Cathy Nelson’s Professional Thoughts

Back in early January my principal, Mary Clark, asked me to help her set up a blog. She wanted to explore this “blogosphere” I speak of so frequently, and she wanted to begin with her own blog first. That has finally happened, and now she is the author of her very own blog, appropriately titled “So Little Time; So Much to Do.” In the next few days I will assist her in setting up a reader, and show her a few blogs to subscribe to in the beginning to get her a solid understanding of a reader and how it helps manage reading from the blogosphere. These will also be ones that will excite her about 2.0 tools, show her that there is a network filled with educators who believe in higher order learning, engagement in the classroom, and authentic use of 21st century tools. If you have a recommendation, please comment.

I am delighted to no end that she is interested in something I am an avid fan of–blogs. I have so many in my reader I’m embarrassed to share (287). How do I manage so many? My bloglines account has my subscriptions organized in folders, and some of the folders are meaningful only to me. Sometimes I mark everything in a folder as “read” if I feel it is material or information I won’t miss, fall too far behind in, or will be able to get some other way. A perfect example is my “News” folder. Most of the time the news is easy to get elsewhere, be it tv, radio, or the talk of the town. And my news folder fills up quick. Marking it “read” knowing I can get it another way removes the guilt of subscribing and not reading. I also hear about some blog posts through Twitter, and so mark them as read right away too. So having that many subscriptions is totally doable if you have a management plan. (But I won’t recommend it for my beginner blogger principal!)

We are only just beginning to set it up, so we selected a simple design to start with.  I want her to see that a blog is a conversation about today’s learner. Now I can say my principal is a 21st century learner too! W00T!

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Our school is considering an investment in Interwrite Boards for teachers.  We have roughly five teachers who already use them, as the Interwrite Pads were in one of the rounds of laptop  initiatives the teachers could sign up for.  In just searching the Internet I found a price of an estimated $600. Not bad for a device that pretty much transforms your pull-down screen into a interactive white board (via the IW pad in you hand.)

One of our teachers who used one unexpectedly had to leave his job, thus turning in his laptop, projector, and Interwrite Pad.  I was told I could use the Interwrite pad in the library.  I have played around with it, and can definitely see the potential. The very best part of using it is that you are not tethered to your laptop, but can roam around anywhere in the room.  I DETEST seeing a teacher stand at the front of the room to teach.

Our school also has one SmartBoard, and one of the new teachers (Mrs. P.) who will begin second semester has ogled it daily since she started her “workdays” before the new semester.  But it was slated to be placed in a classroom already, and when they installed it today, she came to me so very disappointed. She was hoping to campaign for it since she had used one daily in her student teaching experience.

If you know me, you know exactly what I did. I went to my closet, pulled out the Interwrite pad, and said, “Try this–I think you’ll like it better.”  She was confused, so I had her follow me to the nearest classroom where a teacher uses one. Our luck, Mr. C was gone to lunch, but I had a master key. So I went in, turned on his projector, picked up his pad, and handed it to her, saying one simple word — PLAY.

Suddenly Mrs. P had the vision for what this little $600 pad could offer her curriculum, and realized what a gift I had given her.  She ran back to her room to install and set up the Interwrite Pad. (I love young teachers who are so enthusiastic and can load, install, setup, and work most anything hardware and software wise you give them!)

Of course I returned to Mr. C’s class to confess our “breaking and entering” since his class was returning from lunch as I left Mrs. P setting up her Interwrite Pad. He was delighted that yet another teacher has the “fire” for using the hardware in their class, and forgave me for leaving his projector on–Mr. C is a green soul who is currently trying to save the world one canvas bag at the grocery store at a time, which, I might add, is not a bad trait.)

One good deed–and now I’m out an Interwrite Pad. Here’s to hoping I get another one soon!

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Anyone know the Beatles song that goes, “Baby You Can Drive my Car…”?

Along about Thursday evenings I’m delving into my iTunes looking for material to load up on my ipod for my weekend 170 mile trip home to my family. In order to listen to the radio, I’d have to channel surf every 30 miles or so. I have an ipod playlist called “1daysdrive.” What an odd name, you may be thinking, but I couldn’t generate any creative juices for the title of that playlist, and so to ensure it’s the FIRST one listed, I stuck a 1 at the beginning. That’s pretty creative, isn’t it? (Not my car, but I do drive a silver Sebring!)

Anyway, this last week I was looking for audio files to put in there to get me from Myrtle Beach to Rock Hill (South Carolina). So I selected 2 Guiding Lights, Kidcast #45 Speed Networking, two Wes Fryer podcasts (Moving at the Speed of Creativity, ), Geek!ed! #92, and if time permitted, Larry King Show w/ guest Jack Hanna. (Note: yes, the Larry King podcast is video, but I can still listen and enjoy most of the time. )

Yes, the soaps are my indulgence, and best they take roughly 25 minutes each. But I’m blogging about listening to one of Wes Fryer’s podcasts.

I have a confession to make. I almost skipped this one, as technically I had a little more than my 3-hour drive on the playlist. I was skeptical—social studies was never my forte, and the topic for this podcast, “21st Century Cartography,” did not interest me in the least. I grabbed it though, b/c I knew David Jakes has become the Google Earth expert lately, and since I had familiarity with David Jakes and Google Earth, I thought why not? Here is how Wes described it in his post:

This podcast features a recording of David Jakes’ excellent presentation about Google Maps and Google Earth at TechForum Southwest in Austin, Texas, on November 2, 2007. Every subject can be studied within a geographical context. Two freely available tools, Google Earth and Google Maps can be used by teachers and students to create rich learning environments that merge content, media, and geography to make learning truly engaging…

I guess what grabbed my attention was the “every subject studied in a geographical context.” I tell you it was well worth my time. I found myself answering aloud in my car the questions Jakes was asking the audience, expressing shock and disbelief at no answers or delayed, tentative answers. I know my kids use Google Earth at school—I didn’t download it, but it’s on almost every workstation in the library. I even came in and twittered @djakes how wonderful it was and would he consider a Ustream of that same preso for my teachers! Well low and behold, he direct messaged me that we could talk, and I do believe it will happen! David Jakes even followed up last night with a Skypechat too. I told my principal, who asked about our options for a video conference. I shared that I had successfully used Skype/Yugma and Ustream at school, which were both viable solutions, and our state offers any educator a portal into Elluminate too, and we could probably get district support for that one. So she said let’s go for it, and is currently checking her calendar for an appropriate date or two. So I am so excited to have this as a distinct possibility for our faculty/staff. I just hope it truly comes to fruition. If you have not listened to this one, here is that podcast.

I have to thank Wes Fryer, b/c he is constantly challenging my thinking, and bringing some of the most dynamic speakers, presenters, and learning into my world via his blog/podcasts. I would have never even thought to pursue this had I not taken a chance and listened to a podcast that at first thought, almost did not make the cut. But I knew Wes never disappoints me w/ his material, so I listened. I am so glad I did! Yes Wes (and David Jakes too, I guess), baby you can drive my car!

Today my principal came over to the library to chit chat about some ideas I had brainsotrmed in an email the night before (regarding our spelling bee, an annual event that not everyone loves…) She loved all my ideas, and that, my friends, may be a coming post later on.  The Spelling Bee is next Friday.

She has asked me to help her begin a blog, and was fretting over time constraints and whether or not she would have time to committ to the tool.  I tried to describe it as nothing less than her emails and newsletters she already spends time doing, and introduced her to a reader–showing her both my Bloglines and Google Reader accounts.  I tried to explain how a reader makes it manageable.

So maybe tomorrow I will get to sit down with her and help her create her blog. Maybe.  I don’t know about your principals, but everyone I’ve ever had always seemed way to busy.  But my feeling is since she seems to have this vision, and a desire to get into the web 2.0 mix, I should do everything I can to get her in it now, while the desire is fresh.

What should I do?  Should I just create the blog for her to save her time, and then show her how she can tweak it, change the theme, and add widgets and assorted other fun stuff for blogs, or should I get her to start from scratch, with me on the side guiding her.  My fear is if I let her do it she will sort of lose interest or not see the potential.  Maybe I’ll just create a generic one, and then take it in to show and offer it up for use, and then explain that she can go from there or launch her own, and explain that I will be there to support her as she learns. I don’t think she is ready for her own domain or anything like that, and so will probably use the Edublogs portal since I am comfy with it and KEY, it is not blocked at school. (The easiest one to introduce her to, blogger, IS blocked at school.) I am not sure, but something tells me she is the type who really likes to sort through things to understand them, and that means moving things around herself, organizing it, and making it something she likes. She’ll need to physically untangle the wires and set up her space.

My principal is so ready to be molded. She is not resistant to anything, and seems more tech-savvy than most principals I have worked with, so I am truly excited about this.  When the blog comes to be, I will ask my readers and my twitter network to show her some “blog-love.” You all know how encouraging it is when you get comments on your blog. It feeds the desire to keep at it.

If you have any helpful hints or links, please send along.

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Image: ‘Fear the Skeleton Hand3‘
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Image: ‘the weepies:simple life‘
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Image: ‘Snakes in a Plane‘
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What do the pictures on this post tell us about these students’ engagement? Can you tell who is “into” the lesson, and who is not? Sometimes engagement is painfully obvious, and other times it isn’t.

Can anyone tell I had a LOT of staff development in recent years on this?? As a staff we were encouraged to have our students assess their own level of engagement to use on our own as a way to assess our “work.” We literally took time at the end of a class to get feedback (mostly anonymous) from our students. A popular one I used was small stickies and a chart with the Levels–and as kids left they put their sticky on their level. Students were encouraged to make other comments on the sticky, and encouraged to put their name on it too, which was strictly optional. There was no punishment, as I explained all the time I’m trying to fine tune a lesson, and their feedback is important to me.

I haven’t used this at all this year–shame on me–but I think I will get it back out. This was a great way to let me know I was creating lessons and activities that either worked or didn’t work.

Descriptions of Each of the 5 Levels of Engagement

There are five levels of engagement that students might go in and out of during a lesson. The more compelling the lesson is and the work associated with it the higher the likelihood that students will stay engaged. There are other reasons why students will stick with a lesson and work assigned or abandon it. Dr. Schlechty has defined all five levels of engagement

Engagement – High attention and high commitment —Authentic, willing and purposeful attention and true commitment to the demands of quality work. Student engagement should be the central concern of all teachers so that student achievement will increase. The core business of teaching is to create challenging, engaging, and satisfying work for every student, every day; therefore, staff engagement is seen as attention and commitment to designing such work. Students who are engaged learn at high levels, retain what they learn, and can transfer what they learn to new contexts.

Strategic Compliance – High attention but low commitment. There is learning occurring but the reason for the work is not the reason the students do the work. When strategically compliant, the students substitute their own goals – such as grades, class rank, college acceptance, parental approval – for the goals of the work. Students who are strategically compliant learn at high levels but have only a superficial grasp of what they have learned, so they do not retain what they learn for very long and usually cannot transfer what they learn from one context to another.

Ritual Compliance – Low attention and low commitment. The work has very little meaning to students, but they will do just enough to get by. The ritually compliant students do the minimum amount of work in order to avoid confrontation and negative consequences. There are no substitute goals for them. Students who are ritually compliant learn only at low levels and do not retain what they learn, so seldom can these students transfer what they learn from one context to another.

Retreatism – No attention and no commitment. The students who are retreating are disengaged from current classroom activities and goals. They may feel unable to do what is being asked, may be thinking about other things, and/or may be emotionally withdrawn from the action of the classroom. Students who are in retreat do not participate as they see no relevance to the work and, therefore, learn little or nothing from the task or activity assigned.

Rebellion – Diverted attention. Negative learning occurs as rebellious students abandon the learning we offer them and replace it with their own agenda. These students learn little or nothing from the task or activity assigned. They may even bring others along in their diversion as they encourage others to rebel or they provide too much of a distraction.

Levels of Engagement

Students who are engaged:

• Learn at high levels and have a profound grasp of what they learn
• Retain what they learn
• Transfer what they learn to new contexts

Students who are strategically compliant:

• Learn at high levels but have a superficial grasp of what they learn
• Do not retain what they learn
• Usually cannot transfer what they learn from one context to another
• Substitute their own goals for learning (getting good grades, college acceptance, etc)

Students who are ritually compliant:

• Learn only at low levels and have a superficial grasp of what they learn
• Do not retain what they learn
• Seldom can transfer what they learn from one context to another
• Learn because they want to avoid negative consequences

Students who are in retreatism:

• Do not participate and therefore learn little or nothing from the task or activity assigned
• Find no relevance in the assigned activity or task.

Students who are in rebellion:

• Find no relevance in the assigned activity or task.
• Sometimes learn a great deal from what they elect to do (though rarely that which was expected)
• Develop poor work habits and sometimes develop negative attitudes toward intellectual tasks and formal education
• Often disrupt others from learning.

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“The business of schools is to design, create, and invent high-quality, intellectually demanding schoolwork that students find engaging.”
- Phillip C. Schlechty

The key to school success is to be found in identifying or creating engaging schoolwork for students.
- Phillip C. Schlechty

The Working on the Work (WOW) framework is an outline for improving student performance by improving the quality of schoolwork.
- Phillip C. Schelecty

These are some quotes I have used before when talking to teachers about student work. I am once again trying to make teachers understand that having a class sit in rows and face the front for a 90 minute block is just not conducive to learning for all our students. My curriculum coordinator and I are trying ti find engaging lessons that we can document for future staff developments, and here is an interview we conducted Friday. We asked these students 3 questions:

• Describe the assignment your class is working on.
• How is it related to your class subject matter (in this case 7th grade Social Studies)?
• How would you rate this assignment on a scale of 1 -10? Why?

I am surprised at how well the students in this group answered. They spoke the TRUTH! The assignment was to create a VoiceThread about a Revolution. The teacher for this class had collaborated with me in the library to plan this project, and even completed most of it in the library. He is pleased as punch about the results, as I am too. But I want to focus on what an engaging lesson looks like. Here are the design qualities of an engaging assignment:

• Content and Substance: Educators, in collaboration with the community, identify the essential learnings and skills that students must master.
• Organization of Knowledge: Content is organized so that access to the material is clear and relatively easy for all students.
• Product Focus: Engaging work almost always focuses on a product or performance of value to students.
• Clear and Compelling Product Standards: The Standards for assessing the products or the performances are clear and important to students.
• Protection from Adverse Consequences for Initial Failures: Students receive feedback on their work and have opportunities to reach the standard throughout the process.
• Affirmation of Performance: Student products are observed by persons other than the teacher.
• Affiliation: The design of the work requires cooperative action among students and adults.
• Novelty and Variety: The work is varied in methods and format so that students use a variety of skills, media, and modes of analysis.
• Choice: Students are provided with choice in the ways of doing the work and the methods of presentation.
• Authenticity: The work has significance and is related to consequences in the present lives of students.

In no way do I think the assignment we collaborated on exhibited all these characteristics, but a good many of them were visible, even to the students who so innocently expressed as much in the video clip I shared. Comments (not all from the tape) that reaffirm to me that the kids felt it was an engaging lesson:

“We got to choose our own topic.”

“We didn’t just use a book to learn about Revolutions.”

“We made…a powerpoint with pictures to tell about a Revolution.”

“Oh I need to redo that b/c I sound dumb!”

“We learned that a revolution is not just about conflict, but about change.”

“My VoiceThread showed how the skateboard changed over time.”

For there to be learning, a lesson has to be engaging. I am happy to say I think this one accomplished its mission.

We asked some students Friday; trying to insert video here:

Download Video: Posted by cnelson at TeacherTube.com.

Recently Carolyn Foote, a friend who is honestly a friend in the virtual sense, as I only know her from Twitter, blogging, webcasts, and Ustream forums, has challenged my thinking about the library. She works in a large public suburban high school in Austin, Texas (Westlake High School). She is in the process of packing up her entire library book by book for a renovation project. Earlier this week she was informed that the renovation could take as long as a year. My comment to Carolyn was “Wow, you will be a virtual librarian in every sense of the word.”
As I reflect on my joking quip, I realize it is true. Will her job end until the renovation is done? Will she have anything to do while the renovation happens? How can a staff member with no physical “home” in the building continue to work and serve the school without any books or tables, a checkout counter, or a reference section, especially in a high school?

I know the answer to my questions. Carolyn will be in need and in high demand right through the whole project. She will probably work harder than any other staff member in the entire building, as she strives to provide the same level of service and instruction as before when there were the typical tables, chairs, books, and more. How?

Just as I jokingly called her a “virtual” librarian, she will become just that. Research projects will be just as effectively completed as they were before. She will continue to teach information literacy and using online resources effectively. Students will have access to necessary resources. Book talks and author visits will continue to happen, even if she has to use Skype. You see, Carolyn is a 21^st century teacher librarian, who has adopted and uses instructional technology to “complete” the job. She uses the tools to compliment instruction, and I would wager she is so good at this already, this vehicle called web 2.0 will drive her services until she can park her self back in a physical space called a library. Carolyn already uses wikis, blogs, and more to supplement instruction. She is using Skype to pull in authors for literature appreciation and book analysis. And students as well as teachers know she can assist in just about any kind of project she is challenged with. Carolyn Foote is a 21^st Century Librarian, and I am so glad to know her, at least in the virtual sense.

Be sure to wish her luck as she tackles the project of library renovation. I know the end result will be a 21^st Century Library to compliment her, the student body, faculty & staff, and community. I am looking forward to a face to face meeting with you in San Antonio this summer at Iste’s NECC.

Carolyn’s Blog Not So Distant Future

Carolyn’s Wiki Web 2.0 in Education

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PS–my 17yo is looking at Austin, TX for college.