Padlet to the Rescue

Back in September, some of my classmates gave a presentation on a technology tool called Padlet.  Launching back into our Teaching with Technology was at first daunting for me - the idea of having to teach and learn about a whole new group of technology tools stressed me out.  The thought of it still stresses me out...  This is pretty much how I was feeling on our second day of class going into this presentation on the first of many new tech tools in use in education.  So it would be an understatement to say I was pleasantly surprised to find myself totally into Padlet.  Pretty much ever since that day, when my classmates taught me the nuts and bolts of the tool, I have been using Padlet for all my lesson and unit planning and it has become one of my primary tools for organization.

Padlet is so great for teachers, especially a budding teacher like me who isn't so great staying organized, or at least keeping everything in one place.  I am constantly finding things all over the Internet that I could use for lessons.  It's addicting and gets to the point where I will have 20 tabs open on my computer at one time because I just don't know what to do with it or where to put it all, and the thought of accidentally closing one tab makes me cringe.  I have also been experiencing these epiphanies in the shower where the perfect essential question or big idea for a unit will come to me and just which text to use for it.  And so, what to do with all these floating bits and pieces of lessons?  This is where Padlet comes in.  I can just throw it all right on there.  Webpages, pictures, videos, documents, presentations, notes, whatever.  It's like a digital bulletin board.  I am able to drag everything I want onto this board, and then, what I've found, is that instead of looking like complete chaos, it actually all starts to come together and make more sense, seeing everything at once like that.  And the best part: no more tab anxiety (most of the time).

It was super helpful seeing the various Padlets the presenters created to demonstrate how the tool can be used.  One of the presenters used Padlet to create a historical timeline, while another used it to create a collage of images.  I appreciated seeing their passions and personalities come through in what they designed, which made me think about how mine would look in comparison, according to my own style.  "Oh, well I would do it this way" or "What if I tried this?" kind of thing.  Aside from learning how to use Padlet, the biggest takeaway of this presentation for me was this idea of doing the assignment you are asking your students to do.  I felt more compelled to try out Padlet after seeing that my classmates, who were teaching me about it, had already tried it out and were able to show me how they used it to suit their interests and needs.  I think it says a lot about a teacher if she is able to put herself out there and say, "Hey I did this, and this is how I did it, and this is what's cool about it, and now you can do it too."

Lifelong Learners

Over the past couple days, I've come across the blogs of some really awesome edubloggers.  Exploring the world of edublogging has been pretty mind-blowing for me.  It's like there is this whole underground network of professionals who are doing these amazing things both inside and outside of their classrooms and then talking about it!  All the time!  And I'm like...how do they even have the time?  Really, this network of teaching professionals probably isn't so "underground."  I just had no idea that so many teachers were blogging, and some even being awarded for it.  

Blogging has undoubtedly exponentially increased opportunities for teachers to learn from each other.  I remember having to read an article, a piece of "summer" reading for this program, about the importance of professional development and collaboration with colleagues in the teaching profession.  You really can't be a teacher and not be committed to also being a lifelong learner.  I think this class makes that very transparent.  The sheer number of technology tools available for educational purposes today speaks to the ways in which how we teach and how our students learn is constantly changing.  I see blogging as a tool that serves teachers needs as lifelong learners and collaborative professionals.  

There is evidence of this in the various blogs I have been flipping through lately.  Yesterday, I spent some time reading English teacher Dana Huff's blog.  She has a fascinating post titled "Tales from Writing Workshop," in which she shares stories about her students workshopping their first essay of the school year.  From reading her post, I learned that she uses Google Docs in her classroom as a workshop tool.  She is able to check her students' revision histories to see not only the number of edits a student makes, but the substance of those edits.  As a future English teacher, I think it is so cool that she is able to see so much of her students' writing process.  In this post, she also mentions how some of her students took it upon themselves, without her asking, to make suggested edits on their classmates essays.  To me, that kind of classroom is a true human learning collective.  I am interested in hearing more from her about how she integrates writing workshops into her classroom and so I commented on that post, and in doing so have opened up a conversation among professionals!

I did something similar in response to a post on Nick Provenzano's teaching blog.  Nick recently wrote a post about something called #20 Time that happens at his school.  From what I gathered from reading his post, #20 Time involves students planning individual projects that they will work on for the school year.  He included the list of this year's student project ideas and I was instantly so excited.  The ideas ranged from taking pictures all over Grosse Pointe to capture the high points to writing a musical.  Project-based learning is something I can see working well with my students at TCEC, though I am not sure how I would implement this approach in that setting or any school setting.  I commented on Nick's post asking him about how he implements project-based learning into his classroom.  I am looking forward to his response and learning more about the #20 Time project.               

Left Behind

For most of my time in this program, I have been a major tech skeptic.  Actually, I still am a tech skeptic, but something happened that changed things for me.  I had to complete the "Technology in my Placement Survey" for class.  And really, what the survey uncovered about the available technology and uses for it at my placement school, TCEC, was nothing surprising.  Yet I couldn't help feeling pissed off.  It was this weird combination of being angry and shrugging the whole thing off with laughter at the same time, like it was impossible to even imagine TCEC having laptops or Chrome books, Smartboards or digital cameras.  I was taken aback a bit myself that someone so skeptical of the presence and use of technology in the classroom, such as myself, would have such strong and complicated feelings about the overall lack of technology at TCEC.  

Part of this has to do with the fact that tech talk amongst teachers just doesn't happen.  I have yet to even hear "I don't think technology belongs in the classroom" or "I wish I had ____ in my classroom."  But my reaction also has to do with a discussion I had with my peers about the results of their own "Tech in Placement" surveys.  What struck me most about this conversation was not necessarily the amount of technology or even the quality of technology that is available to most of my classmates at their placements - several people talked about the difficulty simply getting access to the available technology - but the ways in which that technology is being used.  Technology like Chrome books, Google Drive, and even PowerPoint are altering teachers' instruction and giving students entirely new ways of interacting with content and creating knowledge.  Even as a tech skeptic, I still find it fascinating to learn what tech savvy teachers are doing in their classrooms with these resources.   

Then I think about TCEC and my students and what they know how to do with what technology is available to them.  And that's when I cringe.  It is not the technology itself, or even the lack of it, but how it is being used, or rather not used, to support student learning.  There is this ever-widening gap that technology is creating between what my students can do and what students at other schools, where technology is being implemented to enhance learning, can do.  Although there is a computer lab at Tri-County, its availability is limited due to the online education program that requires use of that space most hours of the day.  This is not to say that it is impossible to reserve that space, though my mentor teacher has yet to use the computers for a lesson or activity.  Many of my students do not have access to computers at home and are not proficient at using Microsoft Word or PowerPoint.  Where does this leave them in our technology-reliant world?    

It doesn't matter what kind of technology any school has if it is not being used to support student learning.  Teachers need to know how to do this, to be resourceful with what is available.  Despite students' overall lack of access to technology at home, there is one piece of technology that they admit to not being able to let out of their sight - their cell phones.  To have that thing glued to their thumb pads is intuition.  That cannot be ignored.  I never wanted to admit it before, but students resistance to put their cell phones away for an entire class period is not just going to go away.  We need to take advantage of what we have in ways that will benefit students and for those of us at TCEC cell phones may be the best thing we've got right now.       

Who's reading this?

Recently, I've been reading Jim Burke's The English Teacher's Companion for my methods class.  He 
has a chapter titled "How to Teach So Students Will Learn, Use, Remember - and Enjoy!"  In this chapter, Burke quotes Schmoker who "calls for teachers to focus on a 'coherent curriculum, sound lessons, and meaningful opportunities to read and write."  The last part of this quote really struck me, the whole “meaningful opportunities to read and write.”  It is something so seemingly obvious – that English teachers should provide their students with such opportunities – and yet in the majority of my experiences in high school English classrooms, whether as student or observer, these opportunities have been starkly missing.  As strange as it may sound, opportunities to read and write in class aren’t a regular thing.  Most students in English classes are asked to do almost all of their reading and writing outside of class.  Why?  How are they supposed to become better readers and writers?  Though, it is not just about the number of opportunities, but also how meaningful these opportunities are for students.

Just the night before reading the Burke chapter, we had a guest speaker come to our Teaching with Tech class.  Reading the Burke chapter brought to mind the conversation that was generated last night with our guest, David Theune.  Theune, a high school English teacher, talked about his decision to essentially eliminate the use of rubrics in his classes.  In place, he has forged meaningful ties with both the local community and world at large as audiences for his students.  Every time Theune’s students write, they are writing for an audience, and one that isn’t just him.  Sometimes that audience is a friend or family member, other times it is a local non-profit or younger students in the school district.  Community members are invited into his classroom regularly to hear students read their work and he provides students with opportunities to get out of the classroom and share their work out in the community.  He also facilitates book clubs and community reads that are inclusive of all community members.  In sum, Theune is the man and has nailed Burke’s Ten Elements of Effective Instruction.  In particular, by having his students read and write for specific audiences, Theune makes explicit connections between students’ lives, the real world, and Big Ideas.  He also provides meaningful opportunities for students to practice, perfect, and perform all lessons in class and at home.

Without meaningful opportunities to read and write, without audiences to read or write for, what inspiration is there for students to read and write at all?  What motivation is there for students to produce their best work?  Burke also provides meaningful reading and writing opportunities for his students.  In the case of Burke's classroom, the reading and writing is meaningful less because of the audience and more because of its relevance and use in building toward the most difficult task.  He explicitly teaches them strategies for learning, remembering, and doing, one of his elements of effective instruction.  He models note-taking and has students formulate paragraphs from their notes in class - all in preparation for a final essay.

As is evidenced by Theune's classroom and his educational philosophy, the impact of audiences and meaningful opportunities to read and write extends far beyond his immediate students and has the effect of transforming both school and community climate.  Boundaries are crossed when the community is invited into Theune's classroom and when his students go out into their community.  Rather than co-existing as two separate spaces, the school and the outside community interweave and sustain one another - a symbiotic relationship.  
  

Reflecting on Connections Across Disciplines

Last semester, a project was assigned in which groups of three, from related disciplines, were responsible for devising a lesson plan that takes "Teaching with Technology" topics into consideration, while addressing the Bring Your Own Device initiative which would allow students to bring personal technology into the classroom.  This project was incredibly open-ended, therefore providing us with nearly unlimited freedom to choose the direction we wanted to go in and requiring some creativity.  

Three of my colleagues - Liz, Rachel, B., and Kim, all historians - wrote a lesson plan with the purpose of increasing students' literacy within the domain of historical documents.  As a budding English teacher who worked on my project with two history buffs, I was very interested in comparing my group's lesson plan with theirs, assuming there would be some overlap.  One thing I found interesting, though not too surprising, is that both of our groups chose to address the Common Core Standard to "compare and contrast treatments of the same topic in several primary and secondary sources" in the lesson plans. This is indicative of the importance of and emphasis on developing the ability to work with, analyze, and distinguish between primary and secondary sources in the history discipline. However, the approach my group took was very different from that of our colleagues'. We chose to utilize a specific primary source and one secondary source to allow students the opportunity to think about and form their own opinions about the use of technology in the classroom, particularly in regards to the BYOD initiative. But, as I understand it, Liz, Rachel B., and Kim approached their lesson already coming from the stance that allowing students to bring their own devices creates fruitful learning opportunities. Though, to be honest, it is not very clear in their lesson plan what technology the students would be using to conduct the I-Search on a history topic of their choice. However, it is certainly clear that this group envisioned technology playing a pertinent role in their lesson; whereas our group took a much more skeptical stance. I am not surprised by the connections their group made.

What did strike me as noteworthy about Liz, Rachel B., and Kim's lesson was their use of technology to initiate interactive discussion. I thought the Last Supper clip was a great way to begin class. It is entertaining, capturing the attention of students, and a clear example of the ways historical sources may be skewed to convey a particular message. I think the historical inaccuracy of the clip would be obvious enough to students that they would have a lot to say to each other about the potential pitfalls of a secondary source, getting them motivated, and hopefully excited, to investigate primary and secondary sources on their own. I also liked that this group used a multimedia text, rather than a document, because it demonstrates to students the multitude of forms a secondary source may take.  

Organizing My Online Life

Last week, I discovered a teaching tool called Blendspace.  I got to play around with this integrative online lesson-planning application as part of a class assignment in which I got together with two of my classmates to share and explore the possibilities of three different technologies in the classroom.  So, I came to my group having researched and explored the possibilities of Blendspace.  My classmates had done the same with Google Drive and Evernote, respectively - two technologies I was already familiar with on a basic level, though had never used in the context of classroom learning.  As a technology skeptic, I was hesitant about being told how I could implement certain technologies into my classroom, let alone convincing others that they should consider implementing Blendspace into theirs.  But the experience was a positive one, and I would say I came away from our meeting with a mind more open and aware to the use of technology in the classroom.

Let me just say: this does not mean I am no longer a technology skeptic.  I am still wary of technology and the way it is transforming our world, and I still believe that its presence and role in the classroom should be limited, rather than overwhelming.  However, I am beginning to see the use of technology as a tool for teacher lesson planning and organization.  Google Drive, Evernote, and Blendspace all offer platforms for teachers to compile and organize lesson resources and classroom "paperwork."  I especially like how Blendspace does this: allowing users to login with a Google account (rather than having to create yet another new username and password) and to upload materials from their Google Drive and computers.  These features make it possible to keep nearly everything in one place, which I find especially useful because one of my frustrations with technology is that even though it is supposed to provide a platform for better organization, I tend to find it difficult to manage so many different folders, projects, accounts, tools, etc.

Something all three tools have in common, that I found to be incredibly interesting and indicative of how our education system may be changing, is a focus on collaboration.  Quite possibly the most useful aspect of each of these teaching technologies, certainly the most beneficial aspect of Google Drive, is how easy they make it to share documents, presentations, and resources with other teachers and students.  I hadn't even really thought about it until I started writing this post, but I think this emphasis on collaboration is really saying something about the direction education is heading in.  And despite my suspicions about technology, I do like that it provides the opportunity, especially in our competition-driven society that values out-doing others, for teachers and students alike to share ideas and engage in conversation.

                    

Gamification

I haven't thought much about video games in a while, until today in class when we talked about video games in relation to learning.  I was never much of a video game player myself, though there were a few that fixated me to the point of staring at a computer screen for hours, days, sometimes weeks at a time.  One such series of games was the Her Interactive Nancy Drew Mystery Series.  By the time I got the first game, I had already read the entire Nancy Drew series and was needing something to fulfill my craving for mystery.  Although now I don't consider Nancy Drew to be the most ideal female role model for girls, I do think that it is incredibly important to have video games with female protagonists.  I know one of the main reasons I loved the Nancy Drew games, aside from the fact that I relished mysteries, was that I felt empowered when playing the game, and not just when I solved a mystery, but actually even more so in the process of solving one.  This feeling of empowerment I attribute largely to the fact that I got to be Nancy, a girl detective.

Of course, the Nancy Drew games foster many skills in its players that other similar video games do - critical thinking and problem-solving, for instance.  The game requires its players to search for hard to find clues and make inferences and connections between them.  The game also throws lots of obstacles in Nancy's way that challenge players to think in obscure ways to determine how to go about finding the next clue to solve the mystery.  The tricky clue placement and barriers along the way not only foster  resilience and perseverance, but also a sense of self-confidence in its players.  The game assumes that "Nancy" is quick enough and smart enough to catch on, setting high expectations for its players by its level of difficulty.  In the role of Nancy, who is or becomes a role model for many of the girls who play this game, players begin to develop high expectations for themselves.

Furthermore, the game encourages risk-taking.  Each Nancy Drew game takes place in a different location, each of which involves exploring unfamiliar and dangerous situations.  Additionally, players have the opportunity to interact with other cultures.  There is one particular mystery, one that I have never played, only read about, that takes place in Japan and teaches players about origami, traditional Japanese tea ceremonies, and even how to write Japanese characters.  Several other mysteries take place in historically different time periods, allowing players to learn historical facts in a fun learning atmosphere.  They are learning sometimes without even realizing they are learning.

For all of these reasons, I imagine the Nancy Drew computer game series to be a productive learning tool for students, particularly female students.  As I mentioned, I do not think the traditional Nancy Drew character is the most ideal female role model, for reasons I won't get into right now.  However, I do think it is extremely important to expose girls to video games with smart, capable, and determined female protagonists whose perspective they get to play from.  According to testimony, several girls and women reflecting on what the Nancy Drew mystery games mean to them expressed that through the game they felt like they could be themselves.  Any game that allows one to develop and explore his or her identity is of value to me and my teaching.      

Thoughts about Technology in the Classroom

So it has been a few days now since my Teaching with Technology class and my thoughts have had some time to marinate.  Though, I can't say that I am feeling any better or more hopeful about our changing world and its implications in the classroom.  I hadn't realized what I was getting myself into when I officially signed up to enter into the teaching profession.  Maybe because I hadn't stepped foot into a secondary classroom in over four years, I didn't realize just quite how the surge of technology in our society has already begun to drastically transform classrooms.  Or, it could be because of my content area, English, that I have been so oblivious to these changes.  I would like to think that no matter how digitalized everything is becoming, the English classroom would remain the sacred space I always found it it be - filled with books and notebooks, language and meaning-making, and the smell of freshly-sharpened pencils still lingering from a time when mechanical pencils were non-existant.  Now I am starting to think that, in addition to these other possibilities, I have chosen to remain unaware, to hold onto the nirvana of what my favorite English classrooms have always been for me.

The activity we did in class on Wednesday was revealing of the skill set students need to have to "succeed" as a student today.  I put succeed in quotes because while it is computer-based standardized tests that determine what success is for students today, my version of student success could never be gauged by such means.  My mentor teacher for the summer at Scarlett Middle School, a 7th and 8th grade ELA instructor, broke my heart last week when he told me that he finds his job has become "more about teaching technology and less about English" and that "English these days really isn't about reading books anymore.  It's about learning how to copy and paste links and find credible websites."  The devastation still pains me and seriously makes me question why I am here and what my place is in this profession, which is terrifying because I know that education is where I want and need to be.

So now the question is: how will I come to terms with the fact that the experience of studying English as I envision it for my students is being pushed against by technology?  Truthfully, I am not sure that I ever will be able to come to terms with it.  I cannot accept that English "really isn't about reading books anymore."  I believe students in today's schools need to be reading books more than ever - to empathize, to explore, to understand what it really means to be human, to make sense of ourselves.  I do not like the way our world is evolving and I fear for the future.  My place in the classroom, I think, has to be to hold onto and savor those things - such as reading books and the feeling of intimacy between an individual and a piece of paper upon which they have brought to life with their words - that make us human.  A world in which these experiences are eliminated is a dangerous one.  

Reflecting on Dewey

John Dewey's "Pedagogic Creed" resonated quite deeply with my own beliefs about education.  It is fascinating to me that my I find my own thoughts and educational philosophy to be so in line with those of a man who existed in a time one hundred years before my own - at the brink of the industrial revolution, before cellphones and computers and the explosion of technologies, when women couldn't vote, and anyone who wasn't a white man was considered less than human.  Some of that has changed drastically, though not as much as we would like to think.

Dewey begins his creed with the line "I believe that all education proceeds by the participation of the individual in the social consciousness of the race."  This struck me immediately.  I have never seen or heard anyone use the term social consciousness to describe the process of education, though it is exactly what I believe to be the purpose of education.  Cultivating social consciousness has to be the number one priority of our education system; for if it is not, are we not presenting students with a distorted image of our society and the world at large?  Largely, I do not think I was educated according to Dewey's constructivist philosophy until college, and even then I feel like my participation in the social consciousness of the human race was dependent on what I chose to study.  Had I not studied English and Women's Studies, I do not think I would have developed social consciousness as part of my education.

Dewey's approach to education is student-centered.  His creed is one in which students' real-life experiences are not simply valued, but regarded as necessary and the only meaningful way of educating students.  "To prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself," writes Dewey.  His ideas are compatible with interdisciplinary curriculum, in which students must largely carry on out of their own independent initiative.  I fully agree with him that in order to leverage a child's learning, it absolutely must coincide with that child's interests.  There must be relevance and a sense of immediacy about what the child is learning in school in relation to his or her life outside of school.