My nine-year-old came home with a project from his gifted services teacher last month linked to Art History Month. He was asked to select an artist, musician or playwright whose work has stood the test of time and determine which of the Habits of Mind this person demonstrated.
My son selected Vincent Van Gogh, probably because the art teacher at my son’s school had delivered a great lesson on Van Gogh recently. We got books from the library, found websites, and my son started taking notes in Inspiration.
After a while, he thought that one of the habits of mind that Van Gogh demonstrated was “Listening with Empathy and Understanding,” because of his compassion for the poor. He consulted with his art teacher, who suggested that “Determination” would be another hallmark of this artist. Another online connection through a professional learning network (an art teacher who is a friend’s mother) suggested that Van Gogh’s experimentation with color might demonstrate “Creating, Imagining, and Innovating.”
My son browsed online galleries, collected the paintings that he thought best represented each of these Habits of Mind, and began assembling his tri-fold board. He’s done a nice job on it, and I’ll post a photo of it here tonight.
Somewhere in the process, he asked me if we could do something using some of the technology that I use every day with students in the district where I teach. I wasn’t sure what that would look like, but he collected the paintings in a folder on our computer, and started keying in some notes about what he wanted to say about each one. He really liked the idea of using the green screen effect and the Alpha Tool in Keynote, so we assembled the project there.
I was really proud of him for learning so quickly how to import, crop and edit photos in iPhoto, export them to Keynote, layer the photos after removing the green, and then resize himself appropriately for the paintings. It reminds me a bit of the book Katie’s Picture Show.
He then set to work writing his own scripts for each slide. He rehearsed them and recorded them (patiently, as I had not done that before, and we kept making mistakes.) Then he happily ran off to play while I worked on exporting the Keynote to a QuickTime movie so that his school could show it.
But then disaster struck. The exported version made all the timings go wrong. So we re-recorded the audio and re-exported it. It was even worse than the first one. Suggestions from my online PLN came in, and we opted to try to reconstruct the whole thing using Audacity, GarageBand and iMovie. So that meant having to re-record the audio AGAIN.
He got most of it done Sunday night, but was just too tired. So get this — he got up at 5:45am on Monday morning to record the last four audio clips before I went to work. THAT’S dedication.
Anyway, it took a little tweaking and editing, but he completed it. He added some cool transitions. (Gotta love Keynote for those!) And he selected the parts of Don McClean’s song that he wanted. I’m proud of him for wanting to do something different, something 21st century and beyond the trifold board. I’m proud of him for recording all of the narrations three times. And I’m really proud of him for all of the tech learning he’s done in the last week.
The end of the quarter is just days away, and I decided to give my three classes a pop final exam before they leave me.
You see, I think that what I teach them really does impact their future, and they should not need to “study” for this exam if I have taught it well.
The official name of my class is “Computers,” but my name for my class is “Under Construction: The Digital Me.” In my class, we talk about the results of the reports being released by the Pew Internet Group, and whether the students think these reports accurately reflect their own online experiences and behaviors. As we begin to create the students’ online identities, we discuss how each Web 2.0 tool introduced to them allows them to “personalize” their online identity without making it “too personal.” As they practice commenting on other student blogs around the world, we reiterate the importance of expressing opinions respectfully. By the time they earn their own blog space, they are able to rattle off a long list of the types of things that they should never reveal about themselves online.
And these are not things I expect them to forget.
Those of us in educational technology leadership roles know that even as the true integration of technology into the American classroom crawls along at an unbearably slow rate, the “connectedness” of the average American child has been racing along at a breakneck speed. Most parents have no idea that their school age children compete against virtual strangers in their online gaming, either on the family computer or the family Wii. Most parents are unaware of the contents of their children’s text messages with “friends,” and a disturbing number of parents are unaware of the existence of websites built by their children.
In these times of economic crisis, many school districts are being forced to cut technology budgets and technology personnel. It is becoming more and more unlikely that students will get any formal training in the online ethics — although they are spending an increasing amount of leisure time online in their off-school hours.
Who will teach our students how to make good decisions about their online identity, if we don’t? Some will say that it is the parents’ job. And while I concur in theory, I can only shake my head at that prospect, since I know how many parents can’t open or send an e-mail attachment, can’t access their child’s grades online without a call to the HelpDesk, and openly admit to asking children for help on the home computer.
So I take my role seriously. I teach children how to think through the tough decisions. I question their thought processes, and I hold them accountable to protecting each others’ safety online. I want each of them to leave my classroom this week with a clear understanding of how to be safe online while continuing to be an active contributor to their online world. They shouldn’t have to study for my final exam.
They should be prepared to articulate these concepts so they can live by them.
Today I handed the students a list of questions, from which they were each to choose one question and either blog their response or videotape their response. I did not assign the questions, but did not allow more than two people to choose the same questions to respond to, ensuring that I would get a reasonable number of questions answered in each class. The full list of twenty-one questions is below:
Explain what a Wordle is,and why we made them.
Explain what a Voki is, and why we made them.
Explain what Glogster is, and why we made them.
Explain how other teachers you have are using anything like Wordles or Vokis or wikis or glogs in their classroom, and how that compares to other “more traditional” reports or projects you have done.
Explain “Responsible Commenting”.
Explain how you learned about (and how we practiced) commenting.
Explain Blogger Bucks. How do you earn them, and what are they used for?
Explain WHY we blog.
Explain the “rules” of blogging. What don’t we reveal in our blogs and why?
Give some examples of what you CAN write about for blogging. Why are these topics OK?
Explain why you had to write a “Top Ten” list of ideas for blogging. Did it help or not?
Explain why your topics are not assigned by me.
Tell about your personal experiences with MySpace or Facebook (if a friend or a cousin or someone you know has an account). Has your opinion of these social networking tools changed in the last quarter? Why or why not?
Tell about something you have seen or heard about online that is just a little risky or dangerous. (You don’t have to use any names.) How would you have dealt with this before this class, and how would you deal with it now?
Tell about anything you have learned in this class about being safer online.
Give the pros and cons of the ePals blog space we use. Would you recommend it to another class?
If you wrote MORE than the required five blog posts, tell why.
If you like blogging, explain why you might want to continue to blog, even after you are done with this class.
Tell about your favorite post you have written, and explain why you like that one.
Tell about the post for which you got the most comments. Were you surprised that that post got the most comments? Why or why not?
Tell about a surprising comment that you got, and what your reaction was. Did you reply to the commenter? Why or why not?
I haven’t looked at the students’ blog posts or videos yet. But I do think that these responses will give me a pretty good idea of how effective my teaching has been.
I’m so excited! It’s official. Next month I am going back to working with kids and teachers, as an Engaged Learning Specialist at the middle school level!
I love the fact that my new job title places the focus on Engaged Learning, and that it is a multi-faceted position. I’ll be working with students in a computer lab part of the time, so I’m delving into the brand-new NETS publication eagerly, looking for the changes and seeing how they align with my current thinking about digital citizenship. I’ll be working with teachers to integrate technology part of the time, so I will get to apply some of that new knowledge shared by friends who attended NECC this summer and do what I love most – collaborate and facilitate. I will also be making some changes to the media center, so I am very grateful to have the insights of so many colleagues in my online PLN who have been investigating and blogging this past year about the changing role of the library.
Best of all, my new superintendent and new principal “get it”… They have used the phrases “breaking down walls” and “getting in the way of students’ learning”. Not surprisingly, my superintendent shared with me the highlights of various conversations he’s had recently with Will Richardson, David Jakes and Meg Ormiston. How refreshing to speak to an administrator who doesn’t give me a blank look when I talk about who’s on my aggregator!
This announcement is so new that I haven’t even seen the spaces I’ll be working in next year, so it’s a little hard to “envision” at this point. I’m looking forward to meeting new friends, getting oriented to a new culture, and beginning this wonderful adventure. I’m sure that it won’t be long before my To Do List grows to immense proportions, and surpasses the length of my current list of questions… so I’m getting organized now! I’m looking at Moodle and nings and wikis, and investigating student blogs and podcasting tools…
What tools have been most beneficial to you in your quest to integrate technology? What suggestions do you have for me — things you wish you’d known when you started your last new position? What would you do with a brand new opportunity like this one?
A convergence of events has resulted in an exciting experiment!
First, my son posted his VoiceThread. Second, people from my Twitter network whom I had met face-to-face at recent ed tech conferences were kind enough to comment on it. Third, the Twitter chatter before or at that time revealed that several of us had offspring that are currently eight years old.
One Twitter friend wanted her son to comment on the VoiceThread, a more authentic and age-appropriate critique than the ed tech folks that kindly responded to my request. My son’s response? “Does he have e-mail? Can I meet him? Can he come over and play?”
Tweets were exchanged. Moms checked out options. (We didn’t like Youth Twitter, for those of you who wonder, because the Tweets are ALL public. Unlike our Twitter, there’s no @ function or DM.) But we really wanted to harness the power of this interest in connection among our own kids.
So we set them up with their own Twitter accounts – protected and followed closely by us. We struggled through the details, like if we follow them, they see all of our exchanges with our friends. (No, no, no. That’s not what I had in mind!) We closely monitor their Twitter time, and we happily deny requests for followers that we don’t know personally.
Funny thing is, within ONE DAY, the number of Twitterers in this small group had doubled. Now we have FOUR kids of ed tech geeks – none of whom have met each other – vying for computer time with their parents, just to see what their Twitter network has to say.
So far the messages have been somewhat tentative. There have been few repeated exchanges. As parents we agreed to let them “spell creatively” for the time being. (They are, after all, in about second grade.) Then again, one really geeky parent pointed out that his child already knows how to “ff” for spellcheck. (I didn’t know about that option… thanks!)
Also, one parent noticed that her child really wasn’t into messaging these kids that were strangers, thus far. Just wanted to send Tweets to Mom. (Awww, how cute!)
On my end, I found it fascinating that my son wanted to dictate his Tweets to me, rather than type them himself. (He types letters and e-mails to people all the time!) I went along with this request for the first day, so that he could see how the process worked. But then I told him it was his Twitter, and the other kids need HIM to write his own Tweets – spelling and capitalization errors and all.
Last observation… it is hard for my child, a talkative boy with a great vocabulary, to fit his thoughts into 140 characters. Does anyone else experience this? (And I’m talking to the adults here…) We may have to use two or three Tweets in a row for a while. That’s OK. No one minds. These four are rarely online at the same time anyway!
So… What topics dominate this beta-group of Twitterers? Surprisingly childlike topics… the “Ironman” movie… the PC game “Age of Mythology”… kite flying… ice skating.
And it’s nice to know that kids – even kids of ed tech geeks like us – will still stay kids. (At least for a little while.)
Last fall, I attended an Administrators’ Academy by Meg Ormiston titled “Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts” and was introduced to the potential of VoiceThread. I watched a sample VoiceThread, and thought, “Hm. That’s not so difficult. My youngest son could do that.”
A few weeks ago, I attended a session by Will Richardson titled “Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts”. (The business manager almost didn’t let me go to this. Because it had the same title. Hmmm!) Anyway, Will brought this online tool to light once again, and I resolved to complete the project with my youngest son that I once envisioned in Meg’s session .
Background Info: In February, we had a rare set of circumstances come together that allowed us to travel to the U.S. Virgin Islands. We were packed (virtually, at least) and ready to go when the message came back from youngest son’s school, “Please have him read every day, and have him write a Travel Journal.”
This innocent request, made by hundreds of thousands of classroom teachers to those (awfully irresponsible) parents who have the NERVE to pull their children out of school for a family vacation, actually stopped me in my tracks.
I have an “outdoor child,” one that we have affectionately called “BBB,” as in our Barefoot Backyard Boy. He spends every moment of any free time he has — outside, digging and bug-searching and planting and eagerly scanning the fences for neighborhood buddies who might have escaped their houses to their own backyards.
This child, I was certain, would be “in his element” at the beach, digging and building and holding marine life in his hands. How — I repeat, HOW — was I going to get him to spend even one waking moment with a pencil and paper in his hand when there were so many undiscovered treasures out there at the water’s edge?
On a truly impulse buy (my husband says I know no other type), I stopped into the Apple Store and picked up a Belkin recorder that would attach to any one of our iPods. I envisioned my small son running up to me on the beach and excitedly relating his tales of discovery and kingdom conquest (LOL) as I demurely pushed the “Record” button on my Belkin.
Truth be told, we did SOME recording while there, but not of the level nor quality I’d expected. However, once home, I refused to delete these audio files from my iPod, thinking that they’d be useful eventually.
Last night, I pulled up the VoiceThread into which we had uploaded our photos, and recruited youngest son to do narrations. I even played the audio files for him from my iTunes, just to get him “in the mood.” In the end, I thought he did an amazing job of composing his thoughts for each image, and overall, of telling the “story” of our trip.
However, I didn’t expect some things…
I had no idea that “free commentary” would be so daunting to him. My ever-verbose child INSISTED upon dictating his words to me. I keyed them into Word, and he read from there. Towards the end, improvisation and ad-libbing dominated, even with the script before him. Yet I was surprised at his “dependence” upon having it in front of him.
While I worked very hard to not let the “teacher” in me come out, I found it amusing and somewhat disheartening when he would “self-correct” for what was seemingly my benefit alone. Twice he recorded the “spontaneous” voice saying, “We are busy-busy bees,” (which I know to be reflective of his experiences with his kindergarten and first grade teachers) and deleted it. I worked hard to convince him to keep it because HE liked it, no matter how “trite” it felt to me.
I was surprised at how very aware he was of his audience. Originally, of course, the only intended audience was his teacher, and the purpose was for a grade. Once I resurrected the project from the “forgotten” pile, his audience became my Professional Learning Network (PLN). (Funny, he knows them from the Twitter screen. “Oh, she’s the one that sent you the “Bulgarian ‘Ken Lee’ YouTube link!” or “Oh, she’s the one that has the baby chicks, and she has a son my age,right?”)
I was even more surprised at how the awareness of this audience affected his choice of words. He knew that he was speaking, for the most part, to educators, so he threw in his own editorial about the integrity of Christopher Columbus. Yet, he also knew that there would be students in his audience, so he captured the essence of “My parents made me do this…” every now and then. (Wouldn’t want to be TOO enthusiastic about something educational and reality-based, now, would we?)
I was surprised at how this “child of nature” began several narrations at the end of the Voice Thread with, “This is a…” and seemed to stop there after identification purposes, despite volumes of knowledge contained in his head about that species. Oddly enough, he had more to say about the historical sites that we (evil parents) dragged him to see, unwillingly. (Justice. Grin.)
Finally, I was surprised that he was adamant that his classmates should not see this. He didn’t mind “creating his digital presence,” as Steve Dembo promotes. However, he didn’t have any interest in having his current peers comment on the current product. He actually begged me to swear his teacher to secrecy and not share this with his classmates.
As always, I learn every time that I work with kids and technology. This time, the lessons were more esoteric. Now why wouldn’t I have expected that from this child?
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