In the public eye

Many thoughts have almost bubbled up into a post here this past week, but there has been a lot of competition for my time, mainly setting up my classroom for the new school year. I've put in well over a week so far on my own time. Tomorrow I HAVE to report, and it will be a day I'm finally paid for. Classroom teachers reading this are nodding their heads, uh-huh.

In the meantime...

There was recently an amazing story reported by Doug Noon about an elementary school in Alaska that turned down state bonuses for staff members because their kids had made great academic gains. The story was reported here.

There were some interesting comments left on Doug's post, including one from Melissa, in Oregon, which cited an article where the sentiment, especially in the comments, was clearly of the mind that teachers have got it made.


Which brings me to something that has been bugging me no end - that those of us in the classroom are truly helpless in the public eye. I'm talking about people commenting anonymously on blogs and other online publications having free reign to take potshots. Consider this post and following comments. The public has a field day saying whatever... The one employee who engaged in the conversation and was not anonymous is no longer employed by the school district. Would I have liked to say something there? Of course - but at what price?

My school recently had a particularly nasty incident with our school's Wikipedia entry. Somebody altered the entry with several libelous, judgemental, unsubstantiated statements. After I fixed the damage (immediately), how did we deal with it? On our own, in-house. Would it have been nice - maybe even appropriate - to be backed up by our employer? Of course.

What is my point in this ramble, exactly? I guess it's that teachers at schools are really out there on our own in this medium. You gotta watch what you say. And you are at the mercy of a potential multitude of folks who are ready to say anything, with nothing to lose, anonymously.

To all the teachers like Mary, at that school that went through the very difficult discussion about the ethics of accepting money because of the achievement of their students, I say thank you. Thanks for the uncomfortable time you are spending in the public eye. You came up with a decision that had to be incredibly divisive - and now you are exposed to all kinds of criticism, from colleagues and the public. I hope you are able to move and have a great year with your kids.

Changing needs and expectations

I don't read it every Sunday, but today I sat down for a few minutes with the Parade magazine that came in our paper. What Kids Really Need is an amazing article telling parents about the technology needs of their kids today. Now I agree with pretty much everything they had to say, but what blew me away was that this was coming from a magazine with a readership of 71 million, that has been around since 1941. Parade is an institution in the U.S. A very mainstream, relatively conservative, lightweight, breezy Sunday read for many Americans. A couple of sections really struck me:

From "Choosing the right computer" -

The average student needs to browse the Web, write reports and communicate via e-mail. Less than $700 will buy a computer that can do all that, monitor and printer included. You’ll want to add software to protect against viruses and spyware ($30 and up, annually), a surge-protecting power strip ($10 or more) and perhaps speakers ($20 and up).

As your budget increases, so do your options for processing ease and storage capacity. After you’v e covered the computer essentials, extra RAM
(about $100 per GB) will make the computer work faster and more reliably. A larger hard drive (250 GB will cost about $50 extra) also is a worthwhile investment.

If you already have a computer or two at home, consider wireless networking. A simple router and software runs about $100, but the ability to share a single printer and Internet connection could ultimately save you money. So, too, could a home server, which will back up the files on all of your computers, so they’ll be safe if one should crash.

Then there was advice on buying a cell phone for the kids - with a nod to the fact that they are banned in many school districts. But this part had me nodding and shaking my head at the same time: "Computer must-haves" -

A computer can cost $600 or $6,000. Here are some features you don’t want to be without:
• At least 1 GB RAM. The more “random access memory” you have, the more programs your little mulit-taskers can run at once.
• At least a 120 GB hard drive. This “permanent memory” stores programs (like Word or Excel), games, photos and music.
• An external hard drive. Most operating systems let you automatically back up your files. If the computer crashes, the prom photos and the senior thesis will be safe.
• Security software. It’s essential to protect against viruses, phishing and other nasty cybertricks.

Made me wonder just how many TEACHERS have this type of equipment, either at home or on their desks at school. Hmmm.... At home I'm squeaking by, just keeping up with those specs, but in my classroom, the slowest computer is my district issued "teacher workstation", which doesn't even come close. If we teachers are expected to lead, well, this is just so obviously out of whack....

This also made me wonder (again) if the day is finally coming closer when those technology in schools naysayers will finally give up asking, "yes, but does it increase academic achievement?" Will they finally now begin to realize that it just doesn't matter - we live with technology, so we teach with it, too - duh. Just like the pencil, the light bulb, the TV, and on, and on...

Finally!

New computers
Originally uploaded by mahlness

It's happening, at last. Most of the equipment I bought with grant funds just arrived a couple of days ago: 10 CPU's, 10 LCD 19" monitors, 5 laptops. Hours and days of work ahead ahead of me - heck, they're not even plugged in yet, never mind configured, added to the network, etc, etc - but it's pretty exciting nonetheless. Here are 8 of the 12 desktops - the other 4 will be across the room. One laptop on the projection cart, one for me on my desk, and three... somewhere else...

Things will look a little different when the desks are back :)

Night Baseball in Seattle

Last night I witnessed part of a comeback that made everybody (at least the 37,000 Seattle Mainers fans at Safeco Field) feel good, extra good. Richie Sexon, mired in a really horrible hitting slump, hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth. I lost a latte, betting he'd go down swinging as he had in his two previous at bats. Here he's mobbed at home plate. Yes, that's the Mariners' Moose waving the flag.

Going backwards in the evening, the ceremonial first pitch was thrown by the Burger King guy, I think. Weird.

But my favorite moment of the evening was reviewing some of the pictures I had in my camera, and discovering that I had captured a modern day version of a famous painting, Night Baseball, by Marjorie Phillips. Joe DiMaggio is at the plate, Yankees vs. the Washington Senators, 1951:

from The Phillips Collection

my picture is a little more glitzy, but the moment frozen in time is the same..

I use Night Baseball every year in art, as a prompt that sets everybody off on a chalk pastel picture of a game involving a ball. It's great fun, and it was great to step away from a lot of much more serious things for a few hours last night.

My whole collection of shots from the evening is on Flickr, here. Thinking of you, Jeff Utecht, now back in Shanghai, you woulda loved this game.

Fear

I have been stewing.

Ever have something just awful happen, and you can't say something? Ever have your dreams dashed and you can't say anything? Ever have people you don't know contact you because you might be able to shed some light? Ever weigh every single word in a phone call? Ever use personal email, and home phone numbers exclusively? Ever been so angry you could just spit, and you can't even get up a wet mouth? Ever really want to trust somebody, but you can't let yourself?

Fear does that to you.

This where I am.

The departure of the two people responsible for the development of L3RN last week has shocked and rocked me. The wind of promise is out of my sails. My hopes are taking on water.

So I send cryptic emails, trying to find out more - and giving up a carefully measured very little of what I know. I lose sleep and second guess myself to ridiculous levels.

Fear. It is a powerful silencer.

8 random facts

Sarah tagged me on this, so here goes...

The Rules:

• Post these rules before you give your facts
• List 8 random facts about yourself
• At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them
• Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged
  

1. I love grape jelly, and make it myself, from grapes I grow.


2. I was one of the first kids in my kindergarten class to learn how to tie his shoes.


3. I've only read the first 3 Harry Potter books (for shame!)


4. Heights scare me.


5. I prefer hot over cold weather.


6. My vision used to be 20-10


7. I have this fantasy of getting my 1967 Vespa running again...


8. Not once have I ever been to school or taught on my November birthday.

I think the grown-ups are having too much fun with this, so...

I know the rules say you're only supposed to tag 8 people. But how can I possibly choose only 8 from my last year's class of third graders? So, here's a list of ALL of them, linked to their blogs. I'll cross post to the class blog first, then I gotta start leaving comments for them. Not all have written this summer, but let's see who responds:

Tags: AnaLisa, Bailey, Casey, Chelsea, Christopher, Delaney, Elyjah, Ethan, Jaylynn, Jonathan, Keean, Kyra, Kody, Lindsay, Logan, Maribeth, Nathan, Nicole, Riley1, Riley2, Ryan

L3RN in the News

There has been quite a buzz lately about this. If you have not heard yet, not to worry - you will soon. L3RN is Seattle's entry into a school district providing safe, yet very cutting edge, venues for its students, parents, and teachers. The media has picked it up, from right here in blogland, to newspapers, to e-zines, to print magazines. Here's a list of references/reviews I've compiled as of August 5, 2007:

• Seattle Schools Embrace Moderated Read/Write Technologies - Wesley Fryer - Oklahoma
• Weblogg-ed » Will’s Links 06/30/2007 - Will Richardson - New Jersey
• L3rn - Tom Hoffman - Rhode Island
• Create + Learn + Broadcast = L3RN - Judy O'Connell - Australia
• Teachers learn how to use L3RN, new online network - Rachel Fields - Seattle Times
• Seattle Public Schools builds social-learning site for its tech-savvy teens- Jessica Blanchard - Seattle PI
• Seattle Likes to L3RN - Jim Anderson - Washington Teachers
• Seattle Public Schools builds social-learning site for its tech-savvy teens - Lynn Marentette - North Carolina
• iLibrarian » Create + Learn + Broadcast = L3RN - Ellyssa Kroski - Columbia University
• L3RN: Seattle Public Schools Brings Social Networking In House - T.H.E. Journal: August 2007
• Teachers and students "L3RN" something new - Allison Matsumoto - Partnership for Learning

This is only a partial list for something that is still not officially released. Teachers (like me) are trying it out in the summer, planning its use in their classrooms next school year. I have lots of questions, but it is extremely exciting to see my district going forward - and indeed, leading, in the use of technology use/integration for our kids in this 21st century!

I know there are many more mentions and reviews. If you have more citations, please leave them as comments here. Thanks!

Technorati Tags: l3rn

Why I'm excited

Update, 8/4: for a well written perspective on this, read Andy Carvin's The Return of the Original Edublogger on learning.now

One might think I had just figured out how I was going to use Twitter in my classroom, or that Flickr was going to be unblocked, or that my classroom was going to have a wireless connection next year. No, I'm not excited about technology in education (well it IS related... read on).

What I'm excited about is teaching. About caring. About reaching and touching each and every student. I'm excited that so many more people can now be hearing that good message. If that sounds mushy-gushy, oh well. So what.

Louis Schmier is blogging.

Yes, you read that right. Louis Schmier, professor of history at Valdosta State University. The author of hundreds of "Random Thoughts", distributed on the Internet via email lists since 1993. The man who was blogging before the term "web" in web-log even existed (well, barely).

Louis Schmier's Random Thoughts are now blog posts - all of them.

Subscribe in your favorite rss reader. Add del.icio.us links to the posts that mean something to you, or that you want to return to later. It is such a kick to be able to link to his classic To Be A Teacher, as a blog post from 1994 - yes! Use the search feature to see how often he wrote about "blueberries", for instance. And now, in his latest Random Thoughts, you can leave comments for Louis - and everybody else. Huge thanks go to James Farmer for letting this happen, and for lighting the way in the conversion of hundreds of web pages to blog posts. This was an enormous undertaking, long overdue. I've been the html guy for way too long. Now it is all in Louis' hands, where it should be.

So, without further ado, I present to you an enormous body of incredible work, 600+ Random Thoughts (in a blog) about teaching, caring, and being a real human being:

The Random Thoughts of Louis Schmier


Technorati Tags: schmier teaching

RAW WWW 2.0 Smackdown: David vs. David

Who needs Goliath? David is taking on David, and they are both giants. Everybody involved in this discussion is going out of their way to be polite and respectful to David Warlick and David Thornburg.

To me, it's a slam dunk, it's a pin in less than 30 seconds.

Warlick.

The semantics of "exactly what IS web 2.0" (gag me) aside, Warlick has made the leap to a qualitatively different way of viewing education in the 21st century. Interesting that Thornburg, in his initial comment, made a typo there.

It is a fascinating conversation that needs to be read and followed. It is being gone over again in another post by Warlick. His post is great, but most will be drawn to the comments - as in the one that started it all. Add the posts to your aggregator. Note the action is all on Warlick's blog.

I mentioned making a leap. That is exactly what those standing stoutly behind Warlick have made. And that is what the Thornburg proponents have not made.

A leap.

Of faith.

That many have made and are raving about.

Where I teach, 99% of the educators have not made that leap. The gap between those who have leapt and those who cling to the cliff of 19th and 20th century education widens every day. There are some still sitting on the fence, but many big name folks I started out admiring back in the early nineties when I blazed a few edtech trails have, sadly, stayed put.

For those who look back, it's a little sad and depressing. But those moving on will not look back for long, because they might miss a key, an important road sign, or a beacon to light the the way to a new path for education.

warlick thornburg

5 Whys

1. Why can I not go here from school?
2. Why is it so hard to get past this?
3. Why is there no educator making decisions on this?
4. Why is it my job to request access to it?
5. Why has nobody else where I work realized it's blocked?

...for those who can go...
enjoy Scott McLeod

Blogging through 2006-07

I just finished up a series of posts describing blogging with my third graders this past school year. I color-coded links in the posts, to indicate which blog was referenced, and since those colors did not show up in all rss readers (in Netvibes select "Show website"), I list them here:

Blogging through 2006-07: Intro
Blogging through 2006-07: Part 1
Blogging through 2006-07: Part 2
Blogging through 2006-07: Part 3
Blogging through 2006-07: Part 4
Blogging through 2006-07: Conclusion

Blogging through 2005-06
For a similar trip, but a year earlier, the posts below chronicle my first year blogging with third graders, 2005-06. It was a different ride, being the first year and all:

Blogging through the school year, part 1
Blogging through the school year, part 2
Blogging through the school year, part 3

Blogging through 2006-07: Conclusion

This is the last post in the series:
Blogging through 2006-07: Intro
Blogging through 2006-07: Part 1
Blogging through 2006-07: Part 2
Blogging through 2006-07: Part 3
Blogging through 2006-07: Part 4

Written a month after the end of the school year, the series was my attempt to chronicle some of the high and low points of blogging with my third graders. My initial purpose was to provide a helpful guide to other teachers who wanted to maybe get some ideas or pointers about using blogs in an elementary school classroom. However, once I got started, I realized how useful it was going to be for me to go through the exercise, both in remembering and in planning. My focus changed then to highlighting what was most important to me. If it can still be a help to others, then great. A few ending thoughts:

• The numbers. By no means is this high statistics, but last night I wondered just how many posts I had written on my classroom blog this year versus last year - and then of course, how many posts the students in those classrooms had written. Even with multitude of variables in play here, I've done enough research and statistics to know that there are enough important variables in common to say there is something going on here:
  
  2005-06 classroom blog:
  Teacher posts - 56
  Student posts - 340
  
  2006-07 classroom blog:
  Teacher posts - 29
  Student posts - 711
  
  Same number of students, same ages, same gender distribution, similar academic strengths, same number of computers in class. The 05-06 class started blogging one month later, but the 06-07 class still has a month and a half left for summer blogging. What does this mean? Well, it looks to me like the students wrote more, and the teacher wrote less. This is good :)
  
  
• Obstacles. I said in the Intro that this was the most frustrating year I've ever had using computers in my classroom. There were two big obstacles to being able to use the computers and the Internet they way (I think) they should have been used:
  
  The Filter. I requested the unblocking of hundreds of sites - almost all of them wikis and blogs. I can't begin to calculate the hours spent, the frustrations felt, or the amount of wind taken out of my sails (and my kids'). Changes to the filter were made without notice, warning, or explanation. Access to educational content I wanted to use in my classroom or for professional growth was determined by noneducators. Bad enough, but when I was asked to justify - to noneducators - the educational purpose of access to certain sites, well... it was really hard to carry on at times. The lack of professional respect was incredibly discouraging.
  
  My computers. I have 15 student computers in my classroom - all donated - and set up, maintained, and upgraded by me. This is the third year I've had them. Starting in the fall, permissions were changed. Access to network resources was changed. Client images were changed. Without my knowledge or permission. As with the filter, these changes were made without notice, warning, or explanation. As with the filter, if I wanted something returned to the way I had had it set up for over two years, I was asked - by noneducators - to justify the educational rationale for such a change. The net effect of all this was that my students were constantly having to go to different places on our LAN to find their work. It would change from day to day - and from one machine to another! Despite being administrator on all the machines, I was unable to fix or change even the most basic critical functions - like setting up a new printer. Countless hours spent trying to fix things, talking to people, begging for changes... no dice. It was an absolute nightmare.
  
  
• And yet... I'll do it again next year. No question. Yes, it's worth it. There is simply no more powerful tool we teachers can use to encourage and cultivate the literacy skills of our kids - than the blog. Next year I'll add wikis.

Blogging through 2006-07: Part 4

This is part of a series, so far consisting of:
Blogging through 2006-07: Intro
Blogging through 2006-07: Part 1
Blogging through 2006-07: Part 2
Blogging through 2006-07: Part 3
Links to posts from this blog are in green, links to posts from my classroom blog are in red.

• May, 2007: The kids' writing this month was almost exclusively on their "books" for our school's annual Young Author's Conference. Taking a chance, I posted (actually cross-posted to both blogs, something I did occasionally throughout the year) Publishing Drafts. I encouraged the kids to post drafts of parts of their books, like say a chapter, on their blogs - and ask readers for feedback. Several kids did this, and a couple even got feedback via comments. Will do this more in the future, I think. Mid-month I wrote about My Trip to Toronto, a definite personal highlight from the year.
  
  
• June, 2007: I posted some final thoughts and another podcast on silent reading online in SSR 2.0 - final update. One of the easiest pieces for the kids to write was to talk about their blogs - blogs in general, why they should keep them, why blogs are good, etc - they were all over the map in their approaches to this. It was good: Third graders on blogging. My frustrations with the district filter spilled out once again in Kids too? With little more than a week to go in the school year, I put on Family Internet Night 2 (cross-posted). Finally getting around to getting parent permission for their kids pictures to appear on the web, in a multi media frenzy, I posted a podcast in Good-bye, Mrs. Freeman! , a short video in The Room Twelve Cheer! (crossposted), and 14 pictures in a Bubbleshare slideshow, Here we are... The month ended, appropriately enough, with It's not over. And it's not. It's mid July as I write this... just approved a comment to an article written by one of the kids I no longer teach...

Blogging through 2006-07: Part 3

This is part of a series, so far consisting of:
Blogging through 2006-07: Intro
Blogging through 2006-07: Part 1
Blogging through 2006-07: Part 2
Links to posts from this blog are in green, links to posts from my classroom blog are in red.

• February, 2007: Started off the month posting Heroes and Hopes, an attempt to have the kids blog their writing for a school wide prompt. As the month started I began experimenting with letting my reading group read from blogs during silent reading: Is this SSR, 2.0? Actually had a couple of podcasts grow out of the experience. I left blog reading open as an option through the rest of the school year. A couple of fairly successful assigned writing prompts were about Valentine's Day and starting out with multiplication. See student blogs for February (scroll way down) for examples. A couple of kids got comments from other students who had got hold of some nifty animated text generators, which were quite the rage for a while: student blog example.
  
  
• March, 2007: Documenting chaos is the first mention I can find of the disastrous mucking up of the student computers in my classroom. I was, and still am, outraged at the confusion, extra work, and hours and hours of lost learning time caused by this - which had started way back in September. In Back on the blog! I mentioned the kids blogging about their favorite blogs to read. This one was just almost too much - not only did they have to be reading several blogs outside of our class, but I had the bright idea to try and teach them some raw html at the same time, so they could hyperlink to those blogs when they wrote about them: Beyond comments.
  
  
• April, 2007: My blog was pretty quiet this month, except for a couple of Earth Day Groceries Project posts. Meanwhile, the kids did well writing on their Spring Break plans and Earthday, now on to the WASL! Their WASL (our state's high stakes test) blog posts were composed over a five day period, journal-style, then uploaded to their blogs at the end of the week. Still not sure about whether this was useful or worthwhile.

Blogging through 2006-07: Part 2

This is part of a series:
Blogging through 2006-07: Intro
Blogging through 2006-07: Part 1
Links to posts from this blog are in green, links to posts from my classroom blog are in red.

• November, 2006: With not much experience behind them, I asked the kids to write a bit about their feelings on Report Cards! Borrowing heavily from Jeff Utecht, I put on a Classroom LAN Party to share info with my colleagues in Seattle about the K12 Online Conference. A couple of days before Thanksgiving I asked my kids to write a story after this prompt: "Pretend you are a Turkey. How will you escape being served for Thanksgiving Dinner?" (Turkey stories). This one had always been fun, even before blogging. In a fit of silliness I sat down with my wife one evening and wrote Galaxy - which I will definitely try a variation on with my kids next year.
  
  
• December, 2006: The month started with a Family Internet Night which was pretty well attended. With a week before Christmas Vacation, I posted Holiday Writers describing some very nice writing about the upcoming holidays. The writing ranged from memories, to wish lists for Santa, to fantasy stories, to reflections on the meaning of the holiday. The hardest work in an assignment like this was to define the assignment - with enough guidance, and yet enough latitude to encourage creativity. I assigned several writing pieces this way during the year - this one turned out to be one of the best. A couple of examples from the kids: A Weird Christmas and Christmas Fun!!! There were a few times during the school year when I really lost my "voice" on my personal blog. December was one of those times.
  
  
• January, 2007: I started the new year with a definite stretch, Five Things - in which I "tagged" all my kids to write down five things people probably did not know about them - this all coming from a meme sweeping the edtech bolgosphere, where I was tagged by Doug Noon. About half a dozen kids chose this prompt to write about when I gave them a choice of topics. They did well, but it was a challenge - remember they were 8 and 9 years old. I posted proudly about my students who blogged from home over vacation at The Kids Are Alright. In Am I Nuts? I welcomed back some of my third graders from last year, and created a "Room 12 Alumni" group on our blog. I had by this time given up on the fourth grade teachers in my school setting up a blog for my third graders from last year. I wrote a bit more about this in Bloggers becoming gardeners. By the end of the month, a couple of my kids had figured out how to customize their blogs a little - and ended up showing me and the rest of the class how to do it: Colorful Writers!

Blogging through 2006-07: Part 1

(there is an intro at Blogging through 2006-07: Intro Links to posts on this blog are in green, links to posts on my classroom blog are in red)

The 2006-07 school year promised to be an exciting one. It would be my second one blogging with a group of third graders, and I had learned a huge amount about what worked and what didn't the year before. I also had a lot of new ideas I wanted to try out. This is an attempt to string together some of the important events of that school year.

• August, 2006: Summers are always the time for me to learn, grow, and write more. Big event for our school was Arbor Heights - a dozen years on the web! Spurred on by this, I created a Wikipedia entry for my school. As summer ended, I was consumed with fear over DOPA passing, and frustrated with school filtering - Worse than DOPA - the Whitelist. Launching the new class blog, I posted Blog for a new year in the new classblogmeister location (new email account for me, changed the domain forward for roomtwelve.com). The new class was all set up and ready to go.
  
  
• September, 2006: Finally said good-bye to last year's class, with Sail on! and on the same day posted Fighting filtering, noting the district blocking of Technorati, David Warlick, Edublogs, my school's wiki, and much more. I was beside myself. Also on the same day, I welcomed the new class Welcome to roomtwelve.com! There was still a huge amount of tech stuff happening at the personal level: Another day, before it really starts. In the classroom there was a lot of word processing practice, learning how to navigate within our local server to open, save, edit, etc... By the end of the month, students were posting their first articles, introductions of themselves - amazing! I wrote about the first day of student blogging in Almost there. Three student examples: Logan, Lindsay, and Riley2.
  
  
• October, 2006: I tried to draw some early comparisons between last year's group and this year's in Amazing start. The first live recording of me speaking put into a podcast was Open House - a podcast! I tried it again at a workshop I gave for my colleagues at wiki work. I was still frustrated about district filtering policies when I wrote Riding a bubble and watching my back - which followed a request to the tech department to be sure a list of several hundred sites were unblocked as part of the K12Online Conference. I assigned a second blog writing piece in Scary Writers, which turned out amazingly well, considering I only gave the kids two 15-20 minute periods in which to write, and then post to their blogs.
  
  

  A note about student writing on blogs. We almost always wrote in MS Word first, and then did copy/paste to the blog. We did at times use paper/pencil to generate a list of ideas prior to writing, but usually all writing took place exclusively on the computer. To see our classroom blog with ALL student blog articles listed on the left (from the entire year), in chronological order, follow this link. It's a long page, but there is so much to see!

Blogging through 2006-07: Intro

I don't know how many parts this series will have, if or when I'll finish it, or exactly how it will turn out. I just know I have to write it.

At the end of the 2005-06 school year, after a phenomenally exciting first year blogging with my third graders, I wrote three posts. The idea was to track the progress of the kids' blogs, my progress as a teacher using blogs for the first time, and so on:

• Blogging through the school year, part 1
• Blogging through the school year, part 2
• Blogging through the school year, part 3

I mention them here again because maybe this will be useful to somebody. There are a lot more teachers blogging with their kids now, and if there's something here to help a teacher get started, or plan, then great.

It was also good for me to go back a little and get some long term perspective.

In 2006-07, I blogged again - with a different group of third graders, using classblogmeister. The kids were wonderful writers. They took to the medium so easily, more easily than the 2005-06 class - but it always happens that way. Kids are just getting tech savvy so much earlier.

I also had an incredibly exciting year personally, from presenting at the K12 Online Conference, to being awarded a $10,000 grant for technology in my classroom, to presenting virtually and live at the IRA National Convention in May, 2007.

And yet in the things that mattered the most to me this year, working with my kids on computers, and trying to be a good steward of web 2.0, well... it was the most frustrating year I've ever had. I have never been so angry.

Taking a deep breath now, and looking forward to Part 1, maybe tomorrow.

Getting away and perspective

My wife, a good friend, and I just returned from a brief birding get-away to Cape Flattery, where we literally stood on the northwest tip of the continental US, looking out west into the vast Pacific Ocean. We were lucky enough to see tufted puffins, nesting murres and pelagic cormorants, a sea and river otter, oyster catchers - and a host of other fabulous living things, perched a hundred feet or so above the crashing waves. It was take your breath away fabulous.

Looking out past Tatoosh Island and all the nesting birds so close to, and yet so far away from the mainland was amazing. I felt hopeful again. I got to take a breath, maybe regain my long term perspective.

I've been struggling with this need to write about my hurdles from this past year using technology in my classroom. I have not tried yet, because the wounds and anger are still too deep and fresh. I think I can now - soon, anyway.

Summer Bloggers and Community

A few of my third graders are continuing to blog over the summer, even though school is out, and I'm no longer their teacher. I still check, edit a little if necessary, and approve all content added to their blogs, including comments. Which is why I write this now.

One of the wonderful things about the tool I use, David Warlick's Classblogmeister, is that there is a community that comes with it. Students stay in touch with other students - in large part because of the familiarity with the tool - they all know how to comment, where to look for new stuff, navigation is the same, etc. It's nice, it lets teachers and kids concentrate on their writing, and not spend a lot of time trying to figure out a new navigational system.

But what really sets it apart is the teacher community and the conversations that happen in it. The meeting place for that community is a good old 1.0 Internet form, the discussion list. There's a very active group (open to anyone) at Yahoo! Groups. Much support, problem solving, questions, and so on. And every once in a while somebody comes along and just amazes everybody with what they've discovered, or in this case, developed.

Adrian Bruce posted Positive Comments... Animated :), as a way to embed little animated flash reinforcers in comments. Works wherever you can use html, like here:


Award Courtesy adrianbruce.com

Award Courtesy adrianbruce.com

Award Courtesy adrianbruce.com

I just added these little gems to comments of some of my kids:

• Logan
• Lindsay
• Jonathan
• Keean

Nifty stuff, beats the heck out of scratch and sniff stickers :) Thanks, Adrian!

Gasp!

From a comment left on David Warlick's post, "It Isn't Easy":

In my district, We want our teachers to use blogs BUT we as instructional
technology leaders in the district don’t blog so what are we saying to the
teachers? … I need to lead by doing and after NECC I am more willing and
invigorated to continue the ‘discussions’ with the district gate keepers.

If this were written in 2003 or 2004, I would have been excited.

If it were written in 2005 or 2006, I would have been encouraged.

But this was written in the last half of 2007, and I am flat out shaking my head in dismay and anger. So far to go and so little horsepower to get there...

must work outside the system

The Class of 2016 - a few pics

I just posted this on the classroom blog for my third graders at roomtwelve.com These few pics are just a teeny snapshot of the year, but I smile every time I watch it. They were (are!) an extraordinary group, and they will do well, they will go far:

This album is powered by BubbleShare - Add to my blog

It's not over

It's not over, the teaching. Because of web 2.0 and kids blogging, one week into summer vacation I am still:

• approving writing my students are contributing to the world's body of shared knowledge
• editing writing my students are contributing to the world's body of shared knowledge

School finally ended on June 22nd for the kids, and I finished up on the 29th - and we were all ready for both those dates. Am I wishing the school year was over? Isn't it over?

It's not over. And I am happy, like a proud papa, that some of my third graders are still blogging, even though I am no longer their teacher:

• A Little Bit ago - Jonathan (the classroom champion of using the blog as a journal)
• Lopez Island - Lindsay (blogged from the beautiful Washington State San Juan Islands, perfect writing, as usual)
• Triple Sleep Over - Logan (unquestionably the most prolific writer in class)
• On My Mind Today - Casey (best pioneer for using different writing forms on her blog, posting here incorporating feedback I gave her a couple of weeks ago)

Want to encourage these young writers who hold our tomorrows in their hands? Send a comment to one of their posts. You cannot imagine the impact. Ultimately, you will feel it. Thanks - Mark

NECC great posts

So much great info came out of the recent NECC 2007 conference and EduBloggerCon, that it was overwhelming, just to read, never mind to try and do anything with right now. I kept a little list of posts I wanted to return to later and spend some time with. Maybe there will be something here somebody missed. With many thanks to the wonderful bloggers and wiki builders, here's my delicious category tagged necc2007greatposts, stuff that caught my eye and imagination, in reverse chronological order:

• VoiceThread › Edubloggercon group pic! by joycevalenza
• NECC, Day 5, Closing Keynote « Ubiquitous Thoughts
• Cool Cat Teacher Blog: NECC: Wikis in the Classroom, Web 2 and other presentations
• Conference 2.0 -- NECC, Reflections and Moving Forward. - Practical Theory
• Skype is the NECC VC news? « Videoconferencing Out on a Lim
• Moving at the Speed of Creativity » Blog Archive » Podcast164: Dr. Tim Tyson’s NECC 2007 Closing Keynote
• The Strength of Weak Ties: NECC Awards
• Moving at the Speed of Creativity » Blog Archive » Nuggets from NECC (2)
• Moving at the Speed of Creativity » Blog Archive » From “Hand it In” to “Publish it”: Re-envisioning our Classrooms by Will Richardson
• Steve Hargadon: NECC 2007 Session Tags and Feeds!
• The Four Eyed Technologist » Blog Archive » I Feel Like a Twit Part II
• My Thoughts: Tuesday at NECC at The Thinking Stick
• Moving at the Speed of Creativity » Blog Archive » Nuggets from NECC (1)
• U Tech Tips: Tech Tips for Educators
• E-Learning Blog: Bloggers just want to have fu-un.......
• NECC 2007: Shedding Light on Web 2.0 Olympic ESD 114 Ed Tech Blog
• edublogs: Talking about the future of education - in rows
• scottmerrick: Day1, Saturday, the Edubloggercon "Unconference"
• Educational Technology and Life » Blog Archive » Creating a Competitive Voice in a Mediacentric World: Digital Storytelling 2.0
• Educational Technology and Life » Blog Archive » Administration and School 2.0
• Cool Cat Teacher Blog: The need for tagging standards
• Teach42 · EduBloggerCon - What are we as EduBloggers really doing?

Technorati Tags: necc2007 neccprep necc07 edubloggercon07 edubloggercon2007 edubloggercon

The Room Twelve Cheer!

I just (finally!) posted this on roomtwelve.com:

Here are the students of roomtwelve.com demonstrating their unique "Room Twelve Cheer", reserved for special occasions, special accomplishments, and celebrating good times.

Click HERE to see us on the Seattle School District L3RN site, or click on the podcast icon below to see the short video:

In this case, here's the link to the cheer as a file on our wiki (which we never got to this year - wait 'til next year!). It's 3 MB, and50 seconds of silliness. Great way to end a wonderful year with a very special group!

Dissonance and choice

Last Thursday I cited a very exciting web 2.0 initiative (is that the right word?) by my school district. It was written up in a Seattle paper, and noted prominently by Wesley Fryer:

"At last, a VERY encouraging headline about digital social networking in schools! According to Thursday’s article “Seattle Public Schools builds social-learning site for its tech-savvy teens” the district has rolled out its own website for encouraging safe and appropriate read/write sharing by students in the school district. ..."

Then on Sunday I read this from the other main Seattle paper:

In the name of student achievement, more teachers must follow stricter rules about what — and sometimes how — they teach. In some places, they stay almost literally on the same page.

....For too long, Riley says, teachers have been independent agents who decide much of what and how they teach. As a result, instruction is uneven.....

Published four days apart, these are two incredibly divergent approaches to education from within the same system. "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood," said Robert Frost.

As long as I can, I will of course choose the one less traveled by... It is less travelled because it is not mandated - and many do not even know it's there yet. It of course encourages creativity, thinking outside the box. I am happy to have any kind of a choice at all these days.

Good grief, students learn stuff because of outstanding teachers, not outstanding curricula. This is such an essential no-brainer building block for a strong educational system - big town, small town - it does not matter.

Want to crank out outstanding students? Encourage innovative, passionate, and competent teachers - not the mandating of one more "perfect curriculum".

When that message becomes the guiding principle of school administrators - in every department - we have a fighting chance to achieve excellence in education.

Four corner salute

Views of the four corners of Room 12, after a day of getting it ready for summer - everything put away, plants gone, computers all unhooked and freestanding on tables. Yecch.

It's funny, I'm always talking about boundaries and classrooms without walls, and the bottom line at the end of the year is this...

NECC 2007

In the off chance that somebody might stop by here and not be tuned in to NECC 2007, here are excerpts from a couple of messages I just posted to a local discussion list in Seattle:

---

I really recommend following the conference via rss feed, as the
bloggers, podcasters, wikimakers and more will be bringing tons of
it right to everyone. There is an aggregator for all posts tagged
with necc2007, neccprep, and necc07 at Hitchhikr. Subscribe here,
and you won't miss a beat:

http://hitchhikr.com/index.php?conf_id=215

Once you start looking, the resources are just overwhelming, and it
is happening right now, so here are a few links to dynamic, virtual
ways to attend NECC 2007 in Atlanta:

http://edubloggercon.wikispaces.com/ - wiki with many bigtime edtech
bloggers contributing...

http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/ - I hesitate to single out any
one blog, but if you subscribe to Vicki Davis' Cool Cat Teacher
blog, you will not miss much...

http://hitchhikr.com/index.php?conf_id=146 - another Hitchhikr
aggregator to subscribe to, great info and insights, happening right
now....

There's a flickr photo group in there somewhere, too... enough for
now, got to get back to my Bloglines - Mark

Mark Ahlness
mahlness@halcyon.com
http://ahlness.com
http://roomtwelve.com

Technorati Tags: edubloggercon07 edubloggercon2007 edubloggercon necc2007 neccprep necc07

Art 1.0

Artwork Giveaway
Originally uploaded by mahlness

Another non-tech post, sheesh - about teaching - and the arts. I covered the corner of my classroom for a couple of hours today with my own artwork... pieces I produced while leading two third grade classes in art lessons this year.

At the end of the day I let my third graders choose an "original Ahlness" to take home with their artwork projects for the year... reminding them that Claude Monet, Henri Rousseau, and Andre Durain art works (we studied them, you see) went for pennies at first, and some now go for millions... well, you just never know, do you?

Dance Chance

I just posted this to my school's PTSA list. Not about technology, but it is indeed about teaching, opportunity, and excellence (and the two girls are in my classroom).

---

Just to let you know that three third graders from Arbor Heights got to participate the entire 2006-07 school year in Pacific Northwest Ballet's Dance Chance. Today I caught up with them after their performance in "Pacific Northwest Ballet 26th Annual School Performance" at McCaw Hall in Seattle. Hundreds of kids, in one group after another… I was amazed at how many kids get to take ballet lessons. Not cheap, for sure. Enter the Dance Chance program, an amazing effort by PNB to reach out to those who have the talent and drive, who might not otherwise get a Chance to Dance.

When the curtain came up on “Dance Chance”, this third grade teacher must confess to a lump in his throat and misty eyes. The Arbor Heights trio did not miss a step, were spot on at every moment, and moved with grace – and wonderful smiles. I remember two of the families asking me, at the beginning of the year when they were invited to participate, if I thought their kids could afford to miss so much school. I replied something like I did not see how they could afford to pass up such an incredible opportunity. A year’s worth of ballet lessons at a world renowned school, transportation, gear, and more. It is a wonderful opportunity. Not only were these three chosen from 1650 third graders this year, they were part of an elite group that made it through the cut halfway through the school year. They have all worked very, very hard. This is a pretty big deal. They will find out this summer if they get to become a part of an even more exclusive group, to continue as fourth graders in Dance Chance. I am crossing my fingers for them…

Family Internet Night 2

I finally got around to our second Family Internet Night this year, with just a week and a half to go in the school year. I offered it on two consecutive nights, hoping to get as many parents in as possible. It amazes me how busy families are with their kids these days... especially at the end of the school year. A total of 18 people came, representing 8 families. Here are links to the materials:

• The PowerPoint presentation (2 MB) that I used. Nothing real fancy, but it guided the conversation.
  
• A podcast of the evening (4 MB mp3). I just let the recorder run for 30 minutes... Definitely not a polished presentation, this was from the 13th, the second night. Just a conversation.... The battery died right at the point where we had some good Q&A for about 10 minutes. Oh well.
  

It was a good evening.

Kids too?

Tom Hoffman recently posted What are the Big Problems in Ed-Tech? - a succinct distillation of three big issues. This is my favorite:

Out of control web filtering. Again, what's the doctrine? There seem to be no professional guidelines. We've got a situation akin to letting the clerks in the purchasing department decide whether or not the books ordered by teachers and librarians are acceptable.

Yesterday afternoon I submitted a request to have a site unblocked from school. The author had quoted a couple of my kids on her blog and had left comments on their blogs to give them a heads up. I indicated this in my unblock request. This morning, 16 hours later, I got a response saying that my "teacher" computer should already have access to that site, and did I want my "students to access it?"

I answered yes, please.

Twenty-four hours after the request went in, after I sent a reminder that it was still not open, the site was unblocked for my kids. Of course the school day was over...

Good grief.

The 1.0 ball and chain

Everybody, no matter what their job, has some extra difficulty, some additional weight to carry, cross to bear, etc. I mention this one here because it pertains to teachers adopting (or not) web 2.0 technologies.

Here is that ball and chain: school web sites, class web pages, district specific tools for creating 1.0 static web sites. Most teachers or tech leaders are currently using Dreamweaver, FrontPage, or similar to update those web sites. Those same people are the ones who should naturally be the ones jumping into web 2.0 stuff with both feet, because they have a lot of technical skills. Unfortunately, they are too overwhelmed maintaining the status quo, often as volunteer web masters, to find the time to experiment and create using new forms like blogs, wikis, podcasts, and so on. Anybody who does want to branch out must commit to maintaining web 1.0 and 2.0 sites. One does not easily replace the other. It would be nice, but it does not work that way...

My personal ball and chain:

• The Ball: my school website. Because it's one of the oldest around and relatively well known, there are a lot of reasons for hanging on to it. It has a certain amount of celebrity, in part thanks to the unauthorized use of an image of its home page in a well-known best seller. Thirteen years at the same URL is not something I'm about to throw away overnight. Yesterday I updated one of the thousands of pages on the site with this year's Young Author's Conference. A tedious three hours - and I'm fast at this, but gosh.... choosing the right pictures, being sure kids in the pictures have permission from their parents to appear, creating thumbnails, resizing and renaming pictures, uploading it all via ftp (ouch). Now I'm pleased with it, proud of my school, happy there is another record of the event, but man.... I should have been blogging on my classroom blog and editing podcasts...
  
  
• The Chain: The Earth Day Groceries Project. Now I dearly love this project and have spent even more time on it over the years than the school web site, but man, what a time-eater. The text info is fed into multiple databases, so I'm not html coding individual reports anymore, but still.... biggest year ever, in terms of folks sending in pictures to document their participation. I finally caught up yesterday, creating a total for 2007 of 142 picture pages - each with multiple pictures. To top it off I created a page with lots of pictures for my school - since we started it and I'm in charge, we get whatever we want - ha. Two hours+ on a page that normally would take me 10 minutes (see above for some of the tedium). I should have been working on our classroom wiki, or getting a presentation proposal in to k12 Online...

After all this, I think the message I want to leave is that the tech leaders people would assume might be leading the web 2.0 charge are stuck. There are plenty of tech savvy teachers and tech leaders out there everywhere, but they cannot break free from the ball and chain of

1. the obligation to follow a school district's guidelines and vision in "web design"
2. morphing 1.0 sites into 2.0 environments, not an easy task, and there is no manual...

Many of the tech leaders and teachers with web skills (and obligations) wanting to venture out into new web media creation must be willing to work in both the 1.0 and the 2.0 worlds right now. For a while, anyway. Twice the work, in the same amount of time, and for the same pay (volunteer school webmasters roll their eyes).

It will happen, but it will be a slow process, where education will follow business, as usual. I wish for once we educators could lead... I am certain my school's web page will be replaced with our school wiki within 2 years. How do I know? I'll do it.

Now the Earth Day Groceries Project, I just don't know. I set up a project blog a coupla years ago, but that's clearly not the answer for a total transition to web 2.0. Any ideas? TIA...

Third graders on blogging

Third graders are pretty self centered, concrete thinkers, especially at the start of a school year, but by the end of the year, they are well on the way into thinking about ideas, reflecting on different points of view, etc. I love working with kids at this age.

This is the second class of third graders I have taken through a school year with individual blogs. Three days ago I described a nebulous writing assignment to them. Write about your blogs, I said. Blogs in general, blogging next year, are blogs good?, convince somebody you should be allowed to blog more, summer blogging, what age should blogging start, - I threw out several ideas, and asked them to blog their thoughts. There were several blank stares, like was I going to give them the assignment, or what? Then some ideas began to flow onto a few computers. Kids talked. We all looked at the writing of a few volunteers after 20 minutes. A head of steam began to build. They took approaches to this that were as individualized as, well, each one of them is:

Good Things about {My Blog} - AnaLisa
Why I should keep my blog - Ryan
my blog - Kody
My Blog - Chelsea
Why I Should Keep My Blog Over the Summer - Nathan
Why I should keep my blog - Christopher
Good Things About Blogs - Nicole
How my blog is doing. - Elyjah
Good Things About My Blog - Maribeth
About My Blog and Other blogs - Casey
My Blog - Lindsay
Why We Should Have Blogs Over the Summer - Jonathan
Good Things About Having A Blog - Riley1
Why I should keep my blog! - Keean
Good Things About a Blog - Logan

Quit teasin'

Today at school Flickr was unblocked - for at least two hours that I was aware of. When I realized it, my kids were naturally on the Internet, blogging, reading blogs, etc. I checked it out - yes, totally unblocked. Started showing my kids my Flickr directory - they were VERY interested. Started thinking of the promises I made my kids in November of 2005 when I told them they would have their artwork on their blogs, via Flickr. Alas, it ended up being blocked in early 2006.

Then I thought about the rest of my school. Yikes. I spent part of my lunchtime telling as many teachers as I could that Flickr was open. Yes, great news, BUT we gotta be extra careful now. We must be active again about teaching responsible use.... For now, keep an extra close eye on your kids. This is big...

(added on June 14, 2007)
I sent the following email to all staff in my building at the end of the school day:

Hi all,
I mentioned to several of you at lunchtime on Thursday that http://flickr.com was unblocked. Long story, but I wanted everyone, especially classroom teachers, to know to be on their toes. Meanwhile, my head was spinning with the potential I’d been talking about for two years – but denied, due to the district filter blocking flickr. Anyway, by mid-afternoon Thursday, it was blocked again. I spoke to a few tech folk downtown on the phone at lunchtime, and they did not know about flickr being unblocked. Maybe word got ‘round…. Sorry for the alarm/excitement. Aargh. - Mark

Midway through the afternoon Flickr was blocked again. Maybe it was the tech guys I asked about it on the phone. They seemed surprised. Maybe the word got around... Maybe next time I should keep my mouth shut. What a great fantasy or two I had about opening doors for my kids. Shucks.

SSR 2.0 - final update

An end of the year update - with a podcast - on a little exploration into changing the traditional, standard boundaries of silent reading (SSR, "sustained silent reading") in an elementary school classroom. I have posted a couple of times earlier here on this:

• Is this SSR, 2.0? (Feb 9, 2007)
• SSR 2.0 continues... (March 30, 2007)

On June 1st I sat down with my third grade reading group to talk about this one more time. Here's what they had to say:

SSR 2.0, podcast #2 (6 min. mp3),
linked for now from my presentation wiki for the IRA Conference

I must say the boundaries of what they read online is also changing, morphing - in very much the same way the boundaries established by a teacher in a traditional silent reading period might change. For instance, there was this real excitement over reading about (ahem, looking at the pictures of) different Pokemon characters on Wikipedia. This wonderful discovery came from reading some of the posts from Doug Noon's fourth grade bloggers. So I watched for a couple of days, finally put my foot down, and said, no more just clicking on this or that to just see pictures of the different characters. Get off Wikipedia, for goodness sake. Kind of like a teacher might not allow somebody to "read" Where's Waldo? day after day.... Know where those boys eventually wound up? - reading and rereading the posts on Pokemon from Doug's kids.

Then there are the walkabouts that happen, like today, a student was at a classblogmeister blog that had Google Earth embedded into a blog post. Never having used the program, she figured out how to see our school from space - pretty much on her own. Reading? Sure, she had to. I have to check with her tomorrow to see where this was - very cool!

Then there is the reading of a post that leads to "non-blog" reading, like a news report linked within a blog. Several of my kids have done this thanks to the fifth grade bloggers in Gordon Brune's class.

At the end of all this, I will say there is a renewed and excited interest in reading with this group - which had not existed before I opened this door. Sure, they still read from books, but they read also from blogs, online reference, online news, and who knows what else tomorrow. Just like their teachers - and their parents.

Pigs on Parade

Almost there
Originally uploaded by mahlness

The Centenniel Celebration of the Pike Place Market began with 100 gorgeous - and zany, Pigs on Parade. In downtown Seattle, from Westlake Center to the Market. Two of my third graders, a Dad, and I volunteered to be herders for a pig.

We had no idea what to expect - but we had a sign to carry with the name of our school (thanks to a mom), and we were willing to take a gamble on participating in a civic event. A couple of weeks earlier my class had taken our annual tour of the Market - something the Market Foundation has offered to third graders in Seattle for a long time- I think this was my 14th or 15th year.

Anyway, there was a lot of walking here and there in downtown Seattle, asking event coordinators where our pig was. We finally found her (three different numbers on her, depending on what list you had), thanks to an organizer who said she knew the pig. She did.

Mrs. Pike Pigstein, sponsored by the Seattle Symphony. She'll be on display in front of Benaroya Hall for the summer, as the Market hits exactly 100 in August.

Can't remember when the last time was I marched in a parade. So of course I took lots of pictures - a set of 40 is on Flickr. I think we did pretty well, by pig herding standards. And thanks to our great sign, we're pretty sure several thousand folks now think Arbor Heights Elementary created this beautiful pig. Oh well, I told the kids at the end, no harm, maybe someday you will make one. Three weeks to go in the school year... I think I feel an art lesson coming on...