Monthly Archives: June 2013

At #ISTE13 I Found the One Tool That Will Change Education!

20130627-165630.jpg
On a plane flying home from #iste13. I’m tired, my body hurts (I am reminded why I have a special made bed as well as why you should not do as Taylor Swift says and act 22, especially when you are 32), and my brain is fried. Usually when I leave a conference I have to decompress all I learned. Not this trip. No matter how bad or good a session was or how long I was in the expo all or who I was having a convo with the same thing always kept popping up in my head. The best part, the closing keynote took all of those thoughts and wrapped them in a pretty blue box and put a bow on top.

20130627-165408.jpg

So inside this beautiful package was this: *in movie preview man voice* THE GREATEST EDUCATIONAL DISCOVERY! A TOOL THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR TEACHING! REMEMBER THIS TOOL BECAUSE IT IS ALL YOU NEED! So are you ready to know what that tool was? It is …wait for it… PEOPLE!

Yeah that is pretty simple, huh? People. The number one most important thing in education today is people. Students, teachers, admins, coaches, and even custodians. I know, it is pretty complicated tool. The learning curve can be great at times, like can be larger than the MS Surface but if you use the LOVE operating system it usually has a good tech support.

You see if our biggest focus ever becomes tools (and the way ISTE approves more tools/apps sessions than sessions that cause higher level thinking, opinion making, and problem solving on our part as attendees looks like that is where we are headed) and what’s the newest gadgets, we are going to have some major issues with our future generations. Why even have kids? Maybe we could just make kid robots that use tools. Ok so that was a little extreme and snarky. But it terrifies me to walk through the Expo hall and see adults pushing each other and screaming because they want to win a handheld fan. Like they have those on the dollar aisle at Target. It terrifies me watching teachers sit through hour long lectures listening to marketing majors tell them how their products will transform their classroom. It terrifies me when I talk to people I respect and hear their amazing presentation proposal were turned down to make room for more web 2.0 tools or apps sessions. Maybe that session on metacognition of a particular age group and how to use tech to support that is more important than being able to put a cartoon hat on a photo of a cat.

I know it is a tech conference and the majority of us geek out on this stuff but we cannot lose focus that the reasons to put technology in the hands of teachers and students is to enhanced learning and connect with (wait for it…here is that tool again) PEOPLE. When the OLPC initiative started years ago there was thing that made these stand out, not the games or apps, it was the mesh system. Those not familiar, it allowed the computers to connect to other computers, think walkie-talkie : telephone ratio comparison to mesh : internet. You are close enough to connect to computer B who is close enough to connect to C who connects to D, all can then form a mesh or a net like connection. Anyway back to point, the goal was to connect PEOPLE, more specifically children, in places without internet. Again, it’s that connecting with others that is important.

Technology is just this small medium that allows us to make those connections. I still think using twitter or whatever your choice social media to sit next to the smart kids is only going to enhance your life as well as your learning. So let’s do that as well as teach our students to do that. Meeting people face to face is still important. It is the formation of relationships, it’s the conversations, the push back and disagreements. It’s the coffee shop culture that I’ve written about that pushed Austria to be an intellectual and artistic leader prewar. Most of the strong connections I mde this week were with people I kind of knew online. Some I didn’t even know had a twitter account. But their conversations pushed me to think more than any other session. I seriously missed 4 sessions I planned to go to because I started talking to people. We spent a lot of time sitting at this high top desk that people kept mistaking for an “info” desk. We figured out how to newer almost every questions. My freakish GPS programmed in my brain came in handy. But it started so many awesome conversations!

So my point of all this, before you get excited about that new gadget, ask yourself this, does it put your students or even you first? Does it focus on humans? Does it enhance lives and/or learning or is it cool? The coolest thing about people, we are all different. We AREN’T all gamers no matter what a keynote says, but we are people who have different passions, different needs, different futures. Our job is not to entertain or get their attention or make them good test takers, our job is to be people with people. Show empathy. Show love. Listen. The key to keeping that tool PEOPLE from crashing is just listening and allowing it to operate using those different passions by meeting the needs and preparing them for their futures.

20130627-165740.jpg

The squares are not just for show, each one is a picture of a real and amazing person!

What’s ‘Curriculum’ Got To Do (Got To Do) With It?

Ok so I have started and stopped this post. Usually I start and stop a post because I am beating myself up or being snarky, this time it is just because I have a case of the yips. (Yeah I so went there with that link.) All writing is causing me the yips, writing is not my thing, but I can usually get it out there, not this time. So catch up on me (for those who care, if not skip to next paragraph), school have been out for a couple of weeks now. Ended pretty uneventful yet insanely busy and overwhelming. We did not have workdays at the end of year like we usually do, it was like kids there on Thursday and we ended on Friday. So tech inventory, tech plan stuff, finals for my kids, having tons of kids still coming until last day, going through end of year checklist, and cleaning my room for summer, made for my head spinning in a demonic way. Since then I have been regrouping and preparing for a lot of things. Ok now you are caught up 🙂

Back in April a conversation between coworkers caused me to really start thinking about curriculum vs instruction. Later in May I heard at a conference someone talking about reading, math, and tech coaches. The conversation went to how these positions may someday become just one position, an instructional coach position. My district will be getting many of these positions in the middle school level next year so it had already been on my mind. The question was then asked “How can that happen because curriculums are so different? How can someone with a math background help a reading teacher?” I had to leave that convo then but when I did I left with my answer right on the tip of my tongue. And here it is:

Curriculum has nothing to do with it. No matter what you teach, it is how your teach, how your students are learning, IF your students are learning, can they relate to what you are teaching, is what is important. Who cares if your students can memorize the dates of WWII if they cannot have empathy for the players involved? Does it matter if a kid knows the definition of El Nino if they do not understand how this will effect our weather as well as the coral and sea life? What is more important, facts or problem solving? That is the difference here. No I cannot walk into an 8th grade social studies class and teach them the facts they need, but I can help the teacher find which practices & technologies would reach his students and help them to become empathetic thinkers.

The Alabama state quality teaching standards only have 7, yes 7, that focus on teacher’s knowledge and delivery of the curriculum. While there are over 100 (I think I counted 123? I lost count after a while, made my head hurt) that focus on instruction and how you deliver that curriculum. When you look at the Alabama teacher development continuum only has one indicator that focuses on curriculum, the rest are instructional strategies. I’m not 100% a fan for the common core (or here in Alabama the college readiness) standards, but they do give you large amounts wiggle room to bring that “curriculum” into EVERY classroom no matter the subject. When that happens, it is your instruction that needs to be the focus.

I have a lot of discussions on this over the last week. Some have asked questions that focused on instruction and how to improve and reflect on it using data, etc. While others focused on taking reading or math curriculum and bringing it into all subjects. Which one seems easier and less scary to you? If our instructional practices bring everyday world into our classroom, it makes adding that math or nonfiction reading skills so much easier. I had a principal years ago who always said “Every teacher is a reading teacher.” That may sound a little scary to a math teacher. Maybe it needs to be rephrased. “Every teacher is a teacher, a teacher who is preparing their students for life.” Once you take that approach it makes it less scary and a little easier to swallow. How about ask each teacher “How can you take what you are good at, your curriculum, and teach our students to ___?” Lets look at the How not the What.

Yes, curriculum is important and you really should know everything you can find out about what you are teaching. BUT students also need skills for their future. I am sure that my kids do not remember 3/4 of the facts or topics I gave them though out the year, but I really hope they can look at information and come up with conclusions about it. I blogged this year that I was missing the bottom level of Blooms in my room. Was crushing me because I had these critical thinkers without basic knowledge of facts. Worked those last few months of school to correct that. Took a lot of blending. Took a lot of pushing them to use literacy skills to take information I was giving them and analyze it. We got it. I went from large number of Fs on test to less than 20 (I had 140 kids in my science classes) and actually less than 10 on my benchmark tests. But I did not focus on the curriculum to get there, I focused on the instruction.

Instruction is key. As we prepare for next year, let us make sure that is the focus. Well looks like I have deleted the Yips. Yeah! Looks like I will be back to blogging now!! Have a good summer and I hope to see some of y’all at #ISTE13 and #AETC13!