What happens in Canada stays in Canada....

Last year, I worked with a 6^th grade classroom teacher to blend a lesson she had for her class with a project I wanted the kids to perform in my computer class.  My project was working with Microsoft Word to create an alphabet book.  Each letter had a page and each page had to have a picture along with the text.  The classroom teacher was teaching a unit on Canada.  What a perfect opportunity for me – the new (to the district) computer teacher!  I will teach my lesson and score points with the classroom teacher.  Wonderful!

Since these students had not had any ‘formal’ training in any of the computer applications, I got the chance to show them around.  They were doing quite well, but had difficulty looking up specific items on the web.  They would search for general terms like “Canada” and expect to get results for specific animals, etc.  It was a sharp learning curve.

After the second day or so, the teacher came to me before school a bit distraught.  A parent had contacted her regarding some images her son had seen on Google while doing this project.  After she explained what the images were, I assured her that there was no way those images could bypass Google’s safeguards and the district’s firewalls.  Just to assure her, I sat down at a student computer and searched with the same terms the student had used, “Things in Canada”.  Well, I will save you the details, but let’s just say I didn’t know you could do that in any country, even Canada!  Wow!  And me, the new teacher, was responsible for this child seeing these images. 

So after I scraped myself off the floor, I sat down to write a note to administration, teachers, and parents.  I explained to them that in spite of the best safeguards in place, accidents happen.  We can do our best to assure that our children are safe from harm, but they still will occasionally get hurt.  With that in mind, we cannot put our children in a bubble in order to assure they are protected.  Instead we need to teach them how to navigate the world.  And a part of their world is the internet.  Are there bad things out there?  You bet there are!  Will we do all we can to prevent them from entering the school.  Yes!  But will we always be there to stop the ‘buggy man’ from entering their lives- Absolutely not.  That is why we need to give them the tools to handle situations like this.

Sexting, cyberbullying, and the like need to be addressed in the same way.  It is easy to say, “Just say no.” (Thank you Nancy Reagan……) but the reality is much more difficult.  We serve our students better by teaching them how to deal with it.  If we show them the rights and wrongs, actions and consequences, then they can be informed ‘surfers’.  These kids are not dumb!  If Joe’s non-netbook shows nothing else, it should make people realize that this generation picks up technology with little to no effort.  There is no fear.  What a wonderful frontier to explore when you aren’t afraid of hitting the wrong button and crashing the system. 

Regarding my 6^th grade students and Google searching – I took the opportunity to discuss with them the merits and pitfalls of searching.  I explained how to do a ‘good’ search and that if you can’t find what you are looking for in the first page or so, you need to rephrase your search.  But, I’ll be honest, it was a ‘teaching moment’ I would have gladly passed up!

Canadian Flag: http://images.allrefer.com/reference/world/flag-images/canada-flag.gif

NET, MET, Local ET plans and a healthy dose of sarcasm.....

George:  "O.K. Someday—we’re gonna get the jack together and we’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an’ a cow and some pigs and—"

"An’ live off the fatta the lan’," Lennie shouted. "An’ have rabbits. Go on, George! Tell about what we’re gonna have in the garden and about the rabbits in the cages and about the rain in the winter and the stove, and how thick the cream is on the milk like you can hardly cut it. Tell about that George."

"Why’n’t you do it yourself? You know all of it."

"No…you tell it. It ain’t the same if I tell it. Go on…George. How I get to tend the rabbits."

"Well," said George, "we’ll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens. And when it rains in the winter, we’ll just say the hell with goin’ to work, and we’ll build up a fire in the stove and set around it an’ listen to the rain comin’ down on the roof—Nuts!" (Of Mice and Men p.119-123)

The passage above is from the wonderful classic by John Steinbeck – Of Mice and Men.  Anyone who has ever read this book (and I think we all have at some time in our high school years) can remember how George would tell Lennie about how perfect it would be someday for them.  “Cream so thick you can hardly cut it.”  Heaven……a land of milk and honey…….at least in the eyes of these two men.  Technology’s version of this heaven, a land of milk and honey, can be found in the National Education Technology Plan. 

Now please don’t think I am a pessimist about everything.  But I am a realist.  And school funding at a state and federal level has made the dream world of the NET completely unrealistic and, at present time, unattainable.

The Michigan Education Technology Plan is in line with the NET, but a bit more realistic.  I feel the state has given goals that, given a glimpse of better economic times, may be remotely doable.  Idealistic?  Yes.  But we all have to have dreamers somewhere in the plan in order to improve ourselves.

Our district technology plan is……sad.  Is it in line with Michigan and National Education Technology Plans?  Yes.  It sure looks good on paper.  But you see, I sit on the technology committee and see firsthand the struggles faced by our support staff trying to meet the needs of the teachers and students.  Our entire program can be summed up into, “How do we fit this Band-Aid over this problem to get a little more life out of it?”  There is no expansion or improving of technology.  We simply do all we can to maintain the status quo.  And, because of aging equipment, we are losing that battle.  Heck, I am writing letters to corporations requesting corporate help in improving our district’s technology.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.

The district technology plan is also old (written in early 2008) and is due for a rewrite next month.  Do you think I could help weave a tale the caliber of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men when I help rewrite it?  Perhaps if you come back to the site next year, and read somewhere in it, “Can I feed the rabbits George?  Can I? Can I?”  You will know I had a hand in it.

Of Mice and Men quote: http://www.shmoop.com/of-mice-and-men/dreams-hopes-plans-quotes.html

Gwinn Area Community Schools Technology Plan: http://www.gwinn.k12.mi.us/TECHPLAN/2008Plan.pdf

Of Mice and Men cover: http://classic-literature.findthebest.com/sites/default/files/655/media/images/Of_%20Mice_%20and%20_Men_cover.jpg

7th Standard

I sometimes read documents about teacher preparedness and think, “Gee, who are they talking about?”  Then I remember, “Hey!  I’m a teacher.  They must be talking about me!  But yet I don’t recognize me…”  I know this information pertains to our education environment, undergraduate learning, and professional development, but do they (the infamous they) really think we got all that out of our four year degree and a couple of years in the classroom?  Most of what I know was learned on the job or previously in other jobs or in the 46 years of life experience I have under my belt.  The best professors taught us how to ‘think on our feet’ and adjust our plans to meet the circumstances.  Those are the skills learned in my undergraduate courses that have served me the best. 

Specifically regarding the 7^th strand – Technology Operations and Concepts - Very little to none of the content was taught in my undergraduate courses.  Believe it or not, I had a professor, in 2006, teach us how to teach students on a manual typewriter.  This example is one reason why I much prefer adjunct faculty to tenured professors.  (No, I am not trying to get brownie points….)  Adjuncts know the ‘real world’ and have adjusted their style to serve the needs of their students and our future students.  They are fresh, alive, and hungry.  Some tenured professors have never seen the inside of a K-12 classroom nor have they worked outside the world of academia.  There are exceptions of course, but they are few.  Our universities are doing a disservice to future teachers by not incorporating more technology learning in the teaching programs.  And please, keep in mind, one of my undergraduate majors was business education.  If anyone should have received training in technology, it should have been me.  All I learned regarding technology has been self-taught.    

The objectives of this course align themselves perfectly with the 7^th strand.  Again – adjunct staff = realistic teaching.  But we must keep in mind that the majority of teachers will not be getting an advanced degree in Education Technology.  This strand should be addressed at an undergraduate level and to all future teachers. 

And don’t get me started on Strand 2 item d!  That is a whole other story!!

Typewriter Picture: http://mytypewriter.com/ProductImages/Olympia_SM3_Maroon_M.jpg

Tenure Picture: http://www.larta.org/lartavox/images/9-2010-images/tenure-cartoon.gif

Instructional Strategies

For both my Technology Based Lesson and my Non-Technology based lesson, I chose to use the instructional strategies of Identifying similarities and differences and Nonlinguistic representation.  My lesson is to look at bullying throughout history and relate it to what is currently happening, not only in society, but specifically in our school.  The use of nonlinguistic representation was easy because the students will be doing their presentations on PowerPoint.  I felt the use of Identifying similarities and differences was a wonderful tool in trying to get the subject matter to ‘stick’.  This entire concept is a repeat of the discussions in Made To Stick in that new ideas are more likely to be internalized and truly learned if they have reference to thoughts and ideas already in the students’ minds.  As you can tell, this concept really made an impression on me.  I cannot think of a better way to teach than to latch on to what has already been learned.  It sure makes our jobs a lot easier, don’t you think?

At the website, Focus on Effectiveness, Researched-Based Strategies, there is an article addressing the use of identifying similarities and differences. “Each approach helps the brain process new information, recall it, and learn by overlaying a known pattern onto an unknown one to find similarities and differences.”  As I have discussed with other ideas, sometimes these are tools we have used in our teaching over and over again without knowing exactly what we were doing.  We instinctually know to start with the familiar and expand.  But now we know that this is truly a good method and a way of avoiding the ‘curse of knowledge’ as described in Made To Stick.



How Bullying makes you feel sometimes....





Clipart: http://www.imageenvision.com/150/29831-clip-art-graphic-of-a-bald-man-with-a-target-on-his-belly-by-djart.jpg

Made To Stick, Heath & Heath

Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski

Web Article: http://www.netc.org/focus/strategies/iden.php

Action Research

Ok, so I feel like I got a raw deal here somehow.  It is similar to having dessert before your meal, or like seeing the best parts of a movie in the previews.  We were introduced to this course, for that matter the entire Master’s Program, with the book Made To Stick.  Wonderful, compelling reading that truly lives up to its title.  Then, like a rug pulled out from under us, we were told to read the Action Research piece.  Please, don’t get me wrong, I felt the piece had good, pertinent information.  But I was spoiled with the writing style of Made To Stick.  Do you remember Charlie Brown’s teacher, “Mwa, mwa, mwa, mwa, mwa.”  Action Research is the book version of that cartoon.

Now that I have vented on my dislike for dry reading, let me get to the heart of the matter.  I often look at research as something disconnected with the real world.  Someone sitting in an office, who has never seen the inside of a classroom, putting together charts and figures about something they know little about.  After reading (ever so painfully) this piece, I realized that all of us on the ‘front line’ do research every single day without realizing it.  That research is very valuable and we need to do more with it than just have it float around inside our heads.  As teachers, we often follow our ‘gut’ on the direction a class needs to take.  What we are really doing is compiling and using the research we have done on the students but just in our own minds.  Can you imagine how helpful it would be if we could take a step back and share that internal research with our fellow teachers?  Not only could we drastically steepen the learning curve of new teachers, but we could avoid the common pitfalls of ‘reinventing the wheel’ every time we start a class.

I have included above a diagram of the Action Research portion for my lesson plan.  I have also included below how acquiring all this new information and using it sometimes feels.  Hopefully no one is offended by my depiction…..remember, I am the bull.....

Sources for pictures: http://www.coolnotions.com/ClipArt/clipart_0026.htm

http://www.clipartguide.com/_pages/0511-0811-1716-2433.html

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/hnx/newslet/summer05/xwind.jpg

http://maculspace.ning.com/photo/photo/listForContributor?screenName=umpstead

http://www.clker.com/clipart-turd.html

Wikiality

He sat hunched over his computer in the dark room.  The glare of the screen reflected off his pale, sullen face.  He was on guard.  This was his world.  He was the creator and watched over it like a mountain lion watching over her cub.  No one dared to tread on his territory.

But then there was a small, slight sound – a ‘ping’ from the computer.  Someone had entered his lair.  He was on high alert now!  His fingers tense on the keyboard ready to pounce on the unsuspecting intruder.  What?!?  Where is the humanity?? Glenn Seaborg, Nobel Prize winning Chemist is now listed as a Nobel Prize winning ballet dancer!!?  No!  He cannot allow such madness!  He leaps into action.  His fingers fly across the keyboard righting the wrong committed before the world is any the wiser. 

This is the vision I held in my mind when I changed the “Ishpeming” Wikipedia page.  Ishpeming is the small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that I call home.  It is just a little place with little dreams.  Surely no one would be watching this Wikipedia page – or so I thought.  Near the bottom of this page, there is a section listing notable people.  It is in this section, on this little unimportant page that I made my change.  Three minutes……that is how long it took for the mistake to be caught and corrected.  Three short minutes.  That to me was simply amazing.  And it was also proof that some people (myself included) spend way too much time on their computers.

So I decided to step up my game a bit.  I went after a subject that was a little more serious.  My daughter was diagnosed with a heart arrhythmia three years ago.  When the initial diagnosis was made, I was desperate for information and immediately turned to the web to learn everything and anything about Wolff–Parkinson–White syndrome, a subgroup of Supraventricular Tachycardia.  It is on this Wikipedia page that I decided to make my next attempt at editing.  I did it here, because three years ago it was here that I was given inaccurate information about the condition.  That information has since been corrected, but thanks to me, it was changed back.  Instead of 0.1% to 0.3% of people with this condition experiencing sudden death, I changed it to 3%.  You may think this isn’t a worthwhile difference, but please put yourself in my shoes for a minute.  If you were told your daughter had a 3 in 1000 chance of falling over dead at any moment because of this condition, you probably wouldn’t be too overly concerned.  But if you were told she had a 3 in 100 chance of sudden death, wouldn’t that cause you to be a bit more apprehensive?  The change I made to this ‘more important’ page is still up four days later.  I will wait another day or two and then change it back if it is not caught.  I am feeling some guilt for the misinformation.

So what does this mean to us in education?  It means we must carefully pick and choose what tools we allow our students to use in research.  Wikipedia can be used as a source, but it should never be used as the only source of information.  What is found on the site should be verified by secondary sources.  It cannot be viewed as gospel.  This same logic applies to any ‘free’ information available.  If a textbook is free online, in my opinion, its accuracy should be suspect.  Free translates into loosely edited.  There are some things in life worth paying for. 

The Stephen Colbert segment spoke volumes with the line, “Wikipedia – bringing democracy to reality.”  No truer words could be said about this free encyclopedia website.  Reality, according to this satire, is simply what everyone agrees upon.  That is the driving force behind Wikipedia.  Does that truly make up what reality is?  On one hand, the obvious answer would be, “Of course not!”  Everyone in a group could agree that I am a genius, but that does not in any way make me a genius.  But on the other hand, there are many instances where perception is reality.  If everyone in a group perceives me to be a leader, I will most likely be treated as, and act like, a leader.  So therefore democracy can indeed create reality. But, herein lies the problem.  Not everything available on Wikipedia is open to perception dictating reality. The sudden death rates of people with WPW syndrome are not open to debate. 

With that being said, let me point out why I will not discontinue the use of Wikipedia or other ‘free’ information sources in my classroom. Just as the example was given in “Made to Stick”, sometimes you need to start with a familiar, somewhat untrue example or story in order to catch the subject matter in a student’s mind.  Wikipedia may be full of inaccuracies, but it is easily available and the students can understand it at their level.  Therefore it is easier to ‘catch the subject’ using Wikipedia and then follow up with deeper, richer (and often times, more accurate) information on a subject through other sources.  It is under these conditions that I will continue to use Wikipedia and the like as tools in my classroom.

Typical Wikipedia Editor on Day Job
http://bretjordan.wordpress.com/





The Increased Need for Academic Integrity in the Digital Age

There is an old saying, “Locks keep honest people honest.”  The problem is we rely so heavily on locks on our doors to keep us safe, that we forget that we left the window wide open.  Using SafeAssign to check student work is a lot like locking your door.  It keeps honest students honest.  But, there are many windows of opportunity left wide open for student to bypass the system.  By the percentage I received on the submitted ‘rip off’ paper, it is obvious there isn’t much effort needed in bypassing this particular system.  On a paper totaling over 1400 words, I changed only three words.  That is 99.7% plagiarized.  Yet the SafeAssign system kicked back a score of 54%.  When I read the report from SafeAssign, it ‘caught’ plagiarized sections within sections that were copied from the same source.  Yet the surrounding sections were not flagged as copied text.

Although I feel there is a place for tools such as SafeAssign, I think the best tool to catch plagiarism is education.  We must, as educators, teach our students the value of each individual’s words and reflection.  We must teach them to not only be inspired by others’ writings, but to respect their words as private property, not free fodder to anyone who cares to use them.  Education is the key to learning what is acceptable and what is not.  We live in a society that doesn’t willingly pay for music, movies, computer access, etc.  Even as teachers, we glean lessons off the web and ignore copyrighted text by making multiple copies to hand out to our students. Why would we expect our students to instinctually understand the rights and wrongs of plagiarism?  We can’t.  It must be taught, applied consistently, and reinforced.

We must also teach our children to value their own words.  They should be encouraged to freely show expression in order to become more confident writers.  If they feel they have something of value to say, they may think twice about simply reprinting someone else’s thoughts.

There have been times where I have caught students plagiarizing their work.  In most cases, the tip off has been a change in flow or writing style.  It is in the slight nuances of a student’s writings that the infraction becomes apparent.  That’s when I will copy and paste a portion of their work into Google to search for it.  I am seldom wrong with my suspicions because I become familiar with my students’ writing styles and abilities. One student in particular wrote poorly for a high school sophomore.  For my class, he was writing a short paper on Thomas Edison and it was brilliantly written!  He had perfect grammar and sentence structure.  His paragraphs flowed beautifully.  I knew there wasn’t a chance that this was his work.   When I searched the text, I found the entire paper online.  Had I simply relied on SafeAssign or a similar tool, I may have ignored my instincts on the situation or gotten lax on learning my students’ writing styles and abilities.  I do not know if this student had been taught the rights and wrongs of plagiarism before coming to my class.  I, at the time, made the assumption he had based on his grade level.  Now that I teach middle school, I make it a point to teach lessons on copyright use and plagiarism.

After we show our students how to use their own thoughts and are able to teach our students how to correctly use the materials of others as reference tools for growth, then we can achieve greater academic integrity.   The desire for individual expression and writing will come natural to students who are inspired and well informed.  But, as a safeguard, we should also always remember to keep the door locked! 

My first post

Hello!  Just wanted to write something so the page wasn't blank......