I was reading through my Digg headlines this weekend, and I happened on this article of the top 10 most extraordinary Twitter updates.  I also did some digging (no pun intended) and found articles that range in claiming that there are anywhere from 4 million to over 14 million current Twitter users.  If true, then Twitter has a greater population that Greece.  Or, if you would rather think in cities, twice as large as London.

So today, my class is going to start Twittering.  I’ve been thinking about using Twitter as a tool for Thinking Aloud for some time now.  I always pictured it on the LCD projector as I taught, entering thoughts as I simultaneously taught, so as to model my own reasoning and processes for my classes.  

I also think it will be a powerful 21st Century (hate that term) tool for them to use to give me a snapshot of what they are thinking.  So I’ve been tackling the issue of how to Twitter online and offline with students.

Here’s what I’m just now deciding on.  You know how you sometimes get your best ideas in the shower or in the rear-view mirror?  Well, I got mine brushing my teeth.  Just a little share for all you readers out there.

Here’s how I’m setting up the unit and how I’m helping to control their safety while creating a transparent and open-door environment in my classroom.(...)
Read the rest of Twitter as Think Aloud (368 words)

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Post tags: Curriculum, curriculum design, Ed Tech, education, ELA, Think Aloud, tween, twitter, UCI, Writers Project, writing

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Post tags: classroom library, Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development, k-12, k12, middle school, theme, TLN, Writers Project, writing

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But why is it that only the worst of the worst appears in the news, as if this level of inappropriateness was a common disease facing education today?

I was corresponding with Teacher Leader Network all-around-awesome-guy John Norton, and we stumbled on an interesting point which relates to this issue of highly publicized educational indecency.  And it kinda got me thinking.

Sure, I’m frustrated by the ease in which the news reports the horrible, inbred cousins of education.  Sure I tire of the publicity behind those YouTube worthy rants, those rare abuses in schools made seemingly frequent, as if they were a chronic problem along with the achievement gap and childhood obesity.

But I feel that we as teachers in the trenches have a duty to battle this poor publicity.

Teachers of yore were quite isolated, closing their door and teaching in their solitary rooms.  Some still do, but the job has changed.  Collaboration has become a key to our survival.  Teaching with transparency and an open-door policy has become necessity, evidence of our ability.  Some of why this is necessary is because test scores and observations have become the go-to way to evaluate a teacher (but that’s for another post).  Another reason is that our challenges and our horrors have become far more public than our glories.

Whose fault is that?  I blame us.(...)
Read the rest of A teacher’s duty? (593 words)

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Post tags: collaboration, Ed Tech, education, education policy, publicity, technology, Title I, TLN, tween, UCI, Writers Project, writing

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There’s been so much talk lately of deep-needed reforms for education, but we neglect just how powerful a simple makeover can be.  I’m lucky to currently work at a school that has a patch of green, which fixes the broken windows and washes off the graffiti when it happens.  But I’ve worked at the schools that smell of urine, at the sites that lay forgotten by funding, yet are still expected to succeed. 

According to What Not to Wear, a makeover does wonders for your confidence, your pride.  According to Extreme Makeover, it can renew your hope in life.(...)
Read the rest of Extreme Makeover: Classroom Edition (248 words)

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Post tags: Ed Tech, ELA, ELD, extreme makeover, fundraising, k-12, k12, middle school, TLN, tween, UCI, Writers Project, writing

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Post tags: CUE, Curriculum, curriculum design, Ed Tech, education, middle school, podcasting, teaching, technology, Title I, Writers Project, writing

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OK, guys.  So I got it from the horse’s mouth at CUE.  According to the ISTE Director of Governmental Affairs, No Child Left Behind is not going away.  

In the weeks leading up to the election, the Obama administration talked the talk, proving that Educational Technology was on their radar, but if you’ve been listening, the silence on Ed Tech has since become deafening.  (...)
Read the rest of How to be an Ed Tech Advocate (515 words)

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Post tags: achievement gap, blog, budget, CUE, Ed Tech, education policy, EETT, equity, ETAN, fundraising, internet literacy, k-12, k12, learning, lobbyist, middle school, NCLB, obama, online, school accountability, school funding, technology, Title I, tween, UCI, writing

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I believe a classroom library is the heartbeat of a teacher’s environment.  It is the window into their own personality, and it reflects the importance of literacy in the classroom.  I believe every teacher, no matter the subject taught, should have one.

 Access to books should be thought about with the same differentiated approach as any other lesson, assessment, or activity.  It seems to me that there are four kinds of library-learners:

1. THE BRASH BIBLIOPHILE:  These are students who are well versed in the language of book choice and seek out what they want, avidly asking questions or using learned or inherent strategies to find the book that will make them sigh into their bed with a flashlight in hand.  They will find their way to their local bookstore by any means necessary, and look through the stacks until their parents pull them away.  

(...)
Read the rest of The Importance of The Classroom Library (923 words)

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Post tags: assessments, blog, book review, classroom library, classroom management, education, ELA, Golden Lines, How To, k-12, k12, Language Arts, learning, middle school, new teachers, school funding, teaching, textbooks, Title I, TLN, tween, UCI, Writers Project, writing

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The Register reports that DARPA (Defense Advance Research Projects Agency) is currently researching how to create robots that are “like some self-aware computer systems capable of “meta-reasoning” and “introspection…”  Their goal is to “Provide machines with an ability to reason about their own reasoning.”

Um, is anybody else seeing the irony of these objectives?  We are funding the creation of synthetic brains that are able to reflect and have insight, yet we are still unwilling as an educational system to support, teach, or assess our children towards these same goals.

Our current student assessment system doesn’t even acknowledge the importance of thinking, but bubbling, on the other hand, ranks really high up there in the skills that students desperately need to know.

The students of today will, theoretically, be the scientists of our future generations; yet they will not have had the cranium training that their garbage disposals will be privy to.  

Perhaps we should just start training our Tech-Com human resistance now.  

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Post tags: curriculum design, curriculum development, ELA, Language Arts, metacognition, Title I, TLN, tween, UCI, Writers Project, writing

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I’m a little frustrated at the message this sends to those of use who have invested in this career.  I mean, I know that we need to recruit new teachers, but a talented person with great ability in their field does not necessarily a good teacher make. Remember, teaching is about two skills that must be mastered: that of content and that of communication.(...)
Read the rest of Am I So Past My Prime? (198 words)

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Post tags: alternative credetials, credential, Ed Tech, ELA, employment, free, fundraising, Language Arts, learning, life long learners, merit pay, middle school, performance pay, teaching, TLN, Writers Project, writing

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A couple of colleagues brought some concerns to my attention and I thought I’d put it out here for some input.  (...)
Read the rest of “I Statements” in Expository Writing (194 words)

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Post tags: curriculum design, curriculum development, Ed Tech, essay, k-12, k12, Language Arts, metacognition, middle school, new teachers, peer teaching, teaching, technology, Title I, TLN, Writers Project, writing

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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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Post tags: 2008, achievement gap, ascd community, blog, collaboration, credential, critical thinking, Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development, integration, metacognition, Title I, TLN, tween, UCI, Writers Project, writing

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So I looked at my 8th grade students’ scores after they took the MMA and sighed.  Their scores sucked.  (...)
Read the rest of Test Prep-Bubbling Power (506 words)

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Post tags: 100% accountability, 2008, achievement gap, assessments, education, k-12, k12, middle school, teaching, test prep, Think Aloud, Title I, TLN, tween, UCI, Writers Project, writing

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Science Daily is reporting that there has been a shift in how students are thinking as a result of their use of technology.  They believe it possibly lowers critical thinking skills and analysis.  Additionally, they wonder just how much schools should be catering to this change.

The important thing to remember is that when we talk about differentiation, we have to include all forms of teaching, from traditional pencil and paper to the use of technology.  But if we were to ignore the evolution that is occurring, that of the transition our brains our making as a result of society’s onslaught of daily technology, we would not be doing our job.

(...)
Read the rest of Is EdTech changing how students think or is it addressing the changes in student thinking? (437 words)

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Post tags: achievement gap, ASCD Brief, assessments, blog, collaboration, critical thinking, Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development, Ed Tech, education, education policy, internet literacy, k-12, k12, Language Arts, life long learners, metacognition, sesame street, teaching, technology, Title I, TLN, tween, UCI, Writers Project, writing

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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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Post tags: achievement gap, assessments, collaboration, critical thinking, curriculum development, differentiation, Ed Tech, education, integration, k-12, k12, metacognition, middle school, standardized testing, Title I, TLN, tween, UCI, writing

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I was reading this great article from Slate Magazine about the cheese that is Billy Joel.  And I thought back to many a car trip singing his “Themes from an Italian Restaurant.”  I also remembered just how many times I’d fast-forwarded through some of his more heavy-handed, political-themed songs set to rapid rhyme scheme.

I’ll even one-up Slate’s insolent trashing of the Piano Man. I’ll go so far as to say I’m not an Elton John fan. 

Don’t freak.  I’m allowed.  Remember, this is my website.

But this got me thinking about opinions, criticism, persuasion, and choice, and their place in the classroom.  

In a collaborative classroom, students are not only given choice, they are given the ability to disagree with grace, with each other, and even with (dare I say) the teacher.

I’m still getting crazy responses to my Breaking Dawn Book review.  I can’t tell you how many comments I’ve deleted with X-rated words or threats.  It’s not that I’m looking over my shoulder, but if the majority of these comments are from tweens, there’s clearly a lesson not being taught to these kids.  How does one disagree appropriately?  Yes, I slammed the book.  But the theme of the post is to Discuss over Censor.  They just couldn’t see it through our disagreement.   

Students should be allowed to choose in a classroom.  It’s a true form of differentiation.  Choice could be given on reading texts, assessments, projects, partnerships, etc…But with choice, also comes opinion, hand-in-hand.  And with opinion comes disagreement.  

This shouldn’t be scary; it should be embraced.  Choice is empowering for a student.  But a teacher must teach how to disagree appropriately, how to criticize appropriately, and how to move on from there.  

It is a new form of pre-teaching.  There are skills involved in teaching Reaching a Consensus.  There are skills involved in Criticism Etiquette.  These are worthwhile – arguably more so than the skills involved in How to Bubble Accurately.  

These are lessons that would not only be reflected in blog comments, but in how our students, as adults, would make choices, form opinions, and have disagreements in the world.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: collaboration, commentary, critical thinking, curriculum design, curriculum development, differentiation, How To, k-12, k12, life long learners, metacognition, technology, Title I, TLN, websites, Writers Project, writing

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Here’s a great metacognitive lesson that integrates poetry.  Or is it a poetry lesson that is metacognitive?  (Shrug)  I believe that good writing and great structure can be taught through mimicking great authors.  Using this philosophy as my guide, my 8th graders mimicked the poetic style of Jay Leeming in “Man Writes Poem,”  a piece first introduced to me at the UCI Writing Project this summer.(...)
Read the rest of Metacognitive Poetry: Writing About Thinking While Writing Lesson (215 words)

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Post tags: assessments, blog, collaboration, common language, critical thinking, Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development, differentiation, Ed Tech, education, education policy, ELA, Language Arts, Title I, tween, UCI, Writers Project, writing

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Post tags: 2008, achievement gap, blog, critical thinking, Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development, Ed Tech, education, How To, k-12, k12, Language Arts, metacognition, middle school, teaching, Title I, TLN, UCI, Writers Project, writing

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I recently watched John Merrow’s interview with Michelle Rhee on the NewsHour.  Michelle seems like a real mixed blessing for education. On one hand, she’s willing to clean house, and education does seriously need it.  On the other hand, however, and much like the sweeping policies of NCLB, she’s a bit of an all-or-nothing authority.  (She’s also known as a Chancellor, which gives me a mental picture of a Lilliputian bearing a sash and gold medal, so sometimes it’s hard to shake the image even while listening to her policies.) (...)
Read the rest of NewsHour with Jim Leher: Michelle Rhee (601 words)

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Post tags: 100% accountability, 2008, achievement gap, assessments, blog, k-12, k12, Language Arts, middle school, NCLB, newshour, obama, rhee, school accountability, school funding, standardized testing, teaching, Title I, TLN, tween, Writers Project, writing

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The Boston Globe is reporting that some students deliberately “shoot themselves in their own foot.”  Some of the reason is that trying hard is frightening.  Now, don’t get all uppity.  Let’s face it; even the most mature of adults may have postponed reaching for their dream out of the effort it might take to reach it or for fear of failure.  (...)
Read the rest of But what if the child does everything in their power to be “left behind?” (400 words)

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Post tags: 100% accountability, 2008, achievement gap, ASCD Brief, ascd community, k-12, k12, metacognition, middle school, MMA, obama, Title I, TLN, Writers Project, writing

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