Song writer Tom Chapin is my newest hero. Earlier this month, NPR posted his song It’s not on the Test, a humorous lullaby for stressed out students – and a sad commentary on the pressures classroom teachers are under to raise test scores. The first verse pretty much sums it up:

The test is tomorrow
But you’ll do just fine
It’s reading and math
Forget all the rest.
You don’t need to know
What is not on the test.

That digital divide just grows wider at many Title I schools, with a full day of reading and math – but no science or social studies. I Googled It’s not on the Test and saw, to no surprise, that it’s a popular topic in the blogoshpere, with several home school bloggers siting it as a reason to flea public schools.

But I still laugh every time I listen.

I love being a part of the YouthRadio community. This project is wonderful professional development piece for me. Our fearless leader Kevin just explained to our teacher group how to embed a flash file so listeners do not exit the site when listening to one of the student podcasts. Let me see if I can embed the latest podcast from Jim Faires’ students.

Butler Students Look Forward to the NewYear and Beyond

Following a work week when I felt the need to justify introducing teachers into Web2.0, I started my morning with Anne Davis’s inspiring and research-based post Rationale for educational blogging. Besides listing 13 points below, she also references work by Don Leu, one of my heroes.

1. Blogs provide a space for sharing opinions and learning in order to grow communities of discourse and knowledge — a space where students and teachers can learn from each other
2. Blogs help learners to see knowledge as interconnected as opposed to a set of discrete facts.
3. Blogs can give students a totally new perspective on the meaning of voice. As students explore their own learning and thinking and their distinctive voices emerge. Student voices are essential to the conversations we need to have about learning.
4. Blogs foster ownership and choice. They help lead us away from students trying to find what the teacher wants in terms of an answer.
5. The worldwide audience provides recognition for students that can be quite profound. Students feel more compelled to write when they believe many others may read and respond. It gives them motivation to excel. Students need to be taught skills to foster a contributing audience on their blog.
6. The archive feature of blogging records ongoing learning. It facilitates reflection and evaluation. One student told me that he could easily find his thoughts on a matter and he could see how his thinking had changed and why.
7. The opportunity for collective and collaborative learning is enormous. Students have the opportunity to read their classmates’ blogs and those of others. This is not possible in a regular classroom setting.
8. Blogging provides the possibility of connecting with experts on the topic students are writing.
9. The interactive nature of blogging creates enthusiasm for writing and communication.
10. Blogging engages students in conversation and learning.
11. Blogging encourages global conversations about learning–conversations not previously possible in our classrooms.
12. Blogging provides the opportunity for our students to learn to write for life-long learning.
13. Blogging affords us the opportunity to teach responsible public writing. Students can learn about the power of the published word and the responsibilities involved with public writing.

With Anne’s rationale in hand, plus a timely article sent to me by NWP colleague Eric Hoefler, I’m boosted to move into next week’s schedule, which will include introducing a new workshop for my district: Internet Safety. As part of the workshop, I’ll be sharing some examples and rationale for Web 2.0 in the classroom.

OK, I arrived late to this afternoon’s ACE meeting in Second Life, looking like some kind of raccoon hooker (I am totally confident that Intellagirl will help me with a re-do before our next meeting. And, yes, I did get fondled by an avatar or two when I overshot Middleton), but I’m very excited about continuing my explorations of SL, which I first visited during Sara Robins NCTE ACE workshop in Nashville.  Just last week, I heard Bernie Dodge at MacWorld state that he did not yet see classroom applications for SL.  Sixty Minutes is on TV right now.  They just did a feature on the need to introduce high school students to entrepreneurialship.  Oh my, is that ever a SL project waiting to happen – with maybe an ACE  and or NWP guide or two:-).  I’ll admit I was frustrated when first trying to enter, but maybe that was due to reading Joyce Valenza’s post before setting off.  Now that I’ve been in SL, I’m looking forward to return visits.

On the eve of MLK Day, I am glad I found NicholasNegreponte’s interview Computers for Peace posted on Edutopia. Here my three favorite Q&A’s from the interview:

1. Are there regions of the world where the OLPC model will not work?There are some cultures where it works more naturally, like Brazil, which is a very bottom-up society. There are others where it is harder, like China, not only because it is a teacher-centric and top-down society, but because Confucius would not have advocated laptops. His theories about teaching, the centricity of teachers, and the required obedience of children are pretty strong.
2. Critics of one-to-one laptop programs in the United States say the computers facilitate more in-class distraction (instant messaging, MySpace, and so on) than learning, that they allow children access to inappropriate content, and that the benefits of constant access are so far unproven. Do you share those concerns?We do not share those concerns, but that is not to say they are not real issues. Our kids in Cambodia learn English using chat and MySpace. Children are distracted if the teaching is not interesting. One education minister just said to us, about the $100 laptop, “Finally, education will include learning.”
3. In an ideal world, what is your single greatest hope for this project?A three-step hope: World peace through the elimination of poverty through education through learning. Education is the goal; learning is the means. A lot of learning can happen without teaching. We’re banking on that.

I’ve added a new site to my Bloglines reader: EdTech Live. SteveHargadon has created a bank of podcasts about the power of Web 2.0. I’m listening right now to his December interview with Will Richardson. I’ve shared many times Will’s video with teachers during my Weblogs in the Classroom workshop, but through Steve’s interview I am hearing how Will came on board with blogging – starting with the insights of Pat Delaney, my NWP colleague and mentor – who also brought me into the blogosphere. The word I keep hearing is transformative. Through Web 2.0 I believe the potential is there, but we are just at the tip of the iceberg. Quote from Will: “Once you read, then you have things to blog about.”

I am very glad I had the opportunity to hear Carol Anne McGuire’s inspiring presentation – Podcasting for the Absolute Beginner – at last week’s MacWorld conference in SF. Thanks to Wes Fryer, her presentation is now online. Carol Anne is an Apple Distinguished Teacher, a well-deserved award for the outstanding work she is doing with visually impaired students.

Will Richardson has bookmarked a site that inspires rethinking how we assess student learning.  The APA website has posted Using the New Bloom’s Taxonomy to Design Meaningful Learning Assessments. Researchers  Kevin Smythe and Jane Halonen provide a staircase graphic with “create” at the top, replacing Bloom’s “evaluate.” “Remember” remains at the bottom.  One more researched-based reason for eliminating AR multiple-chose testing from elementary computer curriculum…

For the past three or four years, many teachers in my district have been using the free online literacy program Star Fall with their primary grade students.  I’ve wondered about something along those lines for our older students. Thanks to Paul Turtola and the NCTE Talkies group, I just discovered an excellent freebie – http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/. Created  by Bill Zimmerman, who explains:

> As one who learned to read with comic books, I know that creating
> comic strips can help people tap into their creativity and practice
> their language and storytelling skills.  The site is free and stems
> from my lifelong mission to create resources that help people find
> their voice and express themselves. The concept for
> makebeliefscomix.com is derived from my earlier books, Make Beliefs
> and Make Beliefs for Kids of All Ages (which can be found on my other web site:  http://www.billztreasurechest.com).

Paul also shared his first use of this tool with a group of his high school students: “the assignment i gave them was to make comic strips with 10 vocabulary words. rather than just listing the words in the strip, they have to set up a situation that leads to the word, thereby providing context.”

January 4, 2007 – A great day for women; a great day for the nation! And have I mentioned that I was daughter Alexandra’s first grade teacher Speaker of the House Pelosi was already on the SF City Council, but still had time to drive on field trips.

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Image citation: New York Times Online, "Jubilant Democrats Assume Control on Capitol Hill"
5 Jan 2007 <http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/01/04/us/04pelosi2.600.jpg>.