questions and ask for transparency in the processes. As the speakers put it, teachers need to “be brave.” That includes less tech-savvy teachers who are not entirely comfortable with computers as well as those who traditionally speak first and loudest.

TeachersFirst plans to follow up with this discussion, trying to help teachers:

• understand what is magically happening in the filter (in a 30 second explanation)
• be aware of the legal requirements and how far they do/do not go
• be able to share examples of filtering models that work for instruction
• know how to advocate positively for flexible, responsive filtering
• remove emotional reactions from the barrier-lowering process
• be able to access the terrific tools reviewed in the TeachersFirst Edge!

As always, we’ll try to make it quick, understandable, and practical. Watch for this discussion, coming SOON.

The last 24 hours in my email/RSS/real people world has brought reminders of difficult realities:

1. Web 2.0 tools die (or are left to suffer a slow death by weeds) as rapidly as the seasonal harvests of farmers.

2. Teachers are in a hot kitchen with far to many required recipes these days.

Compounding  this situation:

3. The most imaginative minds are generating exciting scenarios and fabulous examples of an entirely new way to cook up learning. Call it School 2.0: Nouvelle Cuisine for the Minds.

So how is the teacher (in #2) supposed to reconcile all this? Let me elaborate…

1. TeachersFirst Edge reviews web2.0 tools and suggests ways to use them safely and effectively in the classroom. We are, essentially, offering  the 20-minute recipes for the Nouvelle Cuisine for the Minds.  We visit the Farmer’s Market of web2.0, select the current cheap (free) ingredients available, and give teachers ideas for a quick family meal that brings new taste to their classroom and lets the kids get involved in the actual cooking.  The ongoing problem is that a farmer simply won’t appear one week. No one knows what happened to his produce. It simply went out of season or was left to die on the vine. Free web2.0 tools die. Fact of life. And the teachers and kids have no clue where to look for a substitute ingredient. Can you make a timeline out of another kind of fruit?

2. Meanwhile, the same teachers, and their 10,000 other colleagues who never even VISIT the Framers Market, are being told what to cook, how many minutes it should take, how to measure it (at least 3 times), conduct a scientific taste-test, and still turn out at least three dozen new dishes a day. The directions are explicit and the consequences of one dropped cupcake are dire.

3. The same teachers that were involved in #1 (and #2, since ALL must do the required recipes) read about those in #3 and simply want to cry. They long to approach Nouvelle Cuisine, but they do not have the time to look for replacement ingredients or even learn to read French.  They don’t Twitter, might blog, and have not found the store where they can buy the TechCrunch they have read about. Their market is local, so they must shop accordingly.

 What is a teacher to do? Some say, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” If all who are frustrated (all those in #2) do so, our kids may starve. Certainly, there are some cooks in #2 who won’t even read about Nouvelle Cuisine, but how can we reconcile the desire of the better ones to reach #3 with the requirements of #2 (and the transience of the ingredients in #1?).

What we need to do is throw out the recipes. We need to be sharing loads of ingredients, maintaining awareness of what is available at the web2.0 Farmers Market (and perhaps asking some farmers to grow a little more of this or that), sharing what we know about tasty substitutions for missing ingredients,  granting permission to generate unique concoctions, and encouraging  kitchen-sharing with anyone who walks in. The Nouvelle Cuisine folks would welcome the collaboration and gladly relinquish the haute in favor of rich potluck. The Cookbook Writers in #2 MIGHT be convinced to permit change, as long as, ultimately, there is a taste test to assure that what we cook up is “good food” (most likely a regional or even personal taste).  Ultimately, what we want is food that satisfies: “cognitive nutrition” (term adapted from Tom O’Brien and Christine Wallach. And perhaps a new ventilation system for that kitchen heat would be a good idea.

How do we find the teachers and students who just “don’t know” about using technology in a classroom? If they never have it available and never see a workshop and never have access to read blogs (or know what they are), will we even know they are “out there”? Don’t tell me they don’t exist. We all know they do.

I need some help from the statmasters and storytellers among you. If you can steer me to some numbers, I will be very grateful, and you may be helping students you will never know.

I know that there are teachers and classrooms where there is no Internet access, where the only connected computers are in the school library or office. The official report they submit to a government survey may say otherwise — out of pride or embarrassment, but the students know it isn’t true. Perhaps the school network (or dial up) is so unreliable that teachers never even consider sharing the Web with students in class. Perhaps there is a connected computer but no projector of any kind to allow more than a huddle of students to see the screen. Perhaps the teacher has no Internet access at home, either. Or if he/she does, it is an exercise in frustration to find terrific visuals and interactives and opportunities for world collaboration when none is accessible from the actual place where the students are. Perhaps the setting is rural. Perhaps the infrastructure is poorly maintained. Perhaps the budget funds machine-scorable answer sheets  and review workbooks instead of improving Internet access. Perhaps he/she teaches in a portable classroom placed “temporarily” ten years ago and “not worth connecting” to the network.

If you were teaching in that classroom, how would you feel? A student asks what a “mesa” is as you read a story. Can you show him/her? You have amazing digital pictures from your cousin’s science lab…but can you share them? You find a site where students can see visual representations of body systems or interactive maps of natural resources. Can you involve your class?

I might have a way to bring this issue to the attention of someone who MIGHT have a way to help. But I need some statistics and stories– FAST. If you have a source for information on how many classrooms and teachers do NOT have a way to share the Internet IN the room where they teach, please comment back to me. If you know someone who might have some stats, please send them my way.  Some teachers in these situations write to TeachersFirst. But how many more don’t even use teacher resource sites? But I need stats and stories….as much as I can get. We who read this and write to blogs are fortunate to have the connections that we have. Rewind your world to the early 1990s. Don’t you think we should help the teachers stuck  back in classroom .75?