Time to Unplug

OMG! How did I end up on the Daily Beast?!

Okay, not really. My hair is longer. But those glasses are spot on.

Seriously though, when the sun goes down this evening, it will mark the start of the National Day of Unplugging. And for much as I love technology's ability to connect my students and me with authors, writers, and experts of all varying kinds, an over-reliance on our smartphones, tablets, and all manner of digital devices can have a detrimental effect on our ability to connect in real time.

Dr. Kowal meets with my Public Speaking students in February 2017.

My friend and communications expert Dr. Chris Kowal has done quite a bit of research on this matter. A nonverbal communications scholar, Chris studied people's body positions as they engaged in using their smartphones. The study, conducted at Purdue University, concluded that our curled-up body position when using smartphones leads to stress. In a 2016 article in The Exponent, Chris stated, "...we need to be aware of how we use our smartphones."

And he's not alone in this call for moderation. About this time last year, the American Psychological Association (APA) released a report about American's use of digital technologies and their increasing rates of stress.  According to the report, nearly one-fifth of those surveyed reported that digital technologies were the source of "very or somewhat significant" stress in their daily lives.  Similar surveys have been conducted by Gallup, the Milken Institute, and the Pew Research Center. And there's a growing body of research on cell phone addiction.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love my technology. To be quite honest, I would not be the educator that I am today without the connections that I have fostered in digital spaces like Twitter and Facebook.  Or what about all those fantastic donors who have provided my classroom with books and Chromebooks and cameras through online networks like DonorsChoose and PledgeCents.  And Skype and Google Hangouts/Meet have connected my students with editors, authors, biologists, poets, and fellow students from all around the globe. Technology has transformed my classroom in amazing ways.  However, that said, we all could use a break from that constant connection.

I'm old enough to remember a world prior to cell phones, prior to people being to get in touch with you whenever or wherever you happened to be. In college, I would hop in my car, windows rolled all the way down, radio blaring, and make the hour drive to the Lake Michigan shore. Alone.  If someone needed me, it had to wait until I was back in my dorm room. In a similar sort of way, this is why I have always loved camping, being in the great wide open.  No need for televisions or phones or tablets or laptops when there are so many open spaces to explore. In a world where digital connections are ubiquitous, it is refreshing to be reminded of the real-life connections that we might be missing out when we walk through the world with earbuds in and our faces looking down at little glowing blue screens.

So, take the 24-hour challenge with me. Unplug from your devices for one day. Who knows, maybe you'll find more powerful connections in real-life.  At the very least, unplugging might help us to find a bit of balance in how we are using technology in our daily lives.

Why is This Working?

This is not the first time that I have taught students how to blog.

For many years, I had my tenth-grade students create blogs for their project-based research projects. We connected with writers and with experts on their topics.  Some students spent hours exploring other blogs, using them as mentors for their own writing, making sure their posts were loaded with images and links to entice readers.  But inevitably, this would be the exception and not the rule. Most of their blogs read like mini-essays, each post written in a typical five-paragraph format.

This semester, something has changed.  But I'm not quite sure how or why.

My seniors have started blogging to reflect on their reading of a "banned book." They selected a book of their choice from the American Library Association's list of challenged books. We will spend the month of March digging into issues of censorship and reader's rights. My students are reading everything from Huckleberry Finn to Looking for Alaska, and although they have only just started their blogging adventures, I'm noticing a difference in the depth and the quality of their reflections.

Take for example this morning.  Cheyenne is reading American Psycho.  She came up to my desk and asked, "I want to include lines from my book in my post, but I'm not really sure how.  The writing is much more dense and dark than I expected."  We got to have a conversation about what she thinks might most benefit her readers, and think through the best approach for including lines.  Should she type up a paragraph from the text, blocking out particular words so as not to offend some readers? Or, should she take a picture of a page in the book and simply post it along with her annotations written on the page?

Madeline just asked, "How should I cite this?"  We've been talking about ensuring that we give credit to the original writers and artists.  Students are including specific passages, evidence, images, and links to other news articles and writers.

So why is this blogging experience working out so much better than earlier years? I need to spend more time reflecting on this question, but my initial thought is that this time around I spent much less time instructing students how to set-up our blogs and much more time pointing out what good bloggers do.  We looked at more examples than I had in year's past, and I started the first week by having my students comment on one another's first posts.  In doing so, not only did they receive feedback on their writing, but they also had an opportunity to explore how their peers had designed their online spaces.

In short, I spent less time on instructions and more time on having students get hands-on with writing.

And here's how their looking so far.  We would love your feedback on their blogs!  Simply hover over the images below to access links to my students' blogs.

A New Kind of Resume

Last summer I had the opportunity to participate in the ThingLink Summer Challenge for Educators.  As part of our initial challenge, we were asked to use the ThingLink platform to create a digital portfolio. I linked my many professional learning networks and digital platforms to a a static image.  But I've been thinking lately about the importance of video, of movement and photography. In our weekly video conversations with fellow TED-Ed Innovative Educators (TIEs), we've been reflecting on how video has changed the face of learning in the last few years.  How, where, and when students are learning has substantially changed in the last decade.

So, why shouldn't resumes change? For teachers interested in the intersections of blended learning, video opens up a number of opportunities to share what we, too, have learned.  In particular, platforms like ThingLink (or Touchcast, EdPuzzle, TED Lessons) offer opportunities to make videos interactive.

And so here it is: my interactive resume. I made this using Adobe Spark, WeVideo, and ThingLink.  I'd love to see what others are doing to create interactive teaching resumes. Share yours!

Joining the TED-Ed Family

I'm beyond thrilled! I recently learned that I was one of 30 teachers selected to participate in the second cohort of the TED-Ed Innovative Educator initiative. I'm looking forward to sharing a bit more about the program in the coming weeks, but for now, I wanted to introduce the 29 educators that I'm been connecting and collaborating with in the weeks and months ahead.

Reblogged from the TED-Ed blog.

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Meet the second cohort of TED-Ed Innovative Educators!

By Laura McClure on March 29, 2016 in TED-Ed Innovative Educators

Kenya. India. Australia. These are just three of the 12 countries represented by the second cohort of 30 TED-Ed Innovative Educators. [Learn more about the TED-Ed Innovative Educator program here.] As leaders within TED’s global network of over 250,000 teachers, these innovative educators are dedicated to making the world better for learners everywhere by helping people make the most of TED’s free tools for teachers and students — including TED-Ed Lessons, TED-Ed Clubs and the TED-Ed Platform. Throughout the year-long program, this outstanding community will connect regularly across time zones and national borders to explore, create and share idea-based innovations that spark student curiosity. Below, meet the second cohort of TED-Ed Innovative Educators as they embark on this learning voyage.

What does innovation in education look like to you?

We asked the second cohort of TED-Ed Innovative Educators. Read their inspiring answers below:

Sarah Harkin, Darwin, AUSTRALIA
“Innovation in education means thinking about the hard questions while looking at the larger picture. What isn’t working? Who is being left out? What could be better? Designing solutions to address areas of real need in the classroom can be tricky, as different groups of people must work together to implement new initiatives. However, bettering a student’s future is more than a worthy cause.”

David Aderhold, New Jersey, USA
“Innovation in education means the evolution of thinking over time. It means applying one’s learning to problems in order to create varied and nuanced solutions.”

Mark Ayres, Lancashire, UK
“Innovation in education means changing mindsets. It means using real life situations — and positive role models in the media — to teach difficult concepts.”

John Branya, Nairobi, KENYA
“Innovation in education means helping the students to learn actively and at their own pace, with frequent feedback and encouragement.”

David Burt, California, USA
“Innovation comes from a constant desire to improve the way you teach. Teachers must be willing to evaluate the needs of their students and the effectiveness of their teaching methods. Once a need is identified, educators need to be willing to change lessons, to use different methods — and to adapt new technologies to the needs of their students.”

Wiputra Cendana, West Java, INDONESIA
“Innovation in education means that a new, fresh idea bursts from the mind to bring benefit to the education community. It means integrating visual or auditory media in the classroom so that students can better absorb the content of learning and be more equipped as 21st century learners. It means shifting our paradigm from traditional learning methods to new learning methods that implement more innovation in education. It means that the curriculum itself is very dynamic, like a living organism.”

Sandy Chambers, North Carolina, USA
“Innovation is required! Innovation is creating, collaborating and thinking critically. Innovation in education will prepare our students for the future world.”

Pen-Pen Chen, New York, USA
“To me, innovation in education means not being confounded by limitations, financial or otherwise. It means to create new and effective methods for having students learn. I am a firm believer in Coach John Wooden’s quote, ‘You haven’t taught until they have learned.’ I am also a proponent of Bruce Lee’s approach to martial arts, which is to not subscribe to one particular school of thought, but rather to take learnings and effective methods from wherever you may find them, and incorporate them to achieve the desired results.”

Sunkyong Choi, Daegu, SOUTH KOREA
“To me, innovation in education means to go back to the essence of education. Education is raising a person, I think. It is encouraging students to try something new, instead of defining their abilities by scores.”

Natalie Coleman, Illinois, USA
“It means allowing students to try and fail and try again. It means allowing students to be creative thinkers, free to try what they think will work to solve a problem. Innovation is not pre-packaged. Nor is it determined by demographics. We are currently using our 3D printers to allow students to create their own prototype of an innovative product that will help society on a global level. Allowing them to address a problem — one that they believe they have the solution for — creates a sense of accomplishment and importance in their work and contribution to society.”

Rafranz Davis, Texas, USA
“Innovation in education is about kids learning from what motivates them and designing their own pathways with support. It’s not wrapped in a single device or app, but in the access that the devices and apps provide. Too often, the adults decide what students should be, and we don’t include them in their own learning enough. What if we gave students to room to explore, think, create and build? That’s what innovation is about. True innovation is when we create the space that all students can achieve this regardless of zip code, IQ, economic background, race or gender. It is where we no longer use the phrase, “yes…but” and instead scream, “yes…and.”

Jacqueline Fernandez, Maryland, USA
“Innovation in education is to be comfortable questioning what we do in our schools and why we do it. It’s to make positive changes that will impact student learning outcomes. As a STEM educator, it is my duty to make sure that students are engaged in my classes through my curriculum, lessons and use of technology.”

Bojana Golubovic, Nis, SERBIA
“It can be described in few words: being – doing – knowing. I find the “Nosce te ipsum” learning strategy and Socratic dialogue the best approaches in education today. Yes, I can not imagine education of the 21st century without application of IT in the classrooms, but without reflection on the question: “What is education for?” and “Who am I?” education loses its essence.”

Kathryn Hammond, Florida, USA
“To me, innovation in education is finding ways to make what and how students learn engaging, relevant and meaningful. It means embracing technology and change, and helping students to do the same. It means introducing students to a broad range of resources, information, and perspectives, and giving them the tools, the freedom, and the confidence to move beyond what you have to teach them. It means constantly seeking out new tools, methods, resources, and ideas, or using and combining existing ones in new ways, while systematically evaluating everything we do to make sure that whatever we do is in the best interest of students.”

Susan Herder, Minnesota, USA
“Innovation in education means that we are not treating school and students as part of a factory model, but instead finding ways for students to guide us in their own learning. Innovation is letting go of teaching the way we learned, because ‘that worked then.’ It is about embracing new ideas, providing places to learn iteratively, and recognizing that failure is an important part of working and that most people do not work in isolation. It is about providing ways for students to collaborate with others beyond the classroom walls and to think on a global scale.”

Corey Holmer, Illinois, USA
“An idea becomes an innovation when it is put into action, and innovation exists in education when that idea takes action, through a team effort, and then results in student growth. Innovation also means that an idea is growing, impacting others, and promoting positive change. Educational innovation may include new tools, methods, workspaces, or initiatives, but only if they are the result of a collaborative effort to genuinely enhance student learning. I see innovation in schools whenever teachers, students, parents, or administrators find a new, creative way to address a need. Innovation gains momentum when educators team up, combine their expertise, ask questions, and learn from each other as they work to solve problems or make improvements to existing systems. Innovation doesn’t need to be fancy or result in accolades — but in a school setting, it does need to lead to authentic student growth. True innovation thrives when educators infuse their own passion into learning.”

Ashley Huffmon, Abu Dhabi, UAE
“Innovation in education means that a student has control of their own learning. It is creativity at its best without limitations. It is cooperative learning in such a way that each student learns from one another, and the lessons can be connected to day-to-day life.”

Gwangho Kim, Cheonan, SOUTH KOREA
“Innovation in education is necessary for survival in the future. The world is changing rapidly, and students must learn new skills in school to live in the real world.”

Yau-Jau Ku, Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA
“Innovation takes creativity, and creativity takes risks. In order to take risks, it must feel safe, where failure is redefined and seen as a stepping stone in the learner’s journey. Innovation in education is about problem solving, resiliency, and grit. We aren’t providing lesson plans, but creating learning experiences that our students will never forget.”

Alicia Lane, Washington, DC, USA
“Innovation in education means that teaching and learning at all levels is relevant and aligned to ensure that the most critical challenges we face today (engineering better medicines, securing cyberspace, increasing access to clean water and many other needs) will be solved by our current learners when they enter the workforce in the future.”

Jennifer Lehotsky, Illinois, USA
“Innovation in education is about empowering students with the skills to engage in their own learning paths. In the end, it is about teaching them how to use the learning tools available to them, so that they have the grit to solve problems with authentic solutions that were once inconceivable.”

Liz Loether, California, USA
“Innovation means to look at education from different perspectives, and to try something new in an effort to help students become better than they were yesterday. Those that limit innovation see the classroom, the students, and the teaching role as the same day-to-day. Innovation is evolving with the ever-changing world.”

Wendy Morales, New Jersey, USA
“Innovation means taking risks and learning from both successes and failures. Innovation does not always have to include technology, but it has to result in an increase in student motivation and success. An innovative learning environment is one in which teachers and students are learning together, and students are driving instruction. Students have choice and voice in an innovative classroom, and are becoming prepared for a future that will look very different than our present. Innovation requires problem-solving, communication, collaboration and creativity; skills that all of our students will need as we get further into the 21st century.”

Vipul S Redey, Bangalore, INDIA
“Innovation in education means 3 things: Individual attention, immersive learning for things like languages, and a curriculum that honors Constructivism.”

Fred Sagwe, Kisii, KENYA
“Innovation in education will improve what exists, building on existing resources and materials from co-educators, writers and educational technology experts. Innovation acts as a catalyst and a spice to earlier creations.”

Lamar Schrader, Texas, USA
“Innovation in education means sharing ideas on how to activate and cultivate students’ learning. It means helping students make their own lives better and richer, and showing them ways that they can make their world a better place to live in by using their intelligence and talents to serve those around them. Innovation does not mean throwing out good ideas that have worked, just for the sake of the new — but it can mean sacrificing good ideas to get to great ideas.”

Georgios Villias, Athens, GREECE
“Innovation in education means to start using all of our senses and abilities in education, and not only our reading skills. Seeing, hearing, experiencing, doing, talking, cooperating, watching, feeling, creating, constructing, playing, imagining, dreaming — these are some of the verbs that should be used more often in a learning experience, because education should be fun. Innovation means using these verbs in productive and meaningful ways.”

Jennifer Ward, Michigan, USA (hey, that's me!)
“Innovation requires first understanding the root of a problem in order to better grasp where, how, and what kind of change is needed. Innovation involves mistakes, missteps and failures, and it also involves resilience, passion and grit.”

Shameka Williams, Georgia, USA
“Innovation in education means using creative ways to pique student curiosity and interest, while also helping students develop 21st century skills. This can happen through technology, in-field experts, or relating content and approaches to real-world events. I believe that innovation is exciting and that students should feel excited to come into innovative environments.”

Pablo Yafe, Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA
“Innovation in education means reevaluating the needs and potential of students in interaction with the world they will be living in. It means training students in the art of producing new content meant to improve their surroundings. It means redefining the teaching role.”

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Find Funding

I have been very fortunate this school year. I've been able to add an instamatic camera, three DSLR cameras with telephoto lenses, and 36 Chromebooks to my classroom. One of my students recently asked me, "Wheredya get all the money for this technology?"

At least once a week, I'm scouring my network for new grants and initiatives to help bring resources into my classroom. I spend at least one of my planning hours each week either researching or writing grants to bring the outside into my class, whether that be through hardware, speakers, or virtual connections to experts in areas we are studying. I am passionate about making sure that what happens inside my classroom walls connects with what is happening outside of them. To do this, I rely on a network of organizations that help provide funding for such initiatives.

In addition to my student, I've also had a couple of teachers in my district ask the same question: "Where did you find the funding?" So I thought I would share some of the resources and organizations that have supported my classroom, as well as share links to a few promising awards that I've recently become aware of.  As I learn of more, I'll update this post. And if you know of any, please share! Use the comment section below to add any links you think other educators should know about.

Crowdfunding for Educators:

• DonorsChoose.org is a site where teachers can post projects for which they are seeking financial support.  Donations come in from individuals as well as from larger corporations and organizations. Last summer, Staples supported a large number of projects as did the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Recently, athletes, artists, and philanthropists funded a hundreds of projects through the #BestSchoolDay initiative. This is a well-used, well-organized space, but the downside is that if you do not reach your funding goal, you lose all the money donated towards that goal.
• PledgeCents.com is a lot like DonorsChoose, but with one big difference. Teachers keep all the money raised for a project. So, even if the project doesn't reach its funding goal, say you only raise $125 of the $200 you were seeking, you keep the $125 you've raised.   

Networks:

• Being a Google Certified Innovator (formerly known as a Google Certified Teacher) links you in to a whole community of innovative educators from around the world.  Our online communities are a place where we regularly trade cool tools, tips, and of course, grant opportunities. And you can join, too!  Applications to participate in the June 2016 Google Innovator Academy open on April 5th.
• As a member of Pennsylvania Association for Educational Communications and Technology (PAECT) and Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning (MACUL), I receive a regular newsletter in my inbox which shares upcoming grant opportunities - Big Deal Media. You can sign up for free without having to join either of these organizations. 
• GetEDFunding tracks a huge list of grants and awards for educators. Create a free account and select your experience and interest areas in order to receive a personalized list of grants your classroom may be eligible for at the state and national level.
• And this post by Edutopia contains a wealth of advice and links. Make sure you save this post to go back to again and again. 
• For local Grand Rapids area teachers, the Grand Rapids Community Foundation is a fantastic resource. This group oversees a number of organizations and grant opportunities in our region.
• Be sure to also speak with your local Rotary club as many clubs are invested in supporting local education initiatives.

Grants and Awards:

• EdTechTeam Student Device Grant:  One of the best emails I received recently had the subject line, "Your Student Device Grant Application was...Selected!" Months earlier, I enlisted the help of my tenth grade students and together we put together a video and responded to a couple of essay prompts about how adding a class set of Chromebooks would change our classroom. Perhaps my second favorite email was the one that followed a short couple of weeks later which began "Chromebooks have shipped!"  I look forward to sharing with you all the innovations that come from our one-to-one Chromebook classroom.
• Voya is awarding 100 $2,000 grants for innovative classroom projects. But hurry! The Unsung Hero award deadline is April 30th.

More Ideas:

Simply Incredible Week

It is Thursday, and the week isn't even over, but I'm confident in saying that this may just be one of my best weeks ever!

Please forgive this not-so-humble-but-totally-excited brag:

Sunday afternoon I received an email invitation from Fox News to attend and ask a question at the Democratic Town Hall hosted in Detroit. So on Monday afternoon, my husband and I hopped on the road to Detroit.

As we were driving, I learned that my classroom was one of the selected recipients of a 1:1 grant by the EdTechTeam. We have 36 Chromebooks on their way! I couldn't resist. I immediately texted my students when I found out.  When I returned to the classroom on Tuesday morning, the excitement was palatable.

Yesterday, a reporter from the Ionia Sentinel-Standard visited my class to do a story on how my students started an anti-bullying group at our school. I could not be prouder of the students who have spearheaded this initiative. Their worked stemmed from a project-based learning activity connected with our reading of The Crucible last semester. And although the project has long since been completed, the students are still working hard to address issues of bullying and promote kindness in our community. 

Today I am presenting with four of my students at the ‪#‎MACUL16‬ conference in Grand Rapids.  Together with Brad Wilson of WriteAbout.com, we are sharing how writing for authentic purposes and audiences changes how emerging writers engage with the process of writing. And of course, I needed to take my student presenters out for Philly cheese steaks as a way to say thanks!

Not sure what I did to deserve so many blessings, but I am certainly grateful!

Crucible Connections

I love how easy ThingLink makes it to both share resources and also collaborate with others to build a resource. At the start of my current unit with my honors American literature students, a unit on group identity and conformity, I started to build a unit resource using ThingLink.  The core text of our unit is Arthur Miller's play The Crucible, so many of the resources linked are those that we've discussed in connection with our reading.

I'm using our ThingLink unit resource in a couple of ways. First, the collection is easy to share out with others. Initially, I have been the sole person adding to the ThingLink, but next week I'll be opening it up and asking my students to share their finds.  Not only will students be actively involved in building our unit resources, but they will also be unknowingly practicing the research skills they will need for an upcoming project.  In the coming weeks, students will be building their own similar resource for an independent reading novel they have been immersed in this semester. In contributing to our unit ThingLink, we'll have an opportunity to discuss what makes a resource valuable and credible. They will then apply these skills to the creation of their own ThingLink.

So stop back in the coming weeks to see how the ThingLink below has grown and changed thanks to the collaborative input of my students!

The ThingLink Summer Challenge for Educators

If you've been following my blog recently, you'll know that I've become obsessed with ThingLink as a creative curation tool. I have Christy Brennan to thank for this. She introduced me to ThingLink about this point last year when she used it in one of our professional development workshops. I've been hooked ever since.

A few months ago, I shared how my students have also been using ThingLink to share their research and writing on their independent reading novels. And as a teacher, ThingLink is a perfect tool for sharing out student work. So when ThingLink announced last week that they would be hosting a summer challenge for educators, I signed up as soon as I learned about it.  And you can too! (Plus, you'll earn a free 3-month upgrade to the educator level of the platform!)

For the first challenge, participants used ThinkLink to design a digital portfolio. I used my existing avatar from FaceYourManga and added some graphic details by importing and improving the image using Canva (another of my favorite tools). Then I uploaded my image to ThingLink and started layering on my links. Having completed my own digital self, I can see that this would be a fantastic first week activity with my high school students. Not only would it help me get to know my students better, but it would also help us start conversations about digital responsibility, privacy, and transparency.

I'm looking forward to week 2 of the #TLChallenge.  Hope you are able to join in the fun!

More details about the challenge can be found by following #TLChallenge on social media and on...you guessed it, the ThingLink below:
 

Please Take Out Your Phone

A colleague walked into our faculty workroom during lunch, excited.  A quick push of buttons and ten copies of this article flew off the copy machine. "Did you see this?" he asked those of us chatting over lunch. "There's research proving that phones should be banned in school." The table chimed in, decrying the proliferation of smartphones in school, complaining about how often teachers catch students texting during class.  Someone suggested making a copy of the article for our principal. That's when the table started to share strategies for dealing with phones in class.

Flickr Creative Commons image by Johan Larsson

Two doors down from me, a teacher has the sign "NO PHONES IN CLASS" posted in large, bold font on her classroom door.  Around the corner, another teacher hangs an over-the-door shoe organizer near the front of her room to collect students' cell phones as they enter class.  Yet another teacher on my floor collects phones in a basket that sits on the teacher's desk, proclaiming that students will not get points for that day's activities if their phone is not in the basket. Another uses envelops and keeps her students' cell phones lined up at the front of the room on the tray of the whiteboard.

This made me want to scream.

But I didn't.

Instead, I picked up the copy of this month's Educational Leadership magazine which I had placed in our workroom's reading area a few weeks earlier. The focus of the current edition - "Teaching with Mobile Tech." The articles by edtech guru (and fantastic English teacher extraordinaire) Caitlin Tucker titled "Five Tips for Managing Mobile Devices" and the piece about smartphone integration by experts Lisa Nielsen and Willyn Webb titled "Teaching with Cell Phones" both point out the flaws in recent calls to ban smartphones from the classroom.  However, instead of engaging in a conversation about our differing points of view, my colleague misunderstood my gesture and instead slipped one of his photocopied articles into the magazine as to discredit the use of mobile technology in the classroom.


The bell called an end to our lunchtime. There was no time to discuss, persuade, or share. But I wasn't ready to just forget the interaction. So I took it to my class.  I described to my 22 Creative Writing students, varying in experience and grade level from 9-12, the interaction I had over lunch, without using teachers' names, of course. They were finishing up first drafts of their stories, and next week we will be writing personal essay and opinion pieces. I figured a quick debate might spur some ideas for writing we will do next week. It was not a quick debate. Students were eager to share their frustration.

We discussed when students use their phones in class.  A senior said that he turns his phone off in class most of the time, but during work time or group work, he'll turn it on just so that he can check homework from other classes or to quick dip into group chats about assignments.  Another student said that when a teacher takes her phone, she ends up turning to her notebook, doodling while the teacher talks. "It's not like the phone causes the distractions," she said. "I'm already distracted. Take away my phone, and I'll find something else." And that's when I said something that I often think but have not voiced in front of students. It just came slipping out. "Perhaps it's not the fault of students. If we're teaching in a way that students turn to their phones, maybe it's not effective teaching." And that's when the conversation opened up.  One of my students jumped on this immediately.  He pointed out that I don't ban phones in our class but that students also aren't tempted to use them at inappropriate times either.  Another student, one who doesn't often speak in our large group discussions, talked about how banning something does more to highlight the object, make it sought after, than does teaching about it. Students then went on to discuss what responsible phone use looks like in the classroom, where having phones in class has helped, and where they have at times served as a distraction.  Students didn't understand how teachers could ban phones in the classroom when not all of our classrooms have technology in them, including mine.  Some of my creative writers would not be able to publish online if it were not for their phones.  I need them to take their phones out and use them.

There are so many missed opportunities when cell phones are banned in the classroom. We miss out on the opportunity to connect students with readers and writers outside the four walls of our room, outside of our content areas. When policy makers and teachers talk about banning phones, they often bring up how often students are using phones to text friends or play games. But this is only part of the picture. Those little hand-held computers help teachers and students do so much more. As educators, we have a responsibility to teach our students about the potentials and the pitfalls mobile technology offers which is hard to do when it is kept under lock and key.

So much of what my students and I have been able to accomplish in the classroom would not be possible without the use of smart phones.  We (yes, I'm including myself in this) use our phones in class to:

• record speeches and make videos using WeVideo,
• participate in formative assessment polls and open-ended questions using Celly and Polleverywhere,
• write and share poetry using Twitter and the hashtag #twitterpoem,
• snap pictures and share our blackout poetry creations with other writers using Instagram,
• listen to and record our StoryCorps interviews,
• watch and record our This I Believe personal essays,
• connect with and ask questions of the authors we are reading via Twitter and Google+ (hi +John Green!), and
• watch and participate in Google Hangouts (like when +Don Eckert's students broadcast their Ted Talks last Friday).

These are not activities I can replicate with pen and paper. They are unique to mobile technology. And by including such opportunities in my courses, students are writing more and more often, connecting and collaborating with others outside of our classroom, and creating. Why would I want to ban that? 

  Follow Jennifer's board Please Take Your Cell Phone Out In Class on Pinterest.

Overwhelmed...but in a good way

I have too many blog posts in me! So right off the bat, know that this post is almost more of a reminder to me of all the things that I want to write more in depth about in the coming weeks. It has been an overwhelming semester, filled with a classroom makeover, presentations, author visits, and so much more.   I look forward to sharing these developments with you in the new year.

First, I need to share a bit more about my classroom redesign.  I shared some of the early steps in my classroom makeover in September, but I need to post my more recent learning space redesigns. My initial steps to create a more student-focused, student-driven classroom have lead to even more changes. As I spent time reflecting on my educational philosophy, I realized I needed to make a few more changes to my classroom space so that my philosophy was mirrored in my physical  classroom space. My classroom is open, with flexible seating in the form of stools, pillows, ottomans (which double as book storage), and a couch.  And I'm also happy to share that our classroom is featured as part of the #ClassroomCribs challenge. If you are looking for inspiration for your own classroom makeover, be sure to check out the work of Erin Klein, Ben Gilpin, and A.J. Juliani over at ClassroomCribs.com.

UPDATE: Shortly after posting this I learned that I am one of the Grand Finalists in the ClassroomCribs Challenge!

Click to enlarge our four essential questions.

In addition to redesigning my physical classroom, my curriculum got a big makeover this semester too. For the last decade, our tenth grade English class has focused on world literatures, connecting with the writers of the non-western world.  However this semester, our department took a more thematic approach to our tenth grade curriculum, focusing on four essential questions to guide our new thematic focus on "Perspectives of the Individual." And although initially a bit apprehensive about this change, it has afforded me an opportunity to reimagine my curriculum. I revisited the work of my language arts gurus to help me rethink what was possible. Kelly Gallagher helped me think through how I provide writing feedback (students should write four times more than you can grade) and how I teach close reading (Articles of the Week). Chris Lehman helped me think through possibilities for teaching analytic reading. And so many more mentors than I could name helped inspire my renewed focus on cultivating a student-driven classroom with students doing, speaking, and sharing more than I do. And in addition to adding new core texts, I figured now was the time to make some other big changes, the most significant of which is the move to a 100% paperless classroom. Now, four months into it, I can't imagine teaching any other way.  Going paperless has meant finding better, more collaborative ways of working with students and with working with readers and writers outside of the classroom.

Although I have been pushing my emerging writers to connect with audiences outside the classroom for a number of years now, this semester I have witnessed the pinnacle success of that focus.  My students and I used social media to connect with and invite in a number of writers from a variety of genres into our classroom.  In the last four months we have:

• heard a Holocaust survivor speak of his experiences in three death camps,
• used Skype to speak with the senior editor of Philadelphia Stories and Philadelphia Stories, Jr., Ms. Christine Weiser, about what editors look for in creative writing pieces seeking publication,
• virtually connected with Ms. Leah Nicholson of the Jenkins Publishing Group to learn about ghost writing,
• Skyped with founder and senior editor of Teen Ink, Ms. Stephanie Meyer, to get some advice for submitting our work for publication,
• invited three talented YA authors - E.C. Myers, Marie Lamba, and Ellen Jensen Abbott - to come to our school to speak with us about their inspiration and advice for writing stories,
• learned with a local psychologist about psychoanalytic theory, the 
  
  divided self, and repression which we applied to our reading of The Kite Runner,
• chatted with musician, actor, and novelist Dave Patten about what it takes to "make it" in a creative field, and
• used Twitter and blogs to connect with students and experts all of the world as we researched our #HavPassion projects.     

And the next four months look equally as packed with connections! We will be hosting:

• poet Cameron Conaway, author of Malaria Poems, who will be speaking with my creative writing students about his inspiration and writing craft,
• Elise Juska, author of The Blessings,
• Christopher McDougall, best-selling author of Born to Run,
• Zachariah OHora, children's book author and illustrator,
• Judy Schachner, children's book author and illustrator of Skippyjon Jones,
• Donna Aviles, presenter and author on the United States Orphan Train Movement, and
• Christina Baker Kline, One Book One Philadelphia author of Orphan Train.

So many of these connections have come as a result of my students and I reaching out on social media and asking.  This has been a big take-away that I need to explore more in the coming months.  In talking with Teen Ink's founder Stephanie Meyers when we first connected my students with her via Skype, she graciously showed us virtually around her office and said, "No one has ever asked me to do this, and I love it!"  In putting myself out there and asking anyone and everyone to come into my classroom - fellow teachers, writers, parents, other students - whether it is done in person or virtually, I have opened up opportunities for my students to connect with real audiences. Very little of their written work is seen by only me. We blog using Blogger and respond to classrooms around the country. Students post their work in online portfolios which can easily be shared with fellow teachers, students, and even parents.  And in talking with my students about these opportunities, I have also encouraged them to ask.  They are reaching out through their blogs and through Twitter in order to build their own personal learning network (PLN). I hope to share more of this particular adventure both here and in some upcoming presentations.

Yup, that's me presenting.

Speaking of which, wow! I need to share more of the presentations I've been doing! In the last few months I have had the opportunity to present at the Pennsylvania Council for Teachers of English Language Arts (PCTELA) as well as at the Michigan Google Summit. I was honored as an Emerging Leader at the recent PASCD conference. In a few short weeks, I'll be presenting at the upcoming EduCon conference in Philly with Christina Brennan on "Mentoring Passion" about how we connected my high school students with her elementary students through passion-based learning. And I need to share more about what I have learned from these fantastic organizations and connections.

So, I'm overwhelmed...but in a good way.

Are We Virtually Connected Or Are We Connected?

I attended elementary school in the early 80s. My school pictures are filled with a lot of vests and big feathered bangs. At one point or another, every one of my classmates came to school with the "bowl cut," when mom stuck a Tupperware bowl on your head and cut around it. I knew every one of my classmates, and not just because I grew up in a small town in upper Michigan. Our families relied on one another for information, for advice, and for support. We didn't turn to the web to figure out how to sign our children up for a bus to and from kindergarten. We didn't scroll through the school's online portal to to learn about which standardized tests were being given and when. Instead, we asked the parent who had a child older than ours. We talked with our neighbors. We built our community, both students and parents, through face-to-face connections and informal mentorships. And having just spent the morning clicking and filling out online forms so that my soon-to-be kindergartener is signed up for the correct bus and so that I receive text messages and phone calls and email alerts of every change, I'm beginning to question how impersonal school has become.

I find this ironic having just spent the summer attending and presenting at a wide variety of education conferences where many of the presenters, myself included, are sharing strategies and ideas for addressing individual learners needs.  Recently, while attending a session at the EdTech Teacher Summit in Chicago, I participated in a two hour session in which we wondered about the impact of individualized learning on the development of learning communities. When I look at how I am connecting with my own child's school, it is increasingly impersonal. Our avenues for learning about the school are typically through a screen of one sort or another. And when information is not emailed or posted to an online portal, it comes in the form of paper...lots and lots of paper.

When I attended kindergarten orientation in early summer with my son, he was led to a room with other soon-to-be school-age children and sent through a series of "stations." At each station, he met briefly with a teacher or school staff member who assessed his "level" in 10 to 15 minutes. Can you read this word? Can you count to 10? Do you know your phone number? I stayed in the auditorium with other parents where we were handed a bag of papers that contained procedural information about getting our student's health and dental records for the school but which also contained packet after packet of homework we were to go over with our child during the summer months. Yup, pre-kindergarten homework. Handwriting exercises and shape sorting games, basic math problems and sight words. And my son's school is not unique. Just a few weeks ago blogger Philip Kovacs posted "An Open Letter to My Son's Kindergarten Teacher," and like Philip and his son, my son and I have not opened that bag of homework.

However, what surprised me most was a little brochure tucked into our parent packets on Virtual K, an online kindergarten program that the school encouraged parents and students to access as a supplement to their half-day kindergarten program. The staff member standing before the parents at kindergarten orientation explained that the school used the virtual program to provide the instructional time that kindergarten students needed to be successful in later grades but which the school couldn't provide in person. Wait! What? So our schools are encouraging our youngest students to disengage with the school community in order to learn from a screen?

Technology has opened up so many avenues and possibilities that were not available to students of the 80s like me. When used well, technology can connect and engage both parents and students to the larger school community. And we see so many examples of teachers and schools doing this well: teachers who email welcome letters during the summer and encourage students to share their pictures and descriptions of summer adventures through blogs and online bulletin boards, schools that use Google Hangouts to virtually meet with students over the summer, and teachers who share video playlists introducing new students to their future classroom and learning adventures. However, each of these examples illustrates how technology is used to supplement the community that is also being built in person. Without that face-to-face connection, technology instead serves as a wall to divide parents and even students from the school. Simply moving all those handouts and information to an online space does nothing to build a sense of connection to a school. Just because information is easily accessible, does not mean that community is. It is worrisome that during kindergarten orientation parents are told with pride about online kindergarten. Remember that poster that hangs in nearly every faculty workroom -  "All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten"? Read through it. Most of these lessons cannot be learned online.

But it's early. The school year hasn't officially started, so perhaps I am wrong. I just hope that my son and I have more opportunities to be connected to our school community rather than virtually connected.

Banning Posters and PowerPoints

Image from Toothpaste For Dinner

That's is. I am banning posters and PowerPoints from my classroom. And I am banning them not simply because they are just not used outside the classroom (when was the last time you cut and pasted letters onto posterboard for your job?).  I am banning them because there is no audience for them once students create them.  At least, no authentic audience. When students create posters and PowerPoints, they are typically only viewed by the teacher and the 20-30 students in the same class.  But if we want our students to be collaborative and creative content creators, we need to encourage them to create content that can be widely shared with actual audiences.  Troy Hicks points out in Crafting Digital Writing that encouraging our students to think critically about the design choices they make while creating in digital spaces also translates to the rhetorical choices they make while writing.  "With digital writing," Hicks writes, "we need to think with words, of course; yet we also need to begin thinking like artists, web designers, recording engineers, photographers, and filmmakers.  In other words, intentional choices about craft can lead to creative work in a variety of media" (18-19).  And there's a whole bunch of 2.0 tools that can help our students create dynamic, engaging presentations for audiences outside our classroom.

To encourage more digital content creation in my classes next fall, I'm going to use one of my bulletin boards to a share a variety of digital presentation tools using QR Codes. I don't plan on teaching each of these tools, but instead direct students to find the presentation tool that will be most effective for the task and tone they are trying to accomplish.  Because each of these tools is created and shared online, many with the ability to embed and export into other locations, real audiences outside of our classroom will also have the ability to connect and view my students' work. Below you'll find not only the list of tools and their basic descriptions, but also a document you can print so that you can post and share these tools with your students as well (scroll to the bottom of the list). I selected these apps in part because they are available to use on multiple platforms, including use on Chromebooks which is what my school is moving toward. If you know of any that I should add, please let me know!

• PowToons 4Edu is a simple-to-use, animated presentation tool that incorporates comic book style illustration and sound to create engaging videos.  PowToons is also releasing #Slides in beta form which is a version of dynamic slides that pull in thousands of royalty-free images for you and your students to use as you create engaging presentations to share online. 
• Haiku Deck also pulls in thousands of royalty-free images from Flickr Creative Commons image search and automatically cites the selected images. The slide designs in Haiku Deck limit the amount of text students can include, making for more visually engaging presentations. Haiku Decks can be shared with a link, embedded, downloaded as a PDF, or even exported.
• 
  TouchCast is all sorts of interactive.  Create short videos and then overlay the video with interactive widgest called vApps which are allow viewers of your video to interact with live web pages and social media sites.  You can include a live poll in your video which viewers can click on or your can pull up a live Twitter feed.  
• 
  Smore Flyers are versatile.  Once you pick a theme, you can use Smore to create infographics, newsletters, simple websites, and online posters. Embed videos or pictures, maps or apps to further engage your audience.  They share your Smore through social media or embed it on your own site.  Smore is an incredibly easy-to-use, easy-to-share tool.   
• 
  Snapguide is a new tool for me, but one that I can already tell will become a staple in my teaching toolbox.  Why?  Not only is it easy to use, but its clean layout and simple design make Snapguide a great curation tool for both teachers and students. Have students use this app to create "guidebooks" for their unit materials, a studyguide for a unit, or track the historical influences on a character found in a Dickens' novel.   
• 
  Canva gives users a bit more design control to its users over other infographic apps like easel.ly or infgr.am.  And Canva's library of royalty free images helps students create beautiful images, posters, website banners, infographics and more. But beware, you could easily get sucked into all the cool desgin templates and possibilitites that Canva has to offer.   
• 
  Piktochart is another great tools for creating infographics. The pre-loaded themes available through Piktochart make it easy for students to share their research and writing in clean, easy-to-follow digital spaces. This is a great tool for helping visual learners think through how organization of ideas impacts their audience/reader.
• 
  Prezi for Education is used a great deal by students and teachers already, but I would be remiss if I didn't include it on this list. Students can collaboratively edit and share their Prezis making this a great tool for students working both inside and outside of class to craft group presentations. It may take a bit of time for students to become familiar with how to use the design wheel, but once they do, the options for creating dynamic presentations are nearly limitless.
• 
  VoiceThread another already widely used tool by teachers.  The ability to upload lesson materials and then have students login to respond using text, their voice, or their webcam makes VoiceThread a fantasitic tools for the flipped or blended classroom. But it can also be an engaging tool for students to use in the creation of their own presentations.  If we want students to create presentations that connect with actual audiences, VoiceThread is a great tools for doing just that.  And because you can embed VoiceThread into other sites, students could easily share their creations through multiple venues.
• 
  RawShorts is another video creation tool.  Rather than using a comic book style of drawing, RawShorts relies on photography.  Images and pictures are moved on and off screen by hands, making the final video similar to that of a Common Craft video. But a word of warning, make sure you let your tech department know what the site is. RawShorts was inadvertently blocked by our school's filter for having "Adult Content."  Apparently our filter didn't think too highly of the name "Raw Shorts." 
• 
  VideoScribe is also a tool for video creation and is a lot like PowToons in that students can use this app to create dynamic, animated videos.  However, it is visually quite different.  Rather than animated drawings, VideoScribe animates the actual drawing.  So if you were looking to have you students create a Common Craft or RSA Animate type of whiteboard video, this would be the app to use.

CLICK HERE for an explanation and QR Code for each of the apps mentioned above. Print it out and share with your students or post to a classroom bulletin board.

Resources for Flipping the English Class

On Friday afternoon, I had the opportunity to join both lower and upper school teachers from Penn Charter School in Philadelphia to discuss the flipped learning model. Many of the teachers were familiar with the term flipped learning, but had questions about what the approach looked like in a humanities classroom. Isn't the flipped model something that English and history teachers already do?  And the answer is...sort of.

Image from WGBY Education

Flipped learning is not just about students watching videos as homework. Instead, the flipped approach is very similar to inquiry-based and problem-based learning pedagogies in that at the heart of the flipped approach are students. This students-centered learning approach allows for student exploration of concepts with opportunities to practice and master skills using teacher created and curated materials that students have access to both inside and outside of the classroom. Teachers act as facilitators, mentors, and coaches, helping guide students through these learning opportunities.  What this means for me as a high school English teacher is that I use a great deal of formative assessment in order to determine what skills and higher order learning activities my students are struggling to learn.  These are the learning opportunities that should happen with my support inside the classroom. As an English teacher, I had previously assigned my students chapter-by-chapter reading homework.  However, if my students are struggling with reading comprehension, this "homework" is doing more to hinder their learning than to support it.  The same is true of teaching writing.  Previously, I expected my high school students to draft their essays outside of class.  But this didn't make sense when my students were struggling to compose their thesis statements. The skills that students struggle with need to be flipped into the classroom.  Now, we begin all of our writing activities in the classroom where students have support from both their teacher as well as from their peers.

For those new to the idea of flipping the English classroom, I wanted to take a moment to share some of the resources that I have found helpful in my flipping adventures. I am by no means an expert, and as I shared with the teachers at Penn Charter on Friday, most of my learning about this approach happened as I did everything exactly wrong.  Imagine students sitting at home watching 25 minute long videos on sentence fragments. Yikes! So to help other teachers avoid my mistakes (and wasted time creating truly awful videos), I've compiled some of my favorite tools.

Getting started:

Image from Tutor2U

• If you are new to flipped learning, start with the pillars of Flipped Learning shared by the educators at the Flipped Learning Network, an online forum for teachers to share their resources and questions about flipped learning. This document is a great introduction to the basics of the flipped approach, emphasizing the how the approach encourages a student-centered approach to learning.
• Aaron Sams and Jon Bergmann’s book Flip Your Classroom was a valuable resource in helping me think through why and how to flip. This fast read also discusses how the flipped approach can be used to encourage mastery learning goals.   
• Troy Cockrum’s book Flipping Your English Class includes not only chapters to help teachers think through the theory underlying the flipped approach, but also includes specific lessons for English teachers interested in trying the approach.  Each lesson is presented twice, first using a traditional flipped model for those teacher first implementing this approached and then as a second iteration flipped lesson with ideas for encouraging differentiation and mastery.  If you are interesting in understanding the difference between these two approaches, check out this excerpt from the book with two example lessons.
• Jason Bretzmann’s Flipping 2.0 includes chapters by English teachers Kate Baker, Cheryl Morris and Andrew Thomasson, and by Troy Cockrum. Teachers discuss how they got started, the missteps they made along the way, as well as what they found most helpful to consider when getting started.
• Twitter is an invaluable resource for teachers of all disciplines, but in particular, you will find a lot of flipping teachers use Twitter to share their resources and collaborate.  So, what flipping English teachers are on Twitter? Here's my list of flipping English teachers.
• Dan Spencer's shared Google Doc on Flipped Learning is a must-read. This resource, filled with examples and resources, is my go-to resource for flipping lessons
• Cybrary Man’s collection of flipped learning resources is another go-to resource for finding examples, and Jerry Blumengarten is always updating it with more resources
• As I was getting started, I also wanted to see models of the materials other English teachers were creating and using.  Below are the websites and blogs for some fantastic flipping English teachers:
• Kate Baker blogs about her high school English flipping experiences at Baker's B.Y.O.D.
• Cheryl Morris and Andrew Thomasson, gurus of collaboratively flipping their cross-country high school English classes, can be found online on their collaborative flipping blog.
• Troy Cockrum hosts a podcast with flipping teachers. 
• Catlin Tucker's blog on her blended learning approach to teaching high school English is a great collection of reflections and resources
• And although I am not an expert, feel free to check out my 10th grade English class site 

Considerations before you begin:

• Host your videos and materials in a space that makes it easy for students to find and navigate. Curate an online space that does not have too many distractions or asks students to make a number of clicks in order to get to your materials. More clicks = more options to click away from your materials. If you are not going to host videos/materials on your own website, try one of these curation sites:
• Blendspace for Schools
• LessonPaths (formerly MentorMob Edu)
• EduClipper (the educational version of Pinterest)
• Evernote
• Vimeo or YouTube (but only good for videos)
• Edmodo (organized like a Facebook page, and easily integrates Google Drive)
• Canvas (a free learning management site that integrates well with Google Drive)

• When creating videos...
• Keep videos under 15 minutes; most effective videos are under 10 minutes
• Make sure your materials and videos display your personality. Students want to see and hear you in the presentation.
• The less clicks the better; embed the video.
• Students must do something as they watch in order to help them practice the skill featured in your video. Consider having them take notes, craft questions, or respond to a class blog or discussion website.
• Tools for video editing:
• Camtasia - very robust, but costly. You can sign up for free 30-day trial
• Screencast-o-matic - free and easy to use, online, no download
• VoiceThread - interactive and embeddable
• Haiku Deck - interactive and embeddable
• Screenr - free and easy to use, online, no download necessary
• PowToons - create your own short animated videos, limited text
• Jing - free screencast and screen capture download

• Use materials created by others
• TedxEd is fantastic!  Pull in any YouTube video, create multiple choice or open ended questions to go along with the video, and use teacher-created student accounts to have students respond. There are a wealth of lessons already created and shared, or you can create your own.
• Khan Academy has a great deal for science and math teachers, but more and more humanities lessons are being added.
• Find example lessons shared at the Flipped Learning Network and on the Flipped Classroom Ning.  And while you are there, join the Ning network of flipping teachers!
• And ask questions!