The Tools Work! 23 Google Doc Collaborators

Oh, my, I had no idea it had been so long since I posted.  I guess it's true.  If one doesn't have anything to say.....but, I do now.  Read on, gentle reader....

Catlin Gabel students attended Diversity Day presentations last week.  These seminars, sessions, and presentations were put on by faculty, parents, and students from three local schools.  Middle and Upper School students attended together.  This was my first experience with grades 6-12 in the same room at the same time.  I had proposed looking at different types of calendars.  But what to actually DO?  I didn't want to just talk at students for 50 minutes, I wanted them to be part of the seminar.  Three students stepped forward to help me organize activities.  They became the sounding board and together we planned to have students create a wiki and a Google doc.  I decided to experiment with Haiku, our new LMS.  After setting up the class, I created a wiki project, and enrolled the students in the class.  It will went very smoothly.  Next step was to email the Upper School students asking them to bring their laptops.  Middle Schoolers would use laptops from our mobile carts.  All was set.

After a brief introduction to calendars, I showed students the Haiku page that had links to Wikipedia and the Google Doc I wanted them to complete.  I allowed them to copy and paste interesting facts from Wikipedia, but also asked them to consider linking video, images, and other cool sites about calendars to our class wiki.  I was amazed that it all worked!  I left the blank Google Spreadsheet open on the big screen and watched in amazement as 23 students worked to fill in the document at the same time.  Here's a link:  http://bit.ly/13L6nWY

The wiki took a little longer.....but it worked, too.  In less than 50 minutes, we had created a place for folks who enjoy calendars to collect information.  Here is the link:  http://bit.ly/XCzpHN

Simply amazing!  And yes, one kid chose to focus on stardates...nice.

Snap! Logo creation

Over the last year, I've needed four new logos for units or projects. The good folks at LogoSnap have graciously allowed me to use their really cool tools to create mind-blowing logos. In short, any non-artistic person can use LogoSnap. Artists could too, and then really go to town with their imagination. Creation involves choosing a shape, adding text, then prettifying the logo with color, scale, rotation, etc. Then, download the creation and use it. A wise curriculum guru once told me that units with logos helped kids focus on a unit. They could navigate websites because they recognized the logo and knew they were in the right spot. Seemed simple enough. Each of the units now has its own identity and....you guessed it.....logo. Creation was a snap. Logosnap.

Fun Collaboration

Today I tried something I have been thinking about for a long time.  My colleague, Mike Gwaltney, currently at Oregon Episcopal School, has his students blog on a regular basis.  Ever generous, Mike allowed me to duplicate his site/experiment for my seventh graders.  Today, I asked the seventh graders to read Mike's kids' blog posts and comment on them.  I had no idea if seventh graders would understand the sophisticated writing they encountered.  The closest experience they had was writing their own blog entry and responding to their classmates' blogs.  Not only did they understand it, their comments were spot on!  They responded to topics such as collaborating on a group project, modern political thought, and what online courses have to offer.  What a fabulously successful experience.  I have more respect than ever for this special group of seventh graders, thank both the Age of Ex class and the OSG AP US History cohort for not only reading seventh grade writing, but having the patience to respond and continue the discussion; and once again, thank Mike for pushing me to engage kids in authentic experiences.  What a day!

Revolutionary Celebration

This past summer, I visited Scott Duyan at Presidio Hill School in San Francisco.  I had been reading Alfie Kohn's The Homework Myth, and wanted to chat with Scott about homework, teaching, and life in general.  During our lunch at the delightful Burmese Kitchen, I outlined what I was hoping to accomplish in the coming year.  I was trying to reduce the amount of homework in my seventh grade class and encourage kids to follow Google's model of spending 20% of their time working on projects of interest to the students.  Scott encouraged me to implement the changes, and to, "report out my findings."  Scott, this post is for you.


The biggest success, by far, has been the class blog, CulturesRev. Setting it up involved creating a standard Blogger document, figuring out a color scheme seventh graders would like, and tweaking the sections to fit what I wanted the class to see.  Next, I copied and edited Mike Gwaltney's AgeofEx blog posting, commenting, and author reply instructions.  Mike has a very thorough document explaining to students why they are blogging, and about the importance of tone, audience, accuracy, and research.


The students took the blog experiment seriously.  As I explained the assignment to them, they asked typical "fear" questions such as, "How do I decide what to blog about?" or "Do I have to send the post to you [teacher] first?"  Because our school uses Google Apps for Education and our Middle School art teacher, Dale Rawls, and intern, Shelly Redden, had already begun having kids post value studies and reflections, most kids knew how to post.  Early on, I allowed kids to post about long-term projects, difficulties in starting, procrastination, etc.  After a couple of weeks, posts became more research based.


I would have been satisfied once the entire class posted.  The posts themselves reflect a depth of thought I have seldom seen in seventh graders.  Posting their findings, including links, images, and references became a challenge to students.  If one person found a cool image, the next poster wanted to find two cool images, etc.  I was nervous about the comment phase of the project, and it was fast approaching.  Moderating a public discussion was not something I wanted to do, so I set comments to be public meaning that anyone could publish a comment.  I also explained to students why I would not be commenting on their writing.  If I commented on one person's writing, I would have to comment on everybody's writing.  The kids instantly grasped that my writing "Good job, Joey," 64 times in a variety of ways would not be particularly meaningful.


Instead, students took on the role of commenting themselves.  They reflected writing back to the authors, asked probing questions, encouraged their peers to both write author replies and do more research.  For the project, the minimum number of blog responses was four, but many students wrote seven or more replies, comments, etc.


Reducing the number of assignments and, therefore, the amount of homework in the Revolutions Project did not reduce the quality of learning in the project.  On the contrary, students probably wrote more deeply than in other group completing this project.  For the first time ever, all students turned the project in on time.  My colleagues reported fewer conversations about stress, amount of work, etc. than in previous iterations of the project.  Six students turned in the whole project electronically.  Here is one example.  This project lends itself to statistics, here they are.  64 kids completed 2752 assignments in 59 calendar days.  Students and parents sent me 1477 emails relating to this project.  CulturesRev has been viewed 3654 times and counting.  


It is a good time to celebrate success.  Everybody worked hard, took risks, and pushed themselves to write and think their best.  Thank you, Scott (and others,) for the encouragement to take this risk.  For now, Jasper has the final thought, "Time to sit on the couch and be lazy again."  

Planting Seeds

Last week, I had another fruitful conversation with a colleague who is having kids blog.  While I was hoping to have a link to those blogs to share, alas, it was not to be.  Combined with my recent meet up with Doug Bundy, Alfie Kohn's research, and the Dave Mathys' 20% project at Lake Oswego High, there is a clear trend here.  Blogging allows kids to submit their work to a wider audience than just a teacher.  Kids take blogging seriously and are often far more reflective in their blogs than they are either in a conference or filling out "another" meta-critical survey.  Blogs receive visitors from all over the world.  Crafted properly, a student's blog could easily replace a report card.  Kids receive authentic feedback in a timely fashion.  Families can connect to their children's work, and the blog provides a longitudinal record of achievement and growth.  A student's blog would be much richer than either narrative reports or report cards.  Imagine schools with no report cards.  I am considering turning my midwinter project into a blogged one.  Students would include their writing, 3D projects, and teaching ideas.  Or, I might go for a project similar to the 20% project.  I am thankful for those who mentor me and show me the possibilities of what can be.  Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

Intent vs. Impact

Teaching seventh graders about communications means teaching about the intent of a message versus the impact of a message.  On my way to today's post, I was thinking about who was reading my postings, was I reaching beyond my school, was all of this online content a reflective sounding board to help clarify my thinking?  I happened to check my clustrmap icon and was surprised to see dots on countries outside the United States!  Clicking through, I discovered that in the last year (actually three months, but who's really counting?) my classroom moodle page had been visited by folks from India, Australia, and Cambodia, among others.  Talk about a pick-me-up!  Just knowing I was part of a global community of content posters motivated me to head straight to the blog and post.  To all those who visited the Cultures web page, thank you.

Recently, one of my students was tested by an outside evaluator to determine what his learning strengths and weaknesses were.  One of the recommendations was he might benefit from a laptop.  After sharing this information with his teachers, the head of our learning center stopped by to ask me what type of hardware would be most beneficial.  He had significant reservations about recommending a laptop for a seventh grade boy who seemed easily distracted by everything, and who, our learning center head theorized, "would be even more distracted by a network connection.  An AlphaSmart would be perfect."
While I'm sure my friends at Alphasmart (now Neo) would be thrilled at a sale, I thought I would ask the question to a wider audience.  What would you recommend for our 7th grader?

I am leaning towards a MacBook Air, 11", 64GB SSD.  I think the young student needs a physical keyboard.  That rules out any iOS device.  Yes, I know bluetooth keyboards can connect to iPads, but then there are two pieces of equipment of which to keep track.  The MBA is light, quick, and connects to any network easily.  Teaching the student how to use DropBox will help keep him organized.  If all school files are in his DropBox folder, it won't matter where the laptop is.  The files will always be accessible.  DropBox requires a network connection.  A techniques some of our teachers use for kids who require a bit more time we refer to as "front-loading."  Having a networked computer will enable teachers to e-mail the child material to be covered later in class.  Giving him paper copies will only add to his already dysfunctional binder.  There are plenty of pro arguments to the laptop, but there is a huge negative, too.
The kid is already way too distracted.  If he has full access to the internet, he will be even more distracted, right?  Not necessarily.  Our job as teachers is to help this young man make wise choices.  Helping him learn when to access information on the internet is part of that cycle.  Wise parenting at home, including working on his laptop in a public place, not taking the laptop into the bedroom, bringing the laptop to class every day, accessing assignments electronically, etc, all will help him stay organized and keep him on the road to success.  In short, the MacBook Air will have greater impact.

Any thoughts, gentle readers?

Helping Kids Fail

At back-to-school night this week, a respected teacher asked if any parents had read the NY Times article, "What if the Secret to Success is Failure?" For those who need a quick refresher, the gist of the article is about building character. Character or grit, as it is referred to in the article comes about through failure, through trying, becoming discouraged, exhausted, even exasperated, but also continuing to persevere. “The idea of building grit and building self-control is that you get that through failure,” [the Times explained.] “And in most highly academic environments in the United States, no one fails anything.” Returning home that night, I asked my sophomore daughter about learning by failure. She replied, "Dad, I can't fail. Teachers don't permit failure. They grade everything. If I fail a test, I have to work so hard to raise my grade that it is actually easier not to fail."

Long ago, I stopped "grading" homework. I teach kids that homework is practice. When I tell them this early in the year, a few students always ask me to tell all the teachers homework is practice. My students need coaching, too. They need to know how to improve in certain areas. I adopt a philosophy I have observed excellent physical education and art teachers practice. I give kids feedback on their homework quality, critiques their efforts, focus on individual differences. For example, one student may need to work on word choice, another student might practice writing with more figurative language. PE teachers never tell students they have to re-do an effort, they focus on one skill they think will benefit the student the most. Great art teachers don't critique student work so harshly the students loses all motivation. Instead, they suggest a more color here, a little more rubbing stick there.

The question, it seems to me isn't how we, as teachers help students learn to succeed, it is how we help them learn to fail. For it is through failure that the most learning occurs. In our high-stakes testing and emphasis on grades, how are we allowing kids to learn through failure?

Before kissing my daughter good night, we had a great discussion that I hope armed her for a discussion with her teachers about how she could fail, learn, and receive a high grade in their classes. In this season of parent conferences ask teachers how they provide for failure in their courses.