As I have become more actively involved in the education world online, joining Twitter, participating in chats like #edchat, #engchat, meeting like-minded colleagues who share my passion for education and technology, I have realized all is not lost in education reform. Twitter chats like #edchat and others are instrumental in creating the impetus we need to once and for all effect change for the better. While the physical world struggles to provide quality education for all our students, the virtual world of education showcases the creme of the crop in terms of passionate and creative individuals, teachers and administrators alike, with a willingness to share what they know so we can all hone our craft and elevate our profession. If only more educational stakeholders discovered the value of technology integration in education, Twitter chats, in particular, imagine the gains our students could make.
Twitter, blogging and the online education world empower me to share my expertise, and learn something new everyday. Participating in Twitter "edchats" has made me realize how powerful educators can become to mobilize others for educational reform. I entered the virtual world disheartened by the public school system, but not only have I found a voice to continue to make a difference for kids and education, I have discovered there are millions of talented teachers and administrators who care and are changing education for the better.
If you have not had an opportunity to participate in an Educational Twitter chat, make time to experience the benefits of these virtual professional learning communities. You'll come away with dozens of resources, tips and strategies. Please visit Cybraryman's Educational Website to see the catalogue of Twitter chats and the days and times these groups meet. Whether or not you decide to tweet your two cents or read others', you're guaranteed to interact with talented educators and learn something new.
Please view my short video on what are educational Twitter Chats and Hashtags. Hope to hear your two cents on Twitter soon...tweet me @trendingteacher; the experience is priceless!
I've realized that although we consider students digital natives, students still resist using tech tools in purposeful ways. We somehow expect that digital natives have the instinct to want to use tech tools to have insightful discussions, write collaboratively or to produce a thought-provoking, original piece of content. However, we fail to realize that creating original content requires a lot of time, effort, perseverance, trial and error, and above all, lots and lots of critical thinking.
Lately, or perhaps it's always been that way, students don't want to work that hard. It's easier for a student to function in a teacher-centered classroom than it is in a learner-centered one. Some teachers or should I say, the system, have trained our "millennials" how to be straight A students with minimal effort in a pseudo critical thinking learning environment, and when we shift the paradigm, not only do the teachers resist, but so do the students and their parents.
Teaching students to use tech tools in a purposeful way may cause some tension because kids want the fun games; many parents want the least amount of work for their kids, and teachers either don't have the time to design critical thinking lessons using tech, or they simply don't know how. The tech tool cannot stand alone, and is not going to make students think critically. It's how we use the tech tool that will teach students to think. The problem is that some kids have a lot of unlearning to do. By the fourth grade, students who have had ineffective teachers learn exactly how to manipulate the system so they are perfectly comfortable filling the blank and bubbling in a circle. Students will resist when we make them write a script using their imagination, or add their thoughts to a wiki, write a script for a video, or collaborate with peers directing their own video. Using tech tools effectively is not all fun and games; at first glance, tech tools appear to be flashy, but there's nothing flashy about them. Used effectively tech tools require lots of hard work, and it's hard work to think! So students, teachers and parents have a lot of bad habits to unlearn. Sometimes parents enable a lot of the "I can't" attitudes too. We assume that because kids love using tech that somehow they are going to want to use it to think critically. Thinking requires effort, perseverance, even sacrifice.
It's hard to believe the statistics of students underperforming on standardized tests while attending schools with cutting edge technology. We must constantly evaluate how tech tools in the classroom impact student achievement. All educational stakeholders are responsible for constantly evaluating what we expect students to do with technology, and how tech will impact student achievement. Without this constant accountability, educational tech tools lose their effectiveness.
Educational tech tools cannot be all fun and games; otherwise, it's the students who hurt in the long run.
What did one control freak say to another control freak? "Get your hands off my wiki!"
If you've heard the word wiki, but are not quite sure what it means or how to use it, then you've come to the right blog! Wikis are webpages created for ongoing editing and revision by one author or multiple authors.
Control freaks and wikis do not mix well because a wiki is meant to be in a constant state of revision and editing by multiple authors. (The control freak will want to keep that wiki all to himself!)
Wikis can be messy and should be! A wiki promotes collaboration and critical thinking. All students can throw in their two cents, and see every contributor's thought process, but they serve an even better purpose! They teach students about the writing process. In many classrooms, writing is not taught as a recursive process. Students are given writing prompts, but rarely receive feedback to understand how they can improve their writing skills. If they are lucky enough to receive feedback, students may not know what to do with that feedback, nor do they have the opportunity to revisit a writing piece to polish it. (And by the way, kids do read feedback if they're taught how to read it, apply it and and give it...another post for another day.) Here's where wikis are a breath of fresh of air and give new life to teaching the writing process!
Teachers can create wikis for pairs of students who have different writing strengths, small groups of students or an entire class. These wikis can be safely shared online locally, nationally or globally by joining wiki sites like Wikispaces so students can receive writing feedback and participate in collaborative writing projects with their peers.
If you're worried that wikis may be too messy for your taste because content may get deleted, Hakuna Matata, no worries! (Oops, not a Hawaiian expression, but let's pretend!) When you create a wiki, there is a "revision history" so the wiki creator knows who edits, what is edited and even at what time the editing took place. Issues that may arise with wikis include:
allowing students practice time to learn how to use a wiki
building a community of trust so contributors feel confident their contributions will be valued
ensuring the quality of the content students add to the wiki
assigning authentic writing topics so students will be excited to write and collaborate
assigning subtopics to each student and/or roles so students have a distinct contribution
determining how you will assess the content added to the wiki
safeguarding your wiki so it is not vandalized or deleted
Luckily, wiki sites offer monitoring controls to wiki creators. You decide to make your wiki public or private, and who contributes and edits. Students can also add videos, images, audio or links of websites that support their content. So, fear not and hang ten!
A wiki can change students' attitudes about writing because they will participate in different aspects of the writing process. Students will learn from their mistakes, recognize their peers's mistakes so they can help them, but most importantly they will collaborate with peers, and internalize the process of revising, editing, polishing and presenting their writing.
Students at any grade level can create wikis on any subject, and even share their wikis with classrooms around the world to receive input from other student or teacher authors.
Check out these educational wikis looking for student and teacher collaboration!
Now no offense to Lawrence Welk. I have fond childhood memories of watching the show on our analog TV with my grandfather. I remember the bubbles while the big band played, the pretty singers in the flowing pastel dresses, the young female Mexican singer, and the African-American tap dancer. When I think of it now, Welk was ahead of the game in terms of multiculturalism. He featured minorities as regulars on his show when most shows in the 60s were not. Maybe that was one of the many reasons Welk's show became a hit with American audiences. He was progressive! However, that was in the 50s and 60s! Some people reading this blog may not even know who Lawrence Welk was, which serves as a case in point. When it comes to teaching and learning, many schools are still operating in the Lawrence Welk era...students are still being required to sit in quiet rows; answering questions at the end of a textbook; forbidden to speak to each other, or even to the teacher for that matter; forbidden to ask questions; bored to tears listening to monotone lectures; copying notes from poorly lit overhead projectors; forced to answer multiple choice questions, and fill in the blanks on worksheet after worksheet, and punished to write lines, or behavior modification essays at the slightest sign of dissension. The Lawrence Welk era came and went. It served its purpose for our needs then, and maybe it didn't because we didn't know better. But when we realized there was something better, we embraced change. When we discovered that there were "Moves Like Jagger", and our needs were no longer being met, we created and searched for ways to do better. We progressed. Our lifestyles and perspectives evolved; we said "adios" and good riddance to so many aspects of society that the Welk Show represented, and we embraced something different: we embraced progress. However, how have we truly progressed inside our classrooms since then? It's human nature there will be those who forever argue life was better in yesteryear, and that teaching and learning of yesteryear was superior to ours. They are not wrong because society then is nothing like society now. Students then are nothing like students now. However, inside our classrooms, why do we hold on or revert to antiquated methods, turning on Welk and ignoring the rock and roll?
If we were to visit every American school classroom, public and private, how many schools do you think are still tuning in to Welk rather than Maroon 5? ("Moves Like Jagger" reference full circle here, and another case in point if you're over 40 and have no idea what I'm talking about.) If you're an educator of children, tweens, teens or young adults, it's essential that our classroom culture and technique is not a relic of the past, but a constant thriving and evolving source of inspiration where the next generation discovers their voice and identity, and is not held hostage by our own.
As Lawrence Welk and his singers used to say every night:
"Here's a Wish and a prayer that every dream comes true":
Be not afraid to use at least one web tool in your classroom per week. Remember you can't break anything by clicking and pointing; the majority of web tools are super user friendly; you won't lose data as long as you remember to save it beforehand. You will save time; you and your students will have fun in the teaching and learning process, and most all, you will engage and challenge students to think so everyone can have "moves like Jagger" and not Welk. Sorry Mr.Welk! Adios, Au Revoir, Auf Wiedersehento analog! (P.S. For those under 30, these words were part of Welk's "Good Night" song lyrics.)
Would you dare give your students and their parents your cell or home phone number if it would save you time, paper and you could still maintain your privacy?
While no one would want to sacrifice their privacy for their environmental conscientiousness, now you can reconcile both. Divulging your cell or home phone numbers using Google Voice can give you the peace of mind that you are doing so toempower yourself as a teacher and transform how you communicate with parents.
Google Voice allows you to create a paperless parent contact communication log saving you from countless hours of alphabetizing hundreds of student contact information sheets in clunky binders, and the stress of documenting difficult parent messages and conversations.
Google Voice is a one stop shop with many parent/teacher communication features providing both written and verbal documentation any teacher can use for his/her parent contact documentation needs.
Here's how Google Voice works:
First, set up a Google account; then, go to Google Voice and set up a Google Voice account. Google Voice will give you one phone number, and you can give this phone # to parents to call you. Parents NEVER SEE your original number; however, parent calls are transcribed and saved as emails for documentation of day/time of contact.
One of my favorite features is that you can also send/receive texts to parents and students for reminders of tests, quizzes, HW, projects, important events, dates and more all while keeping your phone number private. Parents and students can never claim they were not informed of an important date because, like emails, there is a written record of who sent and received a message. You can also set a specific time frame in the evening for students or parents to send you texts asking questions as well. These texts are also archived in Google Voice!
Google Voice Gives Teachers A New Voice In The Classroom!
If you set up your gmail contacts with pictures of your students and their parents’ email addresses, you can also see who is calling you on Google Voice, but best of all, you can send “blast” emails to your students’ parents. Google Voice has so many more "teacher friendly"features to empower and transform your parent/teacher communication! I hope you'll check them out!
Whether you want to admit it, or not, there are two societies thriving in your classroom; one is in plain view which you take credit for leading fearlessly, and keeping under control,and then something very human begins to happen right behind your back. Whether we like it or not, an “underground” society emerges which you as the teacher are not privy to, a secret society inaccessible to you because of the role you play: “The Teacher”. Regardless of how cool you may think you are as a teacher, and how much you think your students admire and respect you, students do talk behind your back!
Todaysmeet.com is a service allowing us as teachers to enter the teen psyche and surreptitiously discover what they are talking about “behind our back” during a lecture, a discussion, a guest speaker, a viewing of a film, and so many other school activities requiring them to be a passive audience member. Todaysmeet.com EMPOWERS you as the teacher because students are held accountable for listening; they are no longer spectators, but participants in an interactive audience requiring them to hold their own by providing comments, questions, speculations, arguments, answers, solutions, evidence, opinions, explanations, reflection, analysis, application…the list of possibilities is endless and dependent on the criteria YOU set for the * “backchannel” conversations students undeniably have behind our backs. Obviously we cannot control the conversations students have outside of our classrooms, but Todaysmeet.com EMPOWERS us to control the conversations students are having “behind our backs” inside our classrooms.
* Backchannel is a term used by James Socol, creator of Todaysmeet.com. Socol says “backchannel” is “everything going on in the room that isn’t coming from the presenter… where people ask each other questions, pass notes, get distracted, and give you the most immediate feedback you’ll ever get.”
The temptation for students to pass notes, and have sidebar conversations is virtually eliminated with Todaysmeet.com.
Todaysmeet.com EMPOWERS you as the teacher to know exactly what students are thinking, and therefore instantly obtain feedback about a student’s depth and breadth of understanding during any type of presentation.
How does Todaysmeet.com work
Step One
Prior to any type of presentation, demonstration or listening activity, visit Todaysmeet.com to create and name a room where your students will be talking to each other while they hear the presentation.
You can choose to have students talk to other students who are in the same classroom at the same time; or you can collaborate with another teacher to have two or more classrooms engage in a conversation by listening to the same content at the same time. Every student will need to have his/her own computer. If computers are available for every student in a school building to use all at the same time, an entire school can view a presentation and engage in conversation on Todaysmeet.com integrating subjects, grade and achievement levels, and encouraging cooperation and communication among all students and teachers.
Step 2
Decide when you would like Todaysmeet.com to delete the room, i.e., in 2 hours, 8 hours, 12 hours, one day, one week, one month, or one year. The type of presentation students will be listening to will determine the longevity of the meeting room. If you plan on having an on-going discussion, you may want to extend the time so you can return to the same room where the feed of previous posts will appear and serve as a recap of a prior conversation.
Step 3 Once you have created and named your “talking room”, provide your students with the URL of the room. For example: Create a room Name a room: Lab demonstration # 1 Delete a room: in 2 hours Click on Create a room.
Note: If the name you chose for your room is already taken, a red X will appear next to the URL under the heading of Name a room.
Once you click on Create a room, the next window to appear will be a split page with two sides; “Listen” on the left and “Talk” on the right as well as a window for students to type their names.
It is important to set specific norms regarding the names students will use. When working with middle school students who may hesitate to share their true thoughts and feelings for fear of how their peers may perceive their posts, a teacher can EMPOWER her students by asking them to generate a pen name, which only she will know. The teacher can keep a log of the student names along with the secret pen names. This will ensure confidentiality and afford students the piece of mind they will not be criticized for their posts.
At this point, the teacher will have a URL to provide her students once they enter the classroom and before a presentation. The teacher can write the URL for all students to see and enter once they each have their own computer. Upon typing and entering the unique URL of the teacher created “talking room”, students will see the split page of Listen and Talk and will need to enter a name and click join to begin adding their posts.
How can Todaysmeet.com EMPOWER you and your students
Students can use Todaysmeet.com to engage in conversation after listening and viewing a myriad of activities, such as a lab demonstration, a lecture on any subject, a guest speaker, a film, an audio recording, a student presentation, a play, a written exercise practice while learning how to write a second language, a debate, and so much more.
You can even have a silent Socratic discussion after reading a specific text; instead of discussing the text out loud, both you and your students can post questions and responses on Todaysmeet.com rather than having an oral discussion. This may enable the more reticent and timid students to gain confidence in their role in the class since they can use their pen name to posts their thoughts and keep their posts anonymous.
How will you use Todaysmeet.com in your Empowered Class? Share your ideas
Teachers can use a Todaysmeet.com as an assessment tool in a variety of ways. Student posts offer teachers instant feedback showing a student’s understanding of concepts being discussed. Student posts can provide teachers with an instant assessment or even a summative assessment of concepts taught. The possibilities to use Todaysmeet.com as an assessment tool are endless. An Empowered Teacher needs to determine the content of what students will hear and/or see and identify how this content will help students meet the specific learning goals the teacher would like to students to reach.
Teachers can even use posts on Todaysmeet.com to teach students Self-Assessment. Teachers can use both teacher and student models as examples of quality posts. Teachers can allow students to experiment with the technology first so they can feel comfortable writing posts and then lead them in a discussion about posting etiquette and what makes for an acceptable and unacceptable post. Providing a rubric indicating the frequency and quality of the posts, and posting etiquette is a must! Before using Todaysmeet.com it is essential to explain norms for acceptable posts and provide specific examples of unacceptable posts. You may want to ask students to give you examples of what would be considered acceptable and unacceptable posts.
The Todaysmeet.com discussion can be used as a springboard to study and explore other topics, which will naturally come up in the conversations.
Allow and accept the natural digressions, which may surface away from the topic at hand since it is not unusual for people to get off topic if for a moment during discussions.
Assist students in evaluating and interpreting their posts and those of others; Teachers can print the posts(feed) and have a follow-up conversation out loud about the thoughts posted. Questions teachers can ask are endless such as, what were the patterns? What comments stood out? Who had the most insightful remark and why? The wittiest? The strangest? Evaluate the off-topic comments as well and discuss what effect they had on the conversation.
Always consider their strengths and weaknesses of your students and their varying degrees of ability regarding critical thinking, spelling, typing speed, etc. prior to the Todaysmeet.com session and after. The teacher should take time to self-reflect on what were the advantages and disadvantages for the different ability groups. What modifications can be made next time using Todaysmeet.com? What worked well and what needs tweaking? What did students appear to be confused about? What may have caused the confusion?
Bring your students’ hidden questions and thoughts to the surface of your classroom to promote conversation, critical thinking, and most importantly to determine the homogeneity and/or heterogeneity of your students’ thoughts. Todaysmeet.com lets you enter your students’ mind. Empower yourself in your classroom by guiding what your students are saying “behind your back”.
So on Monday, you assign your students 20 vocabulary words; give them a menu of tried and true vocabulary exercises on Tuesday to challenge them to learn and use the words throughout the week; test them on Friday, yet half the students fail the vocabulary test. A month later, most students say they have never heard those words in their entire lives. Does this routine sound familiar?
In many ways, how are we still living in the stone age when it comes to vocabulary instruction? How can we evolve our vocabulary instruction to the next level?
What benefits result from assigning long lists of vocabulary words that students have never seen and cannot pronounce? In what ways do we ensure students continue to use the vocabulary they learn in and out of the classroom?
Fotobabble can revolutionize how we teach vocabulary! Students can choose or create an image to show how it represents the meaning of a word; they can use artwork, photos, original drawings, etc. Students can scan graphic organizers to analyze a word, and record themselves explaining the graphic organizer. The possibilities are endless!
How do our students benefit from vocabulary worksheets and workbooks? Are these resources working to help students internalize words if we are only requiring them to fill in blanks to memorize words for a weekly test, and never see, hear or use the words again?
Kylene Beers, author of When Kids Can’t Read:What Teachers Can Do(http://www.amazon.com/When-Kids-Cant-Read-Teachers/dp/0867095199)shares an interesting teacher experiment proving students feel overwhelmed “learning, using and remembering” long lists of words if they have never seen the words, and never hear their teachers use the words in a meaningful, relevant context. Beers suggests students learn more words when teachers focus on fewer words and model the word for students in everyday classroom speech.
Fotobabble.com is a site that allows you to upload images and add your voice to an image.
How can you fearlessly use this web 2.0 tool in your classroom?
Whenever you teach vocabulary, you can use fotobabble so students can upload a visual cue for a vocabulary word and record their voice to:
define the vocabulary word.
use the word in context in an original sentence, or paragraph.
explain multiple examples for the vocabulary word, such as connotation, pronunciation, spelling, part(s) of speech, suffixes, prefixes, roots, synonyms, antonyms.
use context as a clue revealing the word’s meaning.
use other words that share the same root, prefix, suffix as the word being studied.
use the word in different contexts.
compare and contrast the word to other words to reveal relationships between particular words.
explain the graphic organizer that analyzes the word.
share an excerpt from a fiction or non fiction passage where the word is used.
use the word to create a figure of speech.
use the word to create an analogy.
These are just a few ways to use Fotobabble, but most importantly use fotobabble so STUDENTS LEARN HOW TO CREATE THEIR OWN CONTENT! Fotobabble allows teachers and students to create critical thinking activities that include voice and imagery, guaranteed to improve vocabulary skills. When students have the opportunity to create their own content, they are collaborating with peers and experiencing multiple opportunities to see, hear and use vocabulary.
Research shows students do not make any gains on vocabulary sections of standardized tests because they are not internalizing vocabulary if they never hear the words used again in the classroom. (http://www.reading.org/General/Publications/Books/BK698.aspx)
Poor readers have poor vocabulary, and longs lists of words kids can't even pronounce and may never see or hear again produce nothing but boredom and frustration! Learning new words should be exciting for students, not a tedious chore!
Please share how you have used Fotobabble to teach vocabulary!
Check out the lesson plan in the lesson plan section, and the Fotobabble tutorial by anamariacult so you can begin to change the way you teach vocabulary. Whatever the subject, or grade level, we all teach vocabulary, and Fotobabble can help our students improve their vocabulary skills!
