The Sound of Music, it is on the list of movies that I feel the need to introduce my son to this holiday season. It celebrates the human spirit and resilience. It also happens to feature one of my most favorite scenes ever, the children singing goodnight to their party guests. I have, in the distant past, even performed this song as a way of sending off a group of coworkers who I came to consider family.
I challenge anyone to watch the scene without smiling. It reminds us of the importance of family, the joy of music but for my purposes here, I'm going to use it as an example of how important goodbyes are as related to Standard 4 of the ECIS International Teacher Certificate, Transition and Mobility.
So Long, Farewell from Iain Gall on Vimeo.
Even though our school semester ends at the end of January, some families choose to conclude their stay at ASM coinciding with our December holidays. Because standard 4 was on my mind I asked all my students who was not returning for second semester. That was when I found out that Seb, one of my 9th grade math students, was leaving that week and not even coming back after holidays. Seb is smart, outspoken and not at all emotional. He studied only enough to get by. He attacked basketball the same way as math, laid back but still always thinking. I made a note to be sure to give him time in our last class to tell us his plans and let him or others make little speeches if they wanted to.
Towards the end of class I asked him if he was going to throw us a little party to say goodbye and he threw it back at me, as he should have, asking if we were going to throw him a party. I told him that if he brings some snacks, I will too. And on went my day.
The next morning in walked Seb with 2 bags full of goodies, ready for his goodbye party. I was shocked. I did not really think he cared too much that he was leaving. He had been very standoffish about it, completely unemotional. A knock at my door followed, Veri was standing there with a home baked cake and a few minutes later Julie showed up with a tray of brownies.
During class Seb was uncharacteristically quiet. We watched a beautiful video on math and debated the words invented vs. discovered. All the while I realized there was no room for a math lesson. Our class would be about goodbyes. We ate, laughed, the kids cried and many of the students talked about how hard saying goodbye is. The Italians who have been at the school for 12 years said I was the first teacher who acknowledged how hard it was for them to always be left behind. We took some photos and at the end of it all I got a huge hug from Seb and a thank you for his "bon voyage."
To our leader Helen Fail, I wish you a goodbye, Auf Wiedersehen, Ciao. Thank you for your guidance, knowledge and passion towards International Education that you shared with us all. Bon Voyage on the next leg of your journey!
Home is more about soul than soil
It is the start of a new school year and we excitedly welcomed 16 new teachers into our ranks this past week. As part of the orientation committee I spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday getting to know these fabulous new members of the ASM community. I was quite fortunate to have already begun my ECIS ITC course as it made me super-aware of their different levels of entry as they continue on this transition in their lives.
I do enjoy the helping and the organizing. I connected with a fellow orientation team member from elementary who I otherwise would not have gotten to know. Helping new teachers connect to their support network is top on the to-do list and I'm thrilled to say my Italian was good enough to figure out phone plans, deals and get them hooked up. And I had real fun hosting 30 people at my place for a welcome Lasagna dinner.
I could gush about all the other positive experiences I have had packed into the last 3 days but that wasn't what made me sit down and write. Instead, it's that awkward pause that has passed between many of us during these initial getting to know you phase, the one that always follows the question "Where are you from?"
I pause because I don't know how to answer. Every one of these sub-questions has a different answer: Where was I born? Where did I grow up? Where did I go to high school? Where did I go to college? Where did I get my first real job and start a family? Where have I lived the last 5 years? Where do I live now? Where would I love to live? Where do I feel, in my heart, I am from?
I'm not alone. Working in an International School environment puts me smack dab in the middle of many others who have the same pause. I hear pride in their voices as they explain the complex answer to the 5 word question. On the flip side, one new teacher apologetically answered, "I'm just from one place." I spent a wonderful 15 minutes learning about her family and the stability she knows and I hope, making her feel that she can be proud of her heritage in our transitional community.
I'm waiting for my copy of Third Culture Kids to arrive and am looking forward to my learning and how it will help me in being a better mom, teacher, daughter, colleague and friend through the insight gained, as one of the "floating tribe".
How do you answer that question?
UPDATE: I came across this video by Pico Iyer. He says it all way more eloquently than myself.
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| Water, name badges and welcome bags awaited our new arrivals. Inside: schedule, contact numbers, a local map and events magazine ~ just enough to be useful but not too much to overwhelm. |
I could gush about all the other positive experiences I have had packed into the last 3 days but that wasn't what made me sit down and write. Instead, it's that awkward pause that has passed between many of us during these initial getting to know you phase, the one that always follows the question "Where are you from?"
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| cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo by Todd Vanderlin: http://flickr.com/photos/vanderlin/222462079/ |
I'm not alone. Working in an International School environment puts me smack dab in the middle of many others who have the same pause. I hear pride in their voices as they explain the complex answer to the 5 word question. On the flip side, one new teacher apologetically answered, "I'm just from one place." I spent a wonderful 15 minutes learning about her family and the stability she knows and I hope, making her feel that she can be proud of her heritage in our transitional community.
I'm waiting for my copy of Third Culture Kids to arrive and am looking forward to my learning and how it will help me in being a better mom, teacher, daughter, colleague and friend through the insight gained, as one of the "floating tribe".
How do you answer that question?
UPDATE: I came across this video by Pico Iyer. He says it all way more eloquently than myself.
What were they thinking?
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| T-shirt sold by Children's Place that they took off the shelves after a social media uproar |
One aspect we learned about and discussed were the messages that society puts out there with regards to math learning. That they damage our students, both strong and weak. While many of us were focused on the more subtle ones like telling kids that it is OK to be weak in maths if you are strong in something else, this doozy of a shirt appeared on store shelves. I guess there is still work to do!
From the Inside Out
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| Chapel of Kings College taken by my son while sightseeing in Cambridge with my mom. |
From the inside out is mostly how I saw Cambridge, UK this past month. I spent 3 jam packed days getting acquainted with the group of teachers who are joining me on the ECIS International Teaching Certificate course. We were led through the 14 month syllabus and CIE requirements as the rest of the time we will meet in our VLE (virtual learning environment) to collaborate and learn together.
'That's it?' you ask. "You sat down to write blog post about reading a long, bullet pointed, standard based document in Cambridge with a cool stained glass window from the inside of the Church at Kings College?" Of course not. I just needed to get the details out of the way before I start gushing about the incredible learning Helen Fail and Corinne Rosenberg led us through.
While I knew this journey was going to be about me as in International teacher in an International school, focusing on my teaching methods, my students, my colleagues, our school families and the host country/local community I call my home for now, I had no idea that the concepts and theories I'd be exposed to would hit so close to home and give me some personal as well as professional 'aha' moments (and I hadn't even started working on my standards yet). So I think I'm going to call this next odyssey, "My From the Inside Out Journey."
Over the next year I will blog, as I journey both in theory and practice through the 5 standards:
- Education in an intercultural context
- Teaching competencies for the international teacher
- The language dimension
- Student transition and mobility
- Continuing professional development as an international educator
I enjoyed becoming part of a new community and look forward to sharing this year with my fellow Cambridge 2013 cohort. In just 3 days you inspired and challenged me...what the year ahead holds I'm excited to find out and be a part of.
I'll leave you with my first major aha moment that I hope will help strengthen my relationships with colleagues and also other parents as I have a 7th grader who bravely journeys on with me.
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| cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo by Agromonitor Agricultura: http://flickr.com/photos/bioproduct/367245894/ |
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| cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo by Chandrika Nair: http://flickr.com/photos/35832540@N03/3330701660/ |
I am a coconut, not an avocado! I find this hugely ironic since I would eat an avocado a day if possible while avoiding coconut at all costs. I commit to realizing that choices I make are based on the coconut profile. So when I'm in difficulty I'll stop to think about that and hopefully be able to remember how much I appreciate avocados and fellow coconuts and work from there.
Sit for a bit and compare the avocado and coconut. Which one best suits you? In the comments share with me how you think this knowledge can help your relationships?
Say 'When'
For those of you who read my latest post you will know I have been struggling with a pedagogical question. As I proceed on the #CCOW creative computing course (aka Scratch boot camp) I've had to create projects to show that I've learned new tools. I can unabashedly claim that my tool box runneth over since I began last week (yes, I squashed weeks 1 - 4 into a week) yet I can't actually boast that I have created a perfect project.
And because I'm a mom, a teacher, a wife, enrolled in a teaching certificate and trying to catch up on some sleep I've missed this past school year, I just can't work on a project forever. Excuse? Reality? In the real world a project would need to be completed. It doesn't feel good - I'm not a quitter. So my question is:
I've always known it was important for teachers to be students (not just for our own learning) but to remind us what it feels like and I have to say that if I was one of my students who had worked so many hours on a project, shown that I had learned the tools and wasn't given a grade reflecting that because my actual project didn't work or fulfill the original plan, I'd be despondent, frustrated and unmotivated.
I'm not sure about you but the last time I looked, none of those words were on the list of attitudes I'd like the learning in our classroom to foster.
So what I'm led to is rubrics. Perhaps as my project for this course I should develop rubrics that will accurately reflect the learning curve of a student. Should steps be accomplished and acknowledged - isn't the journey as important as the final goal (I'm sure there are more than a few famous quotes about this out there)? At the same time, giving up or not finishing is not a mindset I want to encourage. Is this where collaboration and community come in? Group debugging? I have a lot to think about - yes, really might be a good project!
So here is my project in which I learned about sensors and clones. It is inspired by a musical fountain in Malta that sang to me. While I haven't mastered sensors and clones, I sure have learned a ton and that has to count for something!
You should also know that I have 2 other working versions, I'm not giving up, just short on time right now. Who knows, it could be a debug-it project I give to my more advanced learners. My students teach me every day, why would this be any different?
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| cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo by See-ming Lee: http://flickr.com/photos/seeminglee/3962925533/ |
And because I'm a mom, a teacher, a wife, enrolled in a teaching certificate and trying to catch up on some sleep I've missed this past school year, I just can't work on a project forever. Excuse? Reality? In the real world a project would need to be completed. It doesn't feel good - I'm not a quitter. So my question is:
When is a project really over?
I've always known it was important for teachers to be students (not just for our own learning) but to remind us what it feels like and I have to say that if I was one of my students who had worked so many hours on a project, shown that I had learned the tools and wasn't given a grade reflecting that because my actual project didn't work or fulfill the original plan, I'd be despondent, frustrated and unmotivated.
I'm not sure about you but the last time I looked, none of those words were on the list of attitudes I'd like the learning in our classroom to foster.
So what I'm led to is rubrics. Perhaps as my project for this course I should develop rubrics that will accurately reflect the learning curve of a student. Should steps be accomplished and acknowledged - isn't the journey as important as the final goal (I'm sure there are more than a few famous quotes about this out there)? At the same time, giving up or not finishing is not a mindset I want to encourage. Is this where collaboration and community come in? Group debugging? I have a lot to think about - yes, really might be a good project!
So here is my project in which I learned about sensors and clones. It is inspired by a musical fountain in Malta that sang to me. While I haven't mastered sensors and clones, I sure have learned a ton and that has to count for something!
You should also know that I have 2 other working versions, I'm not giving up, just short on time right now. Who knows, it could be a debug-it project I give to my more advanced learners. My students teach me every day, why would this be any different?
Creativity Cramp? Eat popcorn!
There has been some discussion among my fellow #CCOW-ers about creativity. Specifically, do we have to be creative to teach creativity?
I battled with the exact same question this year until about January when I was switching from teaching Movie Making to Digital Art. The final Movie Making projects were phenomenal and I realized why. I had not taught it explicitly but had given students the tools to uncover, expose and express their own creativity. I continued providing students with projects where they CHOSE their topics, COLLABORATED with others and CREATED their visions but not without the digital art tool box.
Fast forward to my current online professional development (which I am enjoying so much, I don't want it to end), Creative Computing Design* run by Harvard/Scratch team. Weeks 1 - 3 are over and my toolbox runneth over! Week 4 has arrived, time to plan the big project and I'm blank. BLANK. BLANK!
I know I want it to do with CCSS and 9th grade math. But I don't want to be predictable and I really want to challenge myself using some of the Scratch 2.0 advanced features like video sensing and cloud data. I thought about what I would say to one of my students who emailed me the night before an idea pitch to say they were BLANK! What I learned from my Flat Classroom Teacher Certification kicked in here and I focused on the Cs and not the skills. And I made myself a bowl of popcorn. I call it my thinking food and it didn't let me down today. Check out my project that uses some of the fantastic advanced features:
And as my students would say, LOL like I did playing, this is fun.
*Thank you for providing us with a quality experience. It is not always the case that those who educate educators "walk the talk" but you really are and I appreciate it. More importantly, my students will benefit from it this coming school year.
I battled with the exact same question this year until about January when I was switching from teaching Movie Making to Digital Art. The final Movie Making projects were phenomenal and I realized why. I had not taught it explicitly but had given students the tools to uncover, expose and express their own creativity. I continued providing students with projects where they CHOSE their topics, COLLABORATED with others and CREATED their visions but not without the digital art tool box.
Fast forward to my current online professional development (which I am enjoying so much, I don't want it to end), Creative Computing Design* run by Harvard/Scratch team. Weeks 1 - 3 are over and my toolbox runneth over! Week 4 has arrived, time to plan the big project and I'm blank. BLANK. BLANK!
I know I want it to do with CCSS and 9th grade math. But I don't want to be predictable and I really want to challenge myself using some of the Scratch 2.0 advanced features like video sensing and cloud data. I thought about what I would say to one of my students who emailed me the night before an idea pitch to say they were BLANK! What I learned from my Flat Classroom Teacher Certification kicked in here and I focused on the Cs and not the skills. And I made myself a bowl of popcorn. I call it my thinking food and it didn't let me down today. Check out my project that uses some of the fantastic advanced features:
- video sensing
- broadcast
- ask
- cloud data storage
I am having a problem that the sensing is too sensitive and the score goes up more than it should. Hopefully over the next few weeks I can tweek it to work. This does bring up a question for another post: When is a project over, I mean, really over?
And as my students would say, LOL like I did playing, this is fun.
*Thank you for providing us with a quality experience. It is not always the case that those who educate educators "walk the talk" but you really are and I appreciate it. More importantly, my students will benefit from it this coming school year.
Put a face on it
#dailytechgoal4teachers aim for today is to come up with a new avatar to put on all my social media. I'm not really planning on branding myself but yesterday I saw an avatar on Google+ that I recognized from Twitter and thought it was probably a good idea.
This is a great tip for kids. No real pictures of themselves, just avatars. There are so many options. Just create, take a screen shot and post. I've written about avatars before when mentoring the Student Blogging Challenge. Here is a great post with links to avatar sites.
We as educators are obligated to infuse digital citizenship into every lesson, online safety is a priority!
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| Not my favorite and won't use it but an idea of how creative we can get. |
This is a great tip for kids. No real pictures of themselves, just avatars. There are so many options. Just create, take a screen shot and post. I've written about avatars before when mentoring the Student Blogging Challenge. Here is a great post with links to avatar sites.
We as educators are obligated to infuse digital citizenship into every lesson, online safety is a priority!
Yes, math teachers do read
So I bet you are wondering how that 'semi day of detachment' worked out. Not bad. I broke the rules a few times checking school email under the guise of really needing to see if I have to go and do an Excel tutorial on Monday but otherwise, I have to say, I was super productive and didn't miss a whole lot except maybe the constant flow of #ISTE13 tweets.
But today's #dailytechgoal4teachers is about going through Shelfari and figuring out what I want to read for the summer. This might not sound very techy but it is:
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| DITTO! |
- add it to the bottom of my blog homepage
- will be working on making different 'shelves' if possible for professional and personal and student recommendations (both from and too) - is this even possible? Will find out soon
- Then will add to school webpage
Motivation: a student was surprised this year when I read from The Alchemist to my math classes on World Read Aloud Day. Yes, math teachers read books.
Book suggestions? Personal or professional? Add in comments below or try to add to my Shelfari...
Day of Semi-Detachment
In honor of the first day of summer, I thought it would be a good idea to detach from the computer. If you are like me, between emails, whiteboards, teacher websites, online courses, PLN...I've been connected for more than 1/2 my waking hours this school year.
But I realized pretty quickly that to get through my to do list, I would have to do a semi-detachment day. I'll save full-detachment days for when I am really on holiday.
So here is how I will detach today.
But I realized pretty quickly that to get through my to do list, I would have to do a semi-detachment day. I'll save full-detachment days for when I am really on holiday.
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| Home grown basilico ready to be turned into pesto ~ but it will wait one more day. |
Problem 1: to do list on Google Tasks
Problem 2: need to talk to Mom about travel plans on Skype
Problem 3: need to write blog post for #dailytechgoal4teachers (pretty self explanatory)
Problem 4: need to use webcam to take photo for blog post
Problem 5: pump me up playlist to get me through the laundry, vacuuming, kitchen cleaning is on iTunes
Problem 6: Java course that I'm a bit behind in - online!
Problem 7: Want to make pesto with homegrown basilico but recipe search needs to be done online
So here is how I will detach today.
- No Google searching - if something comes up add to to-do list
- Check personal email once this evening
- No work email at all
- No twitter, PLN will still be there tomorrow
- No reader, will all still be there tomorrow
- Will do Java course for only 1 1/2 hours today after lunch when too hot to be outside and no online multitasking allowed
- Pesto can wait one more day but Mom can't so will Skype once I accomplish the first 1/2 of my list
When ZERO is a great thing!
Day 1 #dailytechgoal4teachers: Empty school email inbox.
Mission Accomplished.
This feels great. Setting small goals means accomplishment which is food for the soul!
Join the daily tech goal challenge I recently blogged about: taking tech one byte at at time.
#dailytechgoal4teachers
It is Friday evening and I don't have tests to grade, emails to write to parents or blogs to read. I have 10 months worth of wonderful ASM memories. My rookie year is over and I'm ready to celebrate but am also in my space of reflection.
Summer does not actually start for me until I have spent some time sorting, organizing, thinking, rethinking and planning my summer.
Summer does not actually start for me until I have spent some time sorting, organizing, thinking, rethinking and planning my summer.
I believe it is essential for teachers to plan our summers so we have enough time to rejuvenate but also to get through our monumental and most often unachievable to-do lists.
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| cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo by Courtney Dirks: http://flickr.com/photos/courtneyrian/5750960959/ |
This summer I am breaking down my tech-to-do list into daily bytes (pun intended) and I'm inviting others to join me.
Follow me and #dailytechgoal4teachers on twitter.
Buone vacanze a tutti!
Mirror Mirror Pitch
Fast forward 14 years and I am still a proponent of explicit incorporation of social and emotional lessons into a community's curriculum. We do not currently have a middle school homeroom or pastoral care program so I decided to create my global project to address the following questions that I believe all middle school students should be thinking and rethinking about:
Mirror Mirror on the wall, Who Am I and How Do I Portray Myself to Others?
The primary aims are as follows:
- Students create a visual representation of who they are
- Together with students from other schools around the world they create a wiki page that teaches tolerance
- Students then take the visual representation someone else made and interpret it in their own artistic way (poem, song, visual art, video)
Of course students will have the chance to use various Web 2.0 tools as well as other technology to communicate, collaborate and create. I recently discovered the power of student choice and so am planning on incorporating that into the project somewhere.
I would be grateful to get feedback and thoughts on how this global project would entice you as a teacher to sign up and participate with your middle school students. What would you like to see? What would make you hesitate to participate?
Another C: Calibrating
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| cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo by USFWS Mountain Prairie: http://flickr.com/photos/usfwsmtnprairie/5434754068/ |
Acutally, what I'm really hoping for is that I am so in tune with those standards, that without thinking about it, I wove them in!
Here are the standards associated with the project. As I hoped, I covered many areas including creativity, collaboration and digital citizenship. Areas for improvement:
- Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively
- Students do more of the research, discovery and sharing of information on typography rather than being guided mostly by the teacher
April: The month of Judging
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| Gaeun |
(All artwork in this post was done by ASM's talented 2013 Digital Art students who continue to inspire me).
In an effort to get some experience on both the Eracism and Flat Classroom Project I decided to judge the spring 2013 sessions. I managed to watch 2 asynchronous training sessions which gave me guidance and I was able to join the judges Nings in case I needed support. But the most powerful piece given to me were the rubrics to follow.
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| Yasin |
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| ChaeYoon |
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| Olivia |
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| Giovanni |
Scary but Successful: Student Choice
For the unit on Typography in digital art, I decided to go all out! Students would not only choose their subject matter but also the style for their unit project. Scary! What if they ask me how to do something on Photoshop that I don't know how to do? But I plowed on anyway believing in the tweets and blogs I've read over the last few months about the power of student choice.
That is not to say I didn't teach. I have read many articles and blog posts suggesting that a teacher is redundant now that you can learn pretty much anything you want off of YouTube. I am here to tell you that I have had tiring days teaching but to my surprise, the most tiring were during this process. With every student tackling different subject matter and different techniques I was co-searcher, co-experimenter, co-creator exponentially. Exhausting but so worth it.
Turn off the computers. That threw everyone off, myself included. It was time to create a Passion Poster. I adapted Oprah's Find Your Passion to be more kid friendly though for next time they have already given me some suggestions on even more effective questions for middle school kids. They picked their top 3 passions and found illustrations for them, a font type that represented each one and also a quote that spoke to that passion. These posters were later scanned to .jpg files so the students could write about them in their final blog posts.
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Smile has no disability.
Everyone is smiling.
Disability is a prejudice and they have
the same ability as we do.
Working together we have each other
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My students were purposefully wearing t-shirts with typography and emailing me more videos to watch. A lovely 6th grader brought the image on the right from her Korean textbook to demonstrate the power of typography.
I then presented my students with 3 possible typographical effects in Photoshop. I included my own examples with the step by step instructions in PDF. And this is where the magic began. Immediately hand's raised and asked if they could try other effects like 3D or glowing or something else they had seen that they wanted to try. Students who were less comfortable followed the tutorials and then asked if they could mix and match ideas. Students asked each other how to do certain effects and I got to spend time with the 30% of my students who have been learning English for less than 10 months. Using hand signals, Google Translate and lots of trial and error they were all on board creating projects about what they are passionate about.
Quadblogging*
Technology Awareness
The Foundation to the Enlightened Digital Citizenship Model
According to a 2011 Pew Internet Report, 95% of 12 - 17 year-olds are on the Internet and 8 in 10 of them frequent social media sites. However Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis point out in their book Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds, that just having access to technology, does not a good digital citizen make. Their Enlightened Digital Citizenship (EDC) model below acts as a lens for viewing digital citizenship. Once access to technology is obtained the journey through technical, individual, social, cultural and global awareness can begin.
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Figure 5.1, p100, Flattening Classrooms, Engaging MInds, Julie Lindsay, Vicki A. Davis
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According to Molinari the EDC model applies to roughly 30% of the population. After poverty, lack of know-how is the second reason for exclusion from technology. So, as technology access is the core, technical awareness is the foundation to EDC model. Improving technical awareness is the first step to developing users who create a supportive and collaborative community.
Technical awareness is the how to layer of the EDC model. It includes the user’s knowledge of how to
Technical awareness is the how to layer of the EDC model. It includes the user’s knowledge of how to
- use tools
- select the right tool for a specific task
- connect to others
- harness technology so it just does not replace traditional tools but enhances learning
Lindsay and Davis propose that just as babies do not know how to walk when they are born, our ‘digital native’ generation who are born ‘attached’ to the Internet, need to be educated on how to be positive digital citizens. Our school created a class for all 6th graders and incoming middle schoolers called Global Connections whose aim is to allow students to recognize the plethora of choices they make when using technology and develop skills that lead to good decision making. Teachers of students who have been through this fairly new course note a few areas of strength that their other students do not display:
It would be interesting before starting a Global Community Project to find out where your students feel their strengths and weaknesses lie. Here are the results of my student surveys.
I decided to ask teachers to fill out a similar survey (results here). Their responses are interesting to those of us providing Professional Development and important as our Global Citizenship curriculum depends on certain skills will be taught through classes and not directly from a computer class (such as creating PLNs or using copyright free images).
- staying on task
- willingness to help others with new technologies
- selecting appropriate tools
- offering teachers other resources and ideas that they themselves have discovered
- transfer of technology skills between subjects
I decided to ask teachers to fill out a similar survey (results here). Their responses are interesting to those of us providing Professional Development and important as our Global Citizenship curriculum depends on certain skills will be taught through classes and not directly from a computer class (such as creating PLNs or using copyright free images).
Feel free to check out the student and teacher surveys I used.
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| cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo by Sheba_Also: http://flickr.com/photos/shebalso/8434192841/ |
There are four “rays” of understanding that enlighten the areas of awareness, giving educators and students concrete topics that lead toward a stronger grasp of the practice of digital citizenship.
1. Safety, Privacy, Copyright, Legal
Perhaps the most pertinent to technology awareness and the one constantly changing ray is this one. Arming students and teachers with enough information to question and protect the safety and privacy of themselves and others must be done before tackling online projects.
Example topics include blocking people from online interactions, finding terms and conditions of site usage, generating and respecting media licenses and reporting activity online that is suspicious, abusive or illegal.
CommonSenseMedia - advocates for children and families with regards to online media; extensive library of materials for educators and parents
Creative Commons - free licensing for photos, videos, blog posts, songs allowing for sharing and creative control of online media
Teaching Copyright - lesson plans and supporting materials for HS students (can be easily adapted for MS students)
Creative Commons, Fair Use - a librarian's Netvibes page full of links and ideas
Free Technology for Teachers - 17 videos on cybersafety for kids
5 Steps to Internet safety - blog post by Vicki Davis with concrete tips on what to do at that crucial moment when students feel unsafe online
2. Etiquette and Respect
As a teacher I expect good manners in my classroom which we define together at the start of a school year. Online communities should do the same and not be afraid to address individuals or groups who might be forgetting the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have done to you. Students are connected 24/7 as adults are and we need to model polite behavior when it comes to the actual use of devices. Being aware that some cultures find connections to devices while in face-to-face contact rude and disrespectful can help form a solid foundation for future collaboration. By far the most misunderstood area of respect for my students is the use of material that does not belong to them. They often passionately express disagreement to the fact that just because something is on the internet, you ethically should not use it. For example, in my movie making class students feel if they purchased a song, they should be able to use it in its entirety for their own project. Furthermore, my digital art students feel they should be able to use images from the Internet because people who put them there should know better if they don't want them used.
Discovering the Internet: Netiquette - video that touches on many areas such as blogs, SMS, email but a bit boring for the kids
Creative Commons - free licensing for photos, videos, blog posts, songs allowing for sharing and creative control of online media
Teaching Copyright - lesson plans and supporting materials for HS students (can be easily adapted for MS students)
Creative Commons, Fair Use - a librarian's Netvibes page full of links and ideas
Free Technology for Teachers - 17 videos on cybersafety for kids
5 Steps to Internet safety - blog post by Vicki Davis with concrete tips on what to do at that crucial moment when students feel unsafe online
2. Etiquette and Respect
As a teacher I expect good manners in my classroom which we define together at the start of a school year. Online communities should do the same and not be afraid to address individuals or groups who might be forgetting the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have done to you. Students are connected 24/7 as adults are and we need to model polite behavior when it comes to the actual use of devices. Being aware that some cultures find connections to devices while in face-to-face contact rude and disrespectful can help form a solid foundation for future collaboration. By far the most misunderstood area of respect for my students is the use of material that does not belong to them. They often passionately express disagreement to the fact that just because something is on the internet, you ethically should not use it. For example, in my movie making class students feel if they purchased a song, they should be able to use it in its entirety for their own project. Furthermore, my digital art students feel they should be able to use images from the Internet because people who put them there should know better if they don't want them used.
Discovering the Internet: Netiquette - video that touches on many areas such as blogs, SMS, email but a bit boring for the kids
Netiqutte - video with catchy tune and nice visuals
Netsmartz - for parents, educators, tweens, teens and kids
3. Habits of learningKnowing what they don't know and being able to find out how to learn has been identified as an essential tool for 21st century learning. I use myself as an example in my digital art, movie making and technology classes. How do they think I am learning all these new tools? At the risk of throwing out the tired 'when I was your age' speech, I make it clear that I didn't even have a personal computer until I was a senior in college. They must understand the source of their information and software: open vs. free sourcing and eventually understand the power of a PLN.Netsmartz - for parents, educators, tweens, teens and kids
Richard Burne - Free Tech for Teachers
Edutopia - PLNs are Virtual lockers for Students
Forbes - Free Versus Open: Does Open Source Software Matter In The Cloud Era?
Edutopia - PLNs are Virtual lockers for Students
Forbes - Free Versus Open: Does Open Source Software Matter In The Cloud Era?
4. Literacy and fluency
When it comes to technological awareness, the ability to decide which tools to use when and how to find support and alternatives is what literacy refers to while fluency alludes to the actual knowledge of how to use tools. Our students love to discover new tools but when asked to use tools in the classroom, tend to fall back on the less collaborative tools. If presented with options they will investigate them but they are averse to taking time to learn new software to become fluent enough to produce high quality products. Having said that, they do learn quickly and easily recognize similarities between tools (ie similar keyboard shortcuts).
IDEA: This is an opportunity for students to build a community resource. I did this with my math students who added their own resources for the topic we were studying to a Google Doc. They added the link, the type of resource (pdf, site, video) and why they thought it was worth watching.
NETS for Students - ISTE
NETS for Students - ISTE
High School Flashbacks
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| cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo by Rusty Sheriff: http://flickr.com/photos /rustysheriff/4879559713/ |
Last month an email went out to the Flat Classroom community asking if any of us were interested in judging the Eracism Project. This was one of the projects that I had investigated and blogged about early in the course. There were a few aspects to judging this project that appealed to me. First of all, the judging is asynchronous so I do not need to be live so can fit it into my teaching, studying and mommying schedule. Secondly, there are new Web 2.0 technologies to learn like ObaWorld and Voicethread. Thirdly, I am going to be part of a judging team so I can work virtually and collaboratively with like-minded colleagues. Finally, and not at all least, I can support students and teachers out there who are flattening their classrooms.
As I type this students around the world are preparing their opening remarks on the topic: "The use of Facebook by students around the world to communicate with one another does more harm than good." I attended online bootcamps on the use of ObaWorld and Voicethread and judging practices. I studied the rubrics, connected with my judging partner who lives in Florida and am excited to be part of this new community.
What global projects do you participate in as a judge?
World ___________ (favorite school subject) Day
While I did not connect globally, I realize now that I did connect with my students in a not-so-usual-Ms.-Wolpowitz way. It reminded me that I need to be sure that I continue to keep a focus on our classroom community growth and learning while I'm investigating and enjoying my new global adventures on my Flat Classroom Teacher Certification journey.
Confusion was definitely on the face of my students' today when they walked into math and digital art class to see me sitting on a stool with a book in my hand. First of all I rarely sit and secondly, they have only seen me refer to math textbooks. Today was World Read Aloud Day and I took 10 minutes from all my classes to share and discuss one of my favorite passages from Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist. I read the scene where Santiago is leaving Tangiers (p.59) to return to Spain and he reveals that while the King's words and watching for omens did guide him forward, the King had failed to mention the obstacles he would face on his journey. This led to brief but magical chats about their journey through school. Many shared that pep talks drive them crazy because adults try to make them focus on the positive and don't always admit that it is going to be hard going. They also volunteered that they focus on the treasure (grades) and don't give enough love and care and respect to the journey, as the Alchemist suggests later on in the book (p.125). One 14-year-old commented, "I guess since I am in school I should take the most from it that I can" after 4 pages being read, out of context, out loud!
And thus the magic of reading and the brilliance of the words of Paulo Coelho.
Perhaps I should do this more often! Perhaps next year I should try and get Paulo Coelho to read aloud to them via Skype. Perhaps next year I should try and connect to other math classrooms and read aloud together. I think I am starting to get in the #flatclass grove.
The Mentor learns a thing or two
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| Kid Safe Mini-mizer |
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| Build Your Wild Self |
Then I spent a wonderful hour getting to know 13-year-olds from the US who love cheerleading, the 49ers, running through the park, eating, baseball, play station, rock music and dancing. I was inspired by their avatars so I created some of my own. Even more fun, I added an avatar creating activity to the lesson plan for my digital art students who will add them to their blogs. Using art as an expression of self is one of our learning points. I am excited to find out more about them through their avatar creations.
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| World Education Games Avatar |
Empower Digital Citizenship Action
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| cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo by HoangP: http://flickr.com/photos/miniprince/8096432123/ |
This week in discussing Digital Citizenship we were supposed to reach out to administration and work on a plan to integrate 'reverse mentoring' into our curriculum thus staying current with the topic and empowering our students. At ASM we are currently discussing our Middle School electives. I proposed quite a few new options including a Global Project elective. I was not able to sell that as easily as the programming, robotics, digital art, movie making and Global Connections (described my last post) but we did think of a few places to start this type of initiative. The first and most logical, which is why I'd prefer to do it somewhere else, would be in the Global Connections course. The second could be in my programming course (potential Flat Classroom project idea) but the other and the one I like the best is for me to join the 8th grade project team. Every 8th grader in our school will be required to do a semester long project and this could be a wonderful component.
There are many players involved in this discussion and as the newbie at the school I'm just trying to figure out how I fit in. That always plays a factor in the travelling International Teacher's cultural transition to a new school but this is the first time I feel like I need to push the fast forward button and hurry up my integration into the teams that are already in place.
I am proud of a project our 6th graders did this year in Global Connections which did require them to be the leaders of the global citizenship discussion. It is a video with their promises that they created to be positive digital citizens. I cannot yet share it as two students were filmed whose parents did not sign the release form and we are in the middle of retaking those scenes. Can't wait to share it with the entire school community.
What project with 'reverse mentoring' have you done that empowered students into action? Share in the comments below.
Feelin' Those Net Vibrations
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cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo by patriziasoliani:
http://flickr.com/photos/55524309@N05/5378314176/
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Our students were little sponges. They could not get enough of the technology and were willing to discuss, debate and develop appropriate uses. I did not realize how successful that class was until I started teaching a Digital Art course which has 6th, 7th and 8th graders together. We use Google Docs to collaborate and students post their artistic process on their Digital Art blogs. And who leads the way through these projects? Our 6th graders. A group of them led the discussion on how to comment appropriately on other blogs while in another class it was the 6th graders who reminded students of good naming and password practices.
And for next year I have added two pieces to the curriculum (so far) that have been influenced by the Flat Classroom Certified Teacher course I am currently enrolled in. The first is incorporating a global project which in-spite of the name of the course, we did not do this year and the second is teaching the kids about pulling information. After creating a Classroom Monitoring Portal (CMP) on Netvibes for my digital art class, I realize the power of the portal. It is a time saver, a guaranteed way to stay on task (almost) - a one stop shop (again, almost because I can't find a way to include Pinterest).
Here are the screen shots from the page since I created it on a private page and have yet to figure out how to copy it to my public page. It will be exciting to create these pages with my students in the future. We just studied Optical Art but I plan to do this with a unit later on to teach them the skills.
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| Getting Organized page with all links students can put in for themselves: Gmail, to-do list, calendar, favorite links, link to class website and RSS feed from class updates |
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| Optical Art in the News |
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| Optical Art in Video |
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| Op Art on Twitter |
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| Image search for Featured Artist Bridget Riley |
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