Hello Dave

Thanks for inviting me

The Important Thing

With apologies and thanks to Margaret Wise Brown for the text structure:

The important thing about our Literacy and Technology Class is that we were a community of learners.
We explored various softwares like PixWriter, Co:Writer, Solo, My Own Bookshelf, Kidspiration, and Clicker.
We didn't all agree on a definition of literacy or technology.
We thought some of the readings were incredible (especially Leu's work) and some of it was inedible.
We tried out some new technologies in our personal and work lives.
Some of us got our sisters and moms and husbands and co-workers learning with us.
We didn't all like the same ACC teams or ACC donuts.
We blogged, and wiki'd, and emailed, and Nicenetted.
But the important thing about our Literacy and Technology Class is that we were a community of learners.

The Value of Making Mistakes in Tech Education

While looking for something else, I found this book, In Search of Stupidity. I'm putting it on my summer reading list. You can find a description and purchase info at Amazon.com.

It got me thinking about the Literacy and Technology class. We've developed a sense of community that enables us to take risks in trying out new technologies in class together and in our own classrooms with kids. There are many reasons this worked (including small class size, a Mac-using professor in a PC lab, every student being a veteran teacher with lots of successes in his/her past), and one of the things we've wondered aloud together about is how we can translate and transfer what we've learned and experienced to colleagues in other settings. It seems to me that the stories in this book, and our own attitudes and modeling (i.e., willingness to try new things we may not fully understand, willingness to learn from and with our students) are important components of whatever we do.

The book, by the way, chronicles 20 years of tech marketing disasters. At the book's website, is a quote, " Remember: The race goes not to the strong, nor the swift, nor more intelligent, but to the less stupid." The lesson, I think, is that if multi-billion-dollar companies can make humongous mistakes, then individual teachers have full permission to make individual missteps.

Making Do with What You Have

One of my students sent me the following email today:

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Jhn, posted th web st. my kys are not rrkng prooperrrrrrrly
i'll talk too oyou soon,
srrrrrrrry this meessageeeeeeeeeeeee is s messeeed uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup

After I finished laughing, it occurred to me that this is another fine example of making due with the technology you have, problem-solving, and getting on with things, rather than hamstringing ourselves and moaning because we don't have the latest and greatest toys.

Isobel is another example. She rounded up the old laptops with their old software and lack of internet access and has her students with disabilities writing away. Amie is another example. I had to laugh at her story about holding the wireless router just right so that she could access the internet from her trailer (hope I've got that story right).

I remember reading a study years ago (no idea the reference) which concluded that children are not in search of the best solution, only a workable solution, to most problems. We could all take a lesson.

A Grading Pet Peeve

My two youngest sons brought grades home today. They did well, but that's not the pet peeve. Here's what is: the older of the two received a grade below A in music because his behavior apparently wasn't what it should be. The pet peeve is that his music teacher doesn't grade music but rather grades behavior and calls it a music grade. She's not unique in that. Many teachers have graded my own and others' children down for not doing what they are asked when they are asked, rather than grading their content knowledge or achievement in the particular subject area. That's yet another reason that grades will be abolished when I'm in charge of the world.

Who Would You Most Like to Have a Beer With?

So, I'm listening to one of the many beer commercials during the Final Four, and I hear the question, "Who would you most like to have a beer with?" The answer, in this context, seems obvious to me (but apparently not to the advertisers): me. Then I could have two beers instead of one. Picture found here.

Tech Tests

So, Monday morning, Gary asks if he isn't supposed to observe in my classroom today. Oops, forgot (so what's new?). No problem, this was going to be a fun day, helping students learn how to make multimedia books in My Own Bookshelf . Famous last words. MYOB has been loaded on the server, but individual computers in the lab won't open it. Why? No one is sure, but they are sure it won't be fixed before class. Two hours until class and I need a lesson plan for Gary.

How can I do something like original plan? Easy: we'll make multimedia books in PowerPoint, a software that is working on all the lab computers. It won't be quite as slick or have the ease of creating a digital library, but it will apply most of the same principles. After quickly typing up 6-step directions in Word for making a PowerPoint multimedia book in 15 mins. or less, I saved the document as HTML and uploaded to the web. In class, I opened the page, which had links to Google images and AltaVista media search engines.

I talked the students through the process, told them they needed to consider how multimedia might support learning of various kids, and then we moved to lab. I paired students on computers, so that they could help each other. Instant chaos. How do I use a Mac? Where is PowerPoint? Where do we save the program? And then students got to work.

They quickly got images and a movie or two. Some went beyond the assignment and inserted sound effects and backgrounds. Almost all ended up with a useable talking book for a beginning reader in 30-40 minutes. We didn't hit my 15-min. target, but I bet we could with a little experience, and students working in a PC environment instead of a Mac lab. We saved them to my USB key and will link to their syllabus, so they can download and use in future.

No idea what this organized chaos got on my evaluation, but the lesson worked well. I was engaged. Students were engaged. Some wonderful problem-solving was done. We figured out we could drag pictures from the internet into our desktop folders--much faster than Save As. We figured out we could keep the directions up, open a new page in the browser, and go back and forth as needed. We figured out that the process was easy enough that we might use it in our own classrooms.

My Tombstone

Apropos of nothing in particular, but on a recent drive back up the mountain, my epitaph came to me:

Stretched too thin,
But much too fat,
Stress and calories,
And that was that.

The tombstone image was found at http://www.michaelhanscom.com/eclecticism/2004/08/when_i_die.html.

On Grading and Problem-Solving

My youngest son recently raised a minor stir in his classroom. His teacher reminded the class, "Don't forget your required extra credit work is due this Friday." He then replied, "Isn't that an oxymoron?" Beyond being proud of my son's vocabulary and mature approach to questioning authority, I've been thinking about this grading nonsense.

The underlying reason for the teacher's requirement of extra credit is well-intentioned, some of her students won't pass without the extra points. But I was thinking about the problem-solving and subsequent solution. In talking it through with my wife, I came up with this analogy. Helping kids raise their grades with extra credit work is like curing a fever by dipping the thermometer in ice. The numbers change but not the underlying problem. If a child has low grades, there is a deeper issue than finding out how to plop more points in his/her basket. Maybe the child doesn't understand the work, or maybe the teaching is ineffective for the child's needs, or maybe there are peer issues impairing to learning, or maybe the work is simply to difficult... The grade goes up, the larger teaching/learning issues remain unaddressed.

It strikes me also that this is related to my greatest objection to the current way-beyond-high-to-the-point-of-absurdity stakes testing. So much of schools' efforts are focused on teaching to the tests that learning and love of learning are severely impaired. To sustain the metaphor, rather than treat the illness leading to the fever, we're teaching children how to hold the thermometer in their mouths in ways that the fever won't register.