Last year, due to the fact that my technology classroom was shared by five different teachers, I had to change my 7th and 8th grade curriculum from MYP Design Technology to MYP Computer Technology.  Part of me was very happy with the shift–all my students’ work was online and hence, on my lap when I was home evaluating their work, in class there was no mess, no debris, no tools to put away, no materials to manage. At first, I was happy and wondering why I hadn’t made that shift a long time ago. As the year wore on, I was feeling something was missing, and it was. Hands-on projects that were materials-based, projects that developed skills in handling tools and materials that inner-city kids rarely have experience using.  So, here I sit, re-configuring my curriculum to get back to hands-on but be containable in a room that is shared my many different disciplines when the NY Times runs an article about Adobe corporation bringing hands-on experience to it’s software developers.

Part of corporate resistance to experimenting with hands-on activities comes from the difficulty of measuring the value of paying employees to, say, build a go-cart or a radio set while in the office. Yet educators say the benefits, even if intangible, are clear. “All your intelligence isn’t in your brain,” Mr. Burnett says. “You learn through your hands.”

At Stanford, the rediscovery of human hands arose partly from the frustration of engineering, architecture and design professors who realized that their best students had never taken apart a bicycle or built a model airplane. For much the same reason, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers a class, “How to Make (Almost) Anything,” which emphasizes learning to use physical tools effectively.

“Students are desperate for hands-on experience,” says Neil Gershenfeld, who teaches the course.

–G. Pascal Zachary, in “Digital Designers Rediscover Their Hands“  NY Times August 17, 2008

At the end of my 7th grade course last year, students asked if they would be building things next year. I sensed that they were yearing for the physical pleasure of working with their hands, and I am too. This year we will get back to Design Tech, for sure. I feel better already.

Image Credit: by andrew_j_w/,
Original at: http://flickr.com/photos/andrew_j_w/2642202581/sizes/s/

Here I sit searching the “deep web” in order to help a couple of students who have emailed me with problems finding statistics to illuminate their research. One case in point is Katie. She is researching the IT background and potential solutions to cyberbullying. The case that caught her attention was the article “When Bullies Turned Faceless” in the 12/16/07 NYT that concerned a young girl who committed suicie as a result of being bullied on MySpace by the mother of a classmate who fraudulently represented herself as a young man. The users of MySpace agree to terms of use. The question my student asks is: How many users of social networking sites click the “Terms of Service” without reading it and actually entering into a mindful agreement with the provider? I have come up with nothing, but that’s not my actual point here. In my meanderings from site to site, from search tool to tool, I have read and become interested in a great deal of peripheral information that is relevant to my course in Information Technology in a Global Society (ITGS). I do not think my students would be so inclined to “see” what I see when I surf the web. But it is in these meanderings that I have found considerable valuable information. The only way I can see to help my students understand what I do (and I do think it is valuable) is to model it–over and over again with personal narrative about how I’m making sense of what I find and why I click where I click. I don’t think there is that much class time to devote to this. In retrospect, I could have used a carefully annotated Trailfire today, but instead, I included some of the useful links in their appropriate categories on a class wiki. Maybe I could plan a few ScreenCasts. I wonder if that will help.

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Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

How will our students develop the habit of research? Not the work behind the dreaded research paper that sends them to the library in droves every six weeks for an assigned term paper, but research that is spontaneous, ongoing and comes out of an authentic desire to know. Research that is timely and relevant to the learner.

When I am curious about something that has caught my attention, I usually know where to go and I love the journey. I thumb through books, magazines, and newspapers and search the Net. Wikipedia is usually my first stop when seeking information on a concept I don’t get.

How does social networking fit into this scheme? Sometimes I bring up my ideas to my husband, who is a scholar and avid news wonk. Sometimes I share my questions with professional colleagues I know and distant fellow travelers on the Net. Lately I turn to Twitter. Tweets that crawl along the side of my browser often arouse my curiosity to follow up and research more. A few times I have tweeted a query and received guidance from the kindness of strangers and those I know in the face-to-face world.

When do students have the luxury of following their own curiosities? They are shoved from assignment to assignment. My students are in a program of study that requires a portfolio of three “research” papers based on ethical and social issues that arise from IT news. I love reading IT news. Well, it scared me that after two months of teaching the class few had a habit of reading the news. What to do?

I set up a blog and asked them, in their first post to write about what IT issues were bugging them. Their topics ranged from “RFID: Scary Advancements” to “Spoofing” to “Swiping our Info Away” and to questions around encryption security. Next they were asked to go back to their RSS feed readers that they had set up as instructed. It was time to start building the habit of reading the IT news and making connections to it. I told them to find IT news that caught their attention and share their point of view about it in the blog. They did that, and added snippits from the article along with a link back to the original. Blogging the news is a standing weekly assignment that is not formally assessed. There is no grade assigned for the blogs, no mark on their report card. It’s simply a habit that I would like to see them develop. It is sort of taking root. There are hundreds of posts on a myriad of topics.

My next challenge is to twofold: turning them on to how to follow through on further research around their passion in IT developments and how to craft their writing for the readership they desire to attract. You see, like their teacher, they are quite new to the blogisphere. They have not yet fully participated in regularly commenting on other’s blogs. They have not yet developed a following of active readers who participate in their ideas. That’s the next step. But it starts with personal research. I listened to a podcast on Teachers Teaching Teachers, “A Few Sides of the Research Elephant“. Paul Allison of the NYCWP hosts the show and has long been an inspiration to my teaching. He has the luxury of allowing his students to follow their passions through their freewrites. That leads to a course of personal research and rewrites that end up posted in student blogs. It’s a wonderful model. I guess my goal is to spark the place inside my students that allows them to find their passion within the constraints of the content I am obliged to guide them through this year and next. Then, to share with them how to start that journey through books, magazines, newspapers, the Web and making contact with humans who are in the worlds of their research. The Internet has brought all of that to my lap wherever I am–as long as there’s broadband to hook up to. What a wonderful world!

Tags: NYCWP,research,education,writing,k12,ITGS,

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When I heard Linda Christensen will be the keynote address speaker at the upcoming NYCWP Teacher-to-Teacher conference, I ordered her book Reading, Writing, and Rising Up: Teaching About Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word on Amazon (http://tinyurl.com/yo7xmt). Hoping I’ll get some ideas on how to get my 7th Graders involved in taking a position on a cause. Since I teach technology, I want them to understand the collateral effects of all our new technologies on the environment. Ideally, they will be in communication with their peers around the world (perhaps through iEARN forums) and collaborate on gathering data about what is happening. Together, the students can organize and start to do something about raising awareness of the issues and taking steps towards solving the problems .

Tags: NYCWP, reading, education, writing, k12, iEARN

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(http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=232051253&size=l)
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As one semester comes to a close and I prepare to meet a new group of students I am filled with anticipation of how to improve my teaching methods and allow the students to develop their own personal learning networks vis a vis the Internet. I’ve been paying much more attention to teachers in Twitter and edubloggers lately–especially (Chris Lehman, Clay Burell, Jo McLeay, and David Jakes). I even revisited Facebook to see what all the buzz was about and friended a number of folks well worth following. I’ve participated in a spontaneous Quick-in, Quick-out international podcast while grabbing a bite to eat in the teachers room this week, made numerous Trailfire marks, been meeting face-to-face and tweeting with my fellow NYC Writing Project colleagues (follow NYCWP on Twitter), and intant messaging with Thalysia Knoppel, a teacher at our twin school in The Netherlands to get up to date on our twinning project, The Richness Within. What will it all add up to? How will my teaching change this term? What are realistic goals? I could go on and on. What’s the short list?

• My 11th grade bloggers (Information Technology in a Global Society) will learn to write compelling posts that attract commentaries rather than hit-and-run traffic.
• My 8th graders will adopt blogging and commenting in the elgg as a preferred mode of expression over MySpace banter.
• My 7th graders (have yet to meet them) will engage in an authentic collaboration with their age-mates in Australia (Students of Jo McLeay).
• My mixed-grade after-school YouthCaN group’s wiki will transform into an international collaboration.

As I learn to use the tools to their best advantage, my students will follow. First I need to bring shape to my PLN. Any advice on aggregating everything I read into one easy to reach place?

For the longest time, the part of my job I liked the least has been assessing student work–formative and summative assessments. The course is over. Students have left for summer vacation. Who benefits from these summative assessments? At my school, teachers labor over writing anecdotal comments for each student–reflecting on what the student is consistently doing well and identifying one concrete action the student can take to improve. Who benefits from these comments? At the end of June when vacation starts, is the student focused on what he/she can do to improve? I don’t think so. But still, we labor over these comments. They are misplaced. These comments are best used at the start of the next school year.

Students are assessed in various ways all through school. Who benefits from those assessments? For five years I have been teaching in the MYP (Middle Years Program) at BSGE, an IB school in NYC. Our method of assessment is criterion referenced. In the MYP there are no external assessments at the end of the course. This year, all that will change for me because starting in September I will be teaching a course in the DP (Diploma Program) called ITGS (Information Technology in a Global Society). ITGS is offered at the IB level (11th and 12th grades) and students will be tested on their understanding at the end of the 2-year cycle. In preparation, I am reviewing the materials from the training session I attended last month. IB provides a report at the end of each testing cycle. An analysis of how students fared on each examination area is provided. By reviewing the lengthy report that digests the results of student performance worldwide, I can get a good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the previous year’s curriculum–worldwide. This information will guide my planning. If I use this information in planning my course, my students will benefit from last year’s assessments. That is a wonderful thing!

What is lacking in most schools is an analysis of the assessment results. Just as we want our students to take stock of what they are doing well and what they need to do to improve, teachers need to do the same. In New York State, high school students sit for NYS Regents Exams. The score on that exam indicates if a student got enough points to pass or fail. Who benefits from this assessment? Where is the analysis? What are teachers to make of the results?

Photo Credit: Image: "Anu's Piece in the Paper" by indi.ca
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technorati tags:education, k12, assessment, regents, tests, edtech, IT, IB, MYP, BSGE

Teaching 7th graders is a treat. Really. (Stop laughing, it’s true.)
They are bright eyed and bushy tailed creatures open to new ideas. It’s
the “Gee wiz, Mrs. Brownstone, that’s cool.” state they are in that
makes them such a joy. How is it then, that when they get down into the academic work, there are some among that
group who are at risk of failing? I’ve become interested in a psychology professor Carol Dweck. (I’ve ordered her book on Amazon–Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.) In a recent article about her work Marina Krakovsky wrote:

Students for whom performance is paramount want to look smart even if it means not learning a thing in the process. For them, each task is a challenge to their self-image, and each setback becomes a personal threat. So they pursue only activities at which they’re sure to shine—and avoid the sorts of experiences necessary to grow and flourish in any endeavor. Students with learning goals, on the other hand, take necessary risks and don’t worry about failure because each mistake becomes a chance to learn. Dweck’s insight launched a new field of educational psychology—achievement goal theory. STANFORD Magazine: March/April 2007 > Features > Mind-set Research

What does it take to change their mindset to be goal oriented? And to be able to try to reach that goal? I have been having a frustrating time with one of my 7th grade classes. It seems that there are around half who are able to engage in inquiry learning and sustain their interest in learning when they leave the classroom and work unassisted at home. The other half are not working well in the classroom in small groups and rarely do much quality work at home. Friday I asked the students if they thought that there were some students in the school who were just plain “smart” that they were born with a gift and everything comes easy to them. Many hands went up.

Dweck explains. People with performance goals, she reasoned, think
intelligence is fixed from birth. People with learning goals have a
growth mind-set about intelligence, believing it can be developed.
(Among themselves, psychologists call the growth mind-set an
“incremental theory,” and use the term “entity
theory” for the fixed mind-set.) STANFORD Magazine: March/April 2007 > Features > Mind-set Research

It’s their mind-set that I must change. I must teach them to think differently about their And here I thought I was teaching design technology.

Culture can play a large role in shaping our beliefs, Dweck says. A
college physics teacher recently wrote to Dweck that in India, where
she was educated, there was no notion that you had to be a genius or
even particularly smart to learn physics. “The assumption was
that everyone could do it, and, for the most part, they did.” But
what if you’re raised with a fixed mind-set about
physics—or foreign languages or music? Not to worry: Dweck has
shown that you can change the mind-set itself. STANFORD Magazine: March/April 2007 > Features > Mind-set Research

I have begun giving cues that are about putting in more effort, and trying harder. It sounds so strange to say that because I have unlearned that lingo. In my school (BSGE) we try to make our comments to the students grounded in the specifics of their work. We make a positive statement about what is working, what is going well, with reference to something specific they did. Then, we make one statement that starts something like this: “To reach a higher level of achievement you need to do X.” “X” is never “try harder”; it is always a very specific action they need to take on their next project.

The most dramatic proof comes from a recent study by Dweck and Lisa
Sorich Blackwell of low-achieving seventh graders. All students
participated in sessions on study skills, the brain and the like; in
addition, one group attended a neutral session on memory while the
other learned that intelligence, like a muscle, grows stronger through
exercise. Training students to adopt a growth mind-set about
intelligence had a catalytic effect on motivation and math grades;
students in the control group showed no improvement despite all the
other interventions.

“Study skills and
learning skills are inert until they’re powered by an active
ingredient,” Dweck explains. Students may know how to study, but
won’t want to if they believe their efforts are futile. “If
you target that belief, you can see more benefit than you have any
reason to hope for.” STANFORD Magazine: March/April 2007 > Features > Mind-set Research

Looking forward to reading Dweck’s book. I want to help these children. I’m growing weary from my futile efforts thus far.

technorati tags:education, k12, failure, goals, culture, learning, Dweck, psychology, effort, teched, IB, MYP, BSGE

Blogged with Flock

Walking in, it’s like a wonderland, chocker-block with the most fantastical architectural models, intricate drawings, all imbued with the atmosphere of the promised future. Ahh, the future. Inflatable cities; houses that look like toasters; apartments blocks that look like spiders, this was how architects from the last five decades saw us living. This was how they saw our landscape and our cities and our homes. It did strike me looking at these buildings how impractical most were. How would that door open? Gosh, the bedrooms must be awfully gloomy. Where are the windows? Fire exits? These are the practicalities which the architects seem to ignore for the sake of space-age concepts, and this sacrifice explains why most of their designs exist only now as specimens in a gallery, rather than in reality (although, as barmy as it is, who could resist living in Alison and Peter Smithson’s House of the Future, designed in 1956, given the chance?). Most of them exemplify anarchic architects impinging their visions of a metropolis – a blockbuster city – onto its inhabitants without any real care for them. It seems that most architects would prefer a city devoid of people, a playground where they wouldn’t have to bother about pavements or staircases or the boring bits of civil architecture, and instead fill a city with histrionic, unrestrained eyesores.

Showdown :: ‘Future City’ @ Barbican Art Gallery

Reading this review of an exhibition at a UK gallery makes me think about my class last year (2005-2006). Eighteen groups of 4 students made an exhibition of the models they created of future cities. Each group in turn pitched the advantages of their cities. How can 8th graders get what professional architects don’t! The atmosphere of a promised future through the eyes of 8th graders is full of optimism, opportunity, plans for green technology, care for public transportation, green spaces, cultural and recreational spaces. The kids get it. When do they loose it? What do we do to them in the name of education? I love teaching 7th and 8th graders because they are still awestruck, still optimistic. Where does it go as they age?

Technorati tags: education, future city, design, tech ed

Blogged with Flock

[M]any of today’s most original, historically unencumbered, and frankly exciting architectural ideas are to be found within videogames, films, and science fiction novels

BLDGBLOG: Science Fiction and the City: An Interview with Jeff VanderMeer

Reading BLDBLOG made me wonder: Will my students create exciting ideas for future cities? My Design Technology 8th graders will embark on their first Future City Competition unit this week. They are the digital natives that play video games and devour fantasy and science fiction novels. I wonder how that will influence their future city designs.

technorati tags: education, future city, design, tech ed, drosscape,

Blogged with Flock

This morning I read Will Richardson’s blog where he has demonstrated his outrage and concern over the Wednesday night passing of DOPA–HR Bill 5319 (”Deleting Online Predators Act”). At first I felt depressed and discouraged. I felt as though, in one fell swoop, my wired classroom would be launched into retrograde orbit. (Of course this bill needs approval by the Senate, but I felt that my classroom as I know it was in the launchpad ready to return to the 19th century, yes, 19th century.) All the work I have been doing in the classroom thus far to help my middle school students keep abreast of the usefulness of authoring on the Web, sharing ideas, and building a viable online collaborative environment will end. All the work done this summer in the NYC Writers’ Project Summer Institute: Blogging in the Classroom will have been for naught. All the dreaming and preliminary planning for my new Popcorn Conversation site to bring experts into the classroom via blogging and podcasting, squashed. I too am outraged, but offer a different strategy for fighting. The congressmen who voted for this bill (and the senators who are likely to follow) are politicians. They are trying to please the masses of our growing theocracy and don’t want to go on record having voted to allow predators into the classroom. Yes, we need to write to our legislators and educate them. But I think the other, and greater job is to educate the masses of the core values for education of read/write Web. We need to get our work into the news, on the TV, on talk radio, not just in the blogs and podcasts of the world we already comfortably inhabit. We need the “soccer moms” and “church ladies” to share our passion for truly educating our children to be life-long learners and global collaborators. If the power of communication via “social networking” on the Internet is blocked in public libraries and schools our public school children will be further ghettoized, made less ready to participate fully in the conversations that are taking place on the Internet and changing the world. Reading the summary of the bill I see that schools will be able to unlock the protection for adults in the school or for students to do work that is supervised. The greater problem lies with libraries. If I ask my students to post to a blog and they need to use the public library, they will have a problem because I can’t imagine public libraries walking around supervising the sites kids are on and the work they are doing on those sites. Still, we need to educate the parents, school administrators, and other teachers through conversations, email, websites and blogs; but do not forget the power of newspapers, television and radio. Let’s get the word out, bring good attention to the wonderful world that has become the result of “social networking” tools.

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technorati tags:DOPA, education, teaching, library