Sometimes it is bad things that move teaching and supporting digital citizenship from a one-and-done assembly or an advisory period checklist into meaningful classroom discussions.
I have mentioned in previous blog posts that I coordinate, along with colleague Kathleen Watt, our district’s digital citizenship program. For 10+ years we’ve started each school year by asking our site coordinators to submit their proposed annual Digital Citizenship Implementation Plans and requiring by the end of the school year that every principal sign a form verifying that digital citizenship has been taught at his/her site.
To assist our schools, we post resources to our digital citizenship website, with an invitation for sites to develop a plan that works best for their school’s culture and needs. Although all sites have a plan in place, few are currently integrating digital citizenship into classroom curriculum. Designating an average of three lessons per grade level, covered separately (via assemblies, advisory, etc.) from the core curriculum tends to be the norm.
We always point out that this lesson can easily be integrated into a social studies unit on propaganda, for instance, helping students make powerful connections between “then and there” to “here and now.”
As a district, we are still healing from the wounds of last month’s racist viral video created and shared by two of our high school students. In response, we are suggesting that school sites visit/revisit Breaking Down Hate Speech – and, if needed, consider adding a resource Carl Wilkens recently sent me: The Dangerous Speech Project. Susan Benesh’s 6-minute video (below) visually explains the similarities, differences, and complexities in comparing “hate speech” to “dangerous speech” and provides 5 signs that will help you determine when speech is dangerous.
I know that the most powerful model for bringing about positive school-wide changes (face-to-face and online) to any school is students teaching students. And, of course, a supportive staff is also important. I hope to be back soon to showcase examples of students crossing the line from bystander to upstander and being change agents at their schools and all the communities to which they belong. I would also love to share how teachers across grade levels and subject areas are weaving in the topic of confronting online hate.
As always, you are warmly invited to contribute to this conversation by leaving a comment.
In recognition that we are living in a “post-truth” era, rampant with “fake news,” and that we all need media literacy skills, I’ve been gathering resources, collaborating with colleagues, and creating presentations geared to both students and staff. I’m adding to my Media Literacy site almost daily, with a weekly featured resource.
For the past 10 years, I’ve been co-directing my district’s digital citizenship program with my colleague Kathleen Watt. We’ve recently been discussing ideas for merging media literacy into our digital citizenship resources, with possibly a new logo coming soon.
A recent article by Keegan Korf, Embracing Our Digital Footprints and Guiding Students to Curate and Reshape Their Own, has us rethinking how we’ve been rolling out our program. Until now, our focus has been solely on students. While we provide a wide range of resources for teachers and parents to use with their students and their children, Keegan’s infographic (below) serves as a timely reminder that we should also be providing resources to help adults be aware of the need to be role models and to build and maintain positive digital footprints.
Infographic created by Keegan Korf
It’s not difficult to find excellent videos for students, such as Netsmartz’ 2 Kinds of Stupid, on how quickly your online reputation can destroy future job opportunities, scholarship options, and more.
But what about digital footprint videos for adults? I’m wondering how many talented, young teachers applying for positions in school districts across the nation will not even make it to the first interview due to something they’ve posted on social media. TED Talks such as Megan’s You Posted What?! could help “xennials” or anyone just entering the job market to stop and think before posting, retweeting, etc.
Over the next few months, I would like to gather examples of the many ways educators are modeling Standard 3 – with a special focus on 3a. If you have stories, infographics, TED Talks, lessons, articles, etc., to illustrate how an educator is actively making “positive, socially responsible contributions and exhibiting empathetic behavior online that build relationships and community,” please share by leaving a comment.
Thanks to an email from Julie Thomas, Library Archivist for California State University, Sacramento, I made sure to be home last Tuesday by 8:00 p.m.
Julie’s subject line was a grabber for me: Reiko Nagumo “We’ll Meet Again.” Her message was short:
“Here is the link to the We’ll Meet Again website and Reiko’s story is highlighted further down the page. I encourage you to tune in at 8:00 (EST and PST) and 7:00 (CST) on your local PBS station. It’s an amazing story about an amazing woman.”
We’ll Meet Again is a new PBS series produced and hosted by veteran journalist Ann Curry. The six-part series documents reunions between people whose lives were suddenly disrupted by historic events such as war. Episode 1 features Reiko Nagumo and her childhood friend Mary Frances, who, following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, stood up for Reiko when no one else would.
I have blogged before about Time of Remembrance, an oral histories project I co-direct for my district with my colleague Kathleen Watt. We had the privilege of interviewing Reiko 12 years ago. Her interview is one I often share with elementary students. I especially want them to know about Reiko’s friendship with Mary Frances (clip 2, 04:52). It’s a beautiful example of what can happen when a single person crosses the line (or playground) to extend a simple act of kindness to someone in need.
The high quality of the interviews (PBS quality, if I say so myself) are the result of our partnership with the Sacramento Educational Cable Consortium (SECC). We are incredibly grateful to the talent and project dedication of SECC videographer Doug Niva.
Several years ago, following a 3-day trip to the Manzanar internment camp, Doug suggested that we make a short documentary to introduce people to our growing collection of interviews. I’m American Too – A Story from Behind the Fences (16 minutes) includes snippets of Reiko’s interview, along with other internees, whose lives were also overnight and forever changed by Executive Order 9066.
Today, the Time of Remembrance project also includes a Vietnam War section, in which we’ve attempted to capture a little known story: the Secret War in Laos. For a quick overview, watch our 4-minute introduction:
Based on the impact of Reiko’s interview, and in every interview since hers, we always end with the same question: Can you think back to a time in your life (facing exclusion and forces removal, surviving in internment and refugee camps, starting the first day of school in a new country, etc.) when there was someone who stood up for you, making whatever challenges you were dealing with a little easier to cope with?
We are firm believers in the power of a single upstander to make a profound difference in someone’s life – or even change the course of history – and that “it is small things that allow bigger things to happen” (Sam Edleman, Holocaust historian).
January has been a painful month in my district due to a number of racist incidents, which have been widely publicized through local and national media. In an attempt to build student awareness on the exponential negative impact of bystanders, be it face-to-face or online, we invite students across the district, nation, and globe to contribute to our Upstanders, Not Bystanders VoiceThread. We started this VoiceThread a few years ago, and have had an amazing range of contributors, from kindergarten students to humanitarian Carl Wilkens. And, yes, Reiko Nagumo has already shared on the Voice Thread.
Note: A VoiceThread is like a visual podcast. Once you register with VoiceThread for a free account (a process that takes only a couple of minutes), you will be able to post a comment via voice, text, or webcam. Your comment will go “live” as soon as we approve it. If you are in a school district that is a GSuite (formerly known as Google Apps for Education) district, you already have an account, as VoiceThread is now integrated into your district Google account. Head to your Google Apps launcher (waffle) and scroll down to the More section to find the VoiceThread icon.
We look forward to hearing your students’ upstander stories – and yours too! Besides the VoiceThread, you can also leave a comment on this post. We’d love to showcase any projects or programs you are implementing in your schools to promote tolerance, respect, empathy, inclusion and global citizenship.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” ~ Margaret Mead
“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” ~ Albert Einstein
We should choose to teach copyright not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because the goal of understanding copyright will serve to measure the best of student energies, skills, and citizenship.”Tara Woodall
I somehow managed to miss Tara Woodall’s article The Right Stuff – Teaching Kids about Copyright when Common Sense posted it back in July. But thanks to a re-tweet from Common Sense, the article came my way in December. I have read it, bookmarked it, tweeted it, and days later, keep circling back to Tara’s quote.
The challenge to teach copyright and fair use, even though “it’s not easy,” resonates with me on many levels. I started weaving copyright into my workshop agendas about 10 years ago, making sure to remind teachers of legal constraints when adding images found on the Internet to blogs, wikis, VoiceThreads, or whatever program I was teaching.
Initially, I shared Hall Davidson’s chart. Fair use was not part of my agenda. But I let go of Hall’s chart in 2011, after attending an amazing 3-hour ISTE workshop facilitated by Renee Hobbs. Renee’s Copyright Clarity session provided me with a window into “how fair use supports digital learning.” I left the session with a commitment to develop workshops for my district and region on copyright and fair use and to embed the resources into a digital citizenship toolkit.
As a co-director of my district’s digital citizenship initiative, I’ve had the good fortune to team with Kathleen Watt. Ironically, as we were developing Can I Use That? A Guide to Creative Commons, schools and districts across the country were copying Kathleen’s digital citizenship graphic – without giving credit. Oh, yes, a teachable moment: Oh no they didn’t:
Although we continue to post and add resources to our digital citizenship blog, copyright has taken a bit of a back seat due to a continual abundance of cyberbullying issues and the current rise of fake news. Even Google’s newly released Be Internet Awesome program focuses on confronting fake news, protecting privacy, and combating bullying, and omits teaching students about their intellectual property rights and responsibilities.
Not since the March 2017 CUE Conference have I facilitated a workshop on copyright. I’ve had a lot of things on my plate (mainly the roll out of a new student information system!), but it’s time to start submitting proposals again. Tara Woodall’s post is a call to action and a reminder that, as rapidly as technology changes, digital ethics are timeless. An understanding of copyright “will serve to measure the best of student energies, skills, and citizenship.”
Digital citizenship is often cited as the fastest changing subject in the K-12 curriculum. Thinking back 10 years to 2007, when I first began rolling out a digital citizenship program for my district, we were using iSafe, a curriculum that focused on keeping students safe from others. “Stranger danger” was a big concern, with much media coverage – and a bit of hype.
By 2008, we were concerned not only with keeping students safe from others, but also with keeping them safe from each other and from themselves. By now both the federal government and our state government had started issuing legal mandates, including the federal E-Rate/CIPA requirements. Through a district task force (which had morphed from the Internet Safety Task Force to the Digital Citizenship Task Force), we made a commitment that all students would be firmly grounded in what it means to be active, contributing (digital) citizens in all the communities to which they belong, within and beyond the school day. The Task Force agreed that out of multiple topics related to digital citizenship, we would focus on four themes: Taking a stand against cyberbullying, building a positive digital footprint, protecting privacy, and respecting intellectual property.
We encouraged – and then required – that all schools teach digital citizenship, using whatever resources and teaching practices worked best for their school community and culture. For those who preferred having ready-to-go lessons at their fingertips, we recommended Common Sense Media’s k-12 curriculum. We even provided a suggested scope-and-sequence – which, to avoid an overload of content, did not include Common Sense Media’s media literacy lessons.
Times have changed. In an age of “fake news,” media literacy should be embedded across the curriculum.
I had the good fortune to be invited to Google last Monday to join a team of Googlers and Google Certified Innovators to explore the Be Internet Awesome package and to participate in highly interactive panel and group discussions on the critical need to be teaching digital citizenship skills in the 2017-2018 school year and, as you can see from the video below, the importance of including parents in the conversations.
At the heart of the Be Internet Awesome curriculum is Interland, a “playful browser-based game that makes learning about digital safety interactive and fun.” Award-winning YA author John Green, has even joined the Google team and recorded messages for the Be Internet Awesome Challenge, a video series aimed at igniting conversations in the classroom and at home too on what it means to be smart, alert, strong, kind, and brave online; in other words, how to “BeInternetAwesome.”
As we head into the 2017-2018 school year, I want to acknowledge my appreciation for Common Sense Media, the Google team, and other national organizations, including:
I work in the Technology Services Department for a large public school district. I love my job (technology integration specialist) and truly appreciate my department’s support of programs that promote digital literacy and the potential for students – and teachers – to advance from digital citizens to global citizens.
With this week’s start of the new school year, I’m getting lots of requests from teachers to setup Edublogs Pro classroom blogs, something I am happy to do … but not until we’ve had a conversation about their vision for their blogs. Because my department pays for our Edublog Campus accounts (worth every penny), I like to know how far up the SAMR ladder they – and their students – might travel via their classroom blog. If they simply want an online location to post homework and announcements, I suggest a free Google Site. If they need a little background on the SAMR model, I might send them a short video, such as John Spensor’s introduction, which makes the connection to the potential power of blogging:
Last week, in response to my blogging vision questions, a teacher sent me a link to the awesome Jeff Bradbury’s TeacherCast session: The Great EdTech Debate: Google Sites vs Google Classroom vs Blogger. I emailed back that Jeff was simply reviewing the suite of Google options; he was not commenting on the power and possibilities of classroom blogging. (And I agree with Jeff that Blogger is not the best choice for a classroom blog.)
This morning, I came across Silvia Tolisano’s post Blogging Through the Lens of SAMR, I decided it was time to gather resources and rationale on moving a classroom blog from “substitution” (the “S” of SAMR) to “redefinition.” Silvia’s post, with its wonderful infographics, is a great starting point. I’m also including and highly recommending:
As a former classroom teacher, I witnessed many times the bump in literacy skills that happens when students know their work really matters, a change that generally requires an authentic audience. Blogging can provide a 24/7 microphone for students to join in virtual conversations with students and classrooms across the nation and world – and, in the process, cross the line from consumer of information to creator of information – and from digital citizen to global citizen.
I’m ending this post with two things: a blogger’s poem and an invitation.
#1) An if-you-give-a-mouse-a-cookie-style poem from Edublogger Ronnie Burt’s blog post A Rhyme? Why Not! Please note that “website” = “blog”:
If you give a student a website, at first, he isn’t going to be sure what to do.
He will start by wanting to decorate it and personalize it too.
He’ll no doubt choose some interesting colors and flashing widgets – making sure he has the most.
Once you go over expectations, you will assign the student to write his first post.
The student will ask, ‘is this for a grade?’, and he will probably groan.
But once he publishes to his new website, he’ll immediately want to pull out his phone.
He’ll post a link to twitter and facebook, out across the interwebs his post will be sent.
He’ll hit refresh in his browser, over and over, just hoping that a visitor has left a comment.
Before long he’ll see the comment notifications show up in his queue.
And an ongoing dialogue between his family, friends, and classmates will certainly continue.
So the next time he learns something new in your class, there won’t be much of a fight.
Before you even get the chance to finish, the student will ask if he can write another post on his website.
#2 ) An invitation to share classroom and student blogs I could showcase in my next post on blogging best practices. Please leave a comment with links!
Best wishes to everyone for the 2017-2018 school year.
PS Thank you Pixabay for cc licensed blogging image!
San Antonio’s River Walk + the ISTE 2017 Conference = a winning combination. Three weeks later, at last I have a little time to reflect on some memorable takeaways:
Day 1 – Sunday
Global Education Day – Joining Steve Hargadon and Lucy Gray for this 3-hour, highly interactive forum was an awesome start to my #ISTE17 experience. Check out the Agenda for an overview of the event.
Below are links to Ignite Talks, each one from an innovative global leader:
Amazing Race – Global Students/Global Perspectives – Can’t wait to share Laurie Clement’s invitation to teachers: “Join us for the Amazing Race Project and allow your students to update their passports and travel the world as they learn about different places across the globe.”
Sustainable Development Goals – In partnership with the United Nations, oh so many ideas for students to make a difference as global citizens.
Commit 2 Act – Love this project! Reminds me of “think global; act local.” Your students can track how their actions are making a difference as they view actual data about what they’ve done to help the earth.
Taking IT Global – Global Gallery – Wow! This is an amazing site and project for students who want to change the world. How did I not know about the Youth Media Gallery?!
Digital Portfolios: The Whole Child; The Whole Story – Yes, I promise that watching this 37-minute video and following up on the included resources will be time well spent! For me, this video connects the dots between three topics I teach, support, and promote: digital portfolios from elementary – secondary, digital/global citizenship, and taking student voices beyond the walls of the classroom.
So glad I made my way through the wait list and was able to attend Global Education Day. Am feeling empowered to bring global education/citizenship into the new school year – and proud to be a member of the Global Education Network.
Ending Day 1 with dinner and river walk with long-time NWP friend and colleague Sandy Hays,
The spread of misinformation is nothing new, but websites and social media make it far easier to distribute and more difficult to detect. This session explores strategies educators can use themselves and with students to effectively evaluate the truth in what they read, see, and hear.
Susan’s session was a reminder that today, “in a time when blatant falsehoods are being put out there,” digital citizenship programs need to include digital literacy.
Here’s a brief recap of her content-rich, engaging Agenda;
Where to begin:
How you look at numbers – Here’s where you can integrate media literacy across the curriculum. Math teachers, you have a treasure trove of resources to connect your lessons on computing mean, median, and mode to the world of advertising and current events. As a non-math person, I really appreciate Susan’s reminder that averages involve three different ways to look a numbers. In the world of media, if you want to show growth – give median, not the mean. If you want something to look lower, give mode. Love the Statistics – How to website page on Misleading Graphs. And remember: Pie charts have to add up to 100%.
How you look at words – Let’s start with “post-truth,” the Oxford Dictionary’s 2016 word of the year: “Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” As Susan shared a range of resources, I starting thinking about the importance of her opening message:” We need media literacy as much as our students do. We need a Common Sense Media resource for adults.” Although last December’s Pizzagate Conspiracy Theory story (a media hoax created by a kid in Macedonia) seemed like an extreme example of an adult lacking discriminatory skills, when Susan showed Nathan for You, the Petting Zoo Hero (below), I wondered how often my media literacy skills are influenced by what I would simply like to be “true.”
In a “post-truth era,” we all need to skeptical; we all need to do our fact checking, Three top sites for fact checking are:
Snopes – makes money if truthful – not for clicks.
Susan closed her session by referencing three great quotes …
“There is badly written news, there is news I didn’t get, but there is not such a thing as fake news – it’s lies.” Even NPR will now say it’s lies – no “alternative facts.” Sir Harold Evans
“There are not always two sides to a story. Sometimes the truth is obvious. Sometimes it’s right in front of your face.” Bob Simon, CBS
So glad to have attended Susan Brooks-Young’s #ISTE17 and greatly appreciate her invitation to share out her tips and resources. Thanks to the layout and content of her agenda, I feel ready, organized, and inspired to offer a Recognizing Lies workshop in my district and region.
“Don’t focus on the tools without asking how to use them. We can’t focus on the tools (nouns); we have to think of the functions (verbs).” Marc Prensky
In teaching students how to be curators of information (able to find, vet, organize, and share information), Steven suggests three questions (from Common Sense Media) for students to ask as part of the curation process:
What story are you trying to tell? What is your goal with this resource? What will I use it for?
When will you use? “We live in an age of rapidly changing info”
Just how good is it? Is it reliable and valid?
I appreciate Steve’s Fictitious Websites doc, which also includes a link to California State University, Merced’s, CRAP Detector, as well as “Resources for Developing Healthy Skeptics.” Nice to have a 1-pager for students.
Day 3 – Tuesday
The Untold Story of Limitless Potential – Very possibly the most inspiring keynote I’ve ever heard! In 2012, I attended the Google Teacher Academy in Mountain View. For sure, a highlight of the GTA experience was being in Jennie Magiera’s group. If you listen to this short clip from her keynote, I think you will have a window into her passion for teaching, her leadership in educational technology, and her infectious humor.
From recounting her mother’s immigration story, to the teacher who made a difference, to Jennie’s own personal struggles, every minute of this keynote was quote-worthy and inspiring. Drawing from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TEDTalk The Danger of a Single Story, Jennie made a compelling case for educators and students to find and tell our own untold stories.
Feedback Tools for Google Docs – I am a huge fan of Eric Curts and stand in awe of the wealth of resources and tutorials he regularly creates and freely shares on his website. So being able to actually meet with him in person was definitely a favorite #ISTE17 takeaway. The best way to follow every step of his session is to read through his Four Fantastic Feedback Tools for Google Docs. Be sure to read the comments too.
And thank you, MERIT11 colleague Karen Larson, for taking our sort-of-selfie with Eric.
Traditional, Transitional, Transformational – Dang! Lost track of time and only made it to the last 5 minutes of Will Richardson’s session. If you haven’t yet subscribed to Will’s Modern Learners’ white papers, you should! Only 5 minutes with Will, and still some takeaways:
I recommend pouring yourself a glass of your favorite beverage before you start exploring Google’s Arts & Culture Center. It’s like falling down the rabbit hole. Right now I’m exploring Stories from the Holocaust and will head next into Cuban Arts & Culture.
Day 4 – Wednesday
The Power of Pivot Tables – What a well-crafted hands-on session! To teach a packed room of educators how to create and use pivot tables – in 60 minutes – really requires some serious prep time! Clearly Todd McDonald and Joel Handler thought through the scope and sequence of their presentation, with a perfect balance between instruction, tips, and hands-on time. Learning about pivot tables has been on my to-do list for a long time. At the end of their session, I walked out excited about pivot tables, along with an 11-slide presentation (yep, only 11 slides) that has everything I need to review and practice pivot tables and to move on to the next level. Perhaps, more importantly, I will be rethinking my own technology workshops and aiming to make each one as compact and informative as Todd and Joe’s session.
Consuming, Connecting, Caring: Embrace New Literacies to Succeed in a Digital World – I ended #ISTE17 with Alec Couros’s session, a good choice – as you can see from Alec’s accompanying Consuming, Connecting, Caring Resources doc. Like Susan Brooks-Young and Steven Anderson, Alec referenced the need to keep adults up to date with media literacy, and for both educators and students to understand that “information is easy to spread; correcting it – not so easy.”
Alec started with a look at today’s culture of learning, using 5-year-old Jordan as an example of how kids are teaching themselves about topics they care about.
I’m betting many first grade teachers will have students like Jordan spending the next school year with them. It’s hard to imagine Jordan thriving in a classroom that’s adhering to publishers’ scope and sequence charts or district-mandated curriculum.
A few gems from each of Alec’s topics:
Consuming: On the topic of students as consumers of information, I like the pace and content of John Spencer’s The Problem with Fake News (and how students can solve it) video, and the message that “critical thinkers are good for democracy – and that’s good for everyone.”
Connecting: Leave to The Oatmeal (Matthew Inman) to provide a conversation/explanation/walk-thru/challenge on “why do we easily soften to some ideas but not others? Why do we gnash our teeth when presented with evidence counter to our beliefs?” You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you could be a powerful conversation starter – for adults and students.
Caring: How do we teach for empathy? That’s a question that’s come up in many recent discussions with colleagues. I think teaching, supporting, promoting, and modeling all forms of citizenship (face-to-face, digital, global) is a starting point. Below are the citizenship resources from Alec’s doc.
I’m adding Project Empathy to the list (which I believe Alec mentioned during his session). I just started exploring this website and have already discovered an excellent video from Brene Brown on the important difference between empathy and sympathy.
Three weeks later, I am still reflecting on my #ISTE17 experience. Not all the sessions I attended are included in this post, but those included are the ones that have started me thinking about new possibilities and visions for teaching and learning in the upcoming school year. For each one mentioned, I anticipate blogging about the process and impact of implementing one of the shared resources, strategies or tips.
I also had the opportunity to meet Curran Dee, an exceptional young man, who at age 8 gave his first TED Talk (below) and at ISTE gave an Ignite Talk. If I can find a recording of his Ignite talk, I’ll add the link. Here’s a link to Curran’s website. At the top of my #ISTE17 follow-up list is to connect Curran with students in my district to discuss digital/global citizenship. Student-teaching-students – always a powerful, effective model for learning!
Thank you to the ISTE team for a fabulous conference. I can only imagine the countless hours of planning and energy that went into this year’s conference. Thank you, thank you!
One last river walk. Good bye, San Antonio. #ISTE17
I’m already looking forward to and planning for #ISTE18 in Chicago.
Just returned from CUE 2017, three jam-packed days of sharing, collaborating, learning, rethinking, and celebrating in the beautiful California desert setting of Palm Springs.
For those of you #NotAtCUE17, here are my top takeaways:
Keynote Speakers – Oh my!
Lucky me! I was able to attend all three:
Jo Boaler: The Mindset Revolution – A shout out to CUE for having Dr. Jo Boaler as the kick-off keynote. A visit to her youcubed website will give you an idea of Jo’s commitment to moving students – and teachers – past a “fixed mindset” of “I’m not good at math” to “offering mathematics as a growth subject, filled with opportunities for creativity, discussions, and multiple perspectives.”
I’ve heard the term “growth mindset” before, but hearing Jo Boaler present research-based findings on its importance had me leaving the keynote wanting to learn more. This snippet from her recent Scientific American article, Why Math Doesn’t Add Up in the U.S., will give you a window into her findings:
Brain research has elucidated another practice that keeps many children from succeeding in math. Most mathematics classrooms in the U.S. equate skill with speed, valuing fast recall and testing even the youngest children against the clock. But studies show that kids manipulate math facts in their working memory—an area of the brain that can go off-line when they experience stress. Timed tests impair working memory in students of all backgrounds and achievement levels, and they contribute to math anxiety, especially among girls. By some estimates, as many as a third of all students, starting as young as age five, suffer from math anxiety.”
I recommend spending the next 16 minutes watching CUE Live’s interview with Jo and then head to her youcubed site:
A few quotes from Jo Boaler:
“Let’s get rid of speed math…Speed does not equate to intelligence or better math understanding.”
“Parents should know that nobody is born a math person – and should never give that message to their kids.”
George Couros: The Innovator’s Mindset – If you’re not already following George Couros on Twitter, you should be. As a long-time follower and fan of George Couros, AKA Principal of Change, I already knew his keynote would be a great takeaway (although I didn’t know it would a good idea to have Kleenex available, as he regularly interjected short but powerful, often emotional, video clips to illustrate his points). His fast-moving, highly engaging keynote included 8 Characteristics of an Innovator’s Mindset, which the wonderful Sylvia Duckworth has put into an infographic:
Moving from a “fixed mindset” to an “innovator’s mindset” requires embracing change, learning from failures, and being OK with the fact that implementing change will probably require all 8 of the above characteristics. So, yes, you may have to explain to colleagues that “if you ask when you’ll find the time, you’re already giving up.”
George also posed a question on school vs. learning, and shared an infographic with common differences between the two:
About those video clips I mentioned that George injected throughout the presentation to bring home every point … he’s posted them to his website. These are gems to include in your growth/innovator’s mindset toolkit.
A few favorite quotes from this inspiring keynote:
“The best person to teach students about space is not you; it’s an astronaut.” – One more argument for opening classroom walls via videoconferencing!
“Social media is like water. You can either let us drown, or teach us to swim.” – Will share this one with district-level administrators.
“We need to make the positive so loud that the negative is hardly heard.” – Don’t shut down learning sites/sources because of misuse by a few students.”
“The biggest game changer in education is not the technology; it’s the teacher.” – Will remind curriculum adoption folks about this sometimes forgotten fact.
Cathy Hunt: The Art and Soul of Education – How fun to end the #CUE17 Conference with a national (Australian) and international award-winning (tons!) art instructor. Don’t think you can do art? Head to Cathy Hunt’s website and get ready for another “growth mindset.”
Photo from @susiew
Loved the lessons she demoed, especially Picasso’s Portrait pieces, which starts with students taking selfies (which we all know students love to do) and then layering pieces of a Picasso painting over their selfies (which definitely qualifies as transformative use if you are wondering/worrying about fair use issues).
My favorite quotes from Cathy Hunt:
“If you want to increase divergent thinking in your classroom, make some art.”
“To make, to create is to be fully human.”
Some Great Session Takeaways
Mark Ray: Future Ready Is Greater Than Digital – Scroll through Mark Ray’s presentation and you’ll be ready to start the Future Ready conversations at your site/district on Monday. In addition to serving as Director of Innovation and Library Services for the Vancouver (Washington) School District, Mark is also working for the Alliance for Excellent Education in Washington, D.C., with a focus on the Future Ready Librarians initiative, part of “a national effort to connect school libraries and librarians to innovative instructional practices.” The graphic below includes the eight categories/gears of the Future Ready Framework through a librarian’s lens.
Knowing from a first-hand perspective the vital role librarians play at their school sites, I love that the Future Ready initiative is tapping into their expertise.
Mark introduced four important shifts required to truly be future ready:
Ownership – from teacher to student. Students need to have personalized learning paths.
Consumer to Creator – In the old days, somebody else wrote the textbook. Today students and teachers should be designing and creating products.
Local to global – Students need authentic opportunities to connect with other students, even if it’s just the school down the road.
Shift from fixed to mobile – Let’s recognize that students carry learning opportunities in their pockets.
Mark’s tip for making the shift happen: Start by putting together a Future Ready Admin team.
Mark Archon: Student Data Privacy – What You Don’t Know Might Hurt You – If you are a teacher who is frustrated by (the many) websites your district blocks, read through Mark Archon’s presentation and you will have a window into your tech administrator’s world. If you are an administrator wishing you had a presentation at your fingertips to explain student data privacy concerns and laws to teachers, Mark Archon just gave you a timely gift.
Since the passage of California’s AB 1584, a bit of my day (as a technology integration specialist) typically goes to tracking down vendors to have them sign my district’s legal document before I can approve software purchase requests. So I was very excited to learn that CETPA, in collaboration with the Ventura County Office of Education, is going to make the software approval process much easier by compiling a listing of AB 1584 compliant software on their Student Data Privacy Alliance page. Yay!
CETPA, the law offices of Fagen Friedman & Fulfrost, and Common Sense Media have collaborated on a short video, Ask Before You App, to give you a few tips on how to responsibly evaluate and use educational apps.
Anyone who handles data should know how to protect that data. Human error is a factor in 95% of data security incidents.”
I also liked his much needed reminder that, in terms of online programs:
Nothing is free. The currency is you.”
Mark Ray: Compliance to Self-Reliance – Rebooting Digital Citizenship – Mark jumped right into the topic by asking: “Are you and I hypocrites when it comes to digital citizenship and digital behavior?” He followed up his question with a link to a self-assessment quiz. I do a lot of digital citizenship workshops, which from now on will start with “an adult digital user quiz.” As Mark’s session made clear: How can we teach digital citizenship if we don’t model it ourselves?
Sabrina Goldstein, Sam Castellano, Darlene Moreno: Crack the Code: Connect Scratch to Your Language Arts Classroom – This talented team of elementary teachers did a great job of introducing MIT’s Scratch program, sharing compelling examples of student work, and bringing the audience on board by having them create their own Scratch animations. I also learned a new term: “kinetic storytelling,” which is storytelling that incorporates timing, color, location, transitions, and font. This short video will show you what kinetic storytelling looks like:
For our elementary students, Scratch offers multiple ways, for instance, for students “to demonstrate knowledge of figurative language and promote creativity and critical thinking skills through the use of backgrounds and coding commands.” Check out this elementary sample on figurative language to get you thinking about how Scratch can take language arts lessons to new levels.
We were fortunate to have a wonderful group of teachers joining us early Saturday morning for this session, many who remained afterwards to ask questions sparked by the presentation. If you were #NotAtCUE17 or not in our session, here’s a link to our digital handout: bit.ly/UnlockMediaLiteracy. And if you’re looking for a hyperdoc lesson on copyright, fair use, and Creative Commons to use on Monday, here it is:
With over 6,000 educators in attendance, it is hard to imagine the amount of planning that must go into a CUE Conference. I’d like to thank the ever-amazing Mike Lawrence and his incredible team for three-days worth of inspiring/energizing “future ready” learning experiences, perspectives, tips, resources, and conversations.
Last month, I posted Remembering Executive Order 9066, commemorating the 75th anniversary of FDR signing this historic, unfortunate executive order. Given how often the term “executive order” is currently in the news, I wanted to do more than simply reflect on an injustice from the past. Today I am posting a new lesson/hyperdoc to the Time of Remembrance (TOR) website: In Response to Executive Order 9066.
The goal of this lesson is to introduce students (Grades 4-12) to the possible impacts of any executive order that targets a specific group of people. During the months following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, over 110,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of them citizens of the United States, were evacuated from the West Coast and “relocated” to detention camps established by the U.S. Government. As captured in Ansel Adam’s iconic photos, many internees would spend the next three years behind barbed wire. Their stories of discrimination and forced removal provide a window into a time when our nation failed to uphold the rights guaranteed to all citizens by the U.S. Constitution — regardless of nationality, race, religion, or ethnicity.
As students delve into the lesson by watching the I’m American Too – Stories from Behind the Fences documentary and exploring the primary source interviews in the TOR WWII Archives, they will gain an understanding of how virtually overnight West Coast farming communities were forever changed, with very few internees returning to their former homes. The students are then tasked with capturing a “story from behind the fences” by drafting a letter in the voice of the internee to someone, real or imaginary, outside of the camp. Using Dwight Okita’s “In Response to Executive Order 9066” poem as a model, their final task is to transform their letters into letter poems.
The lesson is also a call to action. Students are warmly invited to take their letter poems beyond the walls of the classroom by submitting them to the TOR Student Gallery for publication to a national audience. If you work with students, I am pretty sure you will agree that when we support students in speaking out on issues of social justice, we are often providing a lens to view the impact of bystanders and the difference a single upstander can make.
During the month of March, many West Coast school districts and museums commemorate Japanese-American internment with activities and exhibits. And, of course, probably all school districts celebrate April as National Poetry Month. Whatever the occasion or lesson might be, if you are a teacher, I hope you will encourage your students to create letter poems in response to Executive Order 9066 and to publish them to an authentic audience, such as the Time of Remembrance Student Gallery.
Seventy-five years ago today, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of over 120,000 people of Japanese descent, many of them citizens, from the West Coast. Virtually overnight, an entire group of people lost their jobs, their homes, and their constitutional rights.
Thanks to a beautiful article in today’s SacBee from California farmer, journalist, and author David Mas Masumoto, I am reminded of the importance of standing up and speaking out on behalf of targeted groups. I teach in a school district that was once home to a hard-working community of Japanese-American farmers, who transformed the region into beautiful, productive strawberry fields. Following the signing of Executive Order 9066, the history of the Elk Grove-Florin region was abruptly and forever changed.
In honor of the many contributions of the Japanese-American community and in recognition of the need to stop history from repeating itself, I am proud to co-direct my district’s Time of Remembrance Oral Histories Project (TOR). David Mas Masumoto’s words complement the purpose of the TOR project:
“We remember through stories. They frame events, add context to the past beyond a history of facts. Stories add rich and personal details that generate an emotional connection to what was and what can be.”
America is a nation of immigrants. In response to the current political climate and an executive order that is similar to 9066, the TOR project invites youth from across the nation to interview an immigrant or refugee and then share their stories on our TOR Student Gallery. We’ve created On Coming to America, both the lesson and teacher’s guide/toolkit, as an opportunity to showcase the sacrifices and contributions of immigrants and refugees. Again, David Mas Masumoto’s words sum up our commitment to documenting stories from our communities:
“To recognize today’s stories of hate against a class of people, to demand these stories be heard is a first step to building a more democratic and just nation. To be American is to remember all our stories.”
