Teachers often use them to direct student learning experiences. When students engage with those same tools and techniques for their own purposes, their successes increase motivation and independent learning.

For example, teachers often tell young students to “read to find out”–setting a purpose for their reading. This focus technique helps students learn to monitor their own comprehension. If, as students progress, instead of the teacher setting the purpose, the students approach their text and set their own purposes for reading, the students engage in self-satisfying strategy use. Setting a purpose, seeking strategies that will help the students to reach their own goals, and then actually using the strategies and fulfilling the goal is highly rewarding. The benefits include increased student comprehension as well as ongoing (hopefully life-long) motivation.

The point at which the students know and have practiced teacher-led focusing strategies enough to began to practice self-regulated reading by choosing for themselves from among their personal repertoire of strategies and tools is the point at which the teacher can move away from setting the purpose for the students and turn to helping the students develop potent purposes of their own. It can be an energy-filled, exciting, and sometimes disconcerting time.

“Powerpoint to show,” and “Blog to explain”

We often tell students we want them to demonstrate their own learning by instructing others, because we know that they need a deep understanding to be able to do so. Having students create a genuine product with real communicative purpose and an audience of peers, where they gain recognition for their knowledge and for their skills can scaffold learning. In the same way as self-directed purpose in reading increases student learning and motivation, I believe self-directed purpose in this creative process can also magnify those benefits for students.

Last year I had middle school students research current technology developments or terms (such as wiki, del.icio.us, urban legends) and produce a short powerpoint about it to present to their classmates. I primed the pump by presenting the students with articles bemoaning Powerpoints as the scourge of modern life or as the answer to everything. We talked about “endless Powerpoints” and read a few articles about what not to do, and saw some cool things that were being done. After making our first, basic, Powerpoint (we continued with this popular activity for a bit, I still have students asking me if we can do more!), the students were required to learn a new Powerpoint technique, and explain it during their presentations, as well.

I presented the students with a list of possible topics, and after our first Powerpoint round, I conferenced with each one about what they wanted to learn, and to learn to do, next. Some chose to add sound, some to design their own backgrounds, some to have transitions, and so on. As each student presented their slide show, their classmates and I had feedback sheets to record constructive criticism and kudos (I collected the sheets and gave the student a summary with my feedback). Students would point out their new technique (often with a second run-through of their presentation), and we would discuss its effect on the overall presentation. Students wound up asking each other “show me how you did that?” and deciding they wanted to try something similar on their next presentation.

I remember one student after her presentation, in the darkened tech studio. Her classmates thought her presentation was cool, and they’d also enjoyed what it included about how to unmask an urban legend… I saw a self-motivated, independent learner. I wanted to tell her about TED Talks and challenge her to learn how to put a video of one in her next slide show. But, we had to move on to another unit.

This year, I’m trying to do something similar with blogging tools and widgets and whatnots, and hoping to open up the results to a wider audience using a blog. We’ve just begun, and just like last year, there’s a good deal of “but how do I do that?” and “what’s a widget?” There are a couple of more experienced students who already blog, and they will be consolidating some learning by sharing their knowledge, but I hope to get them into that exciting, disconcerting new learning zone, too. It’s going to be a wild ride, I hope!

Computer Use Policy (Old Version)

• Get Permission! (To get online, to make changes, to alter anything, even the furniture)
• Do Take Care of the Hardware (Watch out for cords, keep food away)
• Do ASK before making changes
• Do use computer facilities for legitimate schoolwork only
• Respect others’ work and others!

This year, since I want to lead students into creating more content on the web, I took the opportunity to fold several things into the beginning of the year unit on technology safety and behavior guidelines.

We began with discussing these short videos:

This one, the Ad Council’s public service announcement directing teen girls to “Think Before You Post”

Download Video: Posted by mjhasley at TeacherTube.com.

In a brief discussion afterwards, I learned that many students felt that this type of commercial and related news stories were over-emphasizing the dangers and, mostly, serving to make their parents overly fearful. My students felt they understood how to be safe online, and that the dangers were remote.

Obviously, I whipped out two more videos in response–current news stories which I had picked to help us discuss what kinds of things are getting posted, and what very real repercussions they can have. (More examples crop up every day-it’s not hard to pick up current ones.)

I played this story about the alleged blackmail plot against Miss New Jersey, using pictures that she had posted online for “friends only.”

This story of a Pennsylvania college student whose 4 year investment in a teaching career was waylaid at the last moment because she’d posted a picture of herself partying online, even though she was of legal drinking age at the time the picture was taken.

The students and I talked about how families have a very real desire to know that students are not going to be caught by surprise, as the people were in all of these examples. Whether or not what happened to them was unfair or unpredictable, we agreed that parents would like them to minimize risks by putting their best public faces forward.

The middle school students agreed that one good way to reassure their families was to demonstrate that they know how to be safe online by proposing updated rules for our Acceptable Use Policy.

Rules or codes of ethics?

We discussed three models–our old set of rules, a list of 9 rules I had gleaned from another school, and David Warlick’s A Student & Teacher Information Code of Ethics.

David Warlick’s Code of Ethics

points to four areas of concern, and lists proactive considerations that students and teachers should apply to every information decision that they make. …

• Seek Truth and Express It
• Minimize Harm
• Be Accountable
• Respect Information and its Infrastructure

Under each of the four areas, David provided a list of examples of good practice. I really liked David’s work.

The students discussed the three models. They discussed each of David’s four areas. They checked to be sure that everything was addressed that needed to be covered in each of the models. They decided to compose…their own set of rules.

Yep, a set of rules. They felt it will be easier to explain rules to the younger students, and it’ll be simpler to apply. They brainstormed a short but comprehensive set of rules, and are writing them up to propose them to the school. They’ll be posting our rules on their blog, as their first post, as they get adopted.

I have a desire to share this sort of inspirational video with parents and co-teachers–the same way I’ve shared shorter videos with my intermediate and middle school level students. I wish all school families could enjoy a video and have a conversation to respond to it, much the way book groups form.

BUT, I want more! I want more families and co-teachers to find these video shares than just the few who would come to a book group. Would being on the net increase participation? What would be most engaging?

I’m not sure how to hook others into joining this kind of conversation. I’m going to mull it over and look for a way to open.

(A moment of reflection)

I have three tech chore lists going:

1. the regular (mostly maintenance) chores,
2. the “keep up” and “keep advancing” with tech changes chores,
3. and the end of school year chores.

Blogging is actually on the “keep up” and “keep advancing” list.  At least, that’s where it was when I started blogging.   Re-evaluating where it belongs is on my end of school year chore list.

My end of school year chore list has a lot of annual maintenance (back up or clear out files, clean up desktops (oh, those icons!), write the annual thank you letters to tech volunteers).  It includes reflection and planning (what worked, what didn’t work, review the AUP and bullying pieces, who do I need to reach differently).

There are a lot of reflective pieces, and planning pieces, in the “keep advancing” chore list, too.  Finding teacher planning and training time to integrate and support the advances is always a big piece of this.

Challenges include not letting the regular chore list crowd out the others!  Our school year’s almost over, and my “teacher” chore list includes writing Individualized Student Evaluations for all of the students at our school.  But, I’ve given myself a brief hour here to look at the other chore lists, hence this little post!

In the process, the students have formed a valid survey–and experienced how to keep the preschoolers from saying whatever the person before them said, or what to do if they just refuse to talk…and how to explain to the K’s what “favorite kind of movie” means, and how to come up with a few categories that cover the wide range of things we think of when someone says “candy.” That last was a particularly fine discussion!

Each student was to form a valid question, anticipate the nature of the data he or she would collect, and create a colorful and understandable prompt sheet to use during the survey. Pre-primary students were often particularly interesting communication partners during the actual surveys!

After tallying the data, each student entered it into Excel spreadsheets and produced a traditional bar graph or pie chart using that program.

Looking at the results, the student was then asked to find a point that he or she wanted to communicate about the data. For example, one student chose to emphasize the fact that we come from a large number of school districts, rather than highlighting which district supplied the most students. His display became a single school bus, divided into more than a dozen different colored stripes, each color representing a different school district.

We printed the resulting graphics out large, as part of a “who we are” display.

Here are a few samples of the final information graphics:

Willing’s image made a great poster, and he labeled each sports symbol with the number of people who said that sport was their favorite. He decided he did not want to highlight the percentage of the total number of responses for each sport. He imported clipart into a word processing program and changed the page size to be twice as long as normal. We printed it out 4 feet long!

Aidan worked in our photo editing program, and wanted to make the point that, as he says, we love chocolate! His sense of humor comes through, too!

Cassidy did a great job communicating her survey results. Each color strip is labelled with the exact percentages, and even young students can gather that summer had a slight edge. This made a very attractive poster. Cassidy used clip art, imported it into a picture editing program, sliced and colored it, and then imported the new graphic into a word processor.

I’ve been commiserating with my peers about the difficulty of writing curriculum for the moving target that is tech these days! I’ve found it helpful to think about how I have adapted things for my multiage groupings with a three year rotation. I’ve also found it heartening to think back about the best “performance pieces” we’ve done–because, by and large, even if the program names and the computer operating systems change, most of these pieces are STILL what I want my students to produce!

So, I have decided to give a few reports of favorite products and projects, complete with work samples, the next time I get a moment to blog. I may continue this over the summer as I look over and rethink (as I do every summer) my curriculum. I hope you find something useful, and would love if anyone wanted to share their favorites here!

I’ve been digging around for some favorite samples to share this week, and I hope to post some good things this weekend.

Thanks again for reading and sharing.

No, we’ll actually be contacting the physics department online, rather than face-to-face. The three of us are using some teacher technology training funding to enroll in an online course together. The course allows up to four teachers to work together, on their own schedule, as they are guided in a science course and develop hands-on activities we can use in our own classes. We’re doing “Force, Motion, and Energy.”

I’m thinking I’ll get a chance to help facilitate the tech end and get some genuine planning time with these teachers (!!) as we build a unit plan or two that they will use. I’m looking forward to facilitating the online learning experience for them (actually, they are web savvy and won’t need any help, I’ll bet); documenting the experience (digitally); and smoothly integrating tech into the lesson work, of course!

First, this brave young man’s Eagle Scout project as pointed out by Karl Fisch on his blog:

“First, please download and watch this movie (18.4 MB, 11:36). Then think about how often we stamp “can’t” on somebody’s forehead.”

The Fischbowl: Ability Awareness

Second, this Edutopia article: Overcoming Underachievement which showed how a short self-affirmation essay at the start of the term buoyed up students — and gave them a psychological inoculation against something called stereotype threat — so that their performances improved and stayed improved. While the same short exercise wasn’t seen to have the same extra benefits for those students in the majority, they aren’t subject to stereotype threat.  I recommend this article as a good read for all of us.

That got me to thinking about those wise educators whose words stirred a similar “that’s so right” gut reaction in me. They are from many different fields, but their messages carry the same voice.

Quakers talk about “that of God in everyone.” I have heard several say that sitting in silence helps them to focus on “the still, small voice within.” A favorite song declares “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.” They treat children as beings to be listened to and respected, as they have the potential to speak truth to us because they share “that of God.”

Conflict resolution methods often start with getting each side of a conflict a chance to speak, and to know that they are heard (for examples, “Google” active listening).

Multicultural and diversity awareness educators I’ve known say that we should always start with connecting to each person where they are. Getting to know, and accept the “other’s” values and culture should begin by examining and sharing your own.

Helping someone with an Exceptionality (Differently-abled People, People with Learning Differences (gifts, delays, and challenges)) entails beginning with an examination and evaluation of the person in question — I have colleagues whose mantra is “begin with the child”or “the child is your handbook.”

Affirmation is a powerful thing. No wonder so many wonderful, wise educators begin there.

Privilege is like that–it’s easy to assume everyone else gets the same courteous treatment from the bankers/employers/schoolteachers in their lives that we get, until someone helps us to see the different treatment that still does happen to others whose group identity is different.

I began to understand how easy it is to overlook my own privileges when, in 9th grade, I interviewed a local community leader for a report on civil unrest and learned that there were no pharmacies in his end of town, because bankers weren’t willing to back a business in that neighborhood. That community leader helped me look at something I’d taken for granted (people willing to invest in my community) from the point of view of those less privileged.

Looking at my own situation from someone else’s point of view, and looking at someone else’s situation from their point of view, are not easy things to do–without help. I believe it is a very necessary thing, however, if we are to have social justice in this world. It helps me to be a better communicator to know my audience. It helps me be more effective as an educator. It helps me to know where I need to become an activist, a cheerleader, a philanthropist, a supplicant.

So, I would like to thank those people who have shared their point of view with me lately:

The concerned educators and other professionals forming learning communities (a la social networks at ning.com) around stopping cyberbullying and around developing our teaching skills and tools for the web 2.0 world.

The teachers and administrators at the non-profit where I teach. The Board members and Quakers who share their principles for peace, education, and seeing “that of God” in everyone–especially each and every child.

My husband and children who understand that teaching well means working many hours outside of the school day.

Conversations have been about access and the digital divide, filtering (I am grateful that I CAN TURN OFF THE WEB FILTER — Many of my colleagues can’t), school policies, physical location. We’ve been talking about brain format. We’ve been talking about the freedom to teach, and to choose our own assessments to help us, in a private school setting.

My husband designed this bumper sticker slogan. I’d like us all to be able to declare it:

It really is quite a privilege.

www.scottmcleod.net – Cyberbullying

With all that good stuff getting added to the net, I need some time to process and research. But I also want to add to the discussion’s visibility, since that is an important way to help stop cyberbullying!

I teach about cyberbullying, safe and civil behavior, and general groundrules. I enjoy those discussions with my students, but today’s discussion has me thinking about what else I can do. I have come up with two things (maybe three):

1. Post to raise awareness.

If I could figure out how to get one of Scott’s badges in my sidebar with this edublog theme it would be there. The only sidebar widgets available don’t have an option for inserting an image! But I can add a cyber-bullying awareness message to my rotating messages in my personal email tag line, and I can suggest that others use a badge.

2. Make my expectations for civil discourse on my blog explicit.

I really enjoyed Beth Kanter’s suggestion, on a forum discussion at the Stop Cyberbullying ning site that we might think about posting ratings for our sites much the way movies are rated.

Here’s the possible third thing: I will join the discussion over at the ning site, which has already begun a wonderful collection of resources, including videos. My “to-do” list is growing…