Question of the Day?

“What does it mean to be well educated in the 21st century?” -David Jakes

NYSCATE Quick Hitters

This year's NYSCATE Conference was a great experience. There was a great blend of 'tool' sessions and Educon-like conversation sessions. My bucket is completely full, so here's a list of some important notes, quotes, opinions (if they are worth anything), and tidbits from the 3 day barrage. Expect more elaboration after I wrap my head around the following ideas.

• Chris Lehmann, David Jakes, and Sir Ken Robinson (among many others) are equal parts depressing and inspiring. They paint a clear picture of where 'we' (you decide who we refers to) are in education in America. They also make it clear that there is hope and plenty of opportunity for change. 'We' just need to make that happen.

• Jim Klein gets it. He does some really interesting things. How would you feel about letting kids Tweet out during a test when they come to a question that they need help on? Don't we do that in the real world? If you're not sure how to do something you ask, right? Not in schools though. I know this seems to be a far out idea but he suggested, and I paraphrase, "Start simple and gradually expand your reach." Words to live by.

• Here's a quote from Sylvia Martinez to think about: "If you can Google it, it shouldn't be on a test." Thoughts?

• Everyone needs to have the 21st century skills discussion with their colleagues. Kind of feels like the birds and the bees conversations I had with my dad.

• Old texts and ideas are relevant: Abe Lincoln was quoted by Sir Ken Robinson (still looking for the exact quote), Seymour Papert's work from the 70's still rings true, and Gandhi's "Be the change you want to see," quote just may be my new motto. Not everything has to be 21st century.

• Wait until you see GE's Augmented Reality. Think: What are the possibilities?

• In terms of tools, Fairport is in GREAT shape compared to other schools. We have access to the stuff, now it's getting the teachers on board in using it. Making it happen is the next hurdle. (Much more to come on this topic.) See Gandhi's quote above.

• This last one is not exclusively a NYSCATE idea, but as I drove out of the parking garage I was thinking its time I do what I ask of my students, be a leader and take a risk. (Much more to come on this topic also.)

What did you take from NYSCATE?

Letter to My School

I thought I'd share this. It is a copy of an e-mail that I sent to my school regarding Earth Hour and the grassroots work my students have done.

Northside School-

This Saturday is the official Earth Hour. Since Earth Hour is on a Saturday, my students came up with the idea of having all of Northside turn off their classroom lights from 9-9:30 on Friday in honor of Earth Hour. We hope you join us and participate in Northside Schools Earth Hour. It would be so cool to walk through school school and only see necessary lights on!

Don't forget to turn off your lights on Saturday too, from 8:30-9:30. Don't forget to spread the word among other family and friends also.

Feel free to take a picture or a short video of what you choose to do either Friday OR Saturday and send it to me. I am planning on putting a movie together showing how NS celebrated this awesome day! Read on below if you'd like more info about Earth Hour.

Thanks for participating!

Travis

Earth Hour started out in 2007 as an initiative in Sydney, Australia. The people at the World Wildlife Federation came up with a plan to encourage as many people in Sydney to turn off their lights for 1 hour to save energy and fight global warming. They estimated that 2.2 million people participated and landmarks such as the Sydney Opera House even turned off the lights. In '08 Earth Hour grew tremendously. The WWF estimated 55 million people around the globe participated.

Fast forward to 2009: The goal is to get 1 billion people in 1,000 cities to participate. Earth Hour has been relying on social media (twitter, facebook, blogs, etc. )(yes I am a geek) and word of mouth to convince people to turn off their lights from 8:30-9:30. I came across it while searching for something cool to do for a conserving electricity lesson. I shared Earth Hour with my class decided to spread the word. They wanted to convince Fairport to participate, but aimed to start with Northside. We may not have reached our end goal, but we have reached as far as England via our class blog.

I could not more proud of a group of students. Nine and ten year old students stepped up and worked to make a change and a difference in the world. They ran the show, deciding on goals and how to achieve them. They split into groups depending on their strengths. The artists made posters. The computer 'geek squad' made digital ads via PowerPoint and GoogleDocs Presentations to share on our class blog. The writers wrote to school leaders, local newspapers and even wrote scripts for school announcements and video ads (see below). The Woodsters never cease to amaze me with their care and drive once they believe in something.

I'm looking forward to voting for the Earth Saturday and to spreading the word for next year's Earth Hour when the current Woodsters and next year's group can team up to see the difference they can make.

Check back for a video of what everyone did during their Earth Hour celebration!

Earth Hour 2009 Video

This is a video created by my fourth graders about Earth Hour.

Earth Hour 2009

We are participating, are you? More information to follow!

Hello? Anyone Listening?

First let me say that Educon 2.1 was amazing. The conversation was deep from the time I left Rochester on Friday to the time I dropped Brian Smith in his driveway. My philosophy and values of education were pushed and challenged. Big time.

One interesting conversation took place in Bud Hunt's session about writing. On top of his statement that "Hyperlinks are adjectives (and the subsequent blog post) and some individual time to reflect on writing came a debate about audience. It seems that I am not the only one who is wrestling with who I'm blogging for. There were some in the crowd that were writing for themselves, some who were vaguely aware of who they are writing for, and some who knew exactly who they were writing for.

It may be a generalization, but it seemed that it might have been the newer bloggers that were most unsure of who they were writing for (or simply writing for themselves). I feel that I am in this group. First off, it seems that next to no one is reading my posts, so in that sense I am writing for myself. So you may say, "Why not just get out your journal ?" My response: good question. Maybe it's that I hope someone stumbles onto my blog and connects with something I am saying. Maybe it's just that the blog is an easy place for me to write. I am not quite sure. It's not that I want to keep my writing private as much as it's a lack of readers I suppose.

I think knowing your audience matters. The problem is when I sit down to post, the cage match usually begins (thus leading to many unfinished drafts). If you could take a look into my head you'd see many of the people in my reader in the red corner and in the blue corner you'd see the teachers in my building and district. Herein lies the problem: Who do I want to write for? Am I looking to share with the big picture crew (like many of the exceptional people I met at Educon) or the teachers I work with who could care less about big picture ideas, but would like to know what to do on a wiki?

Is it selfish of me to simply write for myself, sometimes taking on heady issues and sometimes sharing more concrete ideas and say "take from it what you can," to my reader? Or is it more important that I 'pick' my audience and consistently write with them in mind? I'm thinking that it may be more of the former than the latter.

NYSCATE Day 1

I got there way too early and left even earlier. I heard that registering was trouble if you didn't get there early enough, so I I did just that. There wasn't much going on when I got to the Convention Center, but I was able to hook into the RRCC's wireless to check out the sessions for the day. I also got to check out my new Bean. It is very cool... 3.2 mega pixel digital camera, video camera, webcam, mass storage device. Talk about a do all tool... Thanks NYSCATE.

I went to two sessions this afternoon and got exactly what I was looking for. The first was a sessions about PLNs and how to develop one. The second was a session about blogging and using wikis in an elementary classroom. I left after that. I wanted to see David Jakes, but I did not pay $45 for the banquet/dinner/keynote. When I got home, I felt short changed and all night I felt like I was missing out on an opportunity to make new friends and learn from them.

I didn't miss everything though. I was able to catch Jakes' presentation via Ustream, compliments of Brian C Smith. Thanks Brian!

So here's what I take from today:

• I feel ahead of the ballgame with what I do in my classroom. Many of the ideas that were thrown around today were things that I am doing or have experimented with. I was able to grab some specific ideas that I will certainly use.
• I'm on the the right track to developing my Professional Learning Network. I have been following blogs for over a year and writing here for almost half. (Before today, I didn't realize this was a way to develop a PLN.) I've got some work to do with Twitter though. I need help, both technical and theoretical. I will be sure to tap into the playground tomorrow.
  
• Next year, pay the $45 to go to the dinner. Or even better, get school to pay for it!
  

More tomorrow.

NYSCATE 2008

In about an hour I will be heading downtown for the 2008 NYSCATE conference. I am psyched! I am looking forward to learning some new things and making some new connections. I've set some goals for myself... Here they are:

One thing I hope to do this weekend is to make a connection with a teacher who is interested in collaborating in some sort of distance learning project. My students are really starting to see that learning does not merely take place inside our room. They are researching earthquakes at home, writing on their bogs on Saturdays and while they are away on vacation. I really want to foster this and keep this movement happening. What better way than doing a project with someone far away? Any takers?

Another thing I would like to get out of this week is to challenge my thoughts of technology in schools. I am really looking forward to listening to all of the keynote speakers, particularly David Jakes and Gary Stager. I am looking forward to the 'big picture' discussions and how they will challenge my previous thinking of technology's role in schools.

Last, among many others, I want to continue to develop my PLN. That may include trying out some new tools like Twitter, and it hopefully will include meeting many fantastic people.

Check back for more, I will be writing lots over the next two days...

Sweet Tool

Northside school is fantastic. We are lucky to have a supportive administration, brilliant colleagues, and great technology tools. And we have the greatest selection of books ever! We have hundreds of class sets of novels to read. Our school's Lead Teacher, Linda S., has devoted herself to keeping the latest titles coming in and finding a place to put them. We have so many books that we are out of space (I'd rather too many books and not enough space than the contrary) and organization is an issue.

"Linda, where so I find A Dog's Life? What Level Q, dog books do we have? Know of any good adventure books?" I think she hears questions this 12 times a day. And she knows the answers to all of these questions. Every time.

Enter a fantastic tool to save the day... Library Thing. Library thing is a 'social network' for readers. It will allow us to enter all of our books, tag them, and easily search them for what we are looking to use with our class. We'll know where to find the books and who has resources that we can use. On top of all of that, Library Thing is web based so it is accessible from home for those of us who know no boundaries between home and school.

Linda, you are now free to order us more fantastic books!

Gas in the Engine

Comments are the gas that drives blogs. In my (inexperienced) opinion, comments are what drive a blog. They inspire, they encourage, and they challenge readers and writers to learn. Comments motivate bloggers to write more and readers to read more.

I have witnessed how comments can put the proverbial 'pedal to the metal' for bloggers, even 4th grade bloggers. My 4th graders each had their own blog through classblogmeister. It was a great experience for all, but the students that got the most out of blogging were the ones who received the most comments. The kids who got the comments were the ones who write from home, blogged during their free time , or wrote on their blogs while they were on vacation. They had an audience to listen to them and they knew it. They performed for them.

One of my gripes (see my Pie in the Sky post from June) was that there was not enough parents or other family members commenting on my students' posts. This year I got my wish. I routinely have 4-5 comments awaiting moderation in my inbox. This has certainly translated to more writing. One of my boys even writes posts on Saturday mornings... How cool is that? Let me just say that I am so enthused that my kids are learning and working outside of the four walls of my classroom.

I can't say the kids are alone here. When I opened up this blog I received few comments. I worked hard to gain readers. I went commented, I linked, I tried all the tricks I could think of short of offering free stuff. I had a few loyal readers (Thanks Bret and Brian!) but did not receive many comments. Total comments up to last week: 4. I started to feel like I was writing for myself (not an awful thing, I suppose) and I felt that I was wasting time. You can guess what happened next, I stopped writing.

Of course, there is one other explanation to the lack of comments... When I was writing last, gas prices were out of this world ($4.09 was the highest I paid). People were conserving their gas. Comments were at a premium,. Now gas prices are coming down... I have been thinking of things I should be writing about lately and I have a dashboard full of unfinished posts. I am re-energized to write and this time I hope I find an audience who wants to fill my engine with gas.