Bud the Teacher

Goal:  Work to build multiple and overlapping communities of learners in our district who have knowledge, expertise and/or interest in the hardware and software and services that our district is supporting.  Help those communities to begin to learn from each other and to support each other in their teaching and learning.  As best as I can, document and share the learning and stories of the community.

I’m aware of so much potential in our classrooms and schools, and so many new tools that are coming online in the district that can be used to help students and teachers create deep and meaningful opportunities for learning and reflection in our classrooms.  These are tools like laptops (three new elementary schools, opening in the fall, will have laptops for every teacher; many more schools are investing in laptops for some teachers to be used with) interactive whiteboards, and/or clickers and document cameras, software like ActivStudio, which we’re trying to standardize on across the district, and services like Moodle, which powers our St. Vrain Virtual Campus.

There are a multitude of projects and programs that already meet and discuss some of these issues - but there’s nowhere to go to see all of those conversations, or for folks who aren’t already connected to those groups to have the opportunity to find ways into the conversations.  I also know that, with so many resources out there, we need to do a good job of aggregating all of that stuff somewhere (or somewheres) and then helping people to find that space.

Also, if we can work to build and/or sustain these communities, we can work to develop leadership on instructional issues in our district.  Better yet, we can help teachers to teach teachers.  That’s a good thing. I believe very strongly that the answers to most of the important questions facing schools and teachers and learning and students aren’t going to come out of school districts - they’re going to come out of classrooms.  It’s my job to help get the stories out there and the people connected.

I’ll be talking about CyberCamp on Teachers Teaching Teachers tonight at 7pm Mountain Time as a piece of a show about summer professional development.  I’ve invited all the CyberCampers, too, so I hope to include them in the conversation.  I hope you can join us, too.

Today’s podcast is a short reflection on my learning experiences today, as well as some seriously first draft thinking about information and knowledge.  As always, I hope the conversation continues.

Links

The Colorado TIE Conference

Tom Woodward

The form - share your presence tools!

Chatterous - TwitterChat

Dave Cormier - “Rhizomatic Education: Community as Curriculum”

Sarah Heller McFarlane - “The Laptops are Coming”

The more I work as a professional developer and teacher of teachers, the more I am resolved that I will do my best to never create a resource for one situation that cannot be useful in another.  There are too few of me and too many needs in my district to do otherwise.

I think, though, the careful consideration of audience and purpose that I engage in before creating a resource is a valuable one for all readers, writers, and creators.  Perhaps there’s value, in a connective writing class, in spending some time on rhetorical analysis, specifically in the vein of thinking about multi-purposed work.

This isn’t a new statement for me to make, either here or in my classroom(s), as I’ve always operated under the assumption that the best writing happens when writers consider their audience and their purpose for writing, allowing them to determine the focus they should take in a particular piece.  This idea (often called the rhetorical triangle, with each of the points defined slightly differently by the person(s) doing the defining) can and should be expanded to include all kinds of composition and writing, not just print texts.  This leads me to the teaching point that I would want to include in my connective writing work:

As much as possible, all texts should have a life outside of the classroom.

This “extra-curricular life” can take multiple forms, and won’t make sense for all types of writing and creation, but I strongly believe that we should never create something that will die after a teacher has blessed or cursed it with a grade.  I’ve always believed that, but the more I learn, the less I’m willing to suggest that such multi-purposed work should only happen at the end of a course, after all the practice work is completed.  Project-based learning, too, embodies this philosophy, as projects should have a life outside of the classroom.

What does “extracurricular life,” or multi-purposed work, look like in a professional learning experience for teachers?  One way I attempted to create a multi-purpose-able resource in CyberCamp was through the series of Works in Progress (WiP) presentations that we asked every participant to do.  As I explained at the beginning of CyberCamp:

One of the values of CyberCamp is sharing.  Talking about what we’re up to is a good way to better understand our own work, and the act of sharing it with a group is useful, too, because it allows your fellow CyberCampers to help you out, be it through good questions, suggestions, or becoming an extra set of eyes and ears in the world seeking resources to help you with your project.

Because sharing is so essential, we’ve set up time here at CyberCamp for everyone to have a 20 minute block of time in which to share their work.  Each day, we’ll ask two of you to share what you’re working on and then we’ll give ten minutes to the CyberCampers to give you some constructive feedback.  We’ll be talking more about what “constructive feedback” looks at CyberCamp, but know that you’ll be getting help - not criticism.

Again, because sharing is so essential to what we do, we’ll be adding an extra level of sharing to your process.  We’ll literally be sharing your Work in Progress conversation with the world and archiving your presentation here on the blog using a tool called Ustream.  This will allow you to share your work with, and to learn from, the world.  While that can be scary, trust us when we tell you that your work is important and worthy of being shared.

Not to toot our own horn (or whistle, to stick with the camp metaphor), but it seems to me that a twenty minute investment of class time here (thirty minutes if you leave time for some feedback) leads to an excellent archive/snapshot of a work in progress, a chance to get very specific feedback, and a permanent record of the event that is available for further scrutiny, reflection and commenting.   Not bad, as far as multi-purposing goes.  Add in the fact that these presentations also become resources for other people working on similar projects as well as models of our activity for future CyberCamp experiences, and we’ve got some handy multi-purpose resources.

Other examples of multi-purposing in CyberCamp include our project proposals as well as our blog.  Pretty much, any well-written blog (as a whole, not each entry) is a fine example of multi-purposed writing.  But perhaps that’s another post.

One of the struggles, of course, with trying to build multi-purpose resources, or to find ways to ask learners to do so, at least one that I worry/wonder about, is making sure that I’m never putting the needs of future learners or secondary audiences ahead of the learners who are the “primary” audience for a particular activity/event/experience.  Let me try to say that better - we can sometimes create problems for our class when we try to create opportunities with “outsiders,” particularly if we’re forcing a connection that maybe isn’t organically or authentically there.  Connections just for connections’ sake are bad ideas, maybe even educational malpractice.  The trick becomes figuring out where those lines and boundaries are, and when to say no to kind invitations to meet/Skype/join up with others who may or may not be in a similar place, educationally speaking.

Another struggle, I suspect, is figuring out how to contextualize those creations in a way as to make them as useful as possible.  I’m beginning to practically understand why so many higher ed folks talk about learning objects and repositories and a slew of related issues, and struggle with those things, too.

At the risk of getting a little too meta, I’m going to be talking through my history of thinking about linking, or conective writing, today during CyberCamp as a part of our series of “Works in Progress” conversations.  I’m inviting you, if you’re interested, mostly to help me model how a backchannel and uStream conversation can be of value to a face to face group, but selfishly, too, because I’m always interested in how others are thinking about these ideas.  So, if you’re willing and able, join us at around 11:30am MST for a short uStream presentation.  All the details are on our wiki.  

Thanks in advance!

Beginning today, I’m going to be co-facilitating my school district’s CyberCamp, a two-week summer institute focused on teachers building projects that help them to integrate technology into their classrooms.  You won’t see me much here, but I do hope you’ll join us over at CyberCamp’s digital HQ as we do some intense learning and thinking and questioning together.

In fact, I’m counting on it.

One of my hopes for CyberCamp is that we are able to model how transparent and connected learning doesn’t have to be limited to a specific time, place and location, that teachers in my district can learn from you, and that you can learn from them.  We’re all in this together, and that’s a good thing.

We’re putting so much of CyberCamp online in part to honor the wisdom and knowledge of our teachers, but also because we want to model the power of learning networks as professional learning communities.  But that only works if people stop by and join with us in learning and sharing and thinking and questioning and . . . well, you get the point. If you’ve read this blog for any period of time, then you know that I think we’re all better when students and teachers all share and learn and take turns leading.  Teaching and learning can be so isolating - but it doesn’t have to be that way.  CyberCamp, I hope, is an attempt to demonstrate that.

So, I’m writing this post to formally invite you, whoever you are, to come and join in the fun.  And the hard work.  I’ve nothing to offer you except a great deal of learning.  But if you do come and leave a comment or two when you can, our CyberCamp will be all the better for it.  I thank you in advance, and hope to see you at CyberCamp.

Oh, and by the way - we don’t own this model of learning.  There are plenty of folks trying this type of work - and I am grateful to them for sharing what they do as they do it.  That said, I wanted to explicitly remind you that, if you like what you see here, feel free to take it and adapt it to your communities, to your needs.  I pledge to you that I’ll happily come to your CyberCamp.  In fact, I look forward to it.

Tomorrow night, the folks at Teacher Teaching Teachers will be having a conversation with the authors or the book I mentioned in my last podcast.  How timely.  Here’s the info:

Many of us are planning to use Reinventing Project-Based Learning in our Writing Project Summer Institutes and elsewhere in our work with teachers.  The researchers, teachers, and authors, Susie Boss and Jane Krauss will be joining us on Teachers Teaching Teachers tomorrow.

Join us at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific USA Wednesdays / 01:00 UTC Thursdays World Times

Suzie Boss
Suzie is a veteran journalist who writes about teaching and learning in the 21st century. She and Jane have authored a book on using technology to empower teaching and learning called Reinventing Project-Based Learning. From interviewing and observing hundreds of teachers in both formal and informal contexts, she has seen how innovative approaches to education can engage learners and transform communities. The book is a unique educational resource that integrates interviews with leading experts, storytelling, and suggestions for putting research into practice. She has been an editor for the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, a freelance writer contributing to wide range of publications, and a community college instructor.

Jane Krauss
Jane is a long-time educator, curriculum writer, and expert in professional development. An innovative teacher and early adopter of instructional technologies, Jane and her elementary classroom were showcased in a video case study that thousands of teachers have used to learn about authentic, project-based learning. As former director of professional development for the International Society for Technology in Education and a consultant for Intel’s education initiative, she has helped educators around the world improve their practice. She recently co-authored a book with Suzie Boss on the effective use of technology in education, entitled Reinventing Project-Based Learning.

I suspect it’ll be a good conversation.  You might want to join in live.

Today’s podcast is a short description of CyberCamp, a summer technology and learning institute we’ll be doing this summer in my school district. I’d love any feedback you have on our event, as well as links and info about similar events. In addition to the book that I mention in the podcast, Suzie Boss & Jane Krauss have a solid blog about the book and their work.

I’m writing this morning from the National Writing Project’s web presence working retreat, an event I’ve been fortunate enough to have been involved with as a facilitator since its inception last year.  This is the second time we’ve run the event, which is an attempt to provide some time and structure for teams from writing project sites who wish to think strategically about their web presence.  We’ll spend the weekend thinking through the identity of our respective organizations and what we can do online to both reflect and support that identity and the good work that all of us are trying to do in our various locations around writing and teaching and learning. That means lots of things to lots of people, but there’s plenty of intersection in the general trends.

The event is pretty intense, and, while designed for sites to think about their organizational web presences, is very helpful to me as I think about my personal and professional life online.  One of the big questions that we’re asking people to think about is how their web presences are a reflection of and a lens into their work.  My personal web presence should be like that, too.  But I’m not sure that it is.  I’ve got content spread around the web in a variety of places, everywhere from Flickr to Twitter to this blog to my wiki (which is desperately in need of an update or seven) to my work with other groups and schools and people.  There’s plenty of personal mixed in with the professional, and I think the boundaries between those two areas of my life, never truly separate in “real, offline” life, continue to blur and fade and shift from day to day, week to week, month to year.  (That’s a good thing, I think, for the most part.) How do I, as a blogger and a teacher and a learner and a father and a husband and a citizen, do my best to ensure a consistent presence across the Internet that reflects what I believe to be important?  Just as essential - how do I bring all of that content that sits all over the place into some sort of a coherent whole?  Or do I need to, so long as all that content in all of those places, and others, reflects the message(s) that I want so desperately to convey - that learning and writing and thinking and engaging and passionately working for the benefit of others are essential habits and skills for everyone, regardless of background, culture, or profession?

I think, too, about what “web presence” means.  Having a presence and creating a presence are not necessarily the same thing.  Being and doing aren’t necessarily the same, either.

These are some of my thoughts as I head into a pretty intensive planning process, where, if last year is any indication, I’ll learn as much, and probably a great deal more, than I’m hoping to facilitate.  This summer, I’ll be doing a three-hour session on presence tools, a class of software that are about making one’s presence known in some formal and informal ways, Twitter being one of the tools that I’m most curious about at the moment.  I also would like to explore more about digital identity, a conversation I sort of started here a little while back.  My work this weekend will continue to influence that work.  Lots to learn.  Luckily, I’ve got plenty of smart folks here to learn from and with.  We should all be so lucky.

Last week, I received a review copy of Relentless Pursuit: A Year in the Trenches with Teach for America.  Thought it was worth taking a minute or two to say that I’m definitely a fan of the book.  I’m impressed with the way the author, Donna Foote, has captured the different teachers, students,  administrators, and classrooms and painted them as actual human beings dealing with complex issues and feelings as opposed to one-dimensional cogs in the educational machine.

While the book’s set in Los Angeles, I recognize many of the folks, or at least the types, she’s written about.  Kids who disappear.  Teachers who will do anything to see their kids do well.  Teachers who burnout.  Administrators who try too hard - and aren’t successful.  The folks who show up because they’re supposed to, but who’ve given up.  I appreciate the portrait.  It’s real and honest and captivating and certainly not pretty.  A fine example, one with which I’m more familiar than I’d like to be, is this paragraph, a stream of consciousness from one teacher struggling to figure out how to help a student he noticed was cutting herself:

Who am I kidding?  I don’t know what I’m doing.  The fact that it’s left to me to identify a girl who is on the verge of killing herself is ridiculous.  You can fake the teaching, but when it comes to this stuff, you can’t.  How can it be that I’m the one diagnosing or even realizing that this girl is in trouble?  I don’t even know who her guidance counselor is.  If something happens, I could be held liable.  I don’t know who to go to.  And if I don’t write it on my hand, I won’t remember to even report it.  It’s crazy.  Oh God, I hope she’s okay.

I’ve been there.  Ignore the TFA aspect of this book - it’s an eye-opening account of what it means to be a teacher in a dysfunctional school in the United States.  Or maybe in any school in the United States.

As for TFA - any alumni out there want to comment on the program?  While I dig their goals, it doesn’t seem to me like the program is necessarily going to result in systemic education reform.  Although, I might be getting cynical on the whole idea of education reform - small group of committed citizens, right?   And perhaps TFA, as only a 20-ish year old organization, isn’t mature enough yet.  Foote, in this interview with U.S. News & World Report, talks about the “two-pronged” approach of TFA as a reform group:

TFA has a two-pronged theory of change. In the short term, it will send smart, energetic, committed young people into these terrible schools. But the longer-term vision, and the one that is most likely to bear fruit, is the idea that, because TFA has culled so carefully for leaders and because these young teachers will be so informed by this unbelievable experience of teaching in underperforming schools, they will go out and make big changes.

Now that the early corps members are approaching their early 40s, we’re starting to see signs that these leaders that have been embedded in society are starting to rise up. If you troll the education reform movements, the big nonprofits, and philanthropies, you’ll see TFA alum[s] in their ranks. I think a real marker was laid down last spring when TFA alum Michelle Rhee was named chancellor of the D.C. schools.

I’d be curious to hear from anyone with TFA experience.  And I’m looking forward to the rest of the book.  Not because I suspect the ending’s a positive one - but because I so appreciate the humanity of the story.