Classroom Blog

I'm trying an experiment this year with a classroom blog. Each year I set three goals for myself and each of the past four years communication with my students' families has been one of those goals. I'll admit that I'm not very good at sticking with it through the year. I'm hoping with the "push-button publishing" of Blogger it will be easier to keep up with it.

The "Best Classroom?"

It's day three here and as my fourth graders work on writing our classroom guidelines they have been doing some brainstorming. What would the "worst classroom" look like, sound like, etc. and what would the "best classroom" contain?

Several of my students felt a best classroom would have students working quietly on worksheets all day while the teacher sat at his/her desk and did paperwork or played solitaire on the computer. No, they weren't joking. I'm working hard at changing their idea of what learning looks like to them.

We began generating this web together, and then as they filled in their own details, I filled in mine. It was one of my attempts to change some of their thinking.

What would a "best classroom" look like and sound like to you?

[As an aside, this post by Will Richardson has had me thinking a lot about what happens in my classroom. Plus, it has given me some good questions to ask my own 3rd and 1st graders at dinner.]

The Connected Teacher

Yesterday Will Richardson posted a great piece where he uses a fictitious conversation between an educational leader and a journalist to share the benefits of using the social web in education. I have been thinking about the post throughout the day (while scraping paint off the side of our 98 year old home) and how great it would be if his "dream" became a reality.

I am by no means an expert at blogging, using Twitter, or participating in Nings. Yet, I can't possibly describe how much I have grown and been challenged as an educator since they became a part of my daily life.

About a month ago I had a similar vision for the staff of ZPS. What would it look like if more of us began following blogs, blogging, using Twitter, and the like? So I began putting together a simple Moodle course called The Connected Teacher. The goal is to get a small group of ZPS teachers together (this summer?) in order to support one another in using the social web for "personal professional development." Anyone is welcome to check out the Moodle course as a guest and if you're a ZPS teacher who would like to participate, send me an e-mail for the enrollment key.

Creative Commons License

Last week, @wmchamberlain tweeted:


I had a general idea of what creative commons was about due to my hours of listening to NPR, but wondered what the license actually stated. After checking out Mr. C's classroom blog (quite an amazing place, I caught the tail end of a live Ustreamed Science lab a few weeks back), I got the link to the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

I felt like the license described my philosophy, both in education and in life: share. I enjoy offering ideas and am excited to share what I'm thinking in the hopes that someone will in return share their thoughts. It's also how I encourage my students to learn from each other.

So, if something in one of my random posts happens to get you thinking, please feel free to use it. Then, do us all a favor, and share your thoughts. Share and share alike.

An Experiment: Using Wikis in Moodle with Literature Circles

[This is another reply to a question I posted on the Elementary Teachers - English Companion Ning.]

A few months ago, I wrote about a few different things that I wanted to try in my classroom in regards to exposing my students to the 21st Century Literacies. Last week I was doing some personal learning using 21st Century Literacies and experimenting with my students. I'd like to share some of my thinking, learning, and experimenting in the hopes that we can potentially put many minds together and see where this could take our students. This reply possibly belongs in the technology section of the Ning, but I am not as tech savvy as many that are out there and believe that many of us classroom teachers could pull this off with a little time and trial and error.

One of the things that I wanted to try this school year was having my 4th grade students create a wiki. I had talked to a high school teacher in my district who was using pbwiki.com, but the free version only allowed for one user name which her whole class shared. Then a week or so ago, I was on Twitter and @lasic, an Ed Tech in Australia, shared a link to a video he had created about using Moodle. [Moodle is free software, read more about it. Talk to your local tech person about getting you set up! :>)] I pulled up the video on YouTube and while I watched it I created a wiki within Moodle.

Part of the focus in our Reading Workshop for the week was Literature Circles. My students chose books on Monday and I asked them to finish by Friday. It was a tall order, and two of the groups with longer books had to discuss on the following Monday. Yet, they were motivated to dig in to their new books and have the opportunity to discuss them with their classmates on Friday. I knew that in order for their face-to-face discussions to go well, they would need an opportunity to work with the books during the week. This is where I saw my opportunity to use the wikis in Moodle.

On Tuesday, I explained to them in general terms how wikis work and that their group of five students would be working together to create a wiki that included a list of the characters with brief descriptions, a summary of what they had read so far, and what they felt was the theme with evidence from the text. As they read during workshop time and at home that night, they began to make notes in their response logs about what they would add to their group's wiki the following day. The following day, we spent 40 minutes in the computer lab explaining how to use a wiki and allowing them to get started. As a wiki only allows one person to edit at a time, I created separate discussion groups for them to discuss their books while they waited for their group member to finish editing. We had used the discussion (forum) feature of Moodle before, so they knew how to post questions and respond to their classmates. As Moodle allowed me to set up groups based upon the book they were reading, each student was only allowed to edit their own group's wiki and post in their book's discussion group. They could, however, view the other groups' wikis and discussions. We worked for another 45 minutes on Thursday and while they didn't finish their wikis or discussions, I believe they were better prepared for their face-to-face discussions on Friday because of the time spent thinking and working during the week.

If you'd like to take a look at the wikis they created (remember, the goal wasn't the product this week, they certainly are not final drafts), you're welcome to log in to our Moodle course as a guest. Use the enrollment key "path" to get in. Unfortunately, as I can't assign the guest to a particular book, you won't be able to view their discussions. It will tell you there hasn't been one started, but they're really just hidden.

Reflections... Could this same work have been achieved with a notebook and pencil? Sure. Would they have been as motivated to do it? Maybe, maybe not. Did they experience a little of what it means to collaborate using technology? Yes. Did I learn how to set up wikis within Moodle for projects next year? Yes. Did I share with my students how I used the 21st Century Literacies in my own learning how to set this up? Yes. All in all, a pretty good experiment.

On Being Connected

Last week I joined my students in an attempt to remain screen free with the exception of work-related computer use. For the first 24 hours, it felt great to be disconnected -- like I had one less responsibility during the day. However, by Wednesday (day 3) it was feeling strange and after a colleague started a conversation about Twitter during morning recess I began to slide back into Twittering from time to time.

Staying away from the computer the rest of the week was a challenge and I would hop online for 15 minutes here or there, but I tried to remain committed to my promise to my students. It wasn't until the weekend when I sat down to peruse the 175 or so posts on my Reader that I realized what I was missing, connection.

In the past, I've held the opinion that connections, maybe relationships is a better word, could not be developed online. I felt they had to be developed in person first, then they could be maintained online. My participation in screen free week changed that opinion.

When I finally opened up my Reader it was like walking into a room full of great conversations that I had been missing out on, like I had shown up to the party late. As I read through the posts from the week, it was as if I could hear the authors' voices in my head. The voices of Will, Karl, Mary Lee and Franki, Kevin, Cole, and many others (too many to link) who fill my Reader with great thinking each week. I will probably never meet these folks face to face, but they have become a part of my professional community that challenges my thinking and helps me to see the great potential that exists within the walls of my classroom everyday.

[As I side note, it is interesting how connected one can be these days. I am writing this post from my in-laws' cabin in the northwoods of Michigan where even here there is wireless...]

Turnoff Week & Mindfulness

Turnoff Week begins tomorrow morning at 8 AM. I think this will be my 9th or 10th year of participation with my students out of the past 13 years. TV is not hard for me to cut out, but staying away from the computer screen will be much more challenging. The Center for Screen-Time Awareness has great materials for participation with students and families and Adbusters has a Digital Detox Week campaign going at the same time (they even have a customized message for participants to copy and paste into Twitter or Facebook, which I will be doing tomorrow morning).

Ironically, perhaps, or perhaps they planned it, this week's program of Speaking of Faith featured one of my favorite authors, Jon Kabat-Zinn. Kabat-Zinn is one of the country's foremost researchers on mindfulness and its application to stress-reduction and health, in gerenal. Two of his books, Wherever You Go, There You Are and Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting, have greatly contributed to my understanding of mindfulness and ability to live in the present moment.

I wasn't able to listen to the entire show this morning while cooking pancakes for the kids, but the following caught my attention in a post on the show's blog this past week:

In the second half of our upcoming show with Jon Kabat-Zinn (first available in podcast on Thursday morning), he argues, to some degree, that the accelerated pace of technology and its significance in our lives doesn’t allow us to be mindful, to live in the present. All this communication and digital connectedness actually creates an inner dissonance — a disconnectedness with our own selves.

One memorable moment in Krista’s interview: Kabat-Zinn describes a person viewing a sunset. Instead of simply taking it in, he says, we either are thinking about how we might write about it (or perhaps tweet or blog it), or, that certain somebody standing next to you actually has to gab away and tell you how gorgeous it is — which completely removes you from the moment of recognition and contemplation. In other words, we have this compulsion to do something with the moment in order to make it meaningful. We are not being mindful.

While I certainly try to live in the present moment, my family, colleagues, and students would all probably attest to my getting lost in my thoughts from time to time. I will even admit to doing exactly what Kabat-Zinn spoke of in that second paragraph. Even this morning as I listened to the show and made breakfast for the kids, rather than enjoying the moment I was composing this blog post in my head. The worst part of it was that I knew I wasn't living in the present, but I was more interested in the ideas in my head than the pancakes on the griddle. However, I find comfort in the fact that Kabat-Zinn writes that knowing that one is not being mindful is a step in the right direction.

The ability to live in the present is also a great assest in the classroom. In two professional books that I have read this school year, Teaching with Intention and That Workshop Book, the authors share the importance of living in the present. Debbie Miller describes time and again how she listens to her students and takes notes on the things they say in an effort to truly understand what they are learning and where she needs to go next in her instruction. Samantha Bennett, likewise, reminds us that the key to a successful workshop environment is listening to students and really hearing what they have learned. I know that the days when I am not distracted by thinking about what I will be teaching later in the day or about how to handle a situation with a difficult student go so much smoother when I am present and therefore more connected with my students.

I'm sure my absense from the online community will not be noted by many this week, I rarely update my Twitter or Facebook status. However, I find myself checking in on a frequent basis, looking for new ideas or wondering what family and friends are up to. This week I hope that as I keep the computer turned off (at least most of the time), I'll find my thoughts slowing down, becoming more coherent, and I'll find myself enjoying the wonder of the present moment.

Henri's book review

A few months ago I shared a book review from my second grade daughter. Now it's Henri's turn.

It should be noted that I disagree with him on one point, he does have too many toys. :>)

What's in a name (change)?

When I first created this blog, I never intended for it to be for public eyes. In fact, it was set as private for the first month and a half or so. Eventually, I realized the same thing that we often tell our students - we need to know our audience. I wanted to put my thoughts into words, but also wanted to use more details than I needed if I were the sole reader.

Sometime in early to mid-January I opened it up and allowed it to come under public scrutiny. Thankfully, my few readers have been more than kind and encouraging as I share a thought or two here and there.

Then a problem came up - the name was, well, too long. A creative mess is better than idle neatness doesn't exactly roll right off the tongue, it doesn't fit well in Reader, and it is a lot to put in print. So, we'll try something new.

A Simple Workshop

Why A Simple Workshop?

A - Not The, simply A. One of many.

Simple - Simplicity has been a part of my life philosophy for years. It has been a part of my teaching philosophy as well. Give me a classroom library full of good books, a case of spiral notebooks, sharpened pencils, a stack of G.O.O.S. (good on one side) paper and I can teach. Oh, and a document camera as well. A class set of netbooks with access to a wireless network would be fun, too. But maybe not very simple. [I was recalling the other day about when Dr. Richard Allington spoke in our district a few years back, he shared that he would like to give teachers the option of teaching with a limited amount of copies and in exchange would provide them with an $800 gift card to Barnes & Noble. I would take him up on that offer.]

Workshop - I have written enough on workshop philosophy for you to know that I am a big advocate of it, and for more than just reading and writing. The reality of it is that it can be time consuming and "messy," but also, in my opinion, what is best for kids. I'll leave it at that for now.

So, there you have it. The name has changed, but everything remains the same (including the domain name and RSS feed settings).

[Photo in the header: A glimpse of my dad's workshop, Pinewood Studio, in northeastern Wisconsin.]

Slice of Life: Wrap-Up

The Slice of Life Challenge was a new experience for my class and I this year. I went into the challenge, and the month, with high hopes for both myself and my students. At the start of the month, 19 of my 27 students had signed up and I was ready to go myself. I gave them all a new notebook to use for their "slices," I set up a daily forums on Moodle to allow students to post their writings there (if they so chose), and my blog was ready and waiting for all of my posts.

In the end, here's how the numbers played out:

• 31 slices! = 3 students
• 25-30 slices = 2 students
• 20-24 slices = 1 student
• 15-19 slices = 3 students
• 10-14 slices = 3 students
• 5-9 slices = 1 teacher :>)
• 4 or fewer slices = 7 students

This afternoon my students and I celebrated our efforts. I think the biggest lesson I learned personally is that the writing life is all about discipline. Making oneself sit down and put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) on a daily basis requires determination and an ability to stay focused on the task at hand (especially when the online world presents so many other options). Maybe I'd get more writing accomplished if I did it on paper? Something to think about for next year.