Backchanneling Basics #12 - Activities part 2

I know that in my last blog post, I promised that this time I would write about how some other teachers are using backchannels, but I've had a neat experience with one of my classes I just need to write about. I will return to the topic of other uses of a backchannel just as soon as I can get to it: hopefully next week but perhaps not until school has let out in two weeks.

I came into a situation about a week ago when about one-third of a class was not prepared for our scheduled Socratic Seminar, so I had to alter my plans slightly but very quickly. I decided to just involve all of my students in the backchannel discussion I had planned, and since I had already set up a CoverItLive session for the activity, I decided to just to go that route rather than changing to a more open  backchannel platform at the last second.

I came at this with the premise of having a silent discussion with the kids, but most times when I run a silent discussion, I use Chatzy. I post a question and the responses can just fly. I don't have to moderate, and I can just watch how things develop. Since I had the CoverItLive session all ready to go, I needed to stick with that platform, and it struck me to try this alternative form of the silent discussion.

I got all the kids that were ready to participate in to the session and posted my first question. These students had backchanneled with me before, so they were used to the software and the process. Here's how I changed things up: I told the students to go ahead and answer the question posted but that they wouldn't see any of the answers for at least 5 minutes. At that point in time, I would post (after screening) all of the answers to the questions, giving the students time to read all the responses that had been generated. I then asked this follow-up question: "Reactions? What do you think of the above posts? Anybody screwed up? Anybody really hit the nail on the head? Thinking anything new?" I also schooled the kids on the Twitter style of directing a message at a specific classmate, and boy, did I get some interesting follow-up discussion as students challenged and questioned as well as reinforced and praised their peer's thinking. It was a good, solid discussion.

And I had to ask really deep questions as well because the process was taking longer than a normal Seminar with all the reaction discussion that was happening. I was forced to choose my questions more carefully and ask about what I really wanted to see if the kids were getting from the novel. You know, the time was well worth it though. My slower processing kids had time to gather their thoughts and didn't have to worry about who was going to get to answer the question first. What a wonderful way to differentiate instruction!

The kids seemed to love the new format, but just don't take my word for it. Click on the following links below to see both the two discussions and the feedback I solicited after the first of the two Seminars.

Links:

Of Mice and Men CoverItLive Discussions (links to my class wiki)

Feedback after 1st Discussion

Backchanneling Basics #11 - Activities part 1

What kinds of activities can you run with a backchannel? In this week's post, I'll speak exclusively to the ideas I've come across within my building. Up next, I'll talk about the ideas others have come across for using a backchannel in the classroom.

One way a backchannel  can be used is as another layer during a Socratic Seminar. I found, especially with my larger classes, that I could only effectively engage 10-15 students (an inner-circle) in a Seminar and really gauge whether or not they read a novel or other work. In a normal class, that often left me with another 10-15 students (an outer-circle) who were left with a strictly listening activity. I could have the outer-circle take notes on what was being said, but that didn't allow them to interact with the text. However, with a backchannel in place, the outer-circle could now react to what the inner-circle was saying, ask questions of each other, and from time to time even discuss their own question independent of the inner-circle. This got ALL the students in my class involved and thinking about the chapters or text assigned. One aspect of this I personally found to be cool was when I could then take a discussion from the outer-circle and pose the question to the inner-circle to see what they thought of the issue that had come up.

Another use of a backchannel  is for a totally silent discussion. Again, this is a discussion based on something the kids had read, and often times, if I have a really good question, there is only one question posed to the students at the start of the teaching period; otherwise, they guide the discussion, answering the core question as well as posing off-shoot questions for the remainder of the class period.

Finally, I know that teachers have started to run backchannels during movies they show in class. I had personally given up showing students movies and videos a number of years ago because of the difficulty in finding an engaging and meaning activity for the viewing. With a backchannel, the students can ask questions about the movie or video that is confusing to them. Sometimes I answer the question; other times, the students answer each other's questions. The backchannel can also be used to garner student feedback, check for understanding, or preview a difficult or important concept. While I'm still not a huge fan of showing video clips in class, they are at least a more meaningful and engaging affair now that I have the ability to run a backchannel.

Backchanneling Basics #10 - Skype

Believe it or not, Skype is a valid choice as a tool to use as a backchannel. While many people think of it for its ability to make person-to-person calls using the Internet, there's also an excellent chat room feature that  lends itself to backchannels.

One of the biggest upsides of using Skype is that the moderator of the backchannel invites all participants into the chat from a list of "contacts" that he or she has, so this method of running a backchannel is pretty safe; however, once in the chat, participants can then invite others in, which takes away a little of the security that is there. Cost is another big positive: it's free to use Skype. Also, there are no adds, so there aren't the worries about students being exposed to something questionable. 

The biggest downsides? All participants in the chat must have an account with Skype and special software needs installed on every computer the students will be using. Additionally, there is no moderation of the posts at all. 

Other considerations are as follows. The entire chat is accessible to all participants as long as they don't leave the chat at the end of the discussion, so they can always come back to the history to review the points covered. If a student leaves one computer, not choosing to leave the chat forever, and then logs in on another, then the chat window should pop up for further participation or for a review activity. Since Skype is a stand-alone piece of software, there are no browser dependency issues to think about. Finally, before trying to run Skype, you probably need to make sure there are no filtering issues on your network and that students can run it on their machines with their level of clearance.

As I've been working on this series of blog posts on backchanneling, I've become aware of a number of potential tools for running a backchannel, but I haven't yet had a chance to test any of those out. In the future, as I've had a chance to work with some of those tools, I may return to this tool discussion.

I'll be back next week with another installment  in the series as I move away from the tools and look at other issues that might be critical to teachers.

Backchanneling Basics #9 - Backnoise & Chatterous

In past posts, I've covered Chatzy (both free and paid versions), Chatmaker, and Cover It Live. This week I will talk about both Backnoise and Chatterous.

Both services are, like most other chat services reviewed, free to both organizers and users as well as ad-free. In both cases, it is possible to embed the chat rooms on to your own web page, or you can send participants to a specific URL for access. There is no moderation available for the discussion as well; participants can post what they want when they want. Also, it is not required for participants to register to be a part of a chat, which of course makes it a great choice for classroom use but also means students have to be put on an honor system to create a real and appropriate user name for the discussion. Both services are also fairly private and secure for their users. Finally, browser support seems pretty broad for both services.

On the flip side, there are a few subtle differences between the two services. At Backnoise, anyone can start a chat at the drop of a hat; if you want to run a chat via Chatterous, then you have to plan ahead and set up an account with that service. Both services do allow for a record of a chat to be saved (up to 10 KB at Backnoise, unlimited at Chatterous), but there's a unique twist on this over at Backnoise (and unique to only Backnoise from everything I've seen): a feature called Buzzkill. The buzzkill feature gives any chat participant the ability to delete the entire contents of the chat at any point in time. I'm not sure that is a feature we want to be putting in the hands of our students. Finally, Chatterous, unlike Backnoise, does allow for rooms to be password protected if they are set to private, which affords an extra layer of security for teachers looking for that feature.

Next week will round out my survey of possible backchannel services when I take a look at Skype.

Backchanneling Basics #8 - Chatmaker

Chatmaker.net is another free option for setting up a backchannel in your classroom. In their FAQ's, they even specifically mention "teachers to operate an online classroom with their students" (see this link). And while free is a good option and Chatmaker is incredibly easy to set up (there is NO registration of any kind for the moderator), there a few things that prevent it from being a go-to app for me.

First, I have concerns about the ads. Most of the ads are dating or sexual in nature, which is not something I think most of us want to be exposing our students to. Next, it is unknown how much of a chat is saved for later reference. I'm not sure if you loose chat history as soon as it scrolls off the screen or if everything is saved. Further, on the surface, there is no way to save the chat history (excepting perhaps copying and pasting the entire chat).

There are also two other unknowns as well with the service. I'm not sure if anyone has the ability to delete the content or not. From my tests and experiences in the room, there doesn't seem to be, but I'm not positive. How many simultaneous users can there be? Again, I'm not sure. When trying to access help from within the chat as I tried to research these questions, a new window pops open, but nothing ever loads. I get the same response in both Safari and Firefox. Neither do the FAQs address these issues.

On the bright side, participants are invited to the chat via a URL, so you could simply provide a link off of your teacher web page. Also, that means that only folks with the URL will be able to access the chat, so that does keep your kids safe, private and secure. The fact that both Safari and Firefox are supported is another great asset to Chatmaker as is the ability to have more than one room set up at a time (each room simply has its own URL).

Back on the downside, no user password is required, so there is that lack of an extra layer of security. Users do not have to register either, which, like with many services, could allow for impersonation within the room. Finally, this is an unmoderated room, so any of the participants could post anything without first having it vetted.

So, there's Chatmaker for you. In many ways, it seems like a lot of the other services. I have two or three more services coming in the next weeks, so you know as much about what is out there as you can before you make a decision about a direction to go.

Backchanneling Basics #4 - Relevance Continued

This week I'd like to continue talking about the educational relevance of backchanneling. In addition to the coaching idea I wrote about toward the end of last week's post (students answering each other's questions and explaining difficult concepts), I'd like to talk about the other educationally relevant uses of backchannels.

Besides having students interact with each other during a content presentation, a teacher might use a backchannel to have students comment on something they are watching and make connections to what they already know. Questions could be posed to the students to see if they are understanding content in the intended way. Students could be given a heads-up ("This is going to be important!") about some aspect of the material about to be presented, so they are mentally focused on it and not caught by surprise.

On the flip side of the coin, a student can pose a question in the middle of the presentation and get an almost immediate answer to the question from his or her peers or the teacher. In this use, students can get their thinking straight and don't have to wait for the teacher to pause (which might often be much later in class) to get their questions answered. In this use, the students might not loose understanding of all the content that follows the confusing aspect they had a question about.

To round out this week, I wanted to share some other articles I located on backchannel use. Some show it in a positive light, as I see it, while some take a look at the downsides of the process. See the following links for some additional reading, and decide for yourself where you stand.

Backchannels and Mythbusting - Digital Natives Blog
Ira Socol Brings the Backchannel Forward
The Laptop and the Lecture: The Effects of Multitasking in Learning Environments
The Myth of Multitasking
Back Channel Use? : eLearning Technology

Backchanneling Basics #3 - Educational Relevance

Last week, I wrote about and advocated the reasons for backchanneling in school. This week, I want to take this a step further and talk about the educational relevance of backchannels.

Many of us have probably attended educational conferences where backchannels have been running during keynotes, individual sessions, etc. In this setting, the backchannel serves a number of purposes: it's a written record of the session, it's a place where participants can ask questions about the session content, and it's a place where participants can offer their insights into the content. I know that I end up with a deeper understanding of the content from participating in a backchannel during conference sessions.

One of my feeds this week delivered a post that addresses this issue of backchanneling at conferences. Although the title of the article is "How to Present While People are Twittering," many of the same benefits I've mentioned above are addressed in the post too. You might want to check it out.

OK, so backchanneling at conferences is one thing, but what about in the classroom? In my last post, I addressed the issues of student voice and increasing class participation, so I think that is part of the educational relevance. But what else is there that is a benefit? If we as educators find benefits from interacting with a presentation and participants at a conference, why wouldn't students benefit from interacting with each other during a classroom presentation. Let's face it, it is hard to explain something so that every single kid gets it on the first explanation. Why not allow the students to explain the concept to each other in a backchannel? The students who get the concept can help those who don't and in the process of explaining the concept deepen their own understanding. Of course, there is a written record of the backchannel that the teacher should review to make sure the student's thinking doesn't need corrected or adjusted. Students should never be left entirely on their own nor should the backchannel become a replacement for good teaching. The backchannel should merely be a supplement to good teaching.

How else can backchannels be used in educationally relevant ways? Next week, I'll continue this discussion, talking about some of the educationally relevant ways I think backchannels can benefit students.

Backchanneling Basics #2 - Why Backchannel?

Why backchannel? The reasons are twofold: giving quiet, shy students a voice and increasing student participation.

Reaching the quiet, shy students was the reason that first brought me to backchanneling. Throughout my teaching career, I've encountered a number of students like this, and on the rare occasion I was able to break the ice, the student often had unique insights and interesting ways of looking at things. With the right vehicle, I suspected that more students might be reached and given a voice.

Increasing student participation was a benefit that I didn't consider until AFTER I'd found a backchanneling vehicle. For a number of years I had been a proponent of using Socratic Seminars in the teaching of my English class, especially literature. But to really judge whether a student knew the work being discussed, they had to be given a chance to contribute. With that in mind, my seminars had often ben limited to half my class, so about 15 students directly participating. What did I do with the other half? They listened and summarized the discussion going on, awaiting their turn the next time to be the active participant. (I did keep one seat open in the discussion group for guest participants, but again, that was only one spot shared among up to 15 students.) I've since learned that this use is often referred to as the Fishbowl Technique.

As I've implemented backchanneling, my hopes have been realized as I've used it. The first time I ran a backchannel, I witnessed 100 percent class participation with all students jumping in multiple times, and I've seen that happen many times since then. I saw students, some who had only rarely participate in class offer interesting perspectives. These kids earned additional respect from their classmates for their insights and were often looked to for their thinking in future discussions, both traditional and backchannel.

Backchanneling Basics

The series of posts under the title Backchanneling Basics will overview and discuss various aspects of backchanneling. From definitions to product options to uses in the classroom, I'll try to cover a different aspect of backchanneling each week. Hope you find some use here, and if you have any questions, leave a comment and I will get back to you or address your question in a future post.

If they had asked me...

If I went down to EduCon 2.1 a day early to check out what was happening in the English classes at SLA. Zac Chase's class started with this journal prompt: "If they asked me, I could have told them..." The genesis for the rest had been rolling around in my head for awhile, so here is the result.

*****

If they asked me, I could have told them the best laid lesson plans don't always go the way one expects, especially when technology is involved. At any given moment, the network will crash, and the glorious lesson plan you had ready to go will suddenly be useless. I could have told them to always have a back-up plan for the event of when (not if) the network will crash. I could have told them that the site you checked out yesterday will inevitably be blocked today, so have a back-up plan. I could have told them that network protocols are constantly being changed, so always check to see if your access is still present. I could have told them that what works on the teacher's computer might not work the same on the students' computers, so always try the activity on those machines before going live. If they had only asked me...

CoverItLive in the Classroom

I got a chance to test out another chat room like utility tool this past week: it was CoverItLive. CoverItLive is considered a live blogging tool. However, recently, an option has been added to embed HTML code on any kind website. I had an activity I wanted to run with my level two English class. (I've blogged about my experiences with them before here and here.) I've been using Chatzy.com with my Advanced Placement class, which is an un-moderated solution. However, I had particular concerns about opening up an un-moderated chat room for any kind of post to go up with this group. So, when I heard that one of the technology coaches in my district had played with the ability to embed this tool on a wiki, I decided to go ahead and give the moderated CoverItLive a go for a chat room like activity.

I was wrapping up my project on The Crucible and had a movie that takes a CSI type approach to looking at how science might explain the events that happened in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. I wanted to have the kids watch this movie. However, I did not want them to be passive participants in the activity. That is and has been one of my complaints about showing movies in the classroom. So I set up the chat room using CoverItLive and introduced the students to what I wanted them to do, what they could write about, and what were acceptable posts in the chat room.

We started watching the documentary, and the comments started to fly. I did receive a number of different comments that were not at all appropriate, but as a result of the moderated piece to the puzzle, I was able to keep all of the inappropriate and off color comments out of the chat room. (Additionally, moderators have the ability to privately message participants, so I used this function to warn students and try to guide them to more appropriate contributions.) This increased the quality of the discussion.

What was cool was the kids could pose questions they had about what they were watching, and they could answer each other's questions as well. We had quite a discussion in the room as you can see from some of the sample posts I've included below.
At the end of the activity, it was incredibly apparent that kids had enjoyed themselves. In fact, having a couple extra minutes at the end of class, I asked them to let tell me what their comments were on the activity, and here, at the left, are some of those comments I received.

I would highly recommend the CoverItLive moderated discussion room feature for any educator who wants to increase the conversations between students in the classroom but who has concerns about what might be said or shared that might not necessarily be appropriate for public consumption. It takes a lot of energy and focus on the instructor's part to moderate a chat room such as this, but the benefits, as can be seen from my kids' comments, greatly outweigh, in my opinion, any negatives.

Collaborative Work Groups

I ran an interesting activity in class the other day. It started and evolved around this question: Why do students have to work independently on projects? I got to wondering that the other morning as I was getting ready for school. So, I thought, what the heck? Why not let them work on a routinely independent project collaboratively? It was a research based project, and what the kids needed to do was to find some information in three different areas to get them thinking about a novel we were about to start reading.

Typically, I would have had the kids research, finding facts related to the issues. Each fact had to be found in and corroborated by two different sources before it could be posted for the public or classmates to see. This time, though, I let them work in a group. Each group selected its own group leader, and once they started finding facts that answered the questions that I had posed, they were allowed to turn to their teammates and ask them to help them find the corroborating evidence.

The activity worked pretty smoothly, especially with one of the two groups I had going in the classroom. I heard them talking to each other, sharing facts and ideas they had found which they thought were relevant to the questions I had posed. Then, other students were quickly going on different search engines, logging on to our library resources, and visiting other websites to see if they could find that same piece of information listed someplace else. All the while, the project manager was keeping track of all the bibliographic entries and making sure that each piece of information posted to our SKRBL board had two citations to go with it.

Of course, the interactions going on in the activity were higher than when I had the students work on the activity independently. It was really incredible to hear their interactions, to listen to their teamwork, to see their teamwork and to see the results of what they came up with. In addition, the activity mirrored, to a slight extent, a project team like the students might have to work on when they begin the next phase of their life after high school.

Student Voice & the future

Just finished participating in a video conference that came about as a direct result of my involvement in Classrooms for the Future (CFF). Our district was asked by the state of Pennsylvania, and specifically Holly Jobe, to share our findings and insights with a group of educators in the San Joaquin Valley, California, interested in bringing technology into their classrooms, and it was a really interesting experience. Our team decided to have on hand not only technicians, not only our CFF coaches, and not only our administrative team but also a classroom teacher, myself, and a student to the conference, and the student had a big impact on the tone of the conference. It reminded me a lot of Educon 2.0 when students voiced the role of technology in their lives and how it was affecting them in the classroom. Jessica, the student I had with me, very dynamically illustrated to the folks in California the impact the technology had on her as well as very much impressing our state level friends who organized this video conference. (She was congratulated by all the members of the group and personally thanked by Holly at the end!) It turns out California wants to mimic what we're doing with Classrooms For the Future.

The message I want to get out to anybody that might be reading this blog is this: as we continued talking about classrooms of the future, 21st century education, classrooms 2.0, schools 2.0, and students 2.0, we have to remember to bring the students into the discussion. They are dynamic and will be critical at convincing reluctant staff members and education personnel that there is a need for change in the 21st century.

Don't take too much for granted

I had a bit of a let down with one of my classes here a few weeks back. It was early in the new semester, which for us means that we get all new classes on the flavor of block scheduling we operate on. With this class in particular, I'd been working hard to establish a good rapport and get these students to buy in to the approach I wanted to use in class. In fact, I blogged about this class a couple posts back. I'd gotten pretty comfortable with these students and felt I was starting to make some progress with them. So, when it came time to do an activity using SKRBL, I left a bit too much unsaid.

I introduced the activity to the kids, gave them the directions, and sent them off to work. I was on my feet a good chunk of the period, as I'd anticipated, helping kids get on the right browser and log on to the site. As things progressed either our network connection or Skrbl's ground to a halt, and the automatic updates ceased reflecting on my computer, which was also projecting on the main screen.

So, much later in the period when I finally got to a computer that was able to pull a refresh on the page, I was shocked to see a post that referenced someone having a large anatomical part. Without announcing the specific post, I asked what it was all about and calmly expressed my dissatisfaction to the class. I told the kids that I knew it had been one of them that had posted it, and I was disappointed that one of the other students had taken the initiative to take it down. I reminded the students they were a network of sorts and should have been looking out for each other. Well, until things settled down and the service returned to normal, the post in question was gone and no one had owned up to doing it. I was at least grateful for that.

What's the lesson to be learned here? Never take a class's goodwill for granted. Before using any tool, a teacher must remember to make expectations for appropriate use and behavior clear to the students. That way, use guidelines are clear in the students' minds going in to the activity. Additionally, it's an element of teaching good digital citizenship: teaching the students to behave in positive and meaningful ways in all situations they are in on the web.

Professional Development that Works

Did you ever wonder what a good model of professional development might look like? Well, I just had one today. This professional development activity is called Cadre, and it's sponsored by my school district. It's facilitated by Paul, a great guy from Apple Computer.

Paul started out today by asking what we wanted to know about Web 2.0, and we knew just enough to be dangerous when he threw out that term. Minutes later, we had a graphic organizer of about 20 different topics we had heard something about.

We narrowed those 20 topics we have generated into 6 focus areas. Then Paul divided us into groups based on our main area of interest. He then gave us the next hour and a half to just explore that web 2.0 concept or tool and propose potential uses for it in education. It was really a good chance for people who were interested in something they had heard about to dig deeper into that topic.

After lunch, we all presented what we have found. We explored Twitter and Pownce; We explored Moodles, Blogs, and Wikis; We explored and created Skrbls. We explored del.icio.us. Friends (Brandon, Elisha, Ann and Mike) tweeted in to help me demonstrate Twitter and the power it has as a network. I learned about a number of modules within Moodle that might address some needs in my classroom as a one stop location, including discussion sections, chat sections, and places to post other content.

As the afternoon wore on, the student became the teacher when I clued Paul in to Jott and how to use it, which he in turn shared with the group, and by the end of the day, many people in the room had signed up for Jott accounts and were already using it to send themselves and others notes. And in the middle of the session, Kristin ran a test session of CoverItLive, which the group got to see unfold.

By the end of the day, everyone had come away with something new to use in either their classroom, and in some cases, people had new personal tools too.

Why was this a good model of professional development? It allowed teachers interested in transforming their classrooms and engaging their students time to explore something they might not have had time to otherwise. The gears were definitely turning all day long as this group of teachers took ownership of their own learning for a day.

My Network

Putting a request out to my network is like turning on the Bat Signal.

OK. I'm dating myself here a little bit, but back in the 1970's when Gotham city needed Batman (aka Bruce Wayne, aka Adam West...yes, that Batman), all they had to do was turn on their trusty Bat Signal, and help came running. I'd been trying to describe what happened when I needed an outside perspective earlier this week. and for me, it was like turning on the Bat Signal.

I had been thinking about one of my English classes a lot this week, especially in light of some discussions I was a part of at EduCon this past weekend, worrying that the honeymoon period was ending. So, I turned to my networks. To my virtual network, I twittered this question:

"Thespian70: Network: What do you think? Would it work to go to a low level English class, juniors, American Literature and ask, 'What do you need from this class?"

Followed up by: "Some are college bound and some are work bound...very mixed bunch."

At the same time, I turned to my real network. I walked up the hall to talk with Kristie and Wes. The advice started to swoop in like a bat:

• lorisheldon @Thespian70 Don't know that age/ability group well, but would not hurt to ask, kids tend to take more ownership when involved in dec. making
• chrischampion @Thespian70 Or "Here's what we HAVE to do.... how do you want to do it?"
• CohenD @Thespian70 - your approach is exactly what one of my colleagues does with her juniors - open the semester with negotiations, contracts

From my building network, I received similar sentiments including some insights on individual students and thoughts on the approach I was thinking about. I even had one person eager to know how it worked out.

So, I ventured into class and sat the kids down for a talk. I'd looked at the curriculum and had broken it down into thirds: three main skills/areas I had to address during junior English. Then, the brainstorming began. My responses weren't all that surprising, and everyone will be able to satisfy their needs with some activities I had in mind plus I'm going to let them design some of their own activities. They've been really excited thus far when I've let them do that.

My Bat Signal on Tuesday really helped me think through a situation I was struggling with on a number of levels, and because of all the encouragement I received, I've ventured down a path I wouldn't have a few years ago. Thanks network! I'll turn the signal off for now.

Reflecting on EduCon2.0

I'm exhausted. So why am I blogging right now? If you've been following me on Twitter at all this weekend, you'll know I just got home from Philadelphia, PA, and EduCon 2.0, and I just want to share my initial reflections on this experience.

There's a lot of things going through my head as I think about the last two days. The one, my biggest single take away from the weekend is that I have to always remember that whatever I do in the classroom, it's got to be for the best and the betterment of the students. I mean that I need to make sure that everything I do in the classroom has meaning and purpose and is going to make the students better citizen. I try to always keep that in the forefront of my mind as I plan, but it's always valuable to be challenged to re-evaluate where you've been and where you are going.

Another remarkable thing about this weekend was that every single conversation I was part of, no matter where it took place or what session it was in, always came back to the issue of learning networks. Not necessarily social networks but learning networks. Who are you going to network with to better your education, to better your learning, to continue to be a lifelong learner. This question was raised with teachers to answer for themselves, and teachers were challenged to ask themselves how they could assist their students in learning to do this. What can you do?

I'm sure I'll have more to say as I look over my notes and digest everything that I was exposed to. There's so much running through my head right now, but I need some more time (and sleep) to reflect.

Best of the Web

Vicki Davis (aka Cool Cat Teacher) put up a blog on the Best of the Web on November 9, encouraging edubloggers to share with newcomers to Web 2.0 the tools we find most useful. Although I've blogged about a couple of these rather recently, here are my contributions to BestoftheWeb, the tag we've all been encouraged to use so folks can track down these tools.

Twitter: Aside from my week at Keystone Technology Institute this past summer, Twitter has done the most to expand my knowledge of Web2.0 technologies and led me to a number people who have given me ideas about how to effectively and meaningfully use these technologies in the classroom. On top of that, I've stayed in touch with a number of people from KTI, like minded individuals who have the same goals as I do: getting today's students ready to function effectively in tomorrow's world. My professional development will never be the same.

skrbl: An on-line interactive white board. I've used this a number of different ways in my classroom, but my favorite activity is an author study. (I need to blog about this, and will do so soon.) Any time you've got an activity you want the kids to collaborate on and want each kid making a contribution, this is the way to go. I find the site to be responsive (it shows new adds very quickly), and it has been able to support 22 participants at the same time so far. I keep trying to think of new ways to add this tool in my classroom.

Voice Threads: Post pictures and have either vocal or typed commentary added to the picture. My kids used this to document a trip Morpheus Fortuna took to Harrisburg, PA. Still looking for a way to consistently use this in the classroom. I know it's out there; it just hasn't come to me yet.

I'm sure there's more if I think about it, and I may blog more about some of the Best again soon. Stay tuned!

The Need for Human Contact

My building has definitely gone through an infusion of technology in the last eight months thanks to a grant provide by the state of Pennsylvania. With the grant came a series of on-line courses group under the header of the emBedded learning academy. The English and Math teachers in out building, recipients of round one of the Classrooms for the Future Grant, were required to take the first course last spring. The course is basically designed to get teachers thinking like 21st Century educators, and part of that is to get teachers out of their classrooms and interacting with the other members of their department for the advancement of teaching or the benefit of students.

With this thinking in mind, Julie, a member of my English department, proposed a professional development opportunity where teachers would get together to identify areas of student need. Once a need was identified, we would brainstorm possible approaches to the problem and all agree to try some of the approaches before our next meeting. The administration loved the idea, and with their blessing, a group was born. So, with that premise in mind, we got together a couple dozen teachers, Julie started a wikispace to be a record of our idea generating and results, and we got the teachers together. I thought our first meeting went incredibly well, and in the time we were together, we identified the first need we wanted to focus on and swapped some initial ideas for dealing with that need.

After the meeting, I was surprised to hear from one of the teachers that the gathering was a complete waste of time. "Why do we have to get together for a face-to-face meeting when we have the wiki?" Wow. I was completely blown away, and here I am two weeks later still grappling with this.

Why wouldn't teachers want to get out of their classroom and have collegial exchanges with other like minded individuals? Why wouldn't we want to have some human contact in a world where people sometimes allow technology to further isolate them? I mean, I look around my building and teachers have further withdrawn into their classrooms, feeling overwhelmed by everything new that has been thrown at them and the expectations that have come with it. When I do get a chance to talk with them, we get to talk about what we are doing and share some great ideas. Shouldn't this be the norm rather than the exception?

Since my ed-tech immersion started this past summer, I've acquired a number of online contacts; in fact, many of us who attended a conference together learned about Twitter there and stay in touch that way. That hasn't stopped us from trying to get together thought. A few of us met in a location central to all of us not too long ago and had a great get-together. We chatted not only about ed-tech issues but also about life, current events, and managing it all when feeling deluged. We got to see that we were all feeling the same way and able to share some ideas for getting along. On-line, the conversation might never have been that deep, and personally, I wouldn't trade those four hours for anything.

So, to close this blog-post out, I encourage all educators out there to maintain personal contacts with others in your community. The technology is great and can take us and our students to a plethora of new places, but get out and talk with people face-to-face. See and feel their struggle. Show your empathy. Share some ideas. Be a part of their support structure and find your own. We need human contact.

My week with Morpheus

Last summer at Keystone Technology Institute, a friend of mine (Brandon) came up with this idea for a stuffed animal to travel the United States, visiting classrooms and learning new things as he went. The animal's travels and learning would be documented using numerous Web 2.0 technologies and be accessible to any class with an Internet connection. Some of us immediately recognized that this was a 21st Century version of Flat Stanley. A few short weeks later, Morpheus Fortuna was born.

Partly to support Brandon and partly to get my students thinking globally, I signed up to host Morpheus. I'd been thinking of all kinds of things the students could do with him ever since the drive home from KTI. However, as the date of Morpheus' arrival drew closer, I began to feel a degree of trepidation. Would the kids respond? Would they think it was cheesy? Would they even voluntarily sign up for a project?

I'd briefly mentioned Morpheus to the class during the second or third week of school, and the response had been tepid. That wasn't doing wonders for stress level. There had been a glimmer of hope two weeks later when the kids asked, "when's that turtle coming?" So, here I was on the eve of Morpheus' arrival wondering if my decision to host was a monumental mistake or not. The day Morpheus was to arrive, I surveyed the kids to gauge interest levels in what they wanted to do. No whining, no complaining, just 100% response. OK, I was feeling a bit better, but not so much so that I wasn't wide awake thinking about the project for two and a half hours the night before I kicked it off in class.

Kick off day was upon me, and I have to say things went much better than I expected. My big group formed themselves into sub-groups after I'd thrown out some ideas, and all of a sudden I had a science aspect to the project, groups that wanted to deal with the history of Harrisburg, and a group that wanted to do something with high school life. I even had stories being written featuring Morpheus and someone willing to become the voice of Morpheus on his blog site! The next three days were an incredible ride: the kids were trying new things, pushing boundaries, and getting excited about what they could share with the other classes.

I guess I was worried about nothing, but as Brandon told me when I updated him on what was going on, "You must have sold it to the kids." I guess I must have. My students exceeded my wildest expectations once I set a vision and let them run with it. Lesson learned: don't doubt that they can do it; believe they can!