Samsung’s Hope for Education Contest asks students and adults to submit a 100-word essay on this topic:

“How has technology educated you on helping the environment and how or why has it changed your behavior to be more environmentally friendly?”

I love/need free stuff. I submitted my entry today, exactly 100 words:

I stand over the copier. Its noisy hum drowns the sounds of teachers chatting, waiting in line with stacks of back-to-school papers. Sliding my syllabus into the document feeder, I punch one-two-five, enough copies to send home with each of my students and line remote trash bins with crumpled wads. Pages shoot from the copier. Images flash through my mind–ads and web pages screaming, “Go Green!” I, a 21st century teacher, am an unintentional-not-so-eco-friendly model for minds of the future. No more. Wikis and blogs will house course documents. I’ll do my part, however small, to nurture the planet.

My students will be writing and submitting entries: an exercise in showing not telling.  Penny Kittle, author of Write Beside Them–a book I’ve been reading and discussing this summer, would be proud.

Nings allow us to form our own social network, a place where like-minded individuals can connect to share, discuss, debate, collaborate, create. It is my hope that Literacy Lighthouse , a ning I just launched, will connect high school English teachers around the globe.

The 21st Century demands our students be able to read and evaluate texts in a multitude of genres and formats, that they can communicate and collaborate both face-to-face and virtually using a myriad of digital tools, that they can think critically and creatively as they write, produce, publish to global audiences. Facing such demanding expectations, we teachers need to utilize all the digital tools available to help us continue to hone our pedagogy, to search for resources and strategies to maximize the all-too-brief time we have with our students.

I hope you’ll join us, and enter the conversation as we explore–together–ideas for equipping our students for the demands of the 21st Century. Sign up now. It’s free!

Please, help me spread the word about this ning.

Last year, Mrs. Gillmore suggested we (as two of the English 11 teachers at BHS) work with the history department to have students create projects for National History Day. Since then, we’ve tossed around ideas and all agree a cross-curricular collaboration would be beneficial to our students. How can we bring all the history and English teachers together to forge a cohesive plan? Digital tools, of course.

We have two needs:

1. We need to connect our teachers so we can plan together, not just in face-to-face
   meetings—though, I think, if we could carve out even an hour of one of our curriculum
   days (maybe lunch together?), we could get the project rolling.
2. We need to equip students with tools that will allow them to research, discuss,
   collaborate throughout the year to create their projects.

As I told teachers in a workshop yesterday, educational technology is not about the tools: it’s about creating a culture and curriculum that encourages students to communicate, collaborate, think creatively and critically, research, create. The trick is to understand and to teach our students to select the tools that will allow them to complete tasks more efficiently and effectively, not simply use a tool for the sake of using a tool. As Chris Lehmann said in a session at NECC 2008, the tools should become invisible.

As we tackle this project, then, the question is what digital tools are the best ones to help us—both the teachers as we plan and create a learning environment and resources to scaffold students and students as they research, collaborate, and create? Lehman, in that same NECC 2008 session, said the best tool is the one we all agree to use.

What if, before school begins, we create blogs for all the juniors (minus my AP English students who have one already)? We could use the simple process Sue Waters outlined in a recent post, using Gmail + feature to set up student accounts with one e-mail. This would save valuable class time. We could then create a wiki devoted entirely to this project:

• We can create a tutorial page for students (and teachers) to help them with the technology part.
• We could also give an overview of the project (once we agree on the details) with links to get them started.
• We could create a page for teams where students decide whether to work alone or in small teams. On this page, as students form, they can add their names and link to their blogs.
• We could create a discussion forum where kids/parents/teachers can post questions about the project, tools, resources.
• As we create together, we could post project checklists, rubrics, assignment details…

With two tools—blogs and wikis—we could empower teachers and students with an interconnected network, readying us all to tackle the National History Day Project, ultimately growing as readers, writers, thinkers, researchers, communicators, collaborators, critical and creative thinkers. This is good stuff!

I’d love to hear your reactions, suggestions, especially from Gillmore and Qualls; of course, suggestions from around the globe are always welcome.

P.S.
My tool of choice would actually be a ning, but the ning is currently blocked at our school, and our teachers haven’t used it—yet—so for now, I think it best to stick with blogs and wikis.

Today was day two of our 21clc training (Catch up with day one here), and I spent this day with four fellow teachers who want to make a difference. Four teachers who understand how desperately our high school needs to be using digital tools to maximize learning and reach the digital natives we teach. Four teachers who are willing to learn, even when technology intimidates them a bit. Four teachers who are patient with me as I try my best to help each of them individually–trying to meet them where they are to give them one-on-one help or point them to resources.

I’ve a confession to make though–a brutally honest one: This afternoon, as I was driving home, tired from spending the week teaching a workshop in Hope, having gotten home late last night from a four plus hour drive, that nagging naysayer–who plagues me more in times of stress–whispered in my head, “You don’t have to do this. You’re not getting paid. You need to be working on your own lesson plans–school is less than a month away. You’ve got a workshop to prepare for next week, and you get paid for that one. You’re not going to make a difference. No one really cares about all this; they’re just doing this to appease you, to get you off their backs. You know how to do all this, so why do you feel the need to try to teach everyone else. Just go in your room and teach your students.”

I came home, made myself a home-brewed latte, something that always makes me feel better, and plopped into my recliner, laptop in hand, intent on catching up with the backlog of articles in my Google Reader. One of the first posts I encountered contained this video:
 

It silenced the naysayer. These four teachers and me ARE going to make a difference! We have to. Our kids’ futures are on the line. If I give up, who will fight the fight?

While I am a crusader, I’m not naive. I realize we won’t make a difference overnight.  This is a process, and with each encounter we all learn a little more, grasp a greater understanding of 21st Century Learning, begin to envision how digital tools can transform the way we teach, the way we communicate with students and parents, the way students learn, the way we learn.

Rather than add more digital tools to their toolbelts, I wanted to give them time to learn to use the ones I’ve introduced so far, to understand what they could do with Google Reader and their edublog and to allow them time to experiment, to play, to create.

Here’s a list of the ideas we talked about today, the ways we as teachers can use these tools NOW to make us better teachers.

Using Google Reader

• Collaborate among 21clc team members by subscribing to one another’s blog and regularly reading one another’s posts. 
• Enter into discussions by commenting on teammates’ blogs.
• Read my weekly tech tip (hopefully, I’ll have time during the school year to manage this!) so that we’re not limited to learning new tools, tricks, and uses in our face-to-face meetings.
• Find other sites to subscribe to: content teachers’ blogs, websites, journals…

Using Our Blogs

• Have the blog serve as a teacher webpage.
• Create pages to house information for students and parents: course information, calendar, homework…
• Customize your sidebar(s) to make your blog user-friendly, including these widgets: search, RSS, subscribe by e-mail, categories, pages (if not in your header), links. Customize with any other chosen widgets.
• Capture lessons on the Starboard, create a PowerPoint (inserting the captured images), upload to SlideShare and embed in blog post so that absent students can see lesson, students needing more help can see lesson again at their own pace, parents can see lessons to help students at home.
• Use SlideShare to embed PowerPoints explaining projects, teaching a concept, sharing models and student work.

Did I miss any? I’d love to hear more ideas. If we, as teachers, can learn to use these tools–then we can begin to plan ways to have our students use them to analyze, to synthesize, to communicate, to collaborate, to create!

Between laundry loads today, I’ve managed to draw a host of cartoon characters, write a story, and lay out a storyboard. This digital storytelling is hard work, challenging, and fun.

I’m creating my images the old-fashioned way—sort of. I’ve hand-drawn three characters, each with several different facial expressions. I then took a picture of each with my digital camera. I inserted the images into PowerPoint, cropped them, and used the Transparent Picture Tool to get rid of the background (shown in image below right). Some of the pics have a bit of pencil blur the Transparent Tool didn’t remove. Tomorrow, I’ll try copying and pasting them into Paint to see if I can erase the fuzz and sharpen the images.

Stay tuned I’ll be posting it here—with instructions for you all to go to SlideShare and vote for my slideshow! I’ll leave you with a first draft (a very rough one) of the opening slide.

Today, I spent nearly an hour learning to draw cartoon faces. I raided my son’s room, grabbed his big container of colored pencils, one of his sketch pads, and a how-to book, by Steve Barr, from his library. I made myself a steaming hot cup of coffee and crawled into the middle of my bed, sketch pad in hand, markers strewn around me. I was amazed at the range of emotions a few lines can portray. I’m fairly satisfied with my progress: hair is a bit problematic for me. I plan to check out some graphic novels tomorrow for inspiration. 

I’ve been exploring the concept of creating visually powerful presentations, abandoning templates and bullet-driven slideshows (see my recent post for more details). Many of my favorite presentations use simple hand-drawn illustrations–many without hair! I’m working on one myself–hence the drawing lesson.

Looking for more inspiration, I began surfing Slideshare and found a stunning beauty of simplicity created by my presentation design hero, Scott Schwertly at Ethos3 . Scott ranks up there with Dan Pink: their creativity amazes and inspires me.

I also discovered Slideshare is sponsoring a design contest; cast your votes or capture some with an entry of your own.  Check out Scott’s beauty below:

Wesley Fryer  has published another winner: a 14.5 minute video defining what it means to be literate in the 21st Century and urging schools to take action NOW. He gives practical, specific advice and admonishes educators to have their students practicing the 3 C’s: communication, collaboration, creation.

For my own local 21clc  team, I think we all need to watch this video and ask ourselves how we can bring change to BHS NOW. Working together, I’m confident we can make a real difference.

• How can we get laptops in the hands of every student? Textbooks generally cost upwards of $50 per student. Could some of this money be diverted for laptops? Can we find and write a grant? Can we involve the community to raise funds?
• How can we create lessons/projects that get our students communicating and collaborating–NOW–with a global audience? Can we use Skype (it’s FREE and easy!) to connect our students with global voices? Could we encourage our students to locate and contact others, to invite them into the classroom using Web 2.0 tools?
• How can we create lessons/projects that have our students creating authentic products that require students to use higher levels of thinking? Can our 21clc team begin designing project-based units to use with our students? Can we, as a faculty, set do-able goals–begin designing project-based units–perhaps one a semester (or quarter?), working with teachers within our department and with teachers of other departments? Could we do some of this work in after school faculty meetings? Could we collaborate together asynchronously on a wiki? Can we learn from the successes and failures of other schools (like Chris Lehmann’s Science Leadership Academy[Lehmann's blog]) to help us forge our own path?

I’ve embedded the video below.

Imagine having nearly all your high school’s AP test scores thrown out-scores canceled-because of a few cheating students. The Orange Country Register reports Trabuco Hills High School is living such a nightmare: 608 exams have been canceled by ETS because of “staff violations and violations of security protocols.”  Ouch. Academic integrity still matters. A lot.

Wes Fryer has created a video for his local school board, attempting to persuade the board to take action to have his school address the problem of not preparing students for the digital demands of the 21st Century.

It speaks to many of the same action steps we at BHS need to be taking. Fortunately, I don’t think we have the same culture of fear Fryer speaks of, rather our leaders want to forge forward to create a richer technology infusion in our schools. But, we’ve a long way to go. I can envision the day when are students are–on a daily basis–using digital tools to connect and collaborate with learners and experts around the globe.

The video is 17 minutes. Watch it. Please. All our local leaders need to watch it. All our teachers need to watch it.

Then, we need to put our heads together to figure out a way–no matter how tight the budget may be–to bring the ideas he discusses to OUR school.

In absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia.                                     - Author Unknown

The ability to convert ideas to things is the secret to outward success.                                            - Henry Ward Beecher

While NECC 2008 is still fresh, I wanted to set personal goals. What actions, as a result of my experiences at NECC, will I now take?

I came away from the conference with many ideas, conversations, and connections, but, I think it’s important for me to try to focus on a few key areas and force myself to pen action items; otherwise, I might drown in the ocean of ideas, or tread incessantly, or continue to navigate never setting sail.

So, here are areas I want to focus on personally:

     Visual Literacy

• Read the books I’ve ordered (see previous post for list) to deepen my understanding of what visual literacy in the 21^st Century entails.
• Design lesson/project for my students that includes their exploration of the basics of visual design, their application of the principles, and their understanding of why it is an important life skill. I’m not sure where in the curriculum this belongs, but I know it needs to come early so that they can apply this learning throughout the year.
• Create lesson to explore Creative Commons and how to cite photos or any sources responsibly.

     Digital Storytelling

• Design-as part of my narrative writing unit-a digital storytelling project.
• Create a slideshow as a model for my students: As Daniel Pink  (in Johnny Bunko) uses storytelling to explain a concept, I want to use storytelling (via a slideshow) to explain a reading strategy, making connections. I’m certain I’m no Daniel Pink, but I’m giving it–creativity–a shot.
• Continue to research digital storytelling, compiling a list of resources and supplemental materials for my students and for other teachers.

     Project-Based Learning

• Re-read Understanding by Design (maybe order the latest edition).
• Create at least four (one each quarter) fully developed units for my students this year.
• Develop resources for the 21clc team as we explore the concept.

       Ed Tech Leader

• Find and write a grant in collaboration with the 21clc team.
• Continue to work with the 21clc team and plan for expansion next year.
• Create an English Department website in collaboration with the English Department (maybe a wiki, blog, or Google site)

Notice, there is no mention of specific digital tools. One of the most important principles NECC reinforced for me is educational technology is not about teaching tech tools: it is about teaching content and skills using the most appropriate tools to maximize teaching and learning, about teaching kids how to find, to select, to evaluate tools to take charge of their own learning.

Hopefully, next summer, I’ll be re-reading this list, satisfied with my progress.