Techno Teaching

I attended an awesome featured session at the end of the day on Friday.  It was a very impromptu decision to attend and I did not know what to expect.  When we walked through the doorway and electronic music was playing, bass pounding, I knew I had picked the right session.  I am a huge fan of all different kinds of electronic music and was curious how Gary Abud was going to relate this genre of music to education.  As the presentation went on, his soft mellow voice a contrast to the electronic tracks he was playing, I questioned how I had never seen before how alike electronic DJs and educators are.

Abud's presentation did more than just hold my attention.  It blew my mind.  He compared both the roles of electronic DJs and educators and how the two are generally perceived by society.  Electronic DJS and teachers alike are up against the idea that anyone can do what they can do, that to be a DJ or a teacher you simply have to "press play".  And while that certainly is true of some DJs and some teachers, an effective teacher or a good DJ would never have achieved success if all he or she did was "press play".  Electronic DJs perform live and they produce music.  Teachers do the same thing: they teach (perform live) and produce lessons.  There is a tremendous amount of behind the scenes work that goes on in order to make the live performances of electronic DJs and teachers a success.  During the performance, electronic DJs and teachers must make multiple real time decisions in their heads according to the crowd and overall feeling of the show.  

Abud emphasized the parallels between teaching and DJing, and argued to his audience of educators, "We have something to learn from DJs."  There are two things that DJs do really well, according to Abud: they mix other people's music and they produce their own.  This concept of remixing is one he believes could transform teaching if more teachers and schools were to support this kind of collaboration.  There is this term, co-opetition, that is used to describe a working relationship that is both collaborative and competitive.  Co-opetition involves promoting your own work, while also promoting the work of others - a win-win.  Abud suggests teachers share their lesson plans with each other in the same way that DJs sample each others' music.  "Imagine a world," he said, "in which AWESOME lesson plans went viral the same way that AWESOME electronic tracks do."  

The other thing that teachers can learn from DJs is the art of creating epic experiences.  People don't just go to electronic music shows for the music, but for the overall experience.  "DJs help their audiences know how to move, no matter how familiar they are with the music or how well they can dance," says Abud.  This is an engagement technique that should be mirrored in the classroom.  There is a sense of mutual respect at electronic music shows.  As I know from experience, when someone is feeling the love and feeling the music at a show, they form a heart with their hands and hold it up.  What if that happened in the classroom?  

I am left thinking about how I can create epic experiences in my English classroom, how I can engage my audience of students in the same way that electronic DJs capture their audiences at a show.  I think Abud is right on with this stuff, and as a someone who frequently attends electronic shows and music festivals I can attest to the unbelievable feeling one gets from being at these performances.  How can I get my students to feel that way about English class?  

Using Google Presentation to Complicate Ideas about Heroes

Recently, a laptop cart was unearthed from the dark, mysterious depths of the farthest corner of the media center at my school.  The laptops came out of nowhere; I was shocked, especially because I thought such a find would spark excitement and chatter amongst teachers and fighting to be the first to reach the sign-up sheet.  This wasn't the case.  The only reason I found out about their existence is because I saw one of the security guards pushing the cart around and I inquired about his cargo.   For a school where the only available computer lab houses three rows of slow, outdated, incredibly unreliable computers, a laptop cart filled with a fairly new set of sleek HP computers changes everything (well, maybe...).

I have been struggling to come up a creative and innovative way of using technology in my classroom for the Tech Teach-In.  The discovery of the laptop cart at my school has created a number of possibilities for this lesson that didn't exist before.  It will no longer be a hassle and big ordeal for students to have the chance to use computers, and I am hoping that the internet connection will be much more reliable than students are used to in the computer lab.  The incorporation of technology in the classroom will be much more fluid.  I use Google Presentations frequently to guide and support my lessons, often documenting students' thoughts and questions in the presentation.  I have also had students set up Google accounts themselves, not only to use for the purposes of our class, but also to use professionally.  At the start of the term, one of the first things I had them do was create a slide in  a class Google Presentation about themselves (like Rory had us do in the fall).  This was a lengthy process because most of my students are nowhere near proficient at using computers, let alone navigating Google Drive.  Familiarizing students with Google Drive is one of my primary learning goals for this term, and because we have already spent a decent amount of time setting up their accounts and using Drive for their slides I am thinking that I want to use Google Drive for my technology teach-in.  Though, one other thought that has come up with the laptop cart is to use WordPress to introduce my students to the concept of blogging, particularly as a way for them to stay involved in the reading we do in class.

Within the next two weeks, we will be starting the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.  Prior to reading the novel, I will be introducing the pattern of the hero's journey and students will do some work thinking about the characteristics of heroes and what it means to be one.  I am thinking that I will utilize the practice students have had creating Google Presentation slides about themselves to create a slide about one of their heroes or a slide depicting their idea of a true hero.  Like I asked them to do in the slide they created about themselves, they would describe their idea of a hero using ten words, an image, and a quote that would represent what they think a hero should be.  Students would create the slide after we spend some time discussing and unpacking their initial ideas about heroes.  We will read at least one article that challenges the idea that heroes must be epic and godly, separate from normal men and women.  The presentation slide will be a formative assessment that will serve as evidence of how students' ideas about heroes are beginning to change or become more complicated.  

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.