BlogWalker

Muddling through the blogosphere

July 25, 2015
by blogwalker
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More Than Words – Middle School Kids on Literacy

I love it when students speak out on issues that impact their learning – such as ways educators can promote – or kill – a love for reading. Of course, having the always-learning, ever-inspiring Jim Bentley encouraging his 6th graders to delve in and create a documentary really helps in moving a project from vision to reality.

Here’s the driving question Jim’s students worked on during and beyond the school day: How can we as filmmakers show middle schoolers the importance of developing literacy skills? I’m pretty sure you will agree with me that in 15 minutes, Jim’s students have produced an important piece for a broad audience. Drum roll, please …..

More than Words: A Documentary on Middle School Literacy

I am very fortunate to be working in the same school district as Jim. Whenever I need a little inspiration, his school is only a 10-minute drive from my office. Because Jim loops with his students (5th/6th grade), I’ve had the good fortune to follow their work over the last two years. Several times I’ve taken teachers to visit with Jim’s class. Although his students are always busy with their research and production schedules, they’re happy to provide a tour of their classroom and video production studio (former janitorial closet) and to answer visitors’ questions.

More Than Words is a wonderful example of student-driven, project-based learning (PBL) and of good things happening in public education.

November 22, 2014
by blogwalker
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It’s that time again: #eddies14

edublog_awards_170x290_v2-2h4n5ynI love the Annual Edublog Awards. Every year, the event puts me into a reflective mode, as I think back through memorable posts, tweets, and virtual connections.

In making my 2014 nominations, I’ve focused mainly on two areas that are very important to me:

Resources for a connected educators

Resources for primary grades (too often the marginal or missing component of tech conferences)

Resources for transitioning to Project-Based Learning (PBL)

So …. drumroll please ….

  • Best Individual Blog – Primary Preoccupation – Kathy Cassidy’s blog is the first resource I share with primary teachers in my district who are starting their journeys into connected learning with their young students.
  • Best Group Blog – Digital Is – Sponsored by the National Writing Project (NWP), the Digital Is blog and website continue to offer an amazing range of topics, discussions, resource, and best practices on teaching (digital) writing and promoting (digital) literacy and connected learning.
  • Best New Blog – Mrs. Petuya’s Class Blog – Oh, such joyful learning takes place in Cathe Petuya’s Kindergarten classroom (my district). She is a fearless explorer ever in search of ways and tools for developing and supporting student voice – beyond the walls of the classroom.
  • Best Class Blog – Mr. Bentley’s 5th/6th Grade Loop – For a journey into powerful PBL instruction, with young filmmakers at the helm, you will want to revisit Jim Bentley’s blog often. Amazing teaching and learning (my district)!
  • Best Teacher Blog – The Tempered Radical – Year after year and from the classroom trenches, middle school teacher and NWP colleague Bill Ferriter pushes my thinking and expands my teaching toolkit.
  • Best Ed Tech/ Resource Sharing Blog – Edutopia – If I went back over my Tweets for the year, I’m pretty sure Edutopia would be at the top. My #1 go-to place for PBL resources and tips.
  • Most Influential Blog Post of the Year – No Longer a Luxury – Digital Literacy Can’t Wait – Written by Troy Hicks and Kristen Hawley Turner and posted to the National Council for Teachers of English website, this is the article I continue to share with teachers and administrators.
  • Best Individual Tweeter – @LarryFerlazzo – From app recommendations (love Shadow Puppets) to ed articles, Larry continues to find, create, and Tweet about an incredible range of useful resources (starting with his Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day blog).
  • Best Free Web Tool – Twitter.
  • Best Use of Media – Ms. Cheung’s Terrific Kinders – This wonderful teacher (my district) started a new journey this year: teaching students in TK (Transitional Kindergarten). She is already tapping into the power of voice to document her students’ journeys into literacy and numeracy.
  • Best Educational Wiki – hickstro – I am a better teacher thanks to the incredible depth and breadth of resources Troy Hicks so generously and regularly shares.
  • Best PD/unconference/webinar – Teachers Teaching Teachers – Throughout the year, I try to keep Wednesday evenings free to join Paul Allison and the weekly gathering of innovative, thought-provoking educators who join this weekly Google Hangout. And the good news is if I can’t join the Hangout, Paul always posts it to the site.
  • Best Mobile App – Shadow Puppet Edu – Again, with my focus on finding resources for primary grades, finding an app that makes recording over images and embedding the image/topic/lesson into blog very easy, I’m glad to have discovered (thanks to a Tweet from Larry Ferlazzo) Shadow Puppet.
  • Lifetime Achievement – Suzie Boss – Suzie Boss’s support and documentation of classroom teachers – within and outside my district – who are empowering their students through Project-Based Learning has been ongoing and far reaching. From her Edutopia posts to her publications, EdChats, Tweets, and presentations, Suzie is responsible for a growing bank of best practices in PBL and 21st century teaching and learning.

I know I’m missing a few categories, so if you have recommendations, please post a comment.

Be back soon.

 

 

April 20, 2014
by blogwalker
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PBL Workshop – A year later

A year ago, a wonderful principal at one of my district’s elementary schools invited me to give a 1-hour workshop at his site on Project-Based Learning (PBL). I was thrilled to have the request come from an administrator and for the opportunity to organize my thoughts and resources into something useful for teachers.

I set to work on a Google slideshow, so that the teachers would have an easily-edible presentation to use with their students and parents. As you can see from the presentation (which includes the talking points), I pulled mainly from Edutopia and BIE (Buck Institute of Education), two rich, dynamic, free gold mines for PBL samples, resources, and best practices. The only thing missing from my slideshow was a PBL sample from my district, since this was an in-district workshop.  Thanks to the amazing work of 5th/6th grade teacher Jim Bentley and his students, that missing district element no longer exists.


On Thursday, one year later, I’ll be headed to Jim’s site to co-facilitate a PBL workshop that’s open to all district  teachers and administrators. What makes this workshop very special is that some of Jim’s students will also be presenting with us.

I celebrate that one year later, there is a small, but growing number of teachers in my district embracing PBL – with a common thread of having supportive administrators who recognize the value of students being engaged and feeling a genuine purpose for their work. So my idea is to offer our PBL workshop each quarter, with a different site/teacher(s)/students hosting the workshop.

In collaboration with Jim and other contributing PBL teachers, we’ll continue updating the slideshow. We’ll also be adding to our PBL digital handout. We would welcome more snippets of what PBL looks like from primary grades through high school, across the curriculum and content areas. If you have sources we should add, please share them via a comment.

June 28, 2013
by blogwalker
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ISTE 2013 Takeaways – Day 2

ISTE 2013 Day 2

Session 1

“Inquiry is the personal path of questioning, investigating, and reasoning that takes us from not knowing to knowing” Suzie Boss

Signposts to Better Projects: How to take thinking deeper in digital age PBLSuzie Boss and Mike Gwaltney’s session was one of the first entries on my conference planner as a “must see” session! Suzie has already posted the session slideshow (below).

And my takeaways:

1.Set stage for inquiry – Example: Prior to announcing a new project, place banners and posters outside and inside the school as “grabbers.”

2. Create a culture of collaboration – Example: Make the world safe for thinking – the marshmallow challenge (TED talk) – http://marshmallowchallenge.com/TED_Talk.html – will get you thinking about safe environments for learning.

3. Invite feedback – Example: Use class blog to create feedback loop. Consider joining a collaborative blogging community such as Quadblogging.

4. Think about thinking – provide some deliberate ways for kids to think about their thinking, to develop thinking routines. Think/Pair/Share, for example, is a quick way to collect thoughts, put them out, and get some response.   Use Google Docs to promote reflection, using targeted questions (how’s this assignment compare to another project). Have students create videos as formative assessment. For more ideas on helping students develop a “thinking routine,” check out Peter Pappas’ A Taxonomy of Reflection and Project Zero: Thinking Routines.

5. Think as experts do – How do you encourage thinking as experts do? Put kids in the role off experts. Show Thinking like a Historian chart. What are the ways that people think in your discipline. Kids need academic vocabulary of the discipline. “It’s relatively unnatural for a young person to be interested in the past – they haven’t lived long enough.” Use current events. Checkout George Mayo’s Transitions project. His students had to think like illustrators for project; therefore, George brought in a husband and wife team.

6. Watch for spirals (project creates more energy) – what’s the opportunity.  Is it worth taking project further.

Student filmmakers

Student filmmakers

Checkout Ghost Jacket from Lost & Found Films – a project that transitioned from cleaning up a mess at a school site to sending jackets to those who needed them.  And, of course, what better example of a spiral could Suzie use than Jim Bentley’s student film academy’s award-winning documentary (a continuing/spiraling project) on hazardous waste: Recharging Our World (very proud of my inspiring district colleague and his incredible students:-).

Mike Gwaltney's PBL rubric

Mike Gwaltney’s PBL rubric

7. Assessment: Think about assessment throughout the project, formative not just summative. Grading on process across categories vs. a single grade on final project/product …. Oh my, this is brilliant!!! Mike Gwaltney has created PBL skills “hit the bull’s eye” sort of a rubric – for formative and self assessment to “get students thinking about their own learning.”

And a few more books to add to my summer reading list, per Mike Gwaltney’s recommendations: Teaching with Your Mouth Shut (David Finkel) and Understanding by Design (by Grant Wiggins). If you have not already read Suzie’s Reinventing Project-Based Learning,  this is a great starting point for your PBL journey, as well as the Buck Foundation’s PBL website.

 

Session 2

Design Your Digital Tattoo – Helping Students Design Their Digital ImageAdina Sullivan pointed out what should be obvious to all of us who teach, model, and promote digital citizenship: the term “digital footprint” should be replaced with “digital tattoo.”  Having watched my son, a few years back, go through the process of tattoo removal, I can second Adina’s perspective that it’s a difficult process, requiring numerous (painful) sessions, and that the tattoo is never fully eliminated. Tattoos are a much more accurate symbol of our online personas than footprints – especially the footprints in the sand images.

Takeaways:

  • Digital Tattoo – What’s Yours – Although I was familiar with this site, having posted several of their videos to the Digital ID Building Identities page, I hadn’t noticed the resources posted to the home page for tracking your “tattoo.” I really like having additional sites beyond Google:
    • Search yourself. Use pipl.com to find out what comes up about you. Try spezify for a visual representation of your identity or (more importantly) how the internet sees you.
    • Consider your tattoo. Your Digital Dossier demonstrates how identity is formed online. Be Findable is an example of how your online identity can help you.”

Great job, Adina!

Session 3

Mashup and Remix: Reading, Writing, Research, and Reaching the World – I arrived late to this session (got side tracked walking through the display tables), so I missed Bill Bass’s part of the presentation.  With only a 1/2 hour remaining, I wondered how my NWP/NCTE colleague and friend Sandy Hayes could possibly make a case for fair use in that time limit.  She did! Here’s a link to the PDF with many of the links from the slideshow.  As soon as Sandy posts the link to the slideshow, I add it to this post.  Another great presentation from Sandy!

February 11, 2013
by blogwalker
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A 60-Minute Introduction to PBL

On Wednesday, I will head over to an elementary site in my district to give a one-hour session on Project-Based Learning (PBL). I am thrilled for the invitation and the opportunity to initiate conversations on how technology can support teachers in taking student learning to new levels.

Within a 60-minute limit, my goal is to make clear that Common Core Standards are “the what” and PBL is “the how,” with technology there to help fuel the scope and impact of authentic learning.

Image from Ginger Lewman, ESSDACK, 2012

Thanks to the outstanding PBL resources available online, I did not have to start from scratch to build my presentation. Between Edutopia’s dynamic PBL resources, with Suzie Boss leading the way; the Buck Institute for Education’s PBL site; and Ginger Lewman’s PBL in the Primary Classroom LiveBinder and her Life Practice blog site – where I found her wonderful “At the Intersection” illustration  – gathering links to share with the teachers was like hitting the jackpot every time I Googled PBL.

My slideshow presentation walks teachers through the definition and some sample best practices, gleaned mainly from Edutopia. My goal for the remainder of the school year is to replace Edutopia best practices with PBL samples from my district.

I’ve included my notes in the slideshow – again crediting Suzie Boss, Ginger Lewman and BIE for much of my narrative.

If you have resources, samples, or activity ideas (appropriate for a 60-minute workshop), I hope you will jump into the conversation and leave a comment.

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