Bit By Bit

HotChalk has had a major upgrade bringing us “MyDesk”:

MyDesk content targets technology directors, administrators, teachers, parents and others committed to offering the best education experience possible for students in the 21st century. We believe that all kids need the knowledge, “real world” skills and confidence required to compete successfully and help shape today’s global workforce and culture. To that end, we recognize as central elements innovation, the Internet, and the power of community.

I’m posting a weekly edition of “Geek of the Week” there. Come join us!

Technorati Tags: bobsprankle, bitbybit, hotchalk

(cross-posted at TechLearning)

Three things you can count on in life: death, taxes, and your computer will fail.

As a computer teacher, my lessons rely on 23 boxes that need to work for most of my objectives to be met. As part of my job, I keep the computers in good working order —it’s something that I can control. But I am always at the mercy of a working Internet connection —something I never have control over.

Solution: I always have a backup.

A couple of weeks ago, the students and I weren’t able to connect to a site that we needed for the lesson I had prepared on “Communicating Ideas.” We tried several times, and then I decided to just “punt” and use one of the links that I have at the ready in my “Link of the Week” section on our website. These links are primarily geared for students to use at home, but at times, we visit them during class as well.

The link I chose to substitute the lesson with was an addition/subtraction game over at Arcademic Skills Builders. The kids went absolutely wild over the game, and I’ve never seen students so excited about addition and subtraction. The reason was clearly because they learned how to “host” their own games and race their “jet skis” against other students in the same room. The skills of being able to login, set up a game, and create or access a password is an entire lesson in itself. Quickly, I realized that the substitution was so much better than the lesson I had planned, or at least was a lesson that I needed to include in the curriculum rather than just providing the link as an add-on.

In short, I was thankful the original site didn’t work and even when it came back 5 minutes later, I ditched it.

In March, Pete Riley wrote an entry at District Administration Magazine called Teacher Dropouts. It highlights the top reasons why teachers leave the profession, based on survey data where ex-teachers compared their new private industry jobs to their previous teaching jobs. The top difference between both jobs cited was Autonomy.

In ditching the planned lesson in the lab the other day, I did what I had to do. It made sense and I’m sure any administrator visiting my room to see how my lesson was going would understand that this was the smart decision, that I couldn’t do anything about the failed connection to the site included in my lesson. I probably would even be congratulated for my “smart thinking” or for having a backup plan.

In this climate of high-stakes, standards-based curriculum and assessment, I wonder how many classroom teachers have this same opportunity for autonomy that I had in the lab the other day. How many of us are allowed to “go off script” —for whatever reason the teacher deems necessary?

In working with a classroom full of human beings, complicated and multifaceted as individuals and even more so as a group, there are constantly reasons to “ditch the best laid plans” and seek alternative and “on-the-fly” solutions. I won’t even try to compile a short list of reasons here because it’s probably futile to give any of the issues any more prestige than the other infinite things that can occur in a classroom which may demand a chucking of the prepared lesson.

This is what the teacher’s first responsibility is: attending to the needs of the students at the moment. Like a ship’s captain, she must be on the lookout for icebergs and reefs and veer off course when needed.

I wonder how many teachers are still afforded this liberty. Are you allowed to chart your own course when necessary, or are you to stay true to the fixed and unwavering course? I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback, which you can leave at my blog if you’re unable to leave comments here at TechLearning.

Technorati Tags: bitbybit, bobsprankle

(cross-posted at TechLearning)

I’d like to take the opportunity this week to direct you to an outstanding paper by Rima Shore, Ph.D from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center. It’s called, “The Power of Pow! Wham!: Children, Digital Media & Our Nation’s Future.” This paper tackles “Three Challenges for the Coming Decade.”

One of the refreshing things about the paper and the research that is being carried out by the Center is that it is focusing on Elementary grade students, acknowledging that there has been a deficit in literature and study for this age level.

The 3 challenges put forth in the paper are: 1) The Call for Coherent Research and Development, 2) Rethink Literacy and Learning for the Digital Age, and 3) Advance Digital Equity, Reaching All Children with Today’s Most Powerful Learning Tools. While all three challenges have equal importance, the last 2 have particular relevance to classroom teachers.

In “Rethinking Literacy and Learning for the Digital Age,” the paper clearly identifies the most important areas for teachers to expand the literacy curriculum in order to prepare students with skills for their futures. They include: Using digital tools effectively and safely; Think critically; Understanding complex systems; Know about other countries and cultures; Participate in collaborative learning communities; Invent, create, and design —alone and with others; and Find wholeness in a “remix” world.

This expansion is a necessity and is further argued in the 3rd challenge of “Advancing Digital Equity.” This equity problem has mostly been articulated as those with the technology and those without, but it goes much farther than that: the paper argues that this also means the discrepancy between students who are having these skills “scaffolded” with support from adults and those that don’t. Rather than just allowing students to “have at” the technology, we need to be assisting, coaching, guiding. The amount of technology is not as important as support and input from adults.

——————

Shore, Ph.D., Rima. “The Power of Pow! Wham!: Children, Digital Media & Our Nation’s Future.” (2008):

Michael Richards has included me in a meme based on summer professional development

Here are the directions:

Summer can be a great time for professional development. It is an opportunity to learn more about a topic, read a particular work or the works of a particular author, beef up an existing unit of instruction, advance one’s technical skills, work on that advanced degree or certification, pick up a new hobby, and finish many of the other items on our ever-growing To Do Lists. Let’s make Summer 2008 a time when we actually get to accomplish a few of those things and enjoy the thrill of marking them off our lists.

Here are the rules:

Pick 3 professional development goals and commit to achieving them this summer.
For the purposes of this activity the end of summer will be Labor Day (09/01/08).
Post the above directions along with your 3 goals on your blog.
Title your post Professional Development Meme and link back/trackback to http://clifmims.com/blog/archives/353.
Use the following tag/ keyword/ category on your post: pdmeme.
Tag 8 others to participate in the meme.
Achieve your goals and “develop professionally.”

Here are my goals:

Challenge my ideas and assess my next steps in professional development from the workshops and conversations at EdubloggerConEast and BLC in July.
Take 2 graduate level technology classes with Alice Barr in July.
Read What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy by James Paul Gee.

Commit to sharing your results on your blog during early or mid-September.

I’ve picked my 8 folks randomly from the Seedling’s Ning:

1. John Jaques
   Amanda Signal
   Frank Miracola
   Amy Kenyon
   Eric Lawson
   Kelly Rogers
   Mike Arsenault
   Robin Ellis

Technorati Tags: pdmeme, michaelrichards

(cross-posted at TechLearning)

I get a kick out of my Twitter stats (produced by TweetStats):

I could interpret this graph in many ways, but one thing is certain: this past year, I’ve Twittered (meaning actually contributing to “micro-blogging”) more in the summer than during the school year. This comes as no surprise to me. There are a lot other things that I do more in the summer. I imagine this same graph could be used to illustrate how often I go swimming, how many podcasts I get accomplished, how many movies I watch, how many books I read, how late I stay up, how much ice cream I eat…

I think I could also apply this visual to one of the most important activities of my summer time: revision. Though I constantly edit my lessons throughout the year, nothing affords a complete reexamination or rebuilding as the summer break does. Much like turning over the soil in the garden and being able to add in rich fertilizer and compost, I can “rototill” my curriculum with this gift of time— toss out things that are no longer working to make room for new ideas and make existing successes even more formidable.

In the United States, we’re heading into our summer break and across the blogosphere, I see folks talking about the professional development that they’ll be undertaking. Books, conferences, projects… people are planning how to reexamine, revise, rip-apart, rebuild, refresh… I used to believe in a year-long school calendar— mostly to support students by not interrupting the learning process. I confess, I’ve changed over the years. I feel incredibly fortunate to be given this break to work on the craft of my profession out of the daily business of actually carrying out the task.

I’ve got several week-long tech courses to start my summer off and I’m also looking forward to the Building Learning Communities Conference where I’ll chat late into the night— face2face— with many other educators from around the world. Together we’ll share strategies, challenge each other’s ideas, dissect and review our years, examine where we’ve come from and where we are heading. I can’t wait. I’m sure I’ll have a lot to report on Twitter (http://twitter.com/bobsprankle).

What’s on your plate this summer? What do you have planned to refuel and rebuild? I’d love to hear your plans here in the comments, or back at my blog.

I’ve posted an article at PBS’ Media Infusion’s blog called, “4 Weeks to a Flatter Us” (as a follow-up to last year’s “4 Weeks to a Flatter You”). Please leave comments at the Media Infusion page as I’d love to continue the conversation there!