Counting Down...

As I count down the days until our Winter Break with anticipation, I can't help but think of our students who are counting down the days with far less enthusiasm. For some of my kids, Winter Break means no hot breakfast and lunch for two weeks, and maybe no breakfast or lunch at all. For some it means the stress of being in a home with too many people, and not enough places to sit or sleep. For several, it means no warmth - physical, emotional, or both.

For many of my students, school is their place of safety, security and routine. Here's wishing them all the joy and relaxation I will be fortunate enough to have this holiday season.

Making MOOCs Personal

While writing a paper for one of my courses, I became fascinated by the lengths to which people will go to make personal connections, particularly face-to-face connections. The fascination comes from the fact that my paper is about MOOCs - massive open ONLINE courses. As of today, there are 3444 Coursera communities within Meetup. Yes, you read that right - Meetup groups organized around online courses. All over the world, people are looking for others to join them to complete learning activities, explore assignments, or just study. In 2876 different cities around the world, people are trying to make those connections.

It's not just Meetup. People enrolled in MOOCs are taking the initiative to create study groups using Google+ and/or Google Hangouts. They are connecting in Second Life. And they are connecting face-to-face at universities and cybercafes.

I've taken 3 MOOCs so far, none of which I have completed. I wonder if I had a study group to meet with to bounce ideas off of and to hold me accountable if I would have had more success. Certainly, if I was leading a MOOC I'd want to try to set up opportunities for my students to connect in as many ways possible.

Learning to Learn

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We always talk about wanting our students to be lifelong learners. The Common Core asks students to integrate multiple sources of information as they construct their own knowledge. Even though I teach other adults how to access resources and use them to make meaning, I still find that it's easier said than done when it comes to my own learning! I guess this is where the last vestiges of my digital immigrant background hides - in the way I interact with online courses as a learner.

I would suggest that statistics may be one of the more difficult classes to take (and probably teach) online. The content is complicated - there are multiple ways of doing most analyses, with your optimum choice dependent on on the type and source(s) of data. There are steps that must be followed, in the correct order, in order to get the appropriate defensible results. In addition, the way in which you report the data - the choice of words, the phrasing, the level of detail on all the different statistical tests - must follow a fairly prescribed format. Our textbook has good detail about the formulas and how to manually calculate levels of significance or variance, but since SPSS does that work for me I typically only about 10% of the textbook to be helpful. Our instructor provides an overview video, but it's hard to predict the questions that will arise. The videos in the course sometimes provide sufficient guidance, but often show only the how of SPSS use, but not the why. 

I have found that I better understand the material when I do some additional research about the concepts. There are face to face Intro to Statistics teachers who have posted their lecture notes online, which really helps me to build my background knowledge. It turns out that YouTube is great not only for learning how to make turkey gravy, but for detailed explanations of statistics. I can find examples of how, as well as explanations of why. But this is where being a lifelong learner is harder than it seems - I have to asks Google the right questions in order to get answers that do me the most good. I have to start by synthesizing the info provided in the class, and then craft a query that fills in the gaps. THAT has been challenging for me!

Just in case anyone else is struggling with statistics, here are some of my favorite resources:

• MIT OpenCourseware Intro to Statistics and Probability - Lecture Notes. This site helped me backfill some knowledge gaps I had in basic statistical concepts.
• TheRMUoHP Biostatistics Resource Channel by tacappaert. Don't let the channel name throw you - there are some excellent descriptive videos for using SPSS, each between 5 and 10 minutes long.
• ProfKelley's Analysis of Variance playlist on YouTube. These 2 videos really helped me understand ANOVA.
• Brandon Foltz on YouTube. I don't know why, but this guy has recorded a huge number of 30 minute lectures that do a really good job explaining the concepts. The playlists aren't all that well organized, but if you search for Brandon Foltz and Statistics 101, you'll find some great resources for building background knowledge.
• SPSS for Newbies playlist by Statisticsmentor.com on YouTube. By far the most detailed SPSS videos I found during the course, these videos range from the basic (importing data from Excel) to the more advanced (bivariate linear regression model). At about 20 minutes, these videos are a bit long, but it's tough to find a more comprehensive explanation. 

Doing Common Core

I was fortunate enough to be invited to sit on my district Common Core Steering Committee. It's an interesting process to wrestle with the big ideas of what Common Core should look like, how we should get there, and what our benchmarks should be. One of the key messages has been that Common Core planning documents need to be flexible - as we learn more about what needs to be done and what implementation looks like in terms of assessment, the plan may need to be adjusted. Right now many planning documents are skeletons, with a lack of detail or specifics that actually allow decisions to be made or consistent implementation to happen.

For me, now working at a district rather than a county office, I am realizing how difficult it is to make decisions that "turn the ship" when a large district is involved. As a presenter and consultant, I suggested to districts that they convene a team, bring in stakeholders, identify priorities, etc., etc., etc. I acknowledged that it was going to be a multi-year process. But because I was outside the process looking in, I didn't have that gut-level FEELING of the push, pull, and frustrations that happen within the actual implementation. "Adapt to your reality" is a phrase I've used many times in terms of monitoring a plan, reflecting on what works, and making revisions. But reality is extremely hard to adapt to when money is scarce and time is even more so. Yes, I've said during presentation that time is the most difficult commodity to create, and offered a range of suggestions. But at the school site, between the constraints of the contract and the many demands we place on teachers, creating time is far more complicated than I ever internalized. Now, I need to provide CCSS implementation support for my staff in 40 minute chunks, delivered once a month. I need to provide support for my staff in single-page bulletins that are easily digestible and easily implemented. I need to bring parents up to speed in understandable 15-minute chunks, in English and in Spanish, embedded in ELAC, SSC and PTA meetings. The "how" of all that is incredibly difficult. And it requires a depth of knowledge and understanding that I am lucky to have, but many administrators do not. Sitting in presentations does not make for deep understanding.

More than ever, I think district leadership is key to building the scaffold for Common Core implementation, and site leadership is key to actual classroom implementation. The district needs to ensure equitable access to the resources (including time, money and materials) that is needed to implement. They must build the infrastructure, including a minimum amount of training, materials, and technology that all sites have in place. In terms of materials such as technology, hey must take the hard line that equitable is not equal, and that schools that already have the minimum may not get more paid from district funds. The district needs to coordinate professional development that includes cross-school collaboration and product development, so teachers leave the training with materials that are ready to use. At the site, administration needs to provide an ongoing focus on examining the implementation and refining practice. Administrators need to hold teachers accountable for moving forward with the standards, with individualized support plans and benchmarks if needed, providing ongoing opportunities for reflection, growth, and collaboration.

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MOOCs and Global Education

Below is the presentation by Dennis and I for EdTech 603. Feel free to comment within the VoiceThread!

If you have any difficulty viewing the embedded presentation, please click here to go directly to the presentation without logging in to VoiceThread.

How vs. Why

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I am a big believer in "why". My parents could have told you that from the time I was very small. I never accepted an order to follow an algorithm, and because my father was a math professor, I never had to. He was always able to explain to me the "why" of mathematical formulas and algorithms, often using manipulatives, arrays, or diagrams to make it make sense.

Fast forward to today, taking a statistics class. My dad is no longer available to explain the "why" to me, and everything in the textbook, the lecture notes, on Wikipedia and on YouTube is about the how. This week I learned how to calculate an expected frequency from a cross-tabulation of data. But why is that the expected frequency? It seems logical to me that any calculation that relies only on the data collected is inherently skewed by that data, and could be fairly easily manipulated by adjusting the sampling.

I also learned this week that in order to construct a confidence interval of a proportion, I use z=1.96 or z=2.58, depending on whether I'm looking for a 95% or 99% confidence interval. Why? Where did these magic Z's come from? What do they represent? I understand the whole idea of confidence intervals, I am just frustrated that there is an element in my algorithm that I can't personally account for! Maybe I just need to see it like pi, and know that it just IS. But even pi I got to experiment with using string to prove to myself that it just is...

I can certainly get by running algorithms and using software to construct analyses and tests, and maybe I need to resign myself to that. Maybe it takes a degree in statistics to get to the "why". The sad thing is that if I understood the why, I would always be able to self-check the results of the algorithm to see if they make sense. Without the why, I have to just check my math, and assume that the results are logical.

MOOCs and Global Education

Approximately 80% of the world’s population is unable to access educational content published in English (Beaven, Comas-Quinn, de los Arcos, & Hauck, 2013). Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have the potential to provide educational opportunities across geographic, linguistic and cultural boundaries that would otherwise be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. The core content of a MOOC is really no different than the core content of any online course; it is designed and taught in one language, typically by designers from one culture. It is the massiveness and openness that changes an online course into a system in which information is re-transmitted, shared, and adapted to participant needs. Solitary participants from remote areas have the opportunity to interact with other experts and learners in specialized areas through the MOOC environment. The result is a growing democratization of access to information and a diminishing language barrier.

One of the adaptations needed when participation in a MOOC grows and crosses international lines is the need for translation into other languages. Simon Thrun and Peter Norvig of Stanford taught one of the earliest MOOCs, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (Rodriguez, 2012). It was offered free to anyone in the world, and attracted 160,000 enrollees. Of those, 20,000 from 190 different countries completed the course. With the help of more than 2,000 volunteers, the course was translated into 44 different languages (Murray, 2012). In an unplanned, grassroots movement, many participants connected on social media as well, in languages other than English, making the MOOC both more accessible and more relevant to their needs (Murray, 2012).

Coursera provides an ongoing example of an approach to overcoming geographinc, linguistic, and cultural boundaries. Coursera is a non-profit organization started out of Stanford University in 2012 that partners with universities around the world in order to provide free, high-quality MOOCs that are open to anyone in the world. That mission requires dealing with the issue of language. The mission of the Coursera project is “to connect the world to a great education. To do so, we have to overcome language barriers, which can be very real obstacles for our students who come from all over the world.” (Coursera, 2013). After one year of providing courses in English, Coursera formed the Global Translations Partners Program in order to begin the process of translating courses into Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Kazakh, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, and Ukrainian, with more languages to follow. Reaching 5.2 million users after only 18 months of existence, this project is worth noting because of its scale and because it is taking a lead role in modeling global access to the highest quality learning.

MOOCs and translation projects like the ones cited here have shown the potential to build language bridges across spans that would otherwise have seemed impassable. The nature of MOOCs leads to collaborative solving of the inherent language issues of the Internet.

References

Academic Vocabulary

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With new content comes new academic vocabulary. Some subjects seem to have academic vocabulary and academic language that is more complex than others. I’m finding that the academic language and vocabulary of statistics is hugely complicated, and its nuances and variations are frankly driving me crazy. My statistics textbook uses one set of academic vocabulary, the teacher uses another, and SPSS software uses another still. Combine that with esoteric definitions of statistical functions that seem contradictory, and the whole process feels like a rabbit hole that I can’t get out of.

Take, for example, the p value, which is computed using a t-test. The p value is also called the level of significance, and we want it to be as low as possible. A high level of significance means there is likely no significant difference between two tests. So essentially, a statistician wants a low level of significance in order to prove the significance of a comparison. To make things more interesting, when you conduct a t-test comparison in SPSS which is supposed to yield a p value, there is no p-value. There is a t value, which has nothing to do with the t in the t-test. There are 2 “sig” columns, but we aren’t currently worried about the one that goes with Levene's Test for Equality of Variances.

Even with a class glossary, 2 textbooks, and YouTube to help me make sense of things, I’m drowning in the new vocabulary. The base concepts themselves aren’t actually that complicated, but trying to read and write in the correct vocabulary is. There are concepts and comparisons I can draw, but I lose points in my descriptions because I use the wrong terms. On the plus side, I definitely have a much better gut-level understanding of what our English Language Learners are going through as they try to tackle complex vocabulary in the content areas.

Organizing my life. Or at least my blog!

This past week I was taking a look back at my blog and I realized how many different functions it has served for me. Originally, I wanted a space to reflect on my practice. My first post, in late December 2011, set out my goals for blogging:

• I will be a reflective practitioner of my craft.
• I will share what I have learned.
• I will learn from what I share
• I will bring balance to my chaos. (I've given up on this one!)

As I look at my early posts, the focus was definitely on being a reflective practitioner. I was trying to make sense of new information. I was sharing what I learned, and learning from that sharing by reflecting publicly on both the learning process and the outcomes. At times I've posted about projects I've worked on; at other times I've posted about articles I've read.

In the spring of 2012, I started using my blog to respond to assignments in various courses I was enrolled in. And then I made a blog post that was part of my doctoral application. There are now blog posts about online learning, about online leadership, about social media, and even about statistics. Some of those blog posts were spontaneous based on my learning, but some were mandated by courses I took. Even in required blog posts, I am trying to make sure that my voice stays consistent, and that I am continuing to learn not just from the assignment but from sharing the assignment.

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Now I'm thinking that I ought to start categorizing my posts, to make it easier to go back and revisit themes. I started adding some labels to more recent posts, but then I realized I need to really think about what those labels are. What are the themes I might want to look back through and reflect on my personal growth and changes? What are the themes I might want to capture as a record of my academic work? Is there value to adding labels for themes that are no longer relevant to me in my current position?

So, right now I'm considering the following labels:

• BSU (for all course required blog posts)
• Online learning
• Leadership
• Administration (for job-related things)
• K-6 (for school-related things)
• Learning (for general a-ha's and reflections related to my own professional and/or personal growth)

Maybe a year from now I'll have to revisit this again based on new needs and interests, but for now a little organization is better than nothing!

Global Responses to Digital Textbooks

Digital textbooks are the new norm, at least where I live. In California, there is legislation requiring publishers who submit for adoption to include a digital edition of their textbook. In my district, students have access to their textbooks through the LMS. However, according to Stephen Asunka's article in Open Learning, The Viability of e-Textbooks in Developing Countries, positive beliefs about e-textbooks are far from universal.

This study explored levels of student awareness of and experiences with e-textbooks at a private ICT-driven university in Ghana. The purpose of the study was to gain insight into the e-textbook deployment in sub-Saharan higher education, and establish a baseline of perceptions and use that can be used to measure changes in behaviors and practices. The study did not rely on any standard theoretical framework, "because e-books are a fairly novel (and rapidly evolving) phenomenon in the developing world" (p. 41). While e-textbooks are a novelty in sub-Saharan Africa in general, because of the type of university used as a participant pool, survey participants were 99% familiar with what an e-textbook was. The researcher used a survey questionnaire that focused on usage and attitude towards e-textbooks to gather data, including both qualitative and quantitative measures.

Few students in the study were aware of multimedia and/or interactive features of e-textbooks. The researcher speculated that this might be due to Ghana's limited high bandwidth access, and the high cost of internet access outside of the university environs. In addition, the vast majority of students who used e-textbooks accessed them through a computer, with very few students indicating that they used dedicated readers or handheld devices. Most students indicated that they preferred print textbooks because of their convenience and accessibility.

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In most of the United States, along with most developed nations, access to high-speed internet bandwidth at low or no cost is a given. In every large city and town, as well as most small ones, individuals can get online at fast food restaurants, coffee shops, and public areas without cost. Digital textbooks are becoming more common as early as elementary school, and students are explicitly taught to use the interactive features built into e-textbooks. Dwyer & Davidson's (2013) review of literature over the past decade shows increasing access to and comfort with e-textbooks at universities in the United States. In 2011, Bob Minzesheimer of USA Today noted that for four of the top ten best-sellers, digital editions outsold print editions. Now, USA Today (as well as other best-seller lists) no longer differentiate between print and digital editions in their lists. This appears to indicate that, at least in the United States, e-texts have attained widespread acceptance and use.

And yet in their 2013 study, Dwyer & Davidson found that many university students did NOT like using e-textbooks. Many complained about eye strain and lighting, or inability to highlight text or add notes. The researchers conclude that "e-textbooks are not at the place where students are embracing them" (p. 120).

These articles, combined with my own experience, underscore the role of culture and environment in tool adoption. There are some base underlying conditions that allow any culture to evolve. The invention of irrigation allowed for surplus which allowed for development of leisure pursuits such as the arts. Access to bandwidth and devices allow for implementation of digital texts which allow for the development of a comfort with this type of interaction. Students in Ghana, having little access to e-textbooks because of infrastructure limitations, find the use of digital textbooks to be awkward. In US universities, students have significantly better access, but also find the use to be awkward, albeit for different reasons and to a lesser degree. It might just be that we are in the transition, and the trend we see of increased access, increasing use of e-books, and improved interactivity features will continue to facilitate the growth of e-textbook use.

In my own experience using e-texts, there is a comfort curve. Before I read my first digital text, I was firmly convinced that it would be a niche use for me, not my normal reading habit. Over time, however, reading everything from the newspaper to leisure reading to textbooks on my iPad has become my norm. I still love going to a bookstore to browse, but I"m getting better at browsing e-book stores in a way that helps me select what to read next. My nieces and nephews are comfortable reading on a digital reader, including highlighting and note-taking. In my district, students at middle and high school prefer the e-reader to textbooks. To be fair, that's probably about weight, and they are no more likely to look at the textbook on their device than they were when it was in print!

Asunka, S. (2013). The viability of e-textbooks in developing countries: Ghanaian university students’ perceptions. Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e- Learning, 28(1), 36-50, DOI: 10.1080/02680513.2013.796285

Dwyer, K. K. & Davidson, M. M. (2013). General education oral communication assessment and student preferences for learning: E-textbook versus paper textbook. Communication Teacher, 27(2), 111-125, DOI: 10.1080/17404622.2012.752514 

Minzesheimer, B. (2011, August 11). E-books jet to top 10 of USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list. USA Today. Retrieved from http://books.usatoday.com/bookbuzz/post/2011/08/e-books-jet-to-top-10-of-usa-todays-best-selling-books-list/414589/1

Purpose of Evaluation

There is a longstanding debate about the purpose of teacher evaluation. Is the purpose to improve teacher practice through reflective conversation and expert advice? Is it to measure teacher competence? Or is it somewhere between those two, reflecting elements of both? An article last year in Educational Leadership addressed the question by asking practitioners what they thought to be the purpose of teacher evaluation. The vast majority of respondents said that evaluation was both improvement of practice and measurement, with an emphasis on improving practice.

As I begin my first formal teacher observations of the year, I couldn't agree more. It is critical to have standards of professional practice, and a clear understanding of what those standards look like. In my district, we have expectations about the types of instruction that will take place, the need for a variety of engagement strategies, requirements on ELD support, and a vision of what classroom environment should include. Those are the items we use to measure teacher competence. But it is the informal and formal observations that happen at least a couple of times a month, and the short reflective conversations those observations provoke, that drive teacher improvement. As I visit classrooms, I focus on one or two areas, looking for evidence of proficiency. Often I find it. Part of the conversation I have with teachers afterwards asks how or why they made the choices they did, and reinforcing that their decision-making was sound. Sometimes I don't find the evidence I'm looking for. So the conversation starts with whether I just missed the evidence, as I ask them to describe what that practice or strategy looks like in their classroom. 

At this point in the year (and in my site administrative career), I'm trying to be careful with directives. It seems to me that a first step for teachers who have gaps in their proficiency is to make sure they are exposed to best practices, so having them observe a strategy in a team-member's classroom is a good fit. I can then talk with the teachers as they identify what steps they will take, and the mandate comes from themselves. Later in the year I may need to provide more explicit directives, but for now I think the best intervention is one they pick for themselves. 

I believe that my role as a teacher evaluator is to help teachers realize their best student-focused, research-driven, multi-faceted selves. As I do evaluations this year, I need to keep in mind what success in the process looks like from my end - I am doing my job well if teachers are more closely aligned to the expected competencies and are more reflective practitioners by the end of the year. 

Step by Step

I am not a linear learner. Following step by step directions is not my strong suit, to say the least. Putting together furniture is an adventure that involves figuring out for myself the best order to assemble, sometimes using trial and error. So when I started exploring SPSS statistics software, I just jumped in with both feet and started playing. 

But last week I was stuck waiting for a meeting to start, and desperate for something to do, so I started reading through the SPSS Survival Guide on my iPad. Turns out I was missing a lot using my non-linear strategy!  I kept thinking, "Wow! It can do THAT?"

So now I'm following some of the exercises in the book. Not all, of course, that would be crazy! But being able to play with the numbers, sort in different ways, and identify patterns is the fun stuff, and I was missing that. Those are also the skills I'm going to need in order to conduct research, analyze results, and publish anything that will have any value. 

Make a Difference

What you leave behind isn't what's engraved in stone monuments, but what's woven into the lives of others.     -Pericles

Today at the Liberty Principal Summit, the principal told the story of Malik. She told us how she kept telling Malik that he was a good boy. Every time he came to the office on a behavior referral, she told him she knew he was a good boy inside, he was smart and hard-working, and that he could do better. By the end of the year, Malik was hitting less and smiling more. He went from basic to proficient. Most importantly, at the end of the year Malik said, I AM a good boy. That personal connection is something that makes a big difference to our kids' success. 

Sitting in the AP office, I see a lot of behavior referrals. I see students who have been told they are troublemakers, that they can't learn, that they are "bad". Of course I have to help the understand that their behavior is unacceptable. But I also need to let them know that I believe they can do better. I need to help them identify strategies that they own that help them to take charge of their own learning and behavior. And I need to help students believe that not only do they have the power to implement the strategies, but once they do they will see results. 

One of the main reasons I wanted to go back to a school site is to live the belief that I can make a difference in the life of a student. Every interaction is an opportunity to do just that. 

My (re)Introduction to Statistics

I have always found statistics interesting. My dad, a mathematician, used to quote Mark Twain quoting Disraeli, “ "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." He encouraged us kids to play with numbers; manipulate them in different ways and play with displays in order to prove our point. I thought it was a fun way to turn numbers into propaganda. Who would have thought that now, 35 years later, it would become useful?

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I feel like my conceptual understanding of basic statistics is pretty good. I struggle a bit with the right vocabulary, but I understand the point of the the various ways of sorting and analyzing data. I think one of my challenges in a statistics course is going to be to use the right vocabulary so that others know what I am talking about, and that I’m able to make sense of more complex statistical concepts. I was surprised at how easy SPSS was to deal with once I got the hang of the interface, but I guess that’s true of most things! I liked the very basic activities that we did, because it allowed me to focus on the interface, and not try to make sense of the data. I know it will get more difficult, but I’m feeling reasonably confident for the moment that I’ll be able to figure things out!

I guess as adults we need that sort of scaffolding too!

First Day of School

It has been a long time since I've had "first day of school jitters." Working at the County Office on a year-round schedule, first days of school held little relevance beyond the ways we scheduled training with our districts. But this year, returning to a school site (well, two school sites!), I had the opportunity to experience again the excitement and fear that come with new beginnings.

My first day of work was the first day of school. I had met the principal, but none of the teachers and of course none of the students. I am new to the district, and new to the role of assistant principal. I knew I was walking in blind, and I knew I would be expected to know a variety of things and address a variety of issues that were completely foreign to me. What could be less comfortable? And yet, I was so excited to just jump in to the deep end, and hope I could figure out how to swim!

It's definitely been a long week, and I know I've got many more long days and weeks ahead of me before I get my feet firmly underneath me. But it is so much fun to come home at the end of the energized with all of the new things I've learned, the new students and teachers I've met, and challenges I've conquered. I can't wait to continue!

Reflection on Social Network Learning Course

We do not learn from experience...we learn from reflecting on experience. - John Dewey

For the past 8 weeks, I have been taking a course called Social Network Learning. As a fairly new user of social networks for professional learning, I took the class hoping to gain insight about the ways in which I could use social media tools to engage learners, and discover strategies I could use to encourage students  to be more self-directed and purposeful seekers of knowledge. Throughout the course, I tried to tie my new learning to two things: 1) the demands of the Common Core State Standards; and 2) the communication and professional development needs of an administrators.

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For me, one of the most valuable aspects of the course was the scaffolding for self-directed learning. In many cases, there were different avenues for learners to both gain information and demonstrate their understanding. Although many of the tools we covered were familiar to me or were ones that I intuitively grasped, I think it’s fair to say I never would have engaged in a Twitter Chat if it hadn’t been required for this course. For me, the jury’s still out on whether that particular use of Twitter will be a valuable tool for my professional learning, but it was a great learning experience to realize what smart people are out there, and what they are talking about.

I always enjoy the reflective process, thinking about my own learning and growth, so I really appreciated the opportunity to revisit the structure and organization of my PLN. I also found it valuable to develop a list of criteria for evaluating content for curation. I found myself frustrated at times by the seemingly random numbers of things required - 15 criteria for curation, 3 webinars, 10 examples of student uses of social media, 4 new professional networks. I understood the purpose behind the assignment, but sometimes the numbers made the experience feel like just checking off boxes. In the classes I teach, I need to think carefully about the ways in which I have my students demonstrate their understanding, and whether quantity or quality, or some combination of the two, is needed in order to show mastery.

 It was nice to take a course that had the flexibility to allow me to tie my projects into what my own goals were, and I also appreciated the opportunity to learn from and with classroom educators. I feel like I grew as a learner in the course, which is really the most important thing!

So tonight I cooked a whole tilapia. Not sure why - maybe because we had whole wood-fired fish in Bucerias last month, and I absolutely loved it. Maybe because the husband is in Puerto Penasco this weekend eating fresh fish tacos, and I'm not. Maybe because the fish was $1.80, which makes it a pretty cheap experiment. Regardless, whole fish seemed like a good idea.

I've never cooked a whole fish before. So where did I start? YouTube, of course. Where else does one go to learn how to clean a fish? Of course, it turns out that when you buy a fish from the store it's already cleaned, but I didn't know that when I started. Von's did a nice job - their cleaning looked pretty much like YouTube's!

YouTube also started me out with scoring the fish and stuffing it. But then it was just too cumbersome to figure out ingredients and amounts, so I switched to google blog search. I didn't just want a recipe - I wanted descriptive language. Mission accomplished; I found a post that mentioned that vinegar is a good marinade component, since it mellows out the "fishiness" of perviously frozen fish.

So, why am I talking about cooking in my learning blog? As I switched between tools to find exactly what I was looking for in each stage of the process, it occurred to me that I was meeting Common Core State Standards, I gathered relevant information from multiple sources and integrated the information (Writing Anchor Standard 8), and I used appropriate tools strategically (Standard of Mathematical Practice #5). I exhibited the standards in an authentic performance assessment, with a pretty distinct criteria for success - Is it edible?

I would rank my fish experiment at low proficient. Taste was great, but getting the filets off wasn't very clean. Definitely not advanced - I should have taken the advice of another blog and broiled it for a minute at the end to get the crispy skin. But I feel empowered to try it again, which is the whole point in learning, right?

Guidelines for Revising Student and Teacher Social Media Policies

While some districts currently have social media policies, many of those policies were developed before there was any research about student use of social media for learning, and before the Common Core State Standards were released. The Speak Up 2012 National Findings note:

Within the wide assortment of emerging technologies that are enabling students to become digital learners, four stand out as having the largest impact so far on students’ self-efficacy as self-directed, independent learners. Mobile devices have transformed information gathering from a planned, discrete task to an anytime, anywhere endeavor. The availability of mobile devices in the hands of students has changed the logistics around Internet access and digital divide discussions as well. Social media has provided a contextual motivation and rationale for the ubiquitous access to the Internet. And online learning, both in school and at home, has provided a tangible representation to students and adults alike about a new way to approach learning (Project Tomorrow, 2013).

In order to ensure that your social media policy reflects current usage, trends and needs, consider the following steps as you update (or create) your policy.

1. Gather stakeholders

• Think about the people who have a stake in helping to craft that vision. It starts with the teachers, as they are the ones who have to implement whatever the vision is. They are the front lines, so they have to have buy-in. Other stakeholders depend on your district structure and culture, but certainly include both site and district staff, curriculum, assessment and technology staff. But parents and students deserve a voice in this vision as well. How might you include them? 
• Survey your stakeholders to see what their perspectives are on these questions. Different stakeholder groups may see things very differently from each other. 

• Are we using technology to ensure that students are mastering rigorous curriculum skills? 

• Are we using technology to extend our ability to reach and support every student? 

• How should social media be used - one-way, two-way, use by students? (Fagen, Friedman & Fulfrost, 2012)

2. Identify a Vision or Statement of Purpose for the Social Media Policy

• How might students optimally use social media for learning? 
• How might educators optimally use social media for instruction? 
• What role might social media play in professional learning and collaboration? 
• Sample language: 

• We believe that all students should have access to technology when they act in a responsible, efficient, courteous and legal manner. Responsible uses of technology are devoted to activities that support teaching and learning. (Montgomery School, 2011) 

• Internet access and other technologies available to students and teachers offer a multitude of global resources. Our goal is to use these services to enhance the educational development of our students. As part of 21st century learning, teachers and students will be using web-based tools such as blogs and microblogs, wikis, podcasts, and videocasts with appropriate supervision. These technologies improve student communication and collaboration skills, provide a real audience, and extend learning beyond the classroom walls while building digital citizenship skills. (Montgomery School, 2011) 

• School social media guidelines encourage employees and students to participate in social computing and strive to create an atmosphere of trust and individual accountability, keeping in mind that information produced by this school, our faculty, staff, students and their parents is a reflection on the entire School community. (Saugus USD, 2011) 

Explore policies that are consistent with your Vision or Statement of Purpose 

• Research state/federal law and discuss local norms to ensure legal compliance of policies. 
• Identify logical and appropriate consequences for violations; research how others have implemented such consequences 

Communicate expectations 

• Develop a plan to educate students, staff and administrators regarding appropriate online and social media conduct. 
• Ensure that students receive instruction annually in both the Social Media Policy and on social media use. 
• Provide explanations of specific appropriate behavior as well as consequences for inappropriate behavior in age-appropriate language. 

 

Plan for monitoring and revision 

• How will we know we are implementing our policy effectively? 
• How will we know if our policy meets student and teacher needs? 
• How will we revise our policy when it becomes necessary? 

References 

Fagen, Friedman & Fulfrost (2012). Social media guiding questions. Retrieved from http://www.onthelineca.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/TIP-SHEET-Social-Media-Guiding-Questions.pdf

Montgomery School. (2011). Responsible use of technology agreement: Grades 6-8. Retrieved from http://www.montgomeryschool.org/program/lower-school/ls-curriculum/technologylibrary/responsible-use-policy/index.aspx

Project Tomorrow (2013). From chalkboards to tablets: The emergence of the K-12 digital learner. Retrieved from http://www.tomorrow.org/speakup/pdfs/SU12-Students.pdf

Saugus Unified School District (2011). School social media policy. Retrieved from http://community.saugususd.org/jklein/files/-1/2122/School%20Social%20Media%20Policy%20draft.pdf

The Evolution of my PLN

It seems that every class I take these days asks me to examine my Personal Learning Network (PLN) or Personal Learning Environment (PLE). Far from being annoying, this exercise gives me an opportunity to reflect on my own growth as leader of my own learning, and as a contributor to the larger educational community. Each time I review my PLN, I revisit the categories I group my learning experiences into, and think again about which need further growth and development.



One exciting thing I'm beginning to realize is how much overlap there is, particularly between my personal and professional connections and my online communities. Recently I've found that people I typically connect with in one particular setting are also involved in online communities that I am involved in. It wasn't until I went from being a lurker to a participant that I found out their involvement. Since these are people I like and respect, it makes it all the more fortuitous to connect with them in different communities and online spaces. 

As I look at diagrams created by others, I realize that I separate my "real-world" personal and professional connections from my online personal and professional connections. I'm not sure why that's the case - it might be my age, and a holdover from seeing online as not quite the same. This might be something I revisit the next time I update my PLN diagram, as those lines are becoming increasingly blurred. For example, I realize that I don't quite know if my Boise State cohort falls under online networks or professional connections, a clear sign that the two categories should be merged! One classmate's diagram struck me because it categorized PLN connections by the way she interacts with them, either as a consumer, an occasional contributor, or a leader. While it's a very different schema for organizing, it might be a more relevant way to do things given the overlaps in my categories. It might also be a better way to gauge my growth and learning, as I become more of a contributor in more networks. Another option to ponder the next time I do an update!

Twitter Chats - A New Way to Learn

I participated in my first two Twitter Chats this past week. Although I've been on Twitter for quite a while, this format was new to me.  I spent about the first 20 minutes just lurking, trying to follow the conversation. I was using Tweetdeck, and it was challenging to have all of the tweets just fall in as they occurred. I was a little overwhelmed trying to follow along, but I did jump in and contribute after a while. I tried to be sure to reply to the two people who replied to my tweets. There were 4 moderators, who were very good at replying to people and tweeting/retweeting the questions so that folks didn’t miss it. I thought they did a great job of keeping the conversation going.

The second chat I participated in was even more chaotic than the first - I think that the moderators in this chat functioned more as participants, more interested in sharing their expertise than in moderating the conversation. It was during this second chat that I recognized the skills of the moderators in the first chat! I imagine it is challenging to get moderators who are passionate about a topic and want to share, but who also have the skills to turn it into a conversation in a complex medium.

The day after one of these chats, I was on a conference call with some colleagues spread throughout the state. Before the meeting, one noted that she had seen me in the twitter chat, and another said I must be passionate about the topic since I participated so much. What went through my head is that neither of them had posted anything, and I had no idea they were on the chat! Each noted that they were not big fans of the twitter chat format, but followed that particular chat because many statewide “voices” participate. Oddly, that's exactly the conclusion I had come to.

I find the format of Twitter Chats challenging - it's like being in a crowded room where most people are interested in shouting out answers to questions, and sometimes they turn to each other to respond. I wonder what the ratio is for participant to lurker in many of the chats.

#CAedchat shared this video about how to be a Twitter Chatter - I think it has some really helpful tips for both lurkers and participants!

I'm a Curator!

I've got to say, I've fallen in love with Scoop.it. I think I've finally found a tool that lets me organize resources, and as long as I tag things properly I should be able to find them again! I had been using tags in Google Reader for this task, but with its demise I've been struggling, and unhappy with the tagging schema of Feed.ly.

But in starting to do a better job of curating content, I'm finding that there's a lot of poor curation out there. After doing some research on what the experts have to say, and adding my own twist based on what I think works best for K-12 students, here's my list of helpful hints for content curation.

Plan 

• Your curated content should be organized in a way that makes the most sense for students. Depending on the number of resources you expect to provide and the grade level of your students, consider organizing by unit, by subject area, or by broad theme. If a resource doesn’t fit your well-planned topics, it’s probably not a good choice for your students. 
• Make sure that the resources match student needs. Consider academic content standards, student reading levels and interest levels, and language. 

Evaluate & Select 

• Choose the best possible content in your topics. Just because a resource has the same topic doesn’t mean it’s what you should use! Select only the best in your topic collections, which are the best fit for your students. 
• Make sure the resources model ethical online behavior. Images should be cited, ideas should be referenced, and original work should be included. 
• Make sure the topic collection contains resources representing a variety of mediums, including scholarly text, video, images, and other multimedia. Most topics should have both narrative and informational content, from both conventional and social media sources. 
• Ensure your curated topic tells a story by bringing together different perspectives. It should knit together “several works in a way that may lead to greater appreciation, understanding and insight” (Harris-Roxas, 2012). 
• Keep the topic timely. Outdated resources should be removed, and more current resources need to be added regularly. Note: this doesn’t mean all resources need to be less than 6 months old! The British Museum’s King Tut exhibit is timely regardless of when it was updated. 

Organize & Annotate 

• Provide context for the resources you’ve selected. If there is a particular section you want students to focus on, say so. If the resource provides background information, be clear that’s what it’s for. If two resources provide contradictory information, reference that so students can start to make critical judgements. 
• Tag your resources to make them more easily searchable. Consider setting up a tag collection with students, so that they have ownership of the tags and the organization makes sense to them as well. 
• Make sure your resources are all well labeled. Sometimes “scooping” or “pinning” a resource captures something meaningless as the title - clean it up so that the title actually matches the content. 

Connect & Share 

• Join groups or follow people that regularly post reviewed resources in your chosen topic areas. Use expertise in the cloud to help you find high-quality resources that match your topics and audience. 
• Keep the conversation open. Comments by students and/or colleagues on resources add a timely element, and may help to further contextualize the content.

10 Steps to Manage Your Digital Reputation

Even if you have avoided the use of social network tools, you almost certainly have a digital footprint. If you have presented anything anywhere or published anything anywhere, there is likely a record of that online. In addition, things others have written about you, with or without your permission, may be found online. Those small bits of information are easily searched using a search engine, and increasingly your reputation can hinge on what people are able to find out about you online.

The simplest solution – manage your digital footprint. Start by building the footprint you want, and then nurture and protect it. Make sure that when people search for you online, the web paints the picture you want them to see. Follow the ten easy steps below to get started with managing your professional reputation and digital footprint.

1. Build your professional brand (McGinnis, 2012). Create profiles in the professional accounts you use, and keep them up to date. Electronic portfolios, blogs, and professional image collections labeled with your name are good ways to ensure that the brand you are trying to convey is at the top of search engine results. 
2. Google yourself regularly. Consider using a service like Scoop.it or Google Alerts to let you know when information about you is posted online (Ohler, 2010, McGinnis, 2012). The best defense is a good offense - if you know what others will see when they search for your name, you are in a better position to build your brand. 
3. Keep personal and professional networking accounts separate (NYCDE, 2013). This seems like a no-brainer, but it is amazing how many people post personal updates to their professional accounts. At best it’s annoying for readers who follow for the content, and many times it’s embarrassing. In worst case scenarios, sharing personal information on a professional account can damage your credibility and cost you a job. 
4. Communicate with students only through professional and/or district approved networking accounts (Swanson, 2010). Again, this seems like a no-brainer, but too many teachers “friend” their students and/or students’ parents on social networking sites they use to communicate with friends and family, and then share information that is inappropriate. Many districts have policies in place prohibiting “friending” of students; in some cases teachers have lost their jobs for posting provocative pictures, pictures of alcohol consumption, or controversial statements in social networking platforms shared with students. 
5.  Be professional at all times. Treat professional social networking as if it was the workplace (NYCDE, 2013, Ambrogi, 2009). Everything you post on your professional networks reflects your professional brand. Be factual, don’t gossip, and always remember that every post you write may be someone’s first impression of you. YouTube is full of videos of employees doing inappropriate things - don’t let that be you! 
6. Edit yourself (Ambrogi, 2009). Let your personality shine through, but do it in a way that you’re not embarrassed to have your grandmother, daughter, or boss read. Never post workplace complaints online - in the most extreme circumstances, this can even cost you your job by calling your professional judgement into question. 
7.  Delete inappropriate posts and remove name tags from images (Ambrogi, 2009, Lepi, 2013). Read every comment added to your posts. Respectful disagreement is appropriate and can even improve credibility, but delete comments that are detrimental to your professional image. 
8.  Do not share personal information that can easily lead to identity theft - birthdate, social security number, zip code, home town, or telephone number (Lewis, 2013). Combined with your name, any two of those is considered sufficient for identity theft. Even personal information such as pet names can lead to a crime of opportunity, if you use it as a password or password hint. 
   
9. Check your privacy settings, and read site privacy policies before posting. (Madden & Smith, 2010). Assume that everything you post is public - even private tweets and Facebook private group posts can show up in a Google search (Ambrogi, 2009). 
10. Use common sense (Ambrogi, 2009). No matter how many tips you read, write or commit to, there will be situations that aren’t covered. Use good judgment about how to respond to those situations!

References

Blended Learning - from Outliers to Norm

There are many different models of blended learning that reflect a range of pedagogies, strategies and tools. Some of those models have been documented in "The Rise of K-12 Blended Learning", highlighting instances of blended learning success around the US. Regardless of where one falls on the blended learning continuum or which blended learning model one is using, the goal is to give students more control over their learning in order to improve relevance, engagement, and college and career readiness. Because these models are so new, there is little research to validate which strategies, tools, and pedagogical approaches are most effective.

http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/NG1232.pdf

The third wave of the Next Generation Learning Challenge grant program (NGLC) asked schools and districts to envision what blended schools might look like. Twenty schools were awarded funding based on their adherence to the NGLC's underlying principles:

• Proven student achievement in a scalable model
• Learner-centered experiences that are engaging, active, and situated
• Deliberate design of student progression customized to student needs (mastery learning)
• Technology used to personalize the learning environment
• Technology-enabled tools to improve flexibility in time, content, space
• Affordable and sustainable model

These schools will spend the next two years implementing their blended learning model, conducting action research on effective strategies, and documenting their progress. One challenge is to find instruments that accurately measure both the principles referenced above, and deeper student learning that is the philosophical underpinning of the grant. 

For those of us who believe that blended learning is our best opportunity to make curriculum and content more relevant and engaging to best meet student needs, these grants are welcome news. The NGLC implementation and results will help to identify the factors that are scalable, affordable, and sustainable for all students, as opposed to outlier models that are not representative of student needs, demographics, access or funding. Identifying those common factors will help to move blended learning into the mainstream.

My Personal Learning Environment

I am currently taking a wonderful course about leadership in my doctoral program at Boise State University. Part of what makes it wonderful is that it is really requiring me to reflect on the various roles and responsibilities of leadership, and my skills and areas for growth in those areas. Like most busy professionals, I tend to neglect my own personal learning, but this course forced me to examine, again, whether being too busy to grow as a professional and a leader is really an option.

Here is a short screencast I did to describe my personal learning environment, which contains the ways in which I learn both individually and with others. Every time I do an exercise like this I am reminded how important it is  to both learn from and share with other professionals.

Infographic by Easel.ly

In my Leading Edge Certification course, one of the assignments was to create a poster or infographic to address the topic of cyberbullying. At the Common Sense Media site, I found an information dense chart that explained the steps an administrator would take after a report of cyberbullying. Using Easel.ly, I migrated the information from a dense chart into a more simple infographic. Technologically, it wasn't that complex. Cognitively, I was surprised at how demanding it was to identify only key terms, synthesize the relationships, and re-imagine the chart in a new way. I liked my result - I hope you do too!


easel.ly

Dysfunction

In educational technology, we've been dealing with this for years. "Curriculum" people get upset when we talk about curriculum, or standards, or anything else that falls into "their" territory. Now it seems to be all about ownership of the Common Core, and whether those of us in educational technology are allowed to be part of the conversation. We ARE curriculum people, every bit as much as the ELA, Math, Science and Social Science folks are. We are not about devices. We are about learning, and teaching, and achievement, and engagement.

The battles right now in many district and county offices are about who "owns" Common Core. The territorialism inherent in individuals wanting to be THE CCSS expert is unfortunate. Certainly, there is enough work to go around, and increasing the number of experts and acknowledging that expertise is vital to successful implementation.

Get Your Learn On!

Well, I've made it to CUE 2013! This year it seems that the majority of the sessions reference Common Core - I'm not sure if that's because CCSS is the buzz word for the year, or because there are a lot of CCSS experts at the conference. While a lot of my time will be spent presenting and supporting my team as they present, I'll get to attend a few sessions over the next couple of days.

I'm  still managing to keep to my goal of tweeting when I'm at conferences. I'm following a few more people, and I've graduated to re-tweeting. It's good to grow the PLN - if only Twitter wasn't blocked at work!

So, let the professional learning commence!

Think Before You Post!

I don't care what your politics are or whether you are conservative or liberal - check the story before you repost it on Facebook! Over that past three days I've seen otherwise reasonably intelligent people share posts that they got elsewhere that are easily checked and have been found to be false.

One recent story claims that Fox News is reporting that children of members of Congress get their student loans forgiven. Apparently, because the story says that a news agency reported it, that part "must" be true. Except that Fox News never reported it, and Politifact and the Annenberg Public Policy Center found the statement itself to be false. Families of those in Congress are eligible for the exact same student loan programs that you and I are eligible for.

The other post that keeps coming around is some child with cancer who will receive a donation based on number of reposts and likes. Snopes.com shows the photos and debunks the story. Snopes.com is a pretty easy way to check on Facebook stories that are not political, and see if they are hoaxes.

We, and our students, need to start double checking our facts. We expect students to cross-reference information when they do research in high school; let's help them make that a transferable skill. We don't want another generation that posts everything that matches their politics whether it's even remotely true or not, nor do we want another generation that forwards emails to everyone they know about how onions cure the common cold and then become toxic! As we talk about digital footprint with our kids, let's talk about the concept that re-posting biased and untrue information reduces your credibility factor, and that fact-checking is a responsible part of living in a democracy.

Image credit: By User:Husky (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Lead and Learn

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other - JFK 

I feel like I'm on a crazy learning curve right now. I'm gaining all this knew knowledge about leadership and leadership styles, and trying to figure out if and how they fit with my existing paradigm. I've been presenting Common Core and English Learner information, and my reading about discourse and writing has completely shattered what I thought I knew about learning to read and write. I'm trying to incorporate all this new information, assimilate it into my understandings, and then turn around and share it with others in a meaningful way.

I was reminded recently by AK that short blog posts are okay (which by the way fits with the research on writing shorter pieces more often), so I'm definitely going to try to use this space more frequently for personal reflection that is hopefully also meaningful to others.

How to Make a PBJ Sandwich - version 2

How to Make a PBJ Sandwich

To make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you will need, bread, peanut butter, and jelly. You will also need a knife to spread the peanut butter and the jelly, and probably a plate to keep the counter from getting too messy.

Your first step is spread peanut butter on one side of one slice of bread. You want enough peanut butter to cover the slice, but not too much to make the sandwich gooey.







 Your next step is to spread jelly on one side of the other slice of bread.  Be sure to cover the entire slice.

 The third step is to put the sandwich together, with the peanut butter and jelly sides of the bread facing each other. Put it together carefully so that the jelly doesn't ooze out the sides.

Finally, slice your sandwich in half to make it easier to eat. Enjoy your sandwich!

Rodin's Le Penseur

Photo by M Large

In my job, we've been doing some work around Wiggins and McTighe's Understanding by Design. I've also just finished reading Carol Dweck's Mindset. As I have worked on developing a model unit, I've also been thinking about the ways in which the experience is making me grow as an instructional designer. The unit I'm designing now is worlds better than the units I designed a decade or two ago, and I really hope both it and my reflections about the process will serve as a good model for the teachers that go through my professional development.

But the real goal of learning is understanding, and understanding involves transference. So how will I apply this concept of learning for understanding in the course I teach for teacher credential candidates?

First, I would say that the progression of activities in ED407 already leads through acquisition, meaning-making, and finally transfer with the final product. At least on paper. Designing a project-based WebQuest or other unit certainly demonstrates students' ability to transfer their skills and knowledge into a meaningful product. But in the interest of growth (for both me and my students) I think there are some other pieces I may need to provide during the acquisition phase to help my students better get to the point of creating a unit that truly works in the real world, with real students.

Second, I think that I could incorporate meta-cognitive activities that would do a better job of modeling a growth mindset and helping to ensure a transferable product. While this will require some changes to the flow of the course, I think it will be better for students in the long run as they embark on their careers as teachers.

Third, if my primary goal in the course is student ability to transfer the skills and knowledge about integration of technology into their own classrooms, I need to explicitly design for that. Since the course is project-based, it is well suited for making meaning. Many of the discussion prompts I already use ask questions that help students identify relative strengths and weaknesses of various tools, with growth oriented prompts that are intended to help lead students towards the application level. But I think my discussion responses tend to focus more on the meaning and less on transfer, so I may be inadvertently keeping the focus on only one part of the process. I also think that I should be able to make some of the assignments that are currently primarily skills-based into transferable products simply by changing the focus to something that is usable in their classroom.

It's a new year - time for a growth spurt!