Class Blogging Reflection - Student Blogs

So most of my students have been blogging for about a week now about their final projects, which means I finally get to share some of what they've been doing.

Overall, I think the blogs are working very well. I intentionally gave the students minimalist directions (for the full assignment, click here). I have provided each group with prompts to respond to before each class (I see different classes on different days, so not all students are in the same spot):

1. What topic do you want to do your presentation on? Why? What's an idea for each segment?
2. How do you make history/news funny? What makes something funny?
3. What is the biggest challenge your group is facing right now?

The overall use of the blog has ranged from a group who has done nothing but answer the prompts (the bare minimum) to a group that is being ridiculously prolific.

Without much suggestion from myself, different student blogs have developed different uses (for each use, I'm just going to site one or two examples, but more can be found within the blogs - links to all of them can be found on any of the pages):

• Probably the most common use has been to help the groups brainstorm ideas.
• One group's blog is looking like a pretty traditional link blog, which they are using to share research.
• Different groups are using the blog as organizational tools in different ways. Here is a rather detailed list of everything a group needs to get done, whereas here is just a simple reminder of a looming deadline.
• Here's an example of a student from one class learning, and commenting, on a blog from another class.
• Here is a student who posted a technical question that was quickly answered by another student.
• And finally, Dan wins the funniest post award for the first week.

Pretty early in the process, Caitlin wrote "This is working out really well. Like email only...okay so it's exactly like email." I think Caitlin's assessment is for the most part fair to this point. The blogging has been working out well, but only as something like 'public e-mail.' In that sense, the blogs have been great in that they are a public forum for my students to share their ideas. This only hits two out of the three main goals I had for my students in assigning blogs to help with the final project.

The last, and most difficult goal to achieve, is to use blogs to help develop more critical thought and discourse regarding the project. With only a very few exceptions, students have not starting commenting on other groups' blogs. I hope that when I assign this as one of the blog prompts over the weekend, that this will lead to more interesting inter-group conversations, and therefore help the groups to better develop their ideas. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can help my students take their blogs to the next level? (I'd also encourage anyone to compliment, constructively criticize, and question my students. Unfortunately due to some practical considerations, I've required a Blogger account for commenting, but that can be gotten pretty quickly here and does not require having a Blogger blog).

Good Luck Sloggers!

My roommate Mat left this morning for West Virginia to get one last good night's rest before the Afghan Girls Fund Charity Slog begins tomorrow. Once again, Mat and the rest are doing 200 miles in 10 days with nothing by the clothes on his back, a couple canteens and one tea bag. No food. No tent. No sleeping bag. The slog's website will be updated throughout the next 10 days with pictures and updates from Madeleine Wiens, 13 year old daughter of one of the sloggers.

The picture on the right is Mat before he left today. I'll have an 'after' pic when he gets back.

Safe Blogging - Issues with Comments?

Came across a great teaching blog last week: Random Thoughts by Nancy McKeand.

She has a great argument about why we should be teaching student how to blog safely as opposed to banning blogs in schools and thus ignoring the fact that many students are blogging on their own.

She also brings up an issue that I had neglected to give much thought to, and have therefore not yet discussed with my students - how do we deal with inappropriate comments on student blogs? She points to Anne Davis' post on how she deals with this in her class. Anne and her students decided that:

1. We would not respond to the irresponsible commenters. We would ignore them.
2. The student would report any inappropriate comments to the teacher.
3. The teachers would delete inappropriate comments, if they found them first but would discuss the matter with the owner of the blog and with the group, if appropriate.
4. We agreed that it was unfortunate that the commenter had not used common sense and we would try to set good examples on our blogs.

This seems like a pretty good policy, and I'll submit it to my students in class this week. Does anyone have anything to add or change to it?

I'm going to start reflecting and linking to my students' blogs this week, and while I am 99% confident there won't be any negative issues to deal with because of this, I am thankful to Nancy and Anne for bringing this to mind beforehand.

African History Denied...Again?

One of the ways I'm hoping I can use this blog in my future teachings years is to highlight news stories that relate to subjects we've already covered, or are yet to cover. Here's practice #1 at that:

Earlier in the year when we studied ancient African history, we talked about how African history was largely denied by white colonialists who didn't believe that the natives were capable of organized society. There are numerous examples of this, but for me, the most striking was the assertion that Great Zimbabwe must have been the palace of the Queen of Sheeba (nothing like British colonialists looking to fit something into the Bible over the historical facts at hand).

One would hope this would not happen any more in a world that has at the very least recognized most of the evils of colonialism, even if most of the world has yet to recognize the full and continued affects of colonial rule. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case. This article (via Outside the Beltway) talks about bias in reporting of the news in modern Africa, particularly about the tendency to over report negative news stories, and under report positive news stories from the continent.

IM issues?

Lots of interesting shades of grade is this Washington Post article about two students in the county I live in (but not work in) who are now facing charges because of 'joking' threats they made to other students on Instant Messenger. I piece is a nice change of pace from the seemingly-usual "technology poses a risk so let's ban it" story we're been seeing about blogging a lot.

Truly Amazing Endeavor

I've had the link to the Afghan Girls Fund Charity Slog up since my site launched, but they just started their blog today so I wanted to bring as much attention to it as possible.

This site is truly remarkable on three levels:

1. It supports National Geographic's Afghan Girls Fund - a incredibly worthwhile cause.
2. The page will chart the progress of 10 people (one of which who is my roommate) who will begin a 200 mile, 10 day hike with nothing but the clothes on their backs and one tea-bag on June 1. That's right - 20 miles/day with no food, for 10 days. These are all better women and men than I.
3. The site's blogger, Madeline, is a immensely talented writer for any age. But she also happens to be 13 and her father will be partaking in the slog. Her first entry, contemplates how her love for reading might have been different if she grew up under Taliban rule. This should be required reading for all. An excerpt:

Just as I sat there on a cheery Beatrix Potter-patterned child-sized chair at the Borders Bookstore in the heart of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in the summer of 1997, the Taliban militia had recently come to power in Afghanistan, installing a reactionary policy of gender apartheid. My short sleeved T-shirt and cotton patterned shorts would have been considered indecent, as I would be required to wear the all-covering burqa in public. My future would have been dim, as secondary schooling was prohibited for females. Independence was not a possibility, since driving vehicles was not permitted without male escorts.

New Blog Feature

When I started the blog, one of things I wanted to do down the road was find a simple way I could post interesting articles and blog posts I read on a daily basis on my site - not necessarily education related, just anything I happened to read and find thought-provoking, in hopes that just maybe, a few of my students (or anyone else who comes across my blog) might read something they don't usually read. I knew that there would be some way to do this using RSS and furl or del.icio.us, I just wasn't sure exactly how I could go about learning the programming necessary to do it.

Well turns out, there was a much easier solution, thanks to a wonderful little site called RSS DIgest. They will take any RSS feed and turn it into javascript that can easily be put into any page. That combined with the RSS feed for a certain del.icio.us tag (I happened to use the tag 'today') creates the new list on the sidebar: Things I've Read Recently. Thanks to Jeffrey Veen for this info.

Further simplifying the process was a little javascript thanks to Peter Parkes which gave me a bookmarklet which will automatically save the page I'm viewing to my del.icio.us account with the tag 'today,' therefore, in effect, adding the link to my blog's sidebar.

So new feature over on the right. The first page, other than the pages that explained this process, was today's NY Times column by Matt Miller, who was a high school student of my student teaching advisor. I can't think of much more I would want as a teacher than to have a student become something like Matt.

Come to the Carnival!

This week's Carnival of Education is up!

Final Project Assignment

Finally started the first set of my students on their project today! The final assignment is posted on my website. Students also should be posting on their blogs tonight or tomorrow. I promised them a week to get the hang of it before I start showing them off on this site.
It's amazing how rejuvenated I feel about teaching once the shackles of the state standards have been removed and we finally get to start some truly student centered authentic assessment.

Reflections on Responsible Blogging Lesson

Before I even start writing this, I want to say that I hope my students will comment and add their thoughts on the lesson. My thoughts reflect only a very limited point of view (and one that is ultimately pretty meaningless in talking about how a lesson went).

I think the lesson was basically a success in terms of meeting the objectives of the lesson. Students identified some of the potential dangers of blogging (as well as being very aware of which ones, while legitimate, were largely the result of alarmists). At the end of the lesson I felt they were ready to begin blogging, and I think taking the time to do the lesson will eliminate any "behavioral" problems during the process (without the lesson, I feel there might have been one or two minor ones). Most importantly, each class was successful in writing a blog policy, which I posted over at Bud's Wiki.

As usual, each class has it's own distinctive personality. My 1st and 6th Period classes were energetic throughout and had very solid conversations. My 7th period class was almost ridiculously efficient in their conversation. They hit all the major points and necessary rules very quickly without much conversation. The class did not go quite as well 2nd period in terms of the quality of conversation, but the class was still successful in creating a good policy. (Still haven't done it with my 4th period class).

The biggest surprise for me came during first period when there was a somewhat heated conversation about whether or not parental permission should be required. I have very strong feelings that it should not be required (the school's Acceptable Use Policy, which parents do sign, includes permissions for teacher supervised web pages), but I kept my mouth shut. At one point during the conversation, a student asked me what I planned to tell parents and my response was "It's your project." I could be reading this completely wrong, but I felt like the students who wanted parental permission seemed to take that as a given, whereas the students against it feel into "My parents don't care/I don't see them" and "We're mature enough to do this on our own" camps. Ultimately, the class decided that if students want to tell their parents, they can. I also crafted a letter for students to take home to their parents (adapted from the letter on Bud's Wiki).

The other topic of conversation that students got the most into was whether or not to allow what I dub AIM-speak: the use of acronyms like "LOL" and "BRB" and phonetic spelling like "sez," "cuz," "l8r," etc... Different classes made different decisions on the issue (the conversation from 1st period actually extended onto the comments section of my blog, which I then created a new blog for). My personal opinion on the matter is that in moderation, the AIM-speak acronyms are fine as long as everyone knows what they mean (as Ben alluded to, http is an acronym that would just clutter up the language if spelled out). As far as phonetic spellings, I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, they're more efficient and casual and as long as people know what someone is talking about, I don't think it should make any difference. On the other hand, there are many adults who will think students who spell like this are idiots and don't know how to spell and I'd like my students to represent themselves in a way that will make people take them seriously. Ultimately, I was glad that two of classes did not feel the need to make a rule against this type of spelling, but at the same time, I hope my students will be careful and conscious in how they chose to represent themselves online.

Susan posted a few questions for me between her blog and comments that I wanted to answer:

• To be honest, I didn't even think to include our county's Acceptable Use Policy. The policy we wrote, in the end, did fall under the policy. In hindsight, I am glad we did not sue it because I think it might have limited the ways in which students would have thought about writing the rules. The way we did it, it pretty much all came from them.
• In total, there was about 45 minutes of all class conversation, and 15 minutes of small group conversation. The students talked for about 15 minutes on dangers, 15 minutes generally on types of rules for the policy, 15 minutes in the small groups coming up with specific rules and consequences, and then about 15 minutes (in some classes shorter, and in others longer) discussing the worthwhileness of specific rules that the small groups proposed. I am lucky enough to have my students for 90 minute blocks, which allowed for the extended conversation
• I didn't have to synthesize at all for my students. In the first two conversations, all I needed to do was ask the initial questions and then occasionally add another question when conversation stalled. I didn't have to offer anything in the small group conversations. When we looked at the specific rules, I was just a facilitator.

So overall, I'm happy with how things went. I'm left with a somewhat empty feeling on some fronts though, as I wonder whether this was in some ways an insult to the intelligence and character of many of my students. Yes - I am glad that the lesson gave students ownership over the blogging process and hopefully made students feel a strong sense of responsibility for their blogs. And Yes - this probably prevented at least one group from making their plans to meet on their blog. But ultimately I hate the idea (even though I know it was 100% necessary from the adult/outsider point of view) that before my students could start to enjoy their participation in the edublogosphere, they had to be subjected to rules, rules, and more rules. To carry Bud's metaphor one step further - do you start skateboarding by learning the rules about skateboarding? Or do you learn to skate by trying it out, falling on your ass a few times, and then eventually figuring it out for yourself?

Thoughts on Picking Groups and Group Sizes

So it seems like at this point, the two biggest areas of concern with the project are the fact that I am picking the groups and how big the groups will be.

As far as picking the groups goes, I don't really have much to add to what I already wrote. What I wanted to comment on was the discussion that's been going on around the issue. I want to commend Drew, for being the only person to actually respond to what I posted. Of all the posts that came later, no one bothered to engage any of my argument. And while I disagree strongly with some of the things Drew wrote (though Mark already called him on some of this), he actually responded to what I wrote. Not that there is anything wrong with just sharing your thoughts, but for the comments section to work to its full potential, it needs to be more than just a place to share thoughts. The point of the comments is to engage with what's written in the blog.

On the group size front, I am sympathetic to what Mike, Drew, and Jack wrote. All of you are right -- getting 5 or 6 people to agree on anything is going to be a huge challenge. I am confident that my students are up to it, though. Part of my motivation for this project is that I want my students to produce something of some value. I do not believe that a group of 4 people would be able to meet my expectations for the project (I was actually giving thought originally to groups of 8 or 12, but was dissuaded from that in the initial posts). With that said, here is what I have planned for the project in hopes that the challenges Mike, Drew, and Jack noted will not get in the way of each group producing an excellent project:

• Students will have at least 6 (nearly) full class period to work on the project. That's 9 hours of time to work, just in class.
• The blog will give students a means to communicate with each other without having to worry about finding a time where everyone can get together
• Before students are even allowed to talk about what topic they want, they will spend time breaking up the project into smaller parts. They will have to submit to me a list of these parts, as well as who is responsible within the group for each aspect of the project. This means that there are really only two decisions that absolutely must be made by the whole group: how to split the project up and what the topic should be. After that, it will be up to students to weigh the pros and cons of having more people working on a portion of the project

Final Final Project Assignment Update Post

I think this is the final list of information for the Final Project before converting it into formal assignment form (my first group of students will begin the project Tuesday):

Ok, so here's the list of what was established:

• I want them to create a presentation of some sort based onThe Daily Show. The content of the presentations will be based on places and times we have studied throughout the year (prehistory -> Renaissance in the West, and Ming Dynasty in the East)
• The final product needs to be completed the week of June 20
• Groups will have 5-6 people
• Each group will have the option of presenting a video or "live" in class. Groups presenting live will be required to submit a script.
• Each group will have the option of choosing to concentrate on either a certain time, or a certain place, with teacher approval.
• Each group will be assessed on [at least] Humor/Entertainment Value, Accuracy (and existence) of historical content, Professionalism of presentation (sets, visual aides, costumes, etc). Once we actually get started with putting the projects together, we will discuss and construct a very specific rubric so each group knows what the expectations are.
• There will be a blogging requirement for each group
• Individuals will have assigned roles in the group.
• I will make groups
• On the first day of the project, the groups will be responsible for turning in a list of a) assigned roles b) a list of check-points. The individual groups will determine what both the roles and check-points are, but I must approve them.
• Each group will have a blog set up for them. Students will be required to post to the blog before each class meeting. I will provide a discussion topic for each meeting. There will also be a smaller requirement to post comments on other groups' blogs.
• There will be both a group and an individual grade. The group grade will be based on meeting the check-points and the final product. The individual grade will be based on participation and effort in the blog. I reserve the right to also grade an individual different from the group if she/he does not make an equal contribution to the group (note that this is not just someone who does no work, but also someone who dominates the group).

The last additions:

• The total grade for the project will be determined by the presentation (60%), participation in the group blog (30%), and meeting the project deadlines (10%)
• All deadlines will be set by the group, with my approval
• The final presentation will be about 22 minutes long
• The final presentation will be made up of 3 different segments.
• The first segment will be an in-depth report on a major news story. This segment must include at least one "on the scene" report from a correspondent. This segment also must include at least one "news clip" (i.e. you need to re-enact the news story you're reporting on to some degree)
• The second segment can be another news story, a feature story, a "where are they now" segment, a "Back in Black" rant on the stupidity of something, or anything else they do on the Daily Show with approval.
• The third segment will be an interview with a celebrity, artist, or politician.
• There will be a "task" to complete during each class meeting. Completing these tasks will count as grades for the 4th quarter (County policy is that I have to have 2 grades/week, otherwise I wouldn't do this. These should be gimme points)

Some thoughts on picking groups and group sizes to come later this evening (I hope).
Questions, Comments, Concerns? Hit the comment link and share your thoughts.

A Compliment for My Students

I just wanted to bring this comment out to the main page so hopefully most of my students will see it. I hope they realize what they're doing is pretty cool and unique, and that they are making some very positive impressions on people:

To all the students particpating here, your thoughtful comments and active participation in this blog is a credit to you. It shows a level of maturity I've not often seen in 14 year olds. Keep up the great work. You've just begun to tap into the powerful learning potential of blogging. I'm looking forward to watching your continued growth.

Darren - Thank you so much for the kind words to my students

Last Set of Final Project Questions?

Let me know what you think:

• There will be three major parts of student grade for this project: the final product, meeting the check-point deadlines, and individual participation in the group blog. What percent of the total grade do you think each part should carry? Why?
• What information/resources should I provide before we start the project?
• Is there anything else we're forgetting or not talking about?

Thanks in advance for your continued input.

Final Project Assignment Update

Ok, so here's the list of what was established:

• I want them to create a presentation of some sort based onThe Daily ShowThe content of the presentations will be based on places and times we have studied throughout the year (prehistory -> Renaissance in the West, and Ming Dynasty in the East)
• The final product needs to be completed the week of June 20
• Groups will have 5-6 people
• Each group will have the option of presenting a video or "live" in class (My addition: Groups presenting live will be required to submit a script)
• Each group will have the option of choosing to concentrate on either a certain time, or a certain place, with teacher approval
• Each group will be assessed on [at least] Humor/Entertainment Value, Accuracy (and existence) of historical content, Professionalism of presentation (sets, visual aides, costumes, etc). Once we actually get started with putting the projects together, we will discuss and construct a very specific rubric so each group knows what the expectations are.
• There will be a blogging requirement for each group
• Individuals will have assigned roles in the group
• I will make groups

Here is what I'm adding:

• On the first day of the project, the groups will be responsible for turning in a list of a) assigned roles b) a list of check-points. The individual groups will determine what both the roles and check-points are, but I must approve them.
• Each group will have a blog set up for them. Students will be required to post to the blog before each class meeting. I will provide a discussion topic for each meeting. There will also be a smaller requirement to post on other groups' blogs.
• There will be both a group and an individual grade. The group grade will be based on meeting the check-points and the final product. The individual grade will be based on participation and effort in the blog. I reserve the right to also grade an individual different from the group if she/he does not make an equal contribution to the group (note that this is not just someone who does no work, but also someone who dominates the group)

To Make Groups or Not To Make Groups

There's been some great discussion over on one of the comments thread about whether or not I should be making the groups for the final project. This is the type of situation I hoped would happen when starting the blog because it both a) is a really good "meta" conversation how people best learn and b) it forces me to explain my rational behind a decision.

I think Divya made a really good argument for why I should make groups:

i think that you (Mr. L) being able to pick our groups is a better choice. there are things in life that you're gonna get stuck with that you don't want so this would be good training. It would also show how much we've progressed over the year in being able to stand each other and get along. The groups [in my class] that have presented have done an equally good job when the groups were student chosen or teacher chosen.

I think the anonymous poster did a good job describing some of the issues with me making groups:

I disagree 100% with everyone who wants you to pick the groups. I know who I work well with and who I get along with. I also know who has the same goals and work ethic as me. I would not want to be thrown into a group that has people that sit back and don't contribute. If the people who don't care want a bad grade, then they can all get bad grades together.

With that said, here, in no particular order, are some of the main reasons why I want to pick the groups

1. Let's say there are 6 groups (has there has been for most projects this year). Any time the students pick groups, I'd say there are 2 groups that work really well, 2 that work alright, and 2 that don't work well at all. Generally the two groups that don't work are groups where people chose to work with their friends.
2. There's always at least one group that is the "leftovers." It's a horrible feeling to be in that group. I want to avoid that for this project.
3. At this point in the year, I think I know my students well enough to maximize the chances of success in groups. While me making groups may prohibit the 1 fantastic presentation I may get from a certain group of friends, it will also avoid the 2 mediocre presentations I get. That's a trade off I'm wiling to make.
4. On the issue of "fairness," I think it is more fair to have a group where there may be one unmotivated person, than to have a whole group of unmotivated people.
5. I want everyone to succeed in this project. By making groups, I can put everyone in the position to succeed. With the "same old" student-chosen groups, I pretty much know in each class there are one or two groups who are not as likely to succeed as other groups.
6. in the reflections on the Teaching Asia project, the top recommendation for how the project could be improved (after "more time") was that I should chose the groups.

Responsible Blogging Lesson Plan

My students are going to begin using blogs for discussion/brainstorming/metathinking in their final projects starting in about a week. Over the past couple weeks, I've been reading a lot about concerns in various communities about the safety of teen blogging, with Xanga and Myspace being the usual culprits (both of which, along with LiveJournal, are blocked from computers in my district). I've also been reading various responses to these concerns from teachers who use blogs in their classes. I put together a lesson that I hope will help students work through the arguments made on both sides argument, with the goal of writing a class blog policy:

Responsible Blogging Lesson Plan:

Objectives:
At end of the lesson, students will:

• Recognize the potential dangers of irresponsible blogging
• Write an "Acceptable Blog Use" policy for our class
• Be ready to begin the responsible use of blogs in our class.

Reading Materials:

• "Local Authorities are becoming concerned over teen blogging" from the Sikeston, MO Standard Democrat
• "Safety R Us" from Weblogg-ed.com
• "More on Safety" from Bud The Teacher
• "Blog Policy" from Bud The Teacher's Wiki
• "Student Blogging Handbook" from Bud The Teacher's Wiki

Lesson:

• Students will pick up printouts of the reading as they enter class
• Read and markup the packet (20 minutes)
• Rearrange room for Socratic Seminar [I've also seen this called a fishbowl. Short explanation for complex procedure: the room is arranged with an inner and an outer circle of desks, both facing inward. Students in the inner circle have a discussion based on a 'text' while the outer circle observes. The students then switch places. Sometimes the outer circle has a set of process questions to keep track of. There's lots of other variations, but for this lesson that's enough].
• Seminar #1 - What are some of the potential dangers of blogging discussed in these articles? Which of these concerns are legitimate? Why or why not? What other dangers are there in blogging that were not discussed in the articles? (10 minutes)
• Seminar #2 - What type of situations should our class blog policy cover? What are appropriate consequences for breaking the policy? (10 minutes)
• After the seminar, students will get in groups of 3-4, and come up with a list of 3 rules they feel should be included in our class blog policy. They also will have to come up with consequences (10 minutes)
• Students put rules on the board (5 minutes)
• Discussion - What rules are we missing? (This will just be brainstorming...no shooting ideas down). What rules do you disagree with? (Disagreements will be put to a majority vote) - (15 minutes)
• Follow up: I will type of the policy, and have students sign a copy of it the following class.

Thoughts on how to improve the lesson would be greatly appreciated. I'll post some thoughts on how the lesson goes as well as the policies students write after the lesson next week.

Carnival of Education

The new Carnival of Education is up over at The Education Wonks. Students - if you're interested in seeing what some teachers "really think," this is a good place to read. The Carnival links to a bunch of teacher blogs, this one included.

Globally Competitive Students

Clarence at Remote Access had a great post the other day that discusses some of the skills that I think are the goal of a "flattened education." One statement is particularly pertinent to my class as we begin our final project:

In my mind, the most important skills that globally competitive students can learn are those that are cognitive. They must learn to be both critical and creative thinkers. They must be problem-solvers willing to tackle problems with extended effort and not give up when the first solution doesn't do the trick.

I couldn't agree with that statement more. It unfortunately is in stark contrast to what my students are experiencing this week as they take the Virginia Standards of Learning tests, which at least in History, test the ability to memorize facts, and a very specific euro-centric set of facts at that. I am hopeful that the final project we will work on over the last 5 weeks of school will achieve some of Clarence's goal. Five weeks is a long time for one project in our school, and I hope my students are beginning to realize just how much work will need to go into it. I hope we will be able to combine the thinking and creative skills necessary to thrive in a flattened world with some of the content we have been forced to study this year.

History Video Games

How cool does this sound? (for something school related, at least)

A new kind of interactive software is being used for the first time in high school and college classrooms across the country. "Making History," a PC-based learning simulation from Muzzy Lane Software, has debuted this spring at the University of Illinois in Urbana, Ill., Salem State College in Salem, Mass., and Oak Hill High School in Converse, Ind.

I would've loved to use Civilization or Age of Mythology to teach my World History class this past year...hopefully it's not too far away where we can readily have these tools at our hands.

More final project questions

More food for thought (and response!):

• What are some different roles that could be assigned to group members?
• Given that this is the final for the course (1/9 of total grade), should individuals be held accountable in certain ways? Or should everyone in the group get the same grade no matter what? Why? If you think individuals should potentially get their own grade, how would you go about doing this?
• What "check-points" should be built into the assignment? That is, what should be turned in before the final, graded, project?
• How can we use blogging to help with this assignment?
• What other questions should we be discussing?

Final Project Assignment Update

Ok, so here's the list of what was established:

• I want them to create a presentation of some sort based on The Daily Show
• The content of the presentations will be based on places and times we have studied throughout the year (prehistory -> Renaissance in the West, and Ming Dynasty in the East)
• The final product needs to be completed the week of June 20

Here's what I'm ready to add after reading your responses:

• Groups will have 5-6 people
• Each group will have the option of presenting a video or "live" in class (My addition: Groups presenting live will be required to submit a script)
• Each group will have the option of choosing to concentrate on either a certain time, or a certain place, with teacher approval
• Each group will be assessed on [at least] Humor/Entertainment Value, Accuracy (and existence) of historical content, Professionalism of presentation (sets, visual aides, costumes, etc). Once we actually get started with putting the projects together, we will discuss and construct a very specific rubric so each group knows what the expectations are.
• There will be a blogging requirement for each group

And here are some additions based on some further reflection on my part (please feel free to post disagreement!):

• Individuals will have assigned roles in the group
• I will make groups

Comments re: Flattened Education

First off, I just wanted to thank everyone who has posted once again. In my first post I talked about how I am beginning to take initiative in sharing my thoughts on what I have learned on the web because I feel a responsibility to do so. I appreciate those of you who have chosen to share this responsibility with me.

Ok, so on to the responses, in order of their posting.

...no wrote

We understand that the change can benefit us. We're not totally incompetent. [. . .] Quite frankly, I like having a say in my education, especially through blogging. I really don't like speaking up in person, so this works well for me.

I didn't mean to suggest that any of you were incompetent. However, not all my students would agree from you (as many have made clear in various reflections throughout the year). And that is okay. Different people learn differently, and while I think a classroom that involves students in the decision making process and encourages them to be active learners works best for the largest number of students in the largest number of situations, there is no silver bullet that will work for everyone all the time. I'm glad you like the blog format for sharing thoughts. I wish it is something I had started earlier in the year, and will definitely continue in future years.

Jared wrote:

I liked it alot more as opposed to some other classes I've had this year and in the past, and your unique approach is interesting.

Jared - I just wanted to let you know that while a lot of techniques I use place me in the minority at a school like ours, the techniques I use to teach are all used by countless other teachers throughout the country. I think they are a lot more effective (and more fun and interesting) than traditional teaching and there is a mountain of research that backs that up. Unfortunately, changing tradition is a long (and sometimes seemingly impossible) process...

Cassie wrote:

but it was also more work. I think that some of the other kiddos didnt enjoy it because it made them think and they actually had to do stuff.

Cassie - It's funny you wrote that. When I was in college and started learning about this style of teaching, I thought a lot about how I would've felt if I had a teacher like myself in high school. And to be honest, I probably would've hated me. I was one of the students who could get by without doing too much work (my school was a lot easier than yours, though) and the idea of a teacher who wouldn't let me just skate by would have really bothered me.

....yea dont know how much that was on topic but what can you do?

It was, but don't worry about it. You're sharing your well-thought out ideas, and that's what's important.


Fair Use

Came across this today. With all the conversations about piracy and what not, I was surprise to see what actual US Copyright law looks like, particularly the definition of Fair Use:

the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

My school district has very strict guidelines for films that can be shown in class, largely because of copyright laws. Does this mean it would be legal for me to download a pirated video for use in my classroom? Just wondering...

Your Comments

Thanks to everyone who has been commenting. It seems like this little experiment is off a really strong start. People have been sharing some really great thoughts. I'll let them accumulate some more over the weekend, and then write a big response with some new questions on Monday. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Flattened Education

Will Richardson recently posted about connections between Thomas Friedman's new book, The World is Flat, and the opportunities that new technologies provide for the classroom. His post connected three different issues I have discussed with my students throughout the year:

1. We read Thomas Friedman's New York Times article which summarized the book's argument as an introduction to our unit on India and China.
2. I have tried to continually stressed that as technology makes traditional knowledge progressively easier to access, it will be more and more important to "know how to learn" and "know how to find information" as opposed to just "knowing information".
3. My belief that a good teacher makes himself "increasingly unnecessary."

Will's adopted a quote from Friedman that perfectly sums up the latter two points:

This is what happens when you move from a vertical (command and control) classroom to a much more horizontal (connect and collaborate) flat classroom. Your student can do his job and your job.

I think one of the biggest challenges I have faced this year is convincing my students, most of whom have been very successful in a traditional "vertical" classroom, that this change can benefit them. I am hopeful that blogging - both through allowing me to be more transparent in my teaching and through giving my students added control and ownership over their class - can move us in this direction.

First Final Project Thoughts

So here's what I have in my mind in terms of my students' final project:

• I want them to create a presentation of some sort based on The Daily Show
• The content of the presentations will be based on places and times we have studied throughout the year (prehistory -> Renaissance in the West, and Ming Dynasty in the East)
• The final product needs to be completed the week of June 20

Other than that, I'm open to suggestions. I want to keep this as open ended as possible for now, so here are a series of questions to consider for now:

• How big should groups be? Why?
• What should the final product be? (A script? A presentation for the class? An actual filmed segment?) Why?
• Should each episode concentrate on a certain time? A certain place? A certain time at a certain place?
  
• On what aspects of the production should students be assessed? Why?

There's lots of other questions I have (including: How can student blogging be incorporated into this assignment?), but we'll leave those for later.

The First Post - Why Blog?

Why Blog? For my students…

While the road to this goal has been paved with unintentional hypocrisy and failure, one of my main goals as a novice teacher has been to empower my students with as much control over their education as possible as while I have simultaneously tried to emphasize the process of learning. Through journaling, class conversation, and reflective essays, it has been my hope that my students would grow and improve over the year not just as students of ancient and medieval world history (which, let’s be honest, all but a very small handful will ever think about again come June), but as critical thinkers and learners.

As students began this process, I also experimented - to varying degrees of success and failure - with getting more and more student input into assignments as the year went on. Early attempts at having the students write their own test or assigning a presentation without any real guidelines met with mixed results. At the midpoint of the year students wrote an I-Search paper on an unanswerable question of their choosing, investigating how different world religions had addressed their concerns. These papers were for the most part good, with some being excellent. Finally, we just completed a unit on Eastern Civilization where students became the “teachers” of the class with the responsibility of both teaching and assessing their “students.” And while there were some unfortunate exceptions, these presentations were for the most part excellent. This assignment combined both my goals – of helping students to learn how to learn while simultaneously empowering them with control of their class – and I was happy with the results. I hope this blog allows us to take this process another step.

While the state mandated curriculum has served to handcuff our efforts in many ways, the state tests will be completed in the next two weeks, leaving us with five weeks to (hopefully) truly create a much more ideal educational experience.

Why Blog? For me…

Over the past few weeks I have become more and more conscious of a certain hypocrisy in my teaching. While I force my students to actively reflect on their own learning, I have not actively reflected on my progress as a teacher. So in one sense I hope this blog will serve in many ways as my own public learning journal.

But as I have very recently discovered, blogging will allow me to do this in very powerful ways. Over the past couple months, I have begun reading a number of educators who have joined the public forum of the Internet to share their thoughts and experiences. The ways I’ll use this blog has been particularly inspired by Will Richardson, Bud the Teacher, the guy who writes Remote Access, Tom Daccord, and Thomas Cortese. Similar to how Paulo Freire wrote about the need to eliminate the one way traffic of the “banking model” of teaching in favor of creating communities of teacher-students and students-teachers learning together, these thinkers have made me realize the power of moving beyond the web as simply a method of content delivery. I now realize that the true power of the web is to connect readers and writers, so that “every reader is actually a writer, and you write not so much for "the reader" but for other writers.” I guess I am now ready to accept that responsibility.