I recently heard Judy Willis (of “syn-naps” fame) speak at a conference.  In her pre-teaching life, she was a neurologist and she brings her knowledge to the classroom and to her lectures.  (See my recently published article in Teacher Magazine, “My Brilliant Second-Career”).  Willis mentioned that she had just gotten back from Dubai where her charge was to teach new teaching program students about brain development and how it relates to education.

Questions she tackled with these candidates were:

How do children and adolescents learn?

What actually happens in the brain in order to hear and retain information?

What are proven strategies that help information to become embedded into long-term memory?

(...)
Read the rest of Starting from scratch in teacher training (169 words)

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That’s a little of what my relationship is like with my new Interactive Whiteboard.

I wouldn’t give it up for the world.  I have come to depend on the tools it provides me.  I love it.

But I am consistently re-calibrating, re-starting, re-booting, and it so far won’t read the kids remotes.  I have come to intimately know the board representative.  We have each other’s cell phone numbers and my husband is starting to raise an eyebrow.  I have also had tremendous support from our Director of Technology and the few other district pilot teachers.   

But the bottom line is that the board has become a daily joy even while I have daily frustrations.  And like that puppy that you automatically fall in love with because of the joy it brings you the minute it comes into your room, I am going to do everything I can to make it work.

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Post tags: blog, collaboration, computers, critical thinking, curriculum design, curriculum development, data, Ed Tech, education, ELA, integration, interactive whiteboards, internet literacy, k-12, k12, Title I, TLN, Writers Project, writing

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I’m not sure what one can say about this latest story.  AP reports that a number of students at a St Louis middle school are facing suspension for a spirit day gone awry.  But how “Hug a Friend Day” de-evolved into “Hit a Jew Day” is beyond me.  (...)
Read the rest of “Hit a Jew” Day. Um, er… (785 words)

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I deeply believe that unless we as educators take ourselves out of the boxes of lessons that made up our own educational backgrounds, and learn the technology that will be our current students’ futures, then we are not preparing them as we should.  Our job is to prepare them for the “real world,” and that world is different than the one we grew up in.  For that reason, I jumped into the uncomfortable deep end, where I not only learned to swim, I grew gills.

Teaching with technology has enriched my Language Arts program and has allowed me to do something that we all should do sometime in our career: create an elective (see Step IV in my “How to Take Control of Your Teaching” post).  

My podcasting class is an offshoot of my Speech and Debate team.  It has exploded as a standards-based, broadcasting network that is entirely student written, performed, produced, and publicized.  

As always, at any tech ed conference, I look forward to seeing the other sessions as well.  Hopefully, I may even see some of you there too.

Long Live CUE!

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Post tags: CUE, Ed Tech, education, ilc, innovative learning conference, integration, k-12, san jose

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THE EXCITEMENT GRAPH(...)
Read the rest of The Excitement Graph: Plot and Word Choice (443 words)

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Post tags: 2008, achievement gap, assessments, blog, book review, classroom library, critical thinking, Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development, description, differentiation, Ed Tech, education, ELA, essay, fundraising, integration, k-12, k12, Language Arts, middle school, new teachers, peer teaching, professional development, tween, Writers Project

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]]> http://tweenteacher.com/2008/10/02/the-excitement-graph-plot-and-word-choice/feed/ 3 http://tweenteacher.com/2008/09/05/find-the-fibfirst-day-activity/ http://tweenteacher.com/2008/09/05/find-the-fibfirst-day-activity/#comments Fri, 05 Sep 2008 22:41:24 +0000 heather http://tweenteacher.com/?p=131 I learned a version of this activity from Erick Gordon this summer at the UCI institute. Basically, it’s a get-to-know activity where the students get to learn a little about me and then learn a little about each other. It also becomes a very easy springboard for teaching Narrative and Memoir.

First I shared a list of 11 statements about myself. Embedded in the list is one fib. The kids read the statements out loud and then I have kids volunteer guesses as to which is the fib. They also have to justify why they feel it’s the fib.

With each one they chose that is an actual fact, I do a quick one-minute oral narrative about that fact that makes them wanting more. When they hit the fib, well, then I do a little soapbox number.

Here was my list:

1. My father is the 1969 World Champion Jeopardy player.

2. I was kicked out of Brownies in 4^th grade.

3. When I was a child, I was a model on The Price is Right.

4. When I was 14 I went to Greece and dropped my coolest pair of sunglasses into a well of frogs.

5. My dad created Capt. Jack Sparrow.

6. When I studied at Oxford University in England, I ended up having an emergency appendectomy.

7. My husband and I met in 2^nd grade.

8. I am a certified OpenWater II scuba diver who goes diving with her mom.

9. When I was in school, I was a straight A student.

10. I once worked at a guest ranch, working in the stables, leading the kiddie rides across the Arizona desert.

11. One weekend, I was so bored that I went skydiving just to do something new.

Can you guess the fib? Answer: # 9. Yes, it’s true. I was NOT a straight A student. In fact, I didn’t find a joy in learning or in school until the occasional high school class or college class when I could actual point to classes I was actually interested in.

In other words, I not only didn’t have a passion in or for school, but I also remember what I didn’t like or understand. As a teacher, my recollections add to my ability to reach out to a diversity of learners. As a teacher, my willingness to share myself, my strengths, and my foibles adds to my ability to reach them as well.

Then I had the kids develop 4 truths and a fib.  They partnered up and tried to guess each other’s fibs, giving little verbal narratives about each truth.  Afterwards, their partners had to circle the story they would like to hear more about.  We did a real quick review of sensory details and I modeled creating a bulleted list of details from one of the truths.  The one I modeled was # 11.  So here’s what I wrote:

*a free-fall out of a plane feels like you’re lying on a table.  That’s how much pressure there is on your body.

*the plan ride up was so loud, we couldn’t hear each other yell our words across the aisle.

*When you jump, the only real idea of speed you have is the fact that the plane is getting smaller so quickly.  When you level out, your hands flap, but the horizon stays the same for a long time.  Otherwise, it’s almost like a loud hovering.

*when you pull the cord to let out the parachute, you get an intense wedgie.

*my feet fell asleep which drifting down to the ground

*my mouth was open during free-fall so when I landed, my teeth felt like they were wearing socks.  They were that grimy.

Then the kids created their own bulleted list of sensory details.  It began a potential narrative, should they chose to return to this concrete description brainstorm.

Share yourself, your experiences, and the themes of your life. You are the supplemental material. Share yourself and your students will learn more.

Hope your first day went as well as my own.

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]]> http://tweenteacher.com/2008/09/05/find-the-fibfirst-day-activity/feed/ 3 http://tweenteacher.com/2008/08/24/hurry-up-wait-my-new-interactive-whiteboard-part-ii/ http://tweenteacher.com/2008/08/24/hurry-up-wait-my-new-interactive-whiteboard-part-ii/#comments Sun, 24 Aug 2008 21:30:20 +0000 heather http://tweenteacher.com/?p=124

So, I had my online training.  I met the Whiteboard sales guy in my classroom to discuss where the board is to be mounted.  I talked with my principal to develop an interactive whiteboard presentation during our first staff development in an attempt to drum up excitement amongst the somewhat less-than-tech-enthused staff.  I spent time over my summer developing my own curriculum for the first quarter: pulling out my books, pacing my units, and choosing those individual static lessons that I will expand into Interactive board lessons.  

It wasn’t long, however, that I began to suspect I had wasted my time.  The odor of bullshit was in the air…

 

 (...)
Read the rest of Hurry up & Wait – My New Interactive Whiteboard: Part II (737 words)

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]]> http://tweenteacher.com/2008/08/24/hurry-up-wait-my-new-interactive-whiteboard-part-ii/feed/ 11 http://tweenteacher.com/2008/07/06/joanne-jacobs-commentstop-facilitating-and-start-teaching/ http://tweenteacher.com/2008/07/06/joanne-jacobs-commentstop-facilitating-and-start-teaching/#comments Mon, 07 Jul 2008 04:16:35 +0000 heather http://tweenteacher.com/?p=106 I commented on Joanne Jacobs article, “Stop Facilitating and Start Teaching,” based on Fred Strine’s article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  Strine indicates that more student-centered teaching is somehow less taught and, consequently, less learned.  Jacobs paraphrases that the “’sage on the stage’ is more effective than the ‘guide on the side,’” that students of today lack the discipline that they had in his day, as if handing over the ownership to the class is handing over the reins entirely. (...)
Read the rest of Joanne Jacobs comment:”Stop facilitating and start teaching” (573 words)

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]]> http://tweenteacher.com/2008/07/06/joanne-jacobs-commentstop-facilitating-and-start-teaching/feed/ 5 http://tweenteacher.com/2008/07/02/collaborationblocked-by-a-firewall-near-you/ http://tweenteacher.com/2008/07/02/collaborationblocked-by-a-firewall-near-you/#comments Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:02:15 +0000 heather http://tweenteacher.com/?p=103 You know, sometimes I wonder if I’m not a huge pain in the ass to present for, especially if I love what’s going on.  I’m one of those audience members who has to verbally digest and implement what I am learning as it’s happening.  I have to barble and pop as my Eureka moments are going on, and while it’s amazingly exciting for me, it must be hugely annoying to my presenter.  I was in rare form this morning at the UCI Writers Project, for Doug Fisher, co-author of such works as Language Learners in the English Classroom, was in the house.(...)
Read the rest of Collaboration…Blocked by a Firewall Near You (673 words)

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]]> http://tweenteacher.com/2008/07/02/collaborationblocked-by-a-firewall-near-you/feed/ 5 http://tweenteacher.com/2008/06/21/surely-shakespeare-has-a-sniglet-for-it/ http://tweenteacher.com/2008/06/21/surely-shakespeare-has-a-sniglet-for-it/#comments Sat, 21 Jun 2008 23:02:57 +0000 heather http://tweenteacher.com/?p=88 Remember Rich Hall in HBOs 1980s comedy, Not Necessary the News?  He created sniglets, words that should have been in the dictionary, but weren’t.  For example:

• Foodgitives: The food on one side of a TV dinner tray that escapes to the other side. (Hall 1985a: 31)
• Furnidents: The indentations left in carpet after moving heavy furniture (Hall 1983)
• Sniffleridge: The groove running between the nose and the mouth (Hall 1984: 92). 

Well, today I’m asking for help in creating our own.(...)
Read the rest of Surely Shakespeare has a sniglet for it? (322 words)

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]]> http://tweenteacher.com/2008/06/21/surely-shakespeare-has-a-sniglet-for-it/feed/ 2 http://tweenteacher.com/2008/06/21/nclb-how-bout-b-studentslb/ http://tweenteacher.com/2008/06/21/nclb-how-bout-b-studentslb/#comments Sat, 21 Jun 2008 13:14:36 +0000 heather http://tweenteacher.com/?p=87 I’ve been reading a lot of headlines lately about NCLB leaving out the over-achievers and potential leaders in our schools.  Joanne Jacobs mentions it in her article, “What About the Smart Kids?” and the NYTimes and the Common Core blog both have touched on this latest Fordham report that claims that the achievement gap is closing, but from the bottom up.  

Nobody can deny that this is happening, but there is also another symptom of NCLB that has slowly passed like a plague of yore over our schools, the disappearance of electives from the schedules of the middle-ground students.  (...)
Read the rest of NCLB? How ’bout B-studentsLB (354 words)

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]]> http://tweenteacher.com/2008/06/21/nclb-how-bout-b-studentslb/feed/ 0 http://tweenteacher.com/2008/06/19/comment-on-dangerously-irrelevants-ed-tech-quarantine/ http://tweenteacher.com/2008/06/19/comment-on-dangerously-irrelevants-ed-tech-quarantine/#comments Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:01:19 +0000 heather http://tweenteacher.com/?p=86 Sometimes I get a mental check at how new to edublogging I am.  I just discovered Dangerously Irrelevant, can you believe it?  Anyway, I like the guy’s style.  So he just posted an interesting article titled, “Ed Tech Quarantine,” that wonders “whether we technology early adopters need a self-imposed moratorium on talking about new technology tools…”

I’ve been saying something like this for a while.  It is very important for those of us who have discovered the value of technology in education to be very careful in how we pitch our programs and in how we attempt adoption.  We’ve all seen eyes glaze over as we talk Twitter.  We’ve all seen teachers check their watches as we preach about interactive whiteboards.  

I have found, however, that there are ways to speak the language of these more traditional educators.  Keep talking in metaphor.  As I have said before, “Ed Tech is the new Home Ec and Shop,” and NOT teaching technology is preparing students only for OUR future, not THEIRS.

Technology awareness and literacy are not just elite, honors-bound classes anymore.  These are the blue-collar skills of our students’ generation.  So, while I agree with Dangerously Irrelevant’s musings of respect, I still know that we can’t drop the standard entirely.  (And by standard I mean the whole banner-flapping- astride-a-horse-in-an-Errol-Flynn-movie kind of thing.)

I commented on the post as follows:(...)
Read the rest of Comment on Dangerously Irrelevant’s “Ed Tech Quarantine?” (341 words)

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]]> http://tweenteacher.com/2008/06/19/comment-on-dangerously-irrelevants-ed-tech-quarantine/feed/ 3 http://tweenteacher.com/2008/06/08/its-the-end-of-the-internet-as-we-know-it-and-i-feel/ http://tweenteacher.com/2008/06/08/its-the-end-of-the-internet-as-we-know-it-and-i-feel/#comments Sun, 08 Jun 2008 22:36:20 +0000 heather http://tweenteacher.com/?p=75 Check out this kinda frightening prediction from early Time Magazine sources.  It seems that there is an attempt to create blocks of media packages starting as early as 2012 or earlier.  That is, very much like TV cable packaging, the Internet would only be sold in blocks to purchase access much as you would your HBO Basic or Plus packages for cable.  

Just imagine the even wider achievement gap that would occur if schools had to pay for their Internet packages.    

If it’s true, we need to get more media attention on this attempt to stomp out the global communication that we have all come to know, love, and support.  

I can’t say I know a lot about this subject, but it’s definitely worth looking into.  Of course, there’s no way Google’s gonna let this happen, of course.  After all, they’re a juggernaut in the business of universal information access.   

Have you heard any updates on this topic that our Ed Tech community should be aware of?  What steps should we take to ensure that it doesn’t happen?   

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]]> http://tweenteacher.com/2008/06/08/its-the-end-of-the-internet-as-we-know-it-and-i-feel/feed/ 0 http://tweenteacher.com/2008/05/23/dont-knock-the-less-experienced-teacher/ http://tweenteacher.com/2008/05/23/dont-knock-the-less-experienced-teacher/#comments Fri, 23 May 2008 17:41:59 +0000 heather http://tweenteacher.com/?p=58 Look, we all know the statistics.  Many of the hardest-to-teach classes are being taught by the least experienced teachers.  According to Education Week, a study was recently conducted in Philadeliphia evaluating 9th graders, “the make-or-break year for many students on the path to dropping out of school” which found that “students are more likely than their upper-grade peers to be taught by inexperienced, uncertified teachers.” 

While I understand the argument, I also know that these young teachers have an advantage that I will not have years down the line: energy.  

When I was in my early years of teaching in my mid-twenties, I was hired to teach at an inner city school.  It was, in fact, the under-funded alternative school for those students kicked out of the other schools.  We had broken glass in the halls, police tape from the weekend still strewn over the kindergarten yard come Monday, and no textbooks.  A classic Michelle Pfieffer/Hilary Swank/Morgan Freeman movie in the making.  

I actually jumped into the deep end of the pool, and there wasn’t any filter, so there was moss on the top and calcium deposits coming from the cracks in the bottom, but it was there that I learned to swim.  (...)
Read the rest of Don’t Knock the Less Experienced Teacher (952 words)

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]]> http://tweenteacher.com/2008/05/23/dont-knock-the-less-experienced-teacher/feed/ 2 http://tweenteacher.com/2008/05/08/upcoming-conferences/ http://tweenteacher.com/2008/05/08/upcoming-conferences/#comments Fri, 09 May 2008 03:28:23 +0000 heather http://tweenteacher.com/?p=17

I am going to be presenting up in the Bay Area at the FETC/CUE conferencethis fall.  My seminar is called “Podcasting with 50 Middle Schoolers – Are You Crazy?!” Six years ago I went to CUE for the first time on the lower tier of the tech savvy ladder.  There, I was inspired.  

I took what I learned there, left with the fairy dust of “What-if?” and created Bulldog Radio, a student-created, written, performed, edited, produced, published, and publicized radio network.  I say network because the students, in fact, produce 3 different shows: The Daily Bulldog with School News, Globetrotting World News, and Teen Talk.  I am excited to bring my ed tech interests up north.  

Handouts will, of course, be available online at both the CUE website and www.tweenteacher.com.