Think Like a Teacher

Have you ever found pieces from two different jigsaw puzzles that actually fit together, one a blue piece of a geometric design and one a scrap of sky from an entirely different puzzle box, yet surprisingly an appropriate “match”?  Two posts from separate feeds in my Google Reader today interlock for me into a new idea. One was from the New York Times, a post about today’s young parents and the need for them to turn off their cell phones, iPods,  and Blackberries and just talk to the stroller set. Nothing in that post was new to me, but it got me thinking about thinking out loud and its importance for learning. The other post was elementary teacher Brian Crosby’s post about allowing students time to process what they have done and learned, even (especially?) when the learning is project-based. Whether toddlers, elementary kids, or even adults,  we need time to think out loud about what we have done. Those around us understand us better and learn from us when we do. Young ones grasp our language to build their own language of understanding. Peers and elders appreciate what we have done when we can stop and explain it.We find our own meaning better when we do it out loud.

But the world does not like to grant time for thinking aloud. Brian Crosby bemoans the fact that  end-of-day recap time has slipped away in his classroom. Most of us who take the world with us via iPhone or Blackberry use that once-precious think-back time to check email now.

Maybe we need an app for that. I’d like a “thinking aloud allowed” app that lets me record my thoughts aloud at the same time that it blocks email with autoreplies telling others that this is my time for thinking, so go away.  The same app would turn OFF young parents’ iPhones, etc. until they had conversed about red stop signs, sidewalk cracks, and at least twenty-five other topics with their stroller-bound munchkins. How could the app help Brian’s students? Maybe it could ask them to record their reflections, prompting and saving their comments so they could store them up like Bandaid box treasures (do you remember metal Band-Aid boxes and their treasure-holding capacity?).

No one would make money on this app, but they would make learners and thinkers. Thinking aloud allowed. There’s an app for that.

In honor of the first week of school, I am rewinding to the days when I worked to meet the needs of individual kids instead of masses of teachers. Scott McLeod posted yesterday about a teacher desperately seeking a reading “program” for what I call a “severely and profoundly gifted” fifth grade boy. It’s good for me to play my old role again, and maybe it will provide some further ideas beyond those already offered in the generous comments from several kind teachers. So pretend I am just another teacher of gifted trying to help out here.

To the teacher of this young man, here are what I consider (based on 27 years teaching kids like this) to be vital aspects of what he needs in his “program” :

Conversation
This boy needs to converse about what he is reading with people he respects. These people may or may not be students. They could easily be students 4-5 years older, if those students have a genuine interest in talking (not so likely among 16 year olds) . They could also be adults. I suggest using one web-based community where he can build trust and also be responsible for his comments and behavior. If he says something silly, he will be labeling himself within the community. I have not looked at them deeply, but I would suggest checking out groups on sites like: http://www.bookglutton.com/ or http://readkiddoread.ning.com/ or  even by searching Google for “online book club gifted.”  I found this post: http://teachers.net/mentors/middle_school/topic13670/8.27.09.11.08.21.html     Maybe even throw a Tweet out there to find other teachers of gifted looking to START a reading discussion group for HIGHLY gifted kiddos. Warning, though: Don’t intermingle with the run-of-the-mill gifteds.  He will simply slide along and get in trouble. Scare him with some intellectual peers. Most likely, adults will work better, as long as someone is watching over his virtual shoulder so he does not fall into dangerous company (see Support).

Accountability
He should be involved in designing the “program” and revising it along the way. Talk at length about what he will do, what it can look like, when he will do what. A student this bright enjoys testing limits and experimenting with human behavior. Some might simply say he is “manipulative.”  He needs to be involved in designing his own program and being accountable to it.  Most likely, he will set the bar low for himself, so that’s where the “support” comes in. Someone needs to call his bluff yet help him get started in whichever community and tasks you decide to use. The accountability should include evaluating whether the program is doing what it should for him and whether he is doing what he should for the agreed-upon program, That conversation needs to happen weekly, F2F. He can tell when you are making things up, so be honest. If you haven’t read the same book, admit it. When you design the program, design in what the logical consequence is if he does not meet his own goals.

Support
Most likely, he has never had such freedom to fail and to work on his own. Ask him what he is afraid he might not get done or might not know how to do. Then do it together the first time - or 1/2 of the first time. He’ll get it quickly and need to be on his own when he can be.  For safety reasons, his online activities should be random-sampled. He may not be able to tell when someone is manipulating him online. Talk openly about what happens there, and expect him to do the same. This is not the time to “respect his privacy” in his online conversations!

Choice
He should have some choices and some things about which he has no choice. As you plan products and reading choices, use some of the terrific booklists available and make sure he finds things he likes AND genres he might never try alone.  Use the “pick two from column B” approach to increase exposure to new things. He may get fixated on one genre or author until he exhausts it if he has the choice to do so. Build in variety of  genre, culture, fiction/non, biography, etc. Look at  some of the classics and more offered by Stanford grad students at  http://www.shmoop.com/literature/

Match
What he reads should challenge him and allow him to experience new depths of understanding, but perhaps not be so socially mature that he cannot handle it yet. That is a tough call at age 11, because his emotional maturity may not be ready for sexuality, etc. that appears in books he is capable of “reading,” i.e decoding.  The “classics” are often  safer because people never said things outright in “those” days. Schmoop options and those on “classic book” lists might be good places to go until you can assess the maturity and how his parents feel about it, too.

Product
The most important part of the agreed-upon program is a product.  I think Id ask him to help you design a reading program for highly gifted students. He is the designer, the guinea pig, and the publisher. If the product is good enough, you may take him to a conference and present it together or use it in future years when you have other students like him. As he reads he can create product samples that are meaningful, not just hoops. He should write and create in response to everything he reads. Use all the terrific web 2.0 tools. See Tikatok, Voicethread, Mapskip, Wordle, Google Maps, and similar tools reviewed here.  As he works his way through different books and discussions, he will create different products that others in the future can see as samples for THEIR reading projects. He can also share his projects with others in his online discussion group for feedback. Maybe have him choose a different tool each week/month. Use the SAME email, password and username on EVERY tool so you can monitor, and have him embed or link all his samples into a wiki page so they are accessible from one place.

A Way to Talk About It
When he is not in “regular” reading class one of two things will happen (or both) : he will either brag about it until his peers hate him or he won’t know how to explain what he is doing, and they will think he is goofing off. Either way, his peer relationships, likely already poor, will suffer more.  Help him develop a way to explain what he is doing for reading to his peers, other teachers, and other adults so it is factual and neither bragging nor condescending in tone.Throughout his life he will have to find ways to explain himself to those who don’t get it. This is a life skill he needs for survival and happiness.

I have written far too much. I hope–if you read this– that you will comment back to me or have the young man read it and do so himself.  You are in for an interesting year.

For those of us accustomed to being told when to talk, walk, eat, and even go to the bathroom (in 41 minute increments with 3 minutes between), the shift in culture between our familiar schoolworld and the broader e-world is as difficult as right-brain/left brain shift. Forget the digital native/immigrant thing. All of us are living a tectonic shift in time/space reality.  This may sound like an easy excuse for the life-by-the-bell set to claim disability, but envisioning a lack of time definitions and physical locations is hard on the brain. We can accept them when we see and experience them, but moving counterclickwise to IMAGINING the potential experience of tools such as Skype and Twitter is much harder when we have spent most of our daylight memory since age 5 in school-scheduled time (a time zone of its own, for sure!).

This post is an informal exercise to help your brain, much like drawing with your non-dominant hand or covering one eye to see how it changes your vision. I start by giving a few thoughts on the shifts in time and space envisionable via just two vehicles: Skype and Twitter. As you read, close your eyes and picture each of them occurring.  See the faces, hear the voices and words. Then, after experiencing a few,  add your own visions in a comment on this post.

For those who find this easy, add as many as you can. For others, read more and add only a few. The goal is to help your brain shift back and forth in time and space enough that it MIGHT even start to do so on its own. All of a sudden one day, you and your class might spontaneously shift without thinking about it in advance. And this shift will cause neither earthquake nor cerebral hemorrhage. You might end up late to your next class, but you won’t even notice.

What Skype is Really For:

a two year old trying to make sentences when he sees his deployed daddy during brief shore leave

an octogenarian in Vermont telling stories to a grandson in Dubai- landline to Skype connection

a former student co-presenting at a conference with a former teacher - both colleagues far from home, one in person, one not

a humor break for a grieving parent from their child’s long-long  friend

Tehran to CNN eyewitness reports

witnessing a lab experiment

sharing the first picture of the baby on ultrasound

What Twitter is Really For:

hashtagged #skool2day mentions of what is new in “morning meeting” in classrooms (where?)- popping up on multiple Tweetdecks (where?)

quotes of the day from people you know only as @thinkr or @ideaman

cries for help with a software program or scary error message

a quick idea for a substitute from someone she does not know

debunking…anything

telling disembodied anybodies about the cool idea you just read

singing a thought in 140 characters

playing “telephone” in the modern day (if U R old enuf 2 know what telephone game was)

telling people you are from Alaska when you really live in Mississippi

deciding who you trust

Water skiers know that the key to getting up on the water is making sure you do not have slack on the rope that pulls you. At least that’s what seems to work. I am no water skier, but I watch them every day this time of year. Once you allow the rope to slacken, you fall, causing uncomfortable things to happen with your bathing suit, skis, and the hard surface of the water. But some skiers have mastered a graceful way to let go of the rope, gliding gently down into the water in a planned drop-off. They decide to take some time off the rope entirely, perhaps hopping back in the boat, but better prepared to “get up” easily the next time without bruises and sore places from a slack-rope fall.

The problem with technology’s speed is that teachers (and indeed MOST of us), do not have a chance to do a graceful drop-off. We dare not risk slack. If we don’t hang on to that rope and maintain some kind of form, we suffer an unpredictable tumble. And  the technology boat seems to have a bottomless gas tank and possessed driver.

There are times when I am flying behind the technology boat, carefully navigating new wakes (like a new computer 24 hours before a major meeting!) when I just want to let go, ease back down into the waves and float a bit. I believe all of us need permission to let go of the rope. The consequence may be that we do not progress as quickly to working on a single ski or a more advanced challenge, but it is worth it. We need to recognize that none of us is going to ever master all the new waves of technology, and we deserve some grace in our decisions. It is OK to decide not to ski into that wake, turn around that cove, or face that wind. There will be another soon. Even though the technology boat continues on its course, the waves in the water dissipate. So it is OK to ignore some of them. What is important is that my decision is not to risk slack on a rope I have chosen to grasp. My rope-release must be consciously done to avoid a painful smackdown.

Today’s waves I do not choose to navigate on the rope: my Google Reader’s 3000+ items since before NECC (and before computer crash). I think a graceful “Mark all as read” is in order.

Bobbing here in the water feels great.

I am writing this on a brand new computer just days before I leave for NECC and hours before an important semi-annual board meeting for my non-profit company. There is nothing like having a video card die on a  computer just as you are headed into critical days. Yes, I had thorough back-ups, etc., but the time required to reconfigure everything on a new machine (and new PLATFORM!) does not fit within the 24 hours I had. Thank goodness for a helpful spouse who continued installing things while I ran to an emergency dentist visit (on top of all this!) and a thoughtful boss who said, “Just go buy one NOW” when the display on my old brain machine was shutting off at random times.

Lessons learned: 

Each of us is at risk of the unexpected every day. Nothing will ever prepare you.

When push comes to shove, it’s the people who make the difference, not the machines.

New toys are not nearly as much fun on a deadline.

I hope all at NECC will help me continue to learn about this new machine. It IS the people who make the difference.

This is a story through a teacher’s eyes. This teacher was a veteran of many years and many trends over more than three decades. She was the kind of teacher who embraced each new trend as an opportunity and loved trying new things. She had discovered computers and the Internet early on and had become a techno-evangelist among teachers. More recently she had crossed over to join The Suits, the people who meet in the principal’s office wearing visitor badges, catching only glimpses of “Evan” or “Jamal” being hushed and scurried along at the end of the line and into the classroom door across from the office by a woman in a colorful sweater and “teacher shoes.” She had left the trenches to travel as an “expert.” But she savored the quick glimpses she could steal on her way into the principal’s office meetings.

On this particular day she visited two schools: one an elementary school, and one an elementary school building turned into district offices. The schools were in neighboring districts. There the similarities end.

As the kindergarten line skidded into the room across the hall from school office #1, our teacher signed herself in and printed a visitor badge from a laptop just inside the office, then settled into a wooden fifth-grader-sized chair around a table in the principal’s cluttered office. The principal pushed aside a few papers and a handmade book about a principal superhero, neatly handwritten on purple construction paper.

The small group talked about the upcoming Earth Day and a chance to use a new technology from a garden lab a mile from the school so students could stream video directly to the Web and tell about their applications of environmental science in the garden. The laptops and webcams would share the event with parents, other classrooms, and anyone who wanted to watch on the Web. When our teacher asked about any district policies that might limit streaming video, student-created content on the web, or use of web-based tools that require memberships and profiles, the principal smiled knowingly and suggested that he could get a parent release for the students involved and take care of it. Our teacher saw the knowing look as he went on to tell how he deployed new technologies among his teachers by modeling them in a staff meeting and then “letting them play for a while to see what ideas they come up with for their curriculum.”

The meeting ended and emails exchanged, our teacher signed herself and the others out and brushed past the hand-made tiles of the hallway mosaic and out into the sunshine.

Later in the day and 10 miles away, the group stopped in a parking lot and rang the doorbell as the desk buzzed them into school #2, the former elementary school. They signed in on the sheet and clipped their visitor badges into their suit lapels as they were ushered through aisles of horizontal files and name plates, finally arriving at a windowless conference room. Everyone exchanged business cards across the empty laminate table and began the conversation about that same new technology. The Gatekeepers of the Network pronounced the need for streaming video to be unproven and, yes—theoretically possible, but only available if someone could show that it was needed. The Gatekeepers declared that even wifi had not been installed in their schools because no one had shown that it was needed. But perhaps this technology could be used to track the school busses or help with emergency evacuation plans. The Gatekeepers had a Robust and Secure Network and –by the way—far better tax support than their neighboring district whom they declared to be “broke.”

On the way out, walking in the single file line of Suits back toward the security entrance, our teacher composed this blog post in her head and cried as invisibly as the ghosts of children in this former school building.

The greatest luxury I have in this job since leaving the classroom is permission to play. After 27 years of completely scheduled or overscheduled time, I can dedicate a morning to comparing tools in search of the ideal one for a given technology task. I can play at will and seek answers: on my own, from help screens, among online forums, or from my PLN (personal learning network). What a luxury to have “permission” to learn from play.

This week I spent several hours comparing different ways to deliver the upcoming OK2Ask sessions on TeachersFirst. I started with a desire to model entirely free tools that any teacher could use without TOO much trouble. I played with all sorts of freebies, all with jibberish names that are de rigeur these days. I embedded myself, recorded myself, shared myself, chatted with myself (on several computers at once, rolling my chair back and forth), gave myself tours, denied myself privileges, gave myself control (and took it away), took polls of myself, clicked myself, made innumerable profiles of myself, moderated myself, muted myself, dragged and dropped myself, tagged myself, explained myself, reverted myself, and even broadcast myself looking stupid as I played on Mogulus.com. (I guess that was “channeling” myself.) It was pretty funny when– for a bit — I could not figure out how to STOP channeling myself.

But I learned. And I found what I sought. In the process, I refined my search, defined my criteria, and even articulated them several times to  complete strangers. I was so glad to have permission to play and learn. And teacher-guilt made me feel bad that others are not allowed to do the same.

Our kids play this way all the time. They play with any available tool and toy. They may not be systematic, but they are comfortable. They know how to play. [At this point the early childhood people I work with would be yelling ,”Of COURSE they do. Play IS learning!]

As the OK2Ask sessions approach, I wonder if we should have named them “OK2Play” instead. I also wonder if teachers have forgotten how to play because they are simply never been given the time to do so.  I have a fundamental belief that teachers try to do the best they can for and with their students. They have been schooled in the Best Practices, research-based methods, etc. But I hope the denial of play time has not removed it from their repertoire.

I don’t really believe they have forgotten how because I have run innumerable inservice sessions where teachers have been as excited (and disruptive) as little kids as they have played with a newly-introduced technology.  I have always given them permission to play. This may not appear to be the most cost-effective, responsible, mature adult thing to do while being paid taxpayer dollars, but I would assert that these same teachers, give a meaningful mission such as I had in selecting a tool for Ok2Ask, would make permission to play into permission to learn. All it took was a focused goal.

I will find out in a couple of weeks whether my recent play time went between the goalposts or veered wildly out of bounds. Either way, I will learn from the experience.

 Today I am listening to Pandora as I work. They have several holiday “stations” (many available over iTunes and on mobile devices, as well).  I love Pandora because I can teach it what I like.  I can also change moods: the Peaceful Holiday station as  I stress about an upcoming board meeting, Rock Holiday to keep me awake on a Friday afternoon, etc.

As I enjoy the privilege of music in my workday life (unlike during 27 years of music-less classrooms), I can’t help wondering why we can’t let the music in for kids, too. Classrooms have no music, except when we ship kids down the hall for their weekly fix. Of course, different music has different effects on each student, so figuring out which music, if any, actually helps a student focus, think, and create will be a challenge. Individualizing music is no different from individualizing any other learning.

I feel another analogy coming on.

Pandora has this remarkable way of taking self-reported “like it” and “hate it” signals and integrating them with a detailed analysis of musical  features: lyrics, rhythms, styles, instrumentation, even voice quality. The more the listener reports “like it” or “hate it,” the better Pandora is at sending out just the “right stuff.” So why don’t we involve kids in reporting “works for me” and “doesn’t work for me” as soon as they are developmentally ready to reflect on which approach helps them learn, including music?

With younger ones, we could simply expose them to different approaches (and music) so they know what they are. These might include seeing the images of new concepts, listening to podcasts about them, MAKING podcasts about them, reading quietly, reading aloud, building something, etc. We just need to be sure we offer the “stations” of music (learning) with as much variety as Pandora’s music offerings. The learning offerings should include actual music as they learn, too. The science teacher in upper elementary or middle school could even assign them to conduct experiments on the impact of different “stations” on their test performance or other evidence of mastery.

By the time kids are in late middle school and entering HS, they should have a pretty good idea of what helps them learn. Asking them to be involved in defining it— and then in facilitating it– will make them better lifelong learners than any approach we superimpose on them.

So back to the music. With Pandora and other music so readily available in streaming forms and on mobile devices, etc., why aren’t we letting the music in?  Yes, there are times when headphones will prevent kids from hearing necessary information. But the impact of individualized “Thinking Pandora” stations delivered via kids’ iPhones as they work independently could let far more than just the music in.

- written with accompaniment from Pandora’s Peaceful Holiday and Folk Holiday stations

I admit it. I am completely attached to my computer. For some people, it’s their Blackberry. For some it’s their cell. For me, it’s my laptop. My life is on that machine. I do not even know my daughter’s address. It lives on my laptop. (She does move a lot). My calendar, favorite quotes, sticky notes with ideas for my next blog post, links to every place I love to go, rotating family pix…everything is there. Yeah, I know a lot of people keep it all in some online venue, but that doesn’t work for me.  Nothing is as completely customizable as the laptop of my life. It WORKS for me as a vital organ, maintaining body and soul.

But this week, my laptop was amputated.  Somewhere in the process of poking through tons of links and RSS feeds in an idea-gathering session, I (oops- I mean my laptop) picked up a virus.

Now, I am a careful person. I close suspicious windows from the task bar so as not to “touch” them.  I religiously run back-ups and virus scans. But this Halloween season, the guy with the sickle got me. He amputated my laptop. I hope to have it back in a few days and am already trying to compile a list of the things I will have to reinstall IF the wonderful fix-it man is unable to save it all. In the process, I ask myself, “If you had to amputate one gadget from your life, what would you amputate?” Or, flipping it around, “Loss of what one gadget would make you feel permanently disabled?”

Cell phone? Car? DVR? Microwave? Digcam? (No fair nominating your alarm clock).

The corollary is that my Internet connection is nearly as vital. But even when Comcast dumps me for no apparent reason, my laptop is still there with me, allowing me to collect ideas in a sort of IV pouch until I can infuse them back into full circulation on the web. But without the laptop, the ideas drain onto the floor, causing massive blood loss from the site of the amputation.

So think of me and send me your technology tourniquets to stop the bleeding as I try to “live” on a borrowed laptop for a few days. And help me hope that I will not be forced into a complete transplant and risk rejecting the laptop if it is reimplanted without its familiar contents.

PS Don’t worry, I won’t email you. I don’t know your email address.

How often do you, as an educator, have the chance to provide a vision for a new technology before it is even available?  Or contribute ideas for anything coming “down the pike”?

How often do industry innovators put learning first in their vision for a new technology?

Here is your chance.

The parent company of TeachersFirst , The Source for Learning, has just teamed with the National Educational Broadband Services Association (NEBSA) to create a competition that puts first things first: educator before techie, learning before “glitz.” The whole idea is to ask the innovative minds out there who constantly think up new ways to engage, inspire, motivate, lure, cajole, launch, fascinate, steer, elevate, redirect, hatch, etc. how they envision a technology that isn’t even readily available yet. This is a dreamers chance to learn and a learners chance to dream.

We pulled this competition together very quickly and, unfortunately, the entries are due rather quickly. I hope people will spread the word quickly, since the actual entry is NOT that complicated (500 words– a middle teacher says that much just getting the notebooks out or computers fired up!). What really excites me, though, is the very idea of asking the educators instead of telling them. A sharp teacher might even ask the KIDS for their ideas to make up the entry!

So if you read this blog..tell a friend. Twit it, blog it, email it, listserv it …even post it in the teachers room. This is YOUR chance. Dream big.

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The full text of the “announcement” I sent in email:

The Source for Learning Teams with NEBSA on Wireless Broadband Education Competition Two nonprofit organizations—both leaders in educational technology—have teamed to sponsor a contest that will explore exciting educational uses for the next revolutionary technology: wireless broadband. The Source for Learning, Inc. (www.sourceforlearning.org) and the National Educational Broadband Service Association (www.nebsa.org) have for years been instrumental in helping educators enhance teaching and learning through technology.  The Wireless Broadband Education Competition will create a showcase for innovative educational uses of one of the newest dimensions of the learning experience: mobility. High-quality wireless connectivity is coming soon, and it will have a major impact on education—“anytime/anywhere” learning. But how will it actually be used? Exciting possibilities are starting to emerge—imagine, for instance: 

•  A class goes to a field behind the school to research native animals and habitats. While there, with no wires needed, they use the web to learn more about what they find, and share the experience via live video feed with other classrooms—from the same school or from many schools, anywhere in the world.
• A few students visit a location—for instance a “wind farm” where clean energy is generated. Other classrooms watch the visit live; they ask questions in real time as the students meet an expert and see the workings of the site. The students upload the GPS coordinates of the site; that data is merged with Google Earth layers showing wind patterns and electric power needs, for a comprehensive understanding of the experience.
• Older, non-wired school buildings add fast Internet access from any room, with no wires and virtually no capital expense.
• Students use digital equipment to measure on-site water quality in real time from multiple locations without leaving their classrooms. 

To stimulate creative thinking about learning supported by this new technology, SFL and NEBSA announce a competition for U.S. educators (Pre-K - 16), asking them to use their imaginations about ways in which wireless broadband could support and enhance teaching and learning. Three Grand Prize winners will receive scholarships to present their proposals at the National EBS Association Annual Convention, which will be held in Boca Raton, Florida from February 23-25, 2009. Each of the winners’ schools will also receive a $200 reimbursement to cover related school substitute costs.  

Visit the competition site for full details: http://wirelessbroadbandeducation.com/. Phase One submissions are due November 1, 2008, via a simple online entry form.