Diane's Discoveries

The Genius in All of Us

My thanks to Richard Wanderman for calling attention to a very interesting blog by David Shenk. David is working on a book and encourages input at his blog; following is one quote from his blog: The Genius in All of Us.

TV interview with Bruce Springsteen...I was startled when Bruce came out with this:"I wasn't quite suited for the educational system. One problem with the way the educational system is set up is that it only recognizes a certain type of intelligence, and it's incredibly restrictive -- very, very restrictive. There's so many types of intelligence, and people who would be at their best outside of that structure [get lost]. Most of the schools, they're aiming to build you up and get you into the machine."

Are You An "Agent-of-Change"

Here's another insightful article by Anne Davis: EduBlog Insights » Blog Archive » Answering questions about being a change agent and change management in education.

Science Leadership Academy

Thanks to Will Richardson, I just followed his link to another terrific blog. At first I was just curious about the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, but going to the author's (Chris Lehmann's) blog, I started reading her previous blogs which I believe you will find insightful and useful. Investigate her blog; I guarantee you won't be sorry you took the time! Weblogg-ed � Science Leadership Academy Up Close and Personal.

"...Chris Lehmann at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia...Bottom line is that Chris is building a vibrant community of learners among both teachers and students that has a unique feeling in the world of public schools I’ve seen...And it’s really not about the technology as much as it is about the culture of learning that they are creating. Yes, every student has a laptop. And they have been working with Moodle and Elgg to build class sites and online portfolios. But what’s neat is that the students are taking real ownership over what happens at the school...

Teaching Students to Teach

During Will Richardson's presentation at the MACUL conference, he suggested the idea that in today's world of blogs, podcasts and others, students could become teachers of knowledge not just receivers.

"... with blogs and podcasts and screencasts and others we really have an opportunity to ask our students to become more than just receivers of knowledge. They can become transmitters of that knowledge, teachers of it in easy, meaningful ways.... If you've ever taught, you know that the best way to learn something is to not only do it but to teach it to others. ...In the "old days" of the traditional, non-connected classroom, we really didn't have too many opportunities for students to teach back what they learned on a regular basis.... Not so today, assuming of course, you have a regular connection. Not only can we ask our students to teach back what they know to a potentially large audience, it's not a contrived audience, because the people who learn from it are motivated to do so. They will self-select it. And in doing so, there is the potential for connection and community building that can extend the learning that occurs in the classroom. ...with the more multimedia technologies that we talk about... all give students the opportunity to take what they have learned and turn it into teachable content. ...that's why I am so intrigued with screencasting as a new medium for students to use to teach. That's an interesting shift I think. Instead of being focused on how well our students can test on the material, what if we focused on how well they can teach it?

For his blog click here:
Weblogg-ed - The Read/Write Web in the Classroom :
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Taking the Plunge

Below is an excerpt of Will Richardson's February 7th post titled Reinvention Chapter 2 "I Quit". He loves his job but has decided to follow his passion.

Link: Weblogg-ed - The Read/Write Web in the Classroom: .

Reinvention Chapter 2�"I Quit"

After 21 years in public education, after teaching English, supervising teachers, integrating technology, advising the yearbook, starting a student environmental group, coaching softball, basketball, soccer and gymnastics, running student counseling groups, chairing sabbatical committees, ed tech committees, professional development committees, serving on hiring committees, being public information officer, mentoring new teachers and goodness knows what else, today I notified my superintendent that as of May 15 I would be leaving the district for parts somewhat unknown.

Every Single Being Is Creative

You will want to take five minutes to read David Warlick's notes from a presentation by Richard Florida

Link: 2 Cents Worth.

Richard Florida Presentation

Understanding Students' Plumbing

David Warlick always has interesting comments about education; here is an excerpt for you to check from his post "A Day At Home".

Link: 2 Cents Worth. A Day At Home:

The study on the rise of IQ comes from James Flynn, a political scientist in New Zealand. Called the Flynn Effect, he has documented how IQ has been increasing since 1947, and that it started accelerating in the late 1970s. They suggest that advancing technology is having an influence on our thinking skills. Think about the digital watch, that will do 25 different things, with only three buttons. It's why I do not wear a watch any more, and why my VCR is a 12 o'clock flasher.

Our students, on the other hand, are adept at reasoning their way into these tools and operating them more intuitively than their neanderthal elders. But the literacy issue is vexing. What kind of society will result from a generation who can adapt easily to the machines, but do not know how to think about them, talk about them, or make decisions about their worth and ethicacy?

Technology is the way that our children work. But we must teach them how to work the information. The technology is merely the conduit. It's new plumbing. It's information that flows through it, and although the plumbing is changing the nature of that information, it's real-world knowledge, knowledge skills, and communication that people must learn to do. They will not learn it, until we start to understand their plumbing, and using it to guide their learning.

Introducing Second Graders to Blogs

Link: EduBlog Insights : EduBlog Insights.

The goal today was to introduce the kids to blogs and then teach them how to comment. When they comment, we use bogus emails. Those of you in schools know how hard it is to get emails for students. Not having an email is OK because we really don't want anyone emailing them, at least not until we have had lots more opportunities to provide guidance. So I told the one...that asked about emails that for now we were just going to use bogus emails. Of course, I had to explain bogus - they got it and they understood why.

Blogging Proves to Be Important

The blog of proximal development has posted some wonderful insight:

Tools Interiorized

I have spent the last ten days creating a new blogging community for my students. The old one stopped working. I’ve been using Manila for the past two years but there have been too many problems lately. First, the IT team said it was a virus, then the aftermath of the virus, then compatibility issues. Finally, after many disruptions to our classroom blogging, I decided to take action and get new software and a new server.

As you can imagine, it was a lot of work. This whole experience, however, proved to be very enlightening from an educational point of view.

First of all, when we started experiencing problems with the class blogosphere, my students were the first ones to notice and complain. I heard many comments which helped me fully understand what our blogging community means to my students. They complained about unreliable access to their work. Many of them actually said that they couldn’t prepare for assignments or test their knowledge of some of the texts we’d been reading. I listened to all these carefully and took notes every single time something was said to me about technical problems. I have included excerpts from my log notes below:

“I feel like I’ve lost all my binders”
“Now that my blog is gone, English feels different”
“How are we gonna discuss things?”

“You know that assignment last night that we did on Word?”
“Yes. Did you do it?”
“I did, but writing it felt strange.”
“How so?”
“It was like - like talking to someone who was not listening.”

“Are we gonna do any work until it’s fixed?”

I was so interested in what my students had to say that fixing the technical problems was no longer my priority! Yes - I was that interested in learning about the impact of this situation on them as students and as learners. It quickly became clear from what they were saying to me that blogging was synonymous with English class, that their class consisted primarily of a community and that its absence had an impact on learning.

Their community was inaccessible for about two weeks and its absence seemed to have a profound impact on the students:

“How are we going to study for the final exam?”
“What if I want to comment on things - can our work be recovered?”
“When are we getting our blogs back?”

I realized that they had formed a bond, not just with each other as learners but also with the community itself. My students got used to inhabiting a space which, as virtual as it was, constituted an important part of their learning experience. When the space became temporarily inaccessible, learning itself seemed to be put on hold.

Click this link for the whole blog: blog of proximal development » Blog Archive » Tools Interiorized

Marking and Grading Differently

Konrad Glogowski's latest blog is definitely "food for thought": blog of proximal development » Blog Archive » Participation Engenders Competence.

Participation Engenders Competence

I was in the staffroom today and overheard a couple of teachers talking aboout the amount of “marking” and “correcting” that they have to do this week before parent-teacher interviews. A couple of hours later, while looking at my day planner, I noticed the following:

“Finished reading blog entries. Excellent work. Can’t wait for more connections to emerge.”

That’s when it occurred to me that I have stopped “marking” or “correcting” and started reading. I do not mean that my students are no longer evaluated, that they no longer receive grades. They do. But my approach has changed dramatically. It’s taken over a year but I have become a teacher-blogger and I am recording this change because it is crucial to my thesis and my professional development.

I have become a teacher who reads, who looks forward to reading, who comments on student entries and can’t wait to see the responses, who can’t wait to see where the conversation takes us. I have become a teacher who sees my students as writers, as people with voices who can contribute to and initiate insightful conversations.

When I think of blogs, I think primarily of what this technology enables my students to accomplish. When I look forward to reading their entries and comments I am really looking forward to thoughts made visible.

And so, when they write, I don’t want the journey to end with me as it inevitably does when the teacher is the audience. I want to be part of the collective journey. I want to lurk and see how my students develop their ideas. I want to see how conversations grow. I want to hear their voices booming through their entries. You can’t have that when you’re busy correcting spelling and fixing sentence structure.

My approach to marking has become more holistic. I’ve discovered that students who participate in communities of learners begin to care about their writerly voice. Gradually, what emerges is greater awareness of how to make that voice heard and how to effectively communicate one’s ideas. The most valuable part of this community is that this awareness emerges as a result of online interactions, of hundreds of entries, comments, and connections made online as part of a collective journey. It comes from within because the students need it to emerge. It is a practical skill that they need to keep contributing as members of the community. It is not imposed by my rubrics.

For more of his thoughts, click on the link to his blog. Really interesting thoughts!