Chinquablog

Retro-Using Delicious

2010-09-12T10:18:00.001-05:00

I have been doing a little puttering around in delicious -- an online social bookmarking tool, in case you are not familiar with it -- after neglecting it for some time. Just for fun, I did some searching under the plpresearch tag (for Powerful Learning Practice) with a further search refinement under Twitter. Here's what I learned:

There are two new tools for Twitter that I did not know about: GroupTweet and Nurph. The former transforms a Twitter account into a private group messaging system. The latter allows tweeters to create a chat. I can definitely think of some classroom applications for both.

Which brings me to the other stuff I learned: that early studies have found correlations between using social media such as twitter in the classroom and student engagement, and the School Library Journal reports that the conciseness required by tweeting in 140 characters or less can actually help students improve their writing skills.

I'm gratified to see the research bearing out what I have "felt" from my observations in the classroom in the past few years. Students are becoming better writers because they are writing more than ever! So why aren't we using these tools more in the classroom -- and I mean both delicious and Twitter?

I continue to be shocked at how few students use delicious, especially, when they are hopping from one computer to another all day long. I know that our students learn about delicious in their Tech classes in the 8th or 9th grade, so why don't they continue to do so when they continue with research projects later on?

Blogging on Demand and Shopping with RSS

2010-09-09T20:58:00.001-05:00

I am feeling a little bit like my students must -- I have been "assigned" a blog. Ugh. Somehow the fact that I have been given a topic and sent to my blogging room is not sitting well with my blogging muse. And this makes me wonder what we are doing to blogging with our students. Remember when journals were the rage? Students had to "journal" for every class! What a chore! Now my seniors are working on three blogs, and I had planned to introduce a fourth tomorrow! Too much!

That said, I enjoyed tooling around a few suggested blogs, experiencing the variety, seeing the form's flexibility. I learned a few things too -- glogs can be embedded on wikispaces, for instance. Good to know.

And I'm getting more comfortable with commenting, especially when I read the blogs of the "big dogs." Blogging is liberating in that way -- I am allowed to offer something of value to the conversation based on my thinking and experience.

I am going to use this blog to talk about RSS too. I have been using RSS ever since Will Richardson himself taught me how to do it at an ISTE poster session oh so long ago. It amazes me still how so many people don't know how what RSS is or how to use it to make their lives easier.

I think I use RSS a bit differently, however. I'm definitely not a daily reader -- don't have the time. But I do use it to "shop around" to various blogs I like when I have a spare moment before class or when I'm on hold on the telephone. There is a surprise element here that I like -- I never know what will turn up. It's a bit like a controlled stumbleupon indulgence.

I have used iGoogle to gather my students' work or to corral updated sites for their further study and reflection. This is iGoogle's attraction for me over Google Reader -- I can see a whole page of sites at a glance, and I can share groups of them with others, as in this collection of my seniors' project sites (one of the results of our PLP work last year). iReader may do this too, for all I know (it has been a long time since I've used it). I have heard lately that it's good for sharing comments with a group over time, sort of google wave fashion.

Back to my earlier point, however... I wonder if we need to show a little blog restraint. At what point do we reach OVERKILL?

The Luxury of Follow-Through

2010-06-13T13:38:00.000-05:00

For the first official day of my "summer vacation," I attended TEDxHouston yesterday. I put "summer vacation" in quotation marks here because there is very little that resembles a vacation that happens in my life between June and August. Those few weeks may be better described as working from home, or working at my own pace, or working until I feel like taking a nap or making a meal that doesn't come out of a box, but it isn't anything like the "summer vacation" many non-educators probably imagine.

But what the summer does bring for me is the luxury of follow-through. So after attending TEDx yesterday (if you are interested in my thoughts on the event see "The TED Standard"), I indulged in a morning of rifling through the goody bag I received at the event, checking out new websites, and, yes, tweeting and blogging. I put people in touch with one another, checked out a contest for a free computer for my school, and explored new resources. Oh, how I miss this pleasure of reinforcing my learning during the school year when I am, more often than not, distracted by so many details I can't think or running from one urgent deadline to the next.

And what does this tell me about the hectic nature of learning for my students? Definitely something to give more thought to...over the summer.

Digital Footprint or Digital Tattoo?

2010-06-06T18:53:00.001-05:00

How would you describe your presence on the web? What are the implications of the metaphors mentioned in the title to this blog? Is there a better metaphor? How do any of these descriptive metaphors apply to you?

New Tool: Fuzzwich

2010-05-29T14:59:00.000-05:00

You can tell school is out, because I've spent the afternoon playing around with Fuzzwich. Try out an animated video for yourself? How could you use this in the classroom?

The Learning Environments Project

2009-10-07T19:35:00.002-05:00

My 10th-grade Language Arts class created audio-visual commentary on VoiceThread in which they explored their ideas about their most effective learning environments. Not only did the students come to understand their own agency in the learning process, but they went way beyond this to value the challenges of teachers and other students as well as to see connections between their lives and the literary heroine Jane Eyre. How good is that?

Now I would love to have teachers -- and others -- continue the conversation. Let us know what you think about this issue that is so important to all of us.

Someone Out There Likes Me

2009-09-04T21:18:00.008-05:00

Susan Sontag tells us that as tourists we try to capture our travels in photographs like so much brick-a-brack to take home and reminisce over rather than experience. Yet what does it mean that nowadays we share those possessions not just with our families and friends who have been lured into a boring slide show by the promise of dinner and drinks, but with...who knows who might be out there?

I posted my best photos from my vacation to Prague on flickr. Perhaps most importantly I took the time to tag them something simple like "Prague" or "Prague Summer 2009." And now one of those photographs (of the terrific breakfast buffet at the Hotel Maximilian) was chosen to be included in the Schmap Guides.

I agreed, of course I agreed. Now I know someone out there likes my work enough to publish it, enough to use it to illustrate the funky elegance of a lovely hotel in Prague where my husband and I spent several delightful days last July. Now I have an audience.

If it feels this good for someone like me -- an amateur photographer and at the same time a teacher who has been around the cobblestone lane a few times -- imagine what such recognition feels like to our students who are discovered and read and validated in ways I could not imagine when I was their age.

I think I need to go take some more pictures now...

On Themes and Projects

2009-07-12T07:14:00.003-05:00

I had some great teacher talk with my old friends Rebecca and Tracy last night. Tracy has just accepted a new job with a small alternative school that delivers its curriculum via themes and projects. She'll be teaching seventh- and eighth-grade English and Language Arts, and so our talk turned to books, as is the way with English teachers.

On the way home, I started thinking about the "themes" she was presented with for the year: England, America after the Revolution and before the Civil War, and "all the world's a stage." We had joked about England...what about it? how is that a theme? But really that could be said for the second one too. A place and a period of time are not themes, they are really just topics. This reminded me that many teachers come up with some way of organizing their work with students and call these organizing elements themes. But a theme is an IDEA; a theme is not the content or information itself. And it's the ideas that we need to be encouraging our students to explore; it's the ideas that give us rich opportunities to lead students toward learning; it's the ideas that give us and our students a framework for our lives.

That said, this is what my friend Tracy was handed. So how can you build "projects" around the "idea" of England? What is the concept of England, and how would you go about building meaningful, learning-rich projects that go beyond baking scones and reciting Wordsworth? Why are we fascinated with England? What does it have to do with who we are as Americans? Anyway, that's where my thinking was going.

Which led me to Harry Potter. I mean, why fight it, when Harry Potter is probably the main source or information our students might have about England by the time they are in the seventh or eighth grade? So what do the Harry Potter books tell us about England? Are Muggles and witches really two different sides to the English character -- exaggerations, yes, but something worth looking at? Is there something about English history that informs Hogwarts? What about elements of class that pervade these stories? What about quiddich -- how does it draw upon several different kinds of English sport? Why was the language of the first book "Americanized" (my step-daughter read both and says it was dumbed down) for American audiences?

Now for the "project"? What about finding an English school to work with (hey, Tracy, I have a few connections) for the year and building a greater understanding of each other's culture with each of the themes? What is the British understanding of America and its birth up to the Civil War? What is the American understanding (or misunderstanding of Britain) via the media and Harry Potter? What can these students build and share with others that will convey this meaningful connection? A series of Youtube videos? An e-book or e-zine about national identity from the eyes of its adolescents who are exploring their own identities? A field guide to American and British culture using various media on the web? A pile of curricular materials for teachers? Perhaps these students could produce something that goes beyond superficial understanding and cultural stereotypes, something that we all could learn from. Now that's a project.

Playing with Voki

2009-07-10T15:04:00.004-05:00

So you create an avatar, add some audio, and...

My friend Renee uses Voki to introduce concepts to her 3rd and 4th graders. It's another way to deliver basic ideas or instructions -- a way perhaps to enliven and temper the nagging tone of reminders as they appear in print.

Photo-blogging

2009-04-07T11:05:00.008-05:00

What is the essence of the photo-blog? Is it the photo, or the blog, or something else that is created by putting the two together?

My 10th-graders created photographs to respresent the concept of "Self-Reliance" in response to Emerson's essay and after following the adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Then they honed their own ideas in relation to the pictures at "A Month (Almost) of Self-Reliance." What is this thing that they have created that is part reflection, part commentary, part artistic inspiration? What are the skills they are learning? Writing (short) for the web, connecting images and ideas, collaboration (they worked in pairs), selection and critical thinking, interpreting, communicating. What are they learning about themselves?

Where Are You?

2009-02-10T10:29:00.003-06:00

This is a great use of Voicethread to connect students and teachers around the world. How simple, yet how brilliant!

2009-01-27T14:07:00.003-06:00

The Community of Readers Project

One of the most successful podcast assignments I've worked with so far has been the Community of Readers Project, which my English II students created for "Teen Read Week" back in the fall. Students first interviewed teachers about a book or other literary work that had an impact on them when they were young. Then the students read that work, or a portion of it if it was longer than a story or poem. Next, students wrote an analysis of that work or portion. Using this deeper understanding of the work, students then composed podcast scripts to present the work to the school. Sometimes the students discovered a work they might not have otherwise encountered; sometimes they connected to their teachers in new ways.

Blogging Everywhere

2009-01-03T13:39:00.001-06:00

Okay, so I'm playing with iGoogle and a new tool that allows you to post directly to your blog, which is what I'm doing now.

Chinquavocab #61

2008-12-08T20:35:00.001-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #61

Chinquavocab #60

2008-12-08T19:49:00.001-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #60

Chinquavocab #59

2008-12-08T19:07:00.001-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #59

Chinquavocab #58

2008-12-08T10:24:00.001-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #58

Chinquavocab #57 - Detain

2008-12-08T10:21:00.001-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #57 - Detain

Chinquavocab #56

2008-12-08T09:56:00.005-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #56

Chinquavocab #55

2008-12-08T09:56:00.003-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #55

Chinquavocab #54

2008-12-08T09:56:00.001-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #54

Chinquavocab #53

2008-12-08T09:55:00.001-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #53

Chinquavocab #52

2008-12-08T09:52:00.005-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #52

Chinquavocab #51

2008-12-08T09:52:00.003-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #51

Chinquavocab #49

2008-12-08T09:52:00.001-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #49

Chinquavocab #48

2008-12-08T09:51:00.001-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #48

Chinquavocab #47

2008-12-08T09:47:00.003-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #47

Chinquavocab #46

2008-12-08T09:47:00.001-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #46

Chinquavocab #45

2008-12-08T09:46:00.001-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #45

Chinquavocab #44

2008-12-08T09:44:00.003-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #44

Chinquavocab #43

2008-12-08T09:44:00.001-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #43

Chinquavocab #42

2008-12-08T09:43:00.001-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #42

Chinquavocab #41

2008-12-08T09:41:00.001-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #41

Chinquavocab #40 - Counterfeit

2008-12-08T09:40:00.003-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #40 - Counterfeit

Chinquavocab #39

2008-12-08T09:40:00.001-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #39

Chinquavocab #0

2008-12-08T09:39:00.001-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #0

Chinquavocab #37: Allegiance

2008-12-08T08:35:00.002-06:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #37 - Intro/Sample: allegiance

Allegiance in Much Ado About Nothing

Programming Programs: What Do Students Really Need to Know?

2008-07-30T15:13:00.004-05:00

We have been discussing, those of us who have a stake in the technology education of our students, what high school students need to learn in the arena of programming as preparation for college and careers.

Our new technology teacher, who is fresh out of college and therefore an expert, reports that most students who are not Computer Science majors need to be comfortable with the workings of Office, perhaps some of the iLife applications and their PC equivalents, and effective use of the Internet. His experience tells him that most students who go beyond the basics of technology in their college courses do so using media applications, hence the needed exposure to iLife, etc.

This still left us wondering a bit about teaching Programming -- where do we begin with something that changes every nano-second? What are the skills students need to learn? Where do we start?

When I found myself and my laptop ensconced in a booth at Panera during my July vacation (they have free wifi, and I had no Internet access either at my mother's or my brother's homes in Huntsville, Alabama), I couldn't help eavesdropping on the guys in the next booth, who were obviously deep into webspeak. As I was packing up, I introduced myself as an educator and asked one baseball-capped young man (his companion was in the vestibule on his cell phone) if he wouldn't mind answering a few questions....

It turns out he works in web development for a new start-up out of Denver. He had a good first job just out of college, but happily gave it up for the pleasures of tele-commuting. I asked him what he thought students should learn by way of programming -- he was entirely self-taught before college -- and he recommended this progression: a basic introduction to the concepts of programming (like Alice or Scratch), Java, Flash, and then "anything else that's out there." With those things under their virtual belts, he felt, students could then strike out into the digital world and follow their own programming interests.

This sounds logical to me, but that's easy to say for someone who has no programming no-how whatsoever. I'd love to hear what others may think.

Chinquavocab: Beguile (Othello, Act I)

2008-04-07T21:38:00.003-05:00

Listen here for a sample Gabcast from my English II class. The link will also take you to all our podcasts for vocabulary from Shakespeare's Othello. Gabcast! Chinquavocab #3

Chinquavocab #2: Instructions/Example: Epithet

2008-04-02T09:22:00.002-05:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #2

Chinquavocab #1: Welcome

2008-04-02T08:57:00.003-05:00

Gabcast! Chinquavocab #1

This is my first attempt using Gabcast to upload audio files via cell phone. We will be using this in English II over the next few weeks to study vocabulary. If this project takes off, I'll set up a separate blog for it.

Students Go Digital-Global

2008-02-24T13:40:00.005-06:00

I would like to invite my readers to take a look at the wiki created by the students in my junior-level Language Arts class last fall. Students were asked to create the wiki, start to finish, including the writing, design, images, and organization, based on written responses and discussions throughout the year. Students became motivated to think about how technology both rules and enhances their lives -- and to share their ideas and proposals with the world. Hence, our digitalglobal wiki.

If you would like to get a sense from students themselves about how they see the technological changes affecting their world, take a look. We would be thrilled to hear your responses here!

6th-Graders on Excellence

2007-12-02T10:20:00.000-06:00

What do 6th-graders have to say on the subject of excellence?

Here is my recent work with a colleague's class. I asked these students to respond to photographs that suggested "excellence" (a photograph of Judith Jamieson dancing jubilantly, a photograph of a soccer player sitting on the field looking dejected). Then we moved on to voicethread.com , where they responded to photographs of students as well as their own drawings depicting excellence. Their observations are pretty marvelous!

They were excited about this project and eager to try all the aspects of the voicethread application. I could see this tool being used in all kinds of new ways in the classroom!

Speed Teaching Ourselves

2007-11-11T15:25:00.000-06:00

At this past weekend's NMSA conference, I learned the concept of “Speed Teaching” from a session on "The Adolescent Brain: Reaching and Teaching" presented by David Vawter. So I've applied the basis concepts of the Six Rs -- Reflexes, Reflection, Review, Reteaching, Relevancy, Ready for what is next -- to how my colleagues and I might make the most of what we learned at the conference.

Reflexes: The brain is designed to add physicality to learning.
For Friday’s 2-3 minute presentation, use blocking or gestures to represent the most significant thing you learned at the conference. (Don’t be afraid to be silly.)

Reflection: “If you want long-term retention, you must have reflection.”
Blog (or journal) your responses to something powerful you learned at the conference. Share something valuable with a “neighbor” at the coffee station or at lunch or by email. Tell a story – let Susan videotape you? -- that makes connections to emotions to establish memories (or memory retention). Pass anything relevant along to me, and I will be happy to disseminate it.

Review: When the brain creates new connections, it immediately coats that link with a chemical to make it forget what it learned (this is to avoid a brain-wide meltdown). To overcome this, we must consciously create a coating of mylin so it won’t be forgotten. Thus, it is not a matter of how long we study, but of how many times we briefly review what we have learned or how many times we use a new concept. The first review creates one coat of mylin; the fourth creates four coats of mylin. Add up four reviews and you have ten coats of mylin, and a long-lasting connection.

So, review your notes from the meeting. Pass along what you have learned at the NMSA in more than one way: email a colleague, tell stories, teach via blogging, make school-wide proposals on the wiki (I’ve created a space for this), copy a handout for our shared file (to be placed by the copier) and write a note about its relevance. Each time you do something, you will be making the connections stronger in your own mind.

Re-teaching: Contrary to popular belief, it is not the same thing over again only louder and slower. Re-teaching involves new strategies or formats. Teach to a different learning preference each time: oral, auditory, visual, kinetic. Use students who “got it” the first time.

Don’t be afraid to tell people something they’ve heard before. Put it in a new format, perhaps a PowerPoint or iMovie?

Relevancy: This comes in two varieties – making it relevant to your life and making sense of why you are doing it.

Come up with a way you can immediately apply something you’ve learned in one of your classes (thus, making it relevant to your life). Remind yourself you are doing this because it helps you retain what you have learned (thus, meta-cognitively reinforcing your learning)

Ready for what is next: preview.

Give me a blurb of your “nugget” for Friday’s meeting? Pique our interest? I’ll create a trailer? Okay, maybe an agenda?

Colorful

2007-10-07T19:17:00.000-05:00

At the Heart of Texas Fair, in Waco, last night. Forgot my camera, so I used my phone, and this is what I got. Looking for color where we can find it, adding color to our lives.

Okay, so I took this picture with the "colorful" tag at flickr.com in mind. I am aware of how social networking and blogging have given new importance to the still photograph.

I am looking for new ways to explore using visual photography in my teaching. In the spring, I'll be teaching "Creative Media" and will start to employ some of what I learned through the Literacy through Photography program at Fotofest here in Houston.

Has the advent of flickr and other ways to share photographs changed how we "see"?

Googling Advances, Web 2.0, and Michael Wesch

2007-09-23T13:19:00.000-05:00

I was chatting yesterday with a private school headmaster about how the experience of googling has changed, say, over the past five years. We've gone from struggling to master the intricacies of boolean searching (does anybody use this anymore?) to come up with a few good sources to becoming spoiled by being able to put almost any word into a search, in any order, to find what we are searching for on the first page of results. Have we gotten better, or has Google gotten better, or has the Internet just gotten so vast that everything we want to know is out there somewhere? I think all of the above, but beyond considering the impact of tagging, we both found it hard to articulate just what has happened to our online searching experience over time.

Apparently, Michael Wesch found himself similarly stymied when he was trying to put into words, using a traditional text format, the changes wrought in the world of Web 2.0. According to the May 2007 of Wired magazine, which honored Prof. Wesch with one of its 2007 Rave Awards, the cultural anthropologist at Kansas State University was struggling with how to illustrate some of the changes in the way we live now, when he struck upon the idea of converting a conventional academic paper into a YouTube video. Here's the now classic video he came up with, so you can see for yourself.

Pacing vs. Racing

2007-09-03T11:53:00.000-05:00

Here we are, out of the gate again, bumping into one another as we try to find a clear stretch down the track. And I want to pull up, as I watch the other horses blend into a mass of furious energy, and ask, "Why are we in a race?"

The students continually clue us in to how pacing affects their learning. Yes, they want something energized and going somewhere. They want to learn what we have to offer them. But they frequently tell us in all kinds of ways, "Slow down, so we can understand."

Likewise, we as teachers (and I'm as guilty of this as anyone) dive right into the semester (to switch metaphors here) and swim like we're drowning. Got to get to the shore. Got to cover that material. Got to deliver.

We do have a lot to address this year: new curricula, an accreditation review, new programs for integrating character education in our community. Let us not forget the importance of pacing, of slowing down and getting it right, of creating a healthy learning environment for our students. But I hope that we can all hold up and remember that it's not really a race to get everything in by the end of the year or a desperate swim for solid ground where we can come up for air.

"My Summer Vacation" Revisited

2007-07-30T15:29:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's a cliche, but think about it. Summer is a time when we experience something other than "school" life. What we do on our summer vacations is important, whether we are remembering how to gear down and re-charge or taking off for adventures into the unknown. It's a time worth exploring with our students, worth tapping into to learn what matters in their lives, what their interests are. So I ask some simple questions below that might be used in a classroom, and give my own answers as examples. I'd love to hear your answers too.

1. What is your favorite thing to do in the summer?
That's easy. Read for pleasure. This summer I finished The Known World by Edward P. Jones and re-read Watership Down with my 10th-graders as summer reading. I've started Rand's The Fountainhead, which I've been promising my husband forever that I would read, and I'll be re-reading Black Boy, by Richard Wright, along with my seniors. I've also read some articles in The New York Times, a few issues of The New Yorker, some stage monologues, and lots of stuff on the Internet. For me, it's fun just being able to browse in this and that.

2. Describe something new that you learned how to do this summer.
My husband taught me how to play backgammon. He has yet to beat me at acey-deucey. It's rare for me to be interested in games that don't involve words, but I liked using my mind in a different way, strategizing and taking risks. It was fun.

3. Describe a place that you visited for the first time.
We stayed in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains for a week, on the border between Georgia and Tennessee. Our cabin was built into the steep bank of a creek, and we could hear the creek burbling constantly. At night, we left the windows open to let in the fresh mountain air and the sounds of happy frogs and crickets. We had no Internet or cell phone access, unless we went to town. We hiked to the top of Amicalola Falls (well, Larry did -- I wimped out about halfway). The mountain landscape was simply beautiful -- calm and relaxing, just what I needed.

If these were student writings, I would point out all the possible topics that might be worth pursuing. Plus, I would hope that readers might see a different side of me, learn something about my interests, or find further details about what you already know. Maybe we even have a connection we might not have guessed previously?

So, what about you?

Worth Watching

2007-07-01T11:24:00.000-05:00

Occasionally, I will post education-related videos I've found on Youtube and Teachertube. Here is the first, "E-Teaching," about ways to incorporate technology in meaningful ways in a music class. There are lessons here for all of us.

Source information: Murphy, Elizabeth. "E-Teaching." YouTube. 13 March 2007. 1 July 2007. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX94ws03o3o .

Everyone's a Critic

2007-07-01T09:41:00.000-05:00

Having spent the past two weeks reading my own student evaluations, as well as those of our faculty, I picked up today's New York Times Magazine with interest to read David Holmberg's "On Language" column commenting on his own experience with student evaluations as a teacher of journalism at NYU and Drew University. He writes, "Sad to say, because Drew is such an exemplary school that in one of my three classes there I experienced the worst psychic injury in my university stint — from words I thought were severely lacking in intellectual openness and self-knowledge" ("Student Evaluations" 18). Not only do Holmberg's reactions and defenses ring true with any teacher who has felt the sting of his or her students' seemingly narrow and unconscious comments, but they also suggest to me the importance of teaching our students what it means to review and evaluate.

Yes, our students evaluate their faculty, but they are also roving critics on the Internet, rating everything from Youtube videos to their friends' comments on Myspace. To do this well, they need to learn the skills of critics -- the discerning eye, the questioning mind, the open perspective -- but they also need to learn how to effectively convey those views to readers, whether their audiences are the subjects of the critiques or it's subject's future viewers or users (a la "product" reviews on Amazon and elsewhere). Our students are just as likely to give rave reviews ("OMG!!!!!!!!") to something they haven't really thought about as they are to denounce something else ("It sucks!") that hasn't tickled their individual funny bones.

There's a responsiblity that goes with reviewing anything, and we have a responsibility to teach it.

Wiki Away!

2007-04-30T19:55:00.000-05:00

I'm pleased to see that almost everyone is up-to-date on the curriculum wikis for English/Language Arts and Social Studies/History. (Hint: Use these hyperlinks, if you've forgotten how to get there.) As we see the year unfold in these disciplines, we can begin to make connections and see how we all work together to reach and teach our students.

Now it's time to take advantage of the discussion feature (see the tab at the top of the wiki page) and begin a valuable conversation about our courses -- how they work together, how they reinforce one another, but also how they leave gaps and sometimes work at cross-purposes.

Use the discussion feature as you would a "forum" in Moodle. You can post a comment or a questions and wait for a response, react to that response, and on and on.

Who knows, perhaps the wiki could make curriculum meetings obsolete?

Another Podcast of Soundscapes

2007-03-20T16:48:00.000-05:00

Dickinson Soundscapes 3

You can sample more of the Soundscapes from my English II class by clicking on the link above. As with the previously podcasted interpretations of poems by Emily Dickinson, you may find it helpful to view the "lyrics" as you listen. To do so, use the links provided below:

Dying! Dying in the night!

There is a word

The Brain is wider than the sky

I took my power in my hand

A curious Cloud surprised the sky

Remorse is memory awake

Delight

2007-02-04T14:03:00.000-06:00

I just had one of those wonderfully blessed teaching moments last Friday: watching as Sara, listening to her voice play back in GarageBand her rendering a poem by Emily Dickinson. She squealed in delight, put her hand to her mouth, laughed. At the end of class, she enthused, "Do you want to hear my poem?" Too bad it was late and she had to go. "On Monday," I said.

Already I had students who were teaching me as well as each other, going beyond the assignment, a poetic soundscape (based on th assignment designed by Dan Schmit for GarageBand Mechanics -- look for the sample chapter download). I feel bad because I have to hold them back, keep them from spending too much time on my assignment, rather than working on their other classes. Yet, it is this kind of desire to learn that keeps teachers going.

I can see why the movie Freedom Writers has such appeal. You see the Erin Gruwell character responding to the delight students have in expressing themselves. She is hooked. We all get hooked that way. And it is so sad when the "experienced," jaded teachers react territorially or jealously or cynically. They have lost the delight in doing their jobs every day; they have lost the ability to imagine the delight in their students.

And there it was again, in a section of Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird assigned for my Creative Writing class, her advice to writers to be open to seeing the delight in every-day things, in whatever surrounds them. It is what keeps us human, and happy, and good. It's up to writers to delight in the world, even its wrecked sadness (because sadness and pain is so human), and to wake up the rest of the sleeping people out there to what they cannot even see.

Delight is catching.

2006-09-29T15:25:00.000-05:00

A month into the first quarter, Chinquapin’s faculty and students have already been experimenting and learning with the iLife applications and our new laptops. Kathy reports that the ongoing projects are so numerous that the laptops are heavily used during evening study halls. Brian has used the laptops to collect data on sound for analysis in senior Physics. My English II students have created iMovies in response to Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima (look for sample “Blessing” movies by Pedro and Rachel in the faculty shared network folder). Carl has used them to teach students to use correct accents and other diacritical marks in Spanish.

I want to remind everyone of the resources available at the Apple Education Community. In a quick recent visit, I discovered video tutorials on podcasting, a page on “tips and tricks” (such as “how to screenshot anything”), and an e-newsletter on using Macs in schools. If you recall, we all signed up as members of this community on the last day of our training. I still have some activation codes and license numbers, if you have forgotten user ID and password or if you weren’t able to attend the training.

Hoping to save you some of the trials my class initially experienced, I have attached in the comments my lengthy instructions for teaching iMovie (though I’m sure there’s probably a better version at the web site above) for our “Blessings” project. The students and I definitely experienced joys and frustrations with this project, but that is all part of learning something new, and it felt good to learn these things together. I included the students in the process, evaluating what was working and what was not working as we went along, encouraging the students who finished early to instruct the students who were having trouble, engaging the class in designing a rubric.

My students learned so many things beyond the basics of the software, I stopped trying to catalog their achievements. Here are a few of their more significant developments: gaining a sense of several elements working together to create an overall aesthetic, weighing word choice carefully to make a powerful statement in few words, fine-tuning that statement for public viewing, and problem-solving in collaboration. Some key to things to focus on if you are planning such a project: have a plan for how you will collect and save their work; be sure that students work directly on their local computers until the end of their projects (we had problems with transmitting work wirelessly), slow students down and constantly remind them to read the instructions.

What I Learned Last Year

2006-08-03T12:21:00.000-05:00

As a teacher of more than two decades at some pretty disparate institutions ranging from the U.S. Naval Academy to an all-girls boarding school, I’ve learned to listen and adapt as I’ve moved into new educational environments. I’m confident enough to know that some things about teaching travel well, but also wise enough to see that every school has its own character that it behooves me to take some time to get acquainted with. Here are some of my thoughts about what I learned at Chinquapin last year:

1. You’re never too old or too seasoned to be tested by your students. Last year’s seniors, as caretakers of the Chinquapin way, had every right to question me about what I knew and how I expected to teach them. While this was somewhat difficult to take at times – especially when you are pushing fifty and feel that you’ve been around the block in most respects – I grew to respect their stance because it represented their commitment to learning at Chinquapin. I should be accountable to them, and I should pay attention to what they have to say. What I learned from the seniors’ (and others’) challenges to my so-called authority, was that my relationship to the school matters to them, what I have to give as a teacher matters to them, and I should not mind justifying my choices in the classroom. Every teacher should be so lucky as to have students who care that much. So my advice to other teachers is to listen to your students, even if they are telling you things you don’t wish to hear, pay attention, consider what works and what doesn’t (you may be surprised), think about why, and go back to your teaching and make it better.

2. Smile. That’s what I learned from my first ever seventh-grade class. I don’t mean it in a fake, saccharine, Hallmark sense. I mean, get happy about what you are doing. I learned students are hyper-sensitive to their teachers’ moods. My seventh-graders openly stated that they learned better when I was happier, they were more willing to pursue new things or to try something difficult if I smiled or laughed (maybe older students are just resigned to their teachers being grumpy – too bad). How easy is that?

3. Students want to admire their teachers. Thus, they want their teachers to be people they can look up to. Over and over again in their course evaluations, students volunteered their admiration for teachers who made sacrifices or took time to interact with them as human beings. At the same time, they want their teachers to be leaders, to teach them how to be admirable leaders in their own right. They want to believe in their teachers and for their teachers to believe in them. They appreciate encouragement and advice from teachers that guides them, that helps them grow as ethical, discerning individuals. The lesson here: when you see a problem or issue where students need guidance, take the time to explain how they might respond in a more ethical or thoughtful way. Don’t berate them, certainly don’t humiliate them; rather, take the time to teach them, show them the way.

Giving Thanks

2006-06-28T09:56:00.000-05:00

It is tempting to fall into the pop trap of creating a catalog of things I’m thankful for about Chinquapin. I won’t do that however long the list is, because I don’t want to trivialize my thanks into a kind of advertisement. My thanks are deep and wide. Let me try to express something of them here.

I am thankful for the leadership of Chinquapin. From its earliest days, its leadership has been inspired. From all I have read and heard, Bob Moore must have been one doozy of an educator, but he and Chinquapin’s other early designers also made so many right decisions to guide the school successfully – among them the desire to create an educational setting away from the negative distractions of the students’ lives, also imbuing the school with a meaningful quid pro quo philosophy that binds the students to the school they serve and that serves them -- they earn my deep respect and thanks.

Closer to home for me is the leadership provided by Bill and Kathy Heinzerling. Each embodies a seemingly boundless commitment to the school that earns the respect of everyone who comes in contact with it. More than serving as models of dedication to this cause we believe in, however, they direct the school as exemplars of democracy, decency, and empathy. I don’t mean to make them sound like saints. Anyone who has experienced Bill’s slightly off-color humor or Kathy’s growls of frustration knows that these two complementary forces are real people who relate to all of us as real people deserving of respect and dignity and love. They are not the kind of walking egos who allow their own sense of self to get in the way of meaningful interactions with the people with whom they are working side by side. I am thankful for Bill’s overwhelming kindness, a quality that imbues his leadership, as it does his teaching, with humanity. I am thankful for Kathy’s straightforward, no-nonsense advice, for her patient listening when I have been worked up over a problem, for her wise way of seeing through to the core of things. Together, they are one powerful pair. I’m thankful for that too.

Early in my career, before I went into teaching, I remember being envious in more than one instance of offices or groups of people who worked together towards a common cause in seemingly blissful harmony. It’s not that these were Stepford Offices; rather, there was an aura of purposeful camaraderie and pleasure in working together that emanated from them. The places where I worked, in contrast, were divided by political in-fighting or dominated by personalities loaded with so much psychological baggage they trampled the rest of us because they simply could not see where they were going. So what I want to say is that I am thankful for the atmosphere of congeniality and shared purpose that is created by the faculty and staff at Chinquapin. I have been warmly welcomed, trusted and listened to, respectfully engaged and challenged. I have found in Chinquapin one of those special places I was always so envious of.

I am thankful for Chinquapin’s students, too, who are the reason we’re here. Though they are not always easy to teach, they are easy to love. Their desire to learn inspires me to find ways to teach them better, give them more. Even the students who trouble us are often seeking knowledge and ways of learning outside the scope of their classes. We may think of these things – sports, personal relationships, the Internet -- as distractions, but we have to respect our students’ desires to expand their knowledge beyond the streets of their neighborhoods. Then there are other students who eat up what we feed them in the classroom. They are hungry; they are becoming gourmets of learning. We should all be thankful for that, and strive to provide more than just the bland stuff of your average public school. They are hungry, also, for us to show them how to succeed, how to make something of themselves. How inspiring is that.

I am thankful for the beautiful, comfortable campus that makes me smile every time I step out of my car in the morning or when I walk across the quad to a class. I am thankful for the freedom I am given to teach what works, to experiment (and sometimes fail). I am thankful for the forward-thinking donors to the school, to its dedicated board whose personal, gut-level attachment is evident in all they do. I’m thankful for the gracious help my husband and I received when we moved here. I am thankful for “a room of my own,” the office where I can meet with teachers and students and work effectively. I am thankful for the thanks I have received – I feel appreciated. I am thankful for the good people of Chinquapin, the good it does, the good it can engender.

Winding Down

2006-06-21T16:19:00.000-05:00

Graduation has come and gone. The summer sessions are over. We finally have a chance to clean out the debris accumulated in our offices, to meet colleagues for lunch, to have meetings on those projects that we discussed all through the year.

Yet there's that let-down feeling hovering in the air. What to do with ourselves? Where to focus?

Reflecting on a remarkable year, I have to say that I am astonished at what we accomplish with our students. They deserve much credit. They come to class, for the most part, with the idea that they want to learn. This is an essential ingredient that we must constantly strive to capitalize on. This is what should be at the forefront of our minds when we tend to be distracted by the few students who disappoint or frustrate us. It is our jobs as teachers to keep that positive energy flowing, to keep feeding the hungry minds. If we don't, we lose them. They'll go somewhere else for satisfaction. We are lucky to have students who want to learn in our classes, and we need to remember that.

I am thinking a lot about themes that emerged from the students' evaluations of their classes. This is where they get to speak to us directly about how they learn and what they want. Despite what some teachers think (as they become preoccupied with those few slackers once again), the students want to learn and want us to teach them in a way that they can learn. They are ecstatic when a class goes well.

Two other themes emerge. One is how sensitive students are to our moods. We often think of them as impervious to adults, but they are really constantly reading us. Sure, we should be allowed to be human and express real feelings to them. But we may also have to explain those expressions, to interpret them for the students, so that they don't misunderstand. And huge, seemingly unexplained fluctuations in temperament are really upsetting to them.

The other theme I want to talk about is our role as figures who can inspire and motivate. Our students want to be inspired and motivated, to be uplifted, to be encouraged. I'm sure all students need this, but our students need it a hundredfold. Thus, we need to be conscious of how we can turn a negative event or quality into a means for true inspiration. The teachers who can do this have our students greatest admiration -- and I think they deserve it.

More thoughts will come as the summer progresses. What is on your minds?

The Burr

2006-03-09T12:53:00.000-06:00

An email discussion of next year's Burr has begun--which I pasted into a Moodle forum. I wanted to have student input as well--so I decided to use Moodle instead of this blog. I changed the Tech class to be an all school resources and discussion class. You should already be a member. Please contribute your thoughts.

http://www.chinquapin.org/moodle/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=255

The First Ten

2006-03-08T16:57:00.000-06:00

What happens in the first ten minutes of your class? Grant Wiggins, the speaker I heard today in a workshop on the concept of "essential questions," posed this question as a side-bar to our main topic of conversation.

This may be where we win students or lose them. How many of us begin the class with mundane business, such as checking or going over homework? We all know that the first line of a novel or poem, the first scene of a movie, the lead in a newspaper article -- these can determine whether or not we will continue or check out. My husband and I have a fifteen-minute rule for rented movies. I have a 50- and then a 100-page rule for novels. How many times do we actually judge a book by its cover -- or title? How often to we teach the importance of an opening line in an essay? I even have a 10-minute rule for workshops at conferences -- if it doesn't engage me in that amount of time, I bail.

So why wouldn't we expect our students to react in the same way? What are we doing to engage them (or not) in those first ten?

When You're Weary...

2006-03-02T08:31:00.000-06:00

We've had some good discussions lately about the how the students sink into a mire of slacking in the late winter and early spring. I am frustrated with some, who seem to be so wrapped up in themselves that anything that takes them outside themselves is a bother. Other teachers are frustrated with classes or parts of classes who are conducting the equavalent of sit-down strikes. It's hard to face the day-to-day frustrations and also step back and reflect on how we got here, but that's what we need to do.

Today I plan to talk to my students about loving your work, and as students that means loving learning. If you don't find a way to love it, or if you lose your love for it, then it becomes the grind that either drains you of all energy or that you must ultimately rebel against. But it comes down to being a choice -- are you going to love your work? Are you going to keep loving your work when it's hard.

That's where I am anyway. How about everyone else?

dave stumbles into the blogosphere

2006-02-27T22:25:00.000-06:00

I've found my way to the Chinquablog, only to realize I have nothing to say. Not to worry, that's generally not a condition that lasts long . . .

Authentic Assessment (Real Tests)

2006-02-23T07:45:00.000-06:00

Chris gave an informative and thought-provoking introduction to "Authentic Assessment" at the New Teachers Meeting last night. He made the case for having students do rather than regurgitate. This is sometimes hard to think about because we have traditional ways of testing in-grained in us. Plus, that's the way we learned, so it must be good. Not necessarily. What about all those successful,creative people out there who weren't good in school and who never considered being involved in education because it was so uninspiring? (I think of the obvious ones: Bill Gates, August Wilson.) My impression is that students feel they are being beaten down with the grind, partly because they aren't doing enough. And I don't mean just "studying" (ie., staring at the textbook) or "taking good notes" (ie., copying down whatever the teacher says). Of course, those are both skills that are useful to have, just like it's useful to know about the five-paragraph theme. But they're not our end goals, I think, and they're just plain boring when it comes down to the grind of every-day schooling. Doing is much more exciting, and much more meaningful, and much more lasting as a way of learning and knowing. I think we know this from our own experience, but it is hard to break out of the habits that we -- and the students -- have adopted so completely for school.

I believe the students don't really want to learn only in this old way -- even if they kick and scream when we change things. (They don't love field trips just because they get to leave school, but because they do something.) Change is scary, but it's also exhilerating, challenging, invigorating. It makes us appreciate what matters. It gives us choice about what works.

I would be interested in hearing about anyone's forays into the world of "authentic assessment." What have you tried? When has it worked...or not? What has been the result? I'll admit that I'm already one of the converted. But I respect the healthy skepticism of teachers with other views.

If you want to try out some authentic assessments, you could start with the main web site Chris mentioned:
Authentic Assessment Toolbox (Commended by Merlot)http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edy/toolbox/

Here is some additional food for thought: Much of the recent "brain research" supports the idea of authentic assessment (doing in order to learn). The following web site tracks the brain research in relation to education and learning. It might be a good thing to take a look at:
The Brain Connection
www.brainconnection.com

I'm eager to hear what you think.

The Morning After

2006-02-21T14:40:00.000-06:00

The buzz after yesterday's workshops was good. People are thinking about their classes in new ways. I'm very excited. This morning Pat was talking about creating PowerPoints for his poetry recitals and scanning pictures from Texas Highways. Bill and others are interested in Moodle. Let's follow through with the energy we created and see what happens!

I am interested in where the students would like to see us go with technology. Any feedback?

Welcome, Burrs!

2006-02-19T13:49:00.000-06:00

If you've found this blog, you have been invited by someone from the Chinquapin community. We hope you will enjoy this resource for celebrating all things Chinquapinian. Today members of Chinquapin's faculty are boldly going where they have not gone before...into the world of technology. What do you think so far?