My Squirrelly View of Education

I don’t know about you, but I am continually amazed at our world of instant collaboration and communication. The tool doesn’t seem to matter, be it Twitter, Facebook, or Skype. What matters are the people. Over the last couple of years I have had the opportunity to meet online hundreds of dynamic educators who willing share their knowledge and support.

When I began my teaching career in the late 1970s/early1980s, collaboration and support from colleagues was limited. Mostly, we relied on the veteran teachers in our buildings to guide us. If we wanted to try something new and different, building colleagues would often respond negatively saying, “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.” These comments kept getting repeated even when something wasn’t working in the classroom; the inhabitants of the staff lounge wouldn’t admit to it, or they’d tell you to keep plugging away because it would get better. Today the faces of the denizens of the lounge may have changed, but the old, tired and worn-out ideas continue to be repeated.

In order to learn new ideas, we were limited to three options: take a class at a local university, attend conferences, or read current books and journals. While each of these had value, they were missing the vital component of ongoing professional support, those real relationships with other teachers. Occasionally, at a conference or in a class, I’d meet and make brief, often fleeting, acquaintance with other teachers. We’d attend sessions together, share phone numbers and addresses promising to stay in contact. Somehow those opportunities never panned out. Those letters never got written and phone calls were never made.

However, we now live in an age where we can establish meaningful, ongoing professional relationships with educators across great distances very easily. The Internet has allowed us to form Professional/Personal Learning Communities (PLCs) that talk to each other daily and immediately with little or no monetary expense.

So where did I find these amazing people that now make up my PLC? It all started on Twitter.

Like a lot people, I didn’t see the point of Twitter. Why would I care what people ate for breakfast? It wasn’t until I attended a mini conference that I began to get the idea. Leslie Fisher, a featured presenter at technology conferences, showed us how she used Twitter. What stuck me at the time was that I could instantly communicate with colleagues on the other side of the room or on the other side of the world. How amazing. My first posts, I must admit, were more like the notes passed between kids in class. It took me awhile to figure out that following celebrities was a huge waste of time. I probably would have missed the opportunity of Twitter if I hadn’t started following my county’s tech guy, Jim Dornberg (@jdornberg). I explored his list of followers, added some of them to my list, and then sat back an watched for a few days. I started noticing his interaction with Ira Socol (@irasocol), a Ph.D. candidate at Michigan State. Very few posts were personal. They contained links to resources, solutions to classroom problems, or they were part of a in-depth discussion of an issue related to education. I was amazed to find deep thinkers on this supposedly frivolous network.

Then I had my first revelation: Twitter was about the people you choose to follow. Carefully, at first, I started following those who shared my interests and those who actively used this service. My second revelation came quickly: Twitter was about sharing your knowledge with others. So I jumped right in and asked and answered questions. I noticed that the more I participated, the more other interesting people started to follow me. Through our conversations, I began to build relationships and friendships.

At some point I realized that this growing group of people were becoming my “go-to” guys if I had problems in my classroom. If I needed help with Assistive Technology for one of my Special Education students, I consulted @irasocol. If I needed someone to get me to try something different, I listened intently to @linda704, a Literacy Coach from East Detroit Public Schools. Nowhere in my district was I able to receive this much support. As I watched my Twitter feed, I gathered and bookmarked the newest and often the best links to articles and tools that I could use. How I wished Twitter had been there when I first started teaching. At this point, Twitter was all about what it could do for me.

My move to collaboration happened one morning when @tidertechie, a teacher from Louisiana, asked for help with a handicapped student in her class. I responded with some quick resources I had bookmarked and suggestions of others she could ask for help. From there I began to see myself as someone who could collaborate with colleagues, a major change in how had I viewed myself professionally. I now believed that I had something to offer. This change in attitude opened many professional options.

It was through my Twitter network that I learned about the first season of The Ed Tech Classroom Podcast hosted by Burt Lo and Joe Wood. Originating from California, this podcast began as a series of ongoing discussions between friends about the challenges of integrating technology into a real classroom. This podcast resonated with me and quickly became a favorite. I began to visit their blog and comment on the show. To my surprise, they mentioned me during one of the episodes. Then, one night while I was on Facebook, I started chatting with Burt about using technology as a learning accommodation for special education students. Evidently, this was something that he knew very little about and he asked me to be a guest on their show. I tried to convince him that there were more knowledgeable people, but he insisted that they wanted a “real” classroom teacher. I agreed, and our cross-country collaboration began.

During a follow-up conversation on Facebook, I mentioned that if they ever needed someone to fill in or be a cub reporter, I’d be interested. Shortly thereafter Burt invited me to be the third co-host for the second season. Joe and Burt encouraged me to take a chance and present at professional conference (which I did this past March at the Michigan Reading Association Conference). We continually challenge each other with different ideas and suggest books that we have read. It has become the most fun thing I do professionally, and I miss it when we don’t record regularly.

This past year, using the connections I had made on Twitter, we invited Troy Hicks, author of The Digital Writing Workshop, and his wife Sara Beauchamp-Hicks to be guests. (Troy is the director of the Chippewa River Writing Project and Sara has her roots in the Upper Peninsula Writing Project.) While we had invited them on to discuss Troy’s book, the conversation quickly moved to the National Writing Project and what an outstanding professional opportunity it was. By the end of the podcast both Joe and I were ready to sign on the dotted line. We applied to our local sites and we were both accepted as fellows for this year’s Summer Invitational Institute.

Throughout the Institute, I have been expanding my online network by using Twitter to connect fellows from a number of other National Writing Project sites. They have quickly become valued colleagues as we compare notes, share ideas, and laugh at the high jinx occurring at other sites. All of this tweeting caught the notice of Paul Oh, a NWP Program Associate from Oakland, CA. On his blog he wrote about how much he was gaining from all of the tweets. Paul Allison, Tech Liaison for the New York City Writing Project, caught wind of this and devoted an episode of his “Teachers Teaching Teachers” weekly Ed Tech Talk Channel podcast to it featuring Paul Oh and some of the people he mentioned in his blog post as guests. Clearly, Twitter is creating and strengthening relationships and encouraging collaboration between colleagues across great distances.

Twice during this Institute, I have been able to reach to both coasts to collaborate. Joe Wood graciously agreed to “Skype” in from the Area 3 Writing Project during my demonstration lesson to discuss how he uses Google Docs to collaborate in position as a technology coach for the San Juan Unified Schools near Sacramento, CA. His guest appearance helped me show my cohort another tool for their technology arsenal. Later on in the institute, I was asked by Damien Baxerica (@damian613), a school psychologist from New Jersey, to “Skype” in to a district professional development workshop in New Jersey to talk about using Skype in the classroom. Both of these helped strengthen connections with my network.

As I sat talking with Doug Baker, Eastern Michigan Writing Project Co-director, it became clear to me that without the relationships I have made through technology and the ever expanding world of social media, I would not be here, nor would I be able to face the challenging upcoming school year with any kind of hope.

Even with the ease of communication and the availability of these tools, most teachers fail to take advantage of these opportunities for ideas, resources and support. Just think about how much more you could enrich your professional life if you participated and collaborated in one online professional community.

In my pre-web 2.0 world Professional Development (PD) could be basically be broken down into three categories:

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• Local Professional Development:

A boring sage-on-the-stage, supposedly “inspirational,” district inservice. My main accomplishment was getting lots of papers graded.

• Countywide Professional Development Day:

More conference like. Some years great, some years terrible. I got many papers graded.

• Conferences:

If I wanted to go, I’d have to pay my own way. Also, time away from class not necessarily approved if district didn’t think attendance “fit” with their PD plan.

None of these had much impact on what went on in my classroom. Sadly, I lost interest in gaining inspiration and new ideas for my teaching. I began to do just what my administrator and the state told me to do. My teaching suffered. I couldn’t wait to retire, but I still have 12 years to go. I was becoming the type of teacher that I despised. My love of teaching waned. I learned the technology and programs the school said I hadto and figured out ways to use these for my personal benefit, but that was it.

I became more and more frustrated with the politics of education. NCLB and the State of Michigan no longer seemed to care about anything other than test scores. They had lost the focus on the student. Flexibility gone. Creativity gone. Teach the “programmed” curriculum. My learning disabled students were left to struggle through curriculum that was (and still is) not appropriate for them. I locked myself away from other teachers to avoid the politics. I just wanted to be left alone in my classroom. I was suffering from burn out. I knew something had to change or I might as well quit and go do else.

Then a miracle occurred. I discovered iTunes, podcasts, and Wesley Fryer. I started listening to Wes’s Moving at the Speed of Creativity podcasts. As soon as I began listening, my world began to change. Wes inspired

Image by Wesley Fryer via Flickr

me to do more. He inspired me to start using technology as something other than a replacement for the typewriter. I began to think and care again. Ideas started sprouting. I began to figure out what I needed to do to become the teacher I wanted to be. The joy of teaching returned. (I hope Wes understands how much he’s improved my teaching and my life. Thanks Wes. Okay, enough with the fangirl stuff.)

I began to seek out more and more resources. I took charge of by PD for the first time in my almost 30 years in education.

I started using my twice a day 40 minute commute to learn from a number of wonderful educators. I’ve become so addicted to my PD in my car. I actually missed commuting over the Christmas break. I just wanted time alone in my car to learn. It has been a long time since I wanted to learn new things. (When I become passionate about something I develop an obsession-like focus. I must master whatever I am doing. It’s been years since that focus was my teaching. Now if the Special Ed paperwork would go away, my world would be idyllic.)

I started signing up for PD opportunities that were offered through the Monroe County Intermediate School District (MCISD), signing up for just about anything that Jim Dornberg presented. He mentioned this 23 Things class to me and I quickly signed up. I didn’t need the carrot of 20 PD hours, but is was a very nice bonus. I just wanted to know more!

This year when the Countywide PD Program arrived in my inbox, I quickly chose to attend Leslie Fisher’s gadgets session. (I’ve always loved gadgets.) In that session she formally introduced me to Twitter and the Professional Learning Community (PLC) that thrives there. I was hooked. During that session, I met Cheryl Lykowski (on Twitter she’s @clykowski) another Monroe County educator and I began to follow her. I also stared following Jim (@jdornberg on Twitter). From there my PLC has exploded. Twitter is an amazing resource to help locate some of the best resources on the web.

So this is my new definition of professional development:

Web 2.0 PD is a personal, flexible way to invigorate both teaching and learning. The learner controls what is learned, when it’s learned, and where it’s learned.

This definition is what I have adopted as my personal philosophy for my own, ongoing PD.

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(What follows is part of the Thing 22 assignment. This stuff didn’t really fit the the rest of the post.)

The main disadvantage is that there is so much material available that it can be difficult to locate and determine the most effective personal development plan. Carefully selecting your colleagues for your PLC is probably the best way to go about this.

As for future PD Offerings: I would love see another class like this offered through the ISD. I found it very helpful. The only thing I would change is to allow the end date to be more open ended. A few of the people taking this class dropped out because they ran out of time. Maybe this could be an continually ongoing PD opportunity.

Also I would think that offerings on each of these and other specific web 2.0 topics (Jim – like those on your Google Doc), would be another way to go. I would love an entire day devoted to face-to-face web 2.0 networking would be great.

Bringing Wesley Fryer in for the Countywide Inservice would be fantastic.

Now on to Thing 23

For Thing 20 we had to embed a gcast podcast into our blogs.  Topic of podcast is: The Top 5 Ways You Can Use Podcasting in Your Classroom. This podcast is really rough. My cell phone’s battery was dying. I apologize that this is not up to broadcast quality.


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One day I decided began exploring iTunes

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when I discovered podcasts. Wow! I couldn’t believe all of the free content available.  There was, and still is, a wide variety of categories of audio podcasts.  So, I started listening to

NPR‘s humorous current events quiz show Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me on my computer. I was hooked.  I quickly decided that I needed an Mp3 player so that I could listen to podcasts while commuting 40 minutes twice a day. Being married to my cheap, i mean frugal, husband, I wanted to spend as little as possible so I searched and eventually settled on a 2 gig Creative Zen Stone Plus. So far it has worked better than I expected.

This fall I began started looking for more variety in my podcasts.  I started to explore and listen to a number of different educational podcast.  As I began listening to Wes Fryer’s Moving at the Speed of Creativity podcast, I began to get excited about educational technology and teaching again.  Podcasts have become my primary means of Professional Development! Since then I have sampled many different podcasts, and I have a created a page on this blog that lists and reviews podcasts,

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I have already begun using podcasts of PRI‘s This American Life and NPR’s Driveway Moments podcasts to illustrate different genres.  I also used audiobook podcasts of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and other short stories to support my struggling learning disabled readers.  I encourage students to covert all of their written work to spoken text using SpokenText.net to help them edit and revise their written work. This has really improved the revision process.

I have created a few of my own to help my students. I used Audacity to make an audio recording of The Crucible. My students thought it was neat that I was reading The Crucible to them through the computer.  At the end of last semester I used the same technology to record audio versions of the reading selections on the end of trimester Common Assessments that we use as final exams. This really helped to these learning disabled students.

The only problems I have encountered so far have involved technology. First, Audacity is a bit complicated and I need to become more proficient in its use. The second problem involves having access to enough Mp3 players/computers  with headphones/earbuds so that students can listen to the podcasts individually.  I solved the earbuds problem when I discovered that Walmart sold Maxwell earbuds for $1.50 a pair. I bought all that the Canton and Monroe, Mi stores had.  I hope they’ve restocked!

Of all of the web2.0 tools I’ve explored in this class, developing a wiki has taken the most time.  But before I ramble about my experience, like any good English student, I will answer the three questions that Jim Dornberg posed

The main difference between a wiki and a blog is in the way the posts are listed.  Blogs list posts in reverse chronological order (the most recent post is at the top of the page.)  Wiki pages are static. This means that the order of the information presented doesn’t change unless the author deliberately moves it. While wikis and blogs are both great tools, their different organization and editing styles means that they lend themselves to different tasks.

Blogs are perfect for journaling tasks. Each author makes a dated entry on a given topic.  Professional blogs may include research and links but the thoughts of the author are the primary focus. Likewise, student blogs are focused on the student’s thoughts and how he/she expresses them.  They are also a good place to have students practice giving constructive comments/feedback on other writers’ work.  Along with journaling and commenting, I like to include “net etiquette” lessons. I do this through modeling (students see my comments) and direct instruction. Finally, blogs, as anything else driven by time, are fleeting. As more posts and comment are added, earlier posts disappear farther and farther into the background.

Wikis lend themselves to the to more permanent projects. I use my class wiki to post assignments, directions, and information that students will continue to need throughout a term.  Wikis can also be used for class projects. Rather than have a group project end with a presentation and pieces of paper which only teacher will read, student groups can post what they learned on a wiki page and others from around the world can benefit from what they learned and build from there.  With wikis there is no need for student groups to continually gather the same information about a topic. Once it is posted, the next group can find different information to add to the sum of knowledge already created.  Groups no longer need to be limited to one class. Students from a number of classes studying the same thing can collaborate on the same topic.

As with anything new, having students develop a wiki takes some practice. You have to watch closely for plagiarism to make sure all material has proper attribution and does not violate and licenses. This is especially true with images gathered from the web.  This is a good opportunity to teach about copyrights and Creative Commons licenses.  Also, you need to monitor what is being posted and edited. It helps that the students know that you can and do view the revision history for each page.  For this reason it is important that each student have an unique login so that it is clear who is posting what. Accountability is key to quality work. Individual student accounts are why I like pbwiki so much.

Now, before I selected a host for my wiki I played around with wikispaces and pbwiki. I found that I preferred  the look and ease of use of pbwiki. They offered an free upgrade just by completing some tasks for them.  Pbwiki allows a teacher to create classroom accounts for those students without email addresses. It also allows me to set individual access permissions for each page. This way I can set up a page for each student  that only that student and I can view and edit.  This comes in handy when I need to list all of the missing work for a given student.  I can upload media and other resources so that they can be easily accessed. I haven’t uploaded any podcasts yet but that is in my plans.