Take Two Giant Steps

Take two giant steps. Mother may I?

Classblogmeister has just entered a new dimension - wysiwyg editing!

1. Allowing students, even at a very young age, to hyperlink and in other ways format their writing is very big. My 8 and 9 year old third graders get it. They understand that kind of expression. They read it easily, and now they can write in that way as well. Art Wolinsky was one of the first guys I remember reading who talked about writing needing to be three dimensional, at a very young age.
2. Allowing teachers to teach writing in this new medium is, for me at least, huge. Now, I've of course got kids who will go nuts over fonts, colors, pictures, links, etc, etc - because they look so cool. Some teachers see this as a nightmare. OMG, the kids are just going to waste their time, etc, etc. Well, get a grip and teach them, I say. To me this is a dream come true - a chance to teach my kids that, as much as content, design matters - to borrow a phrase from Dean Shareski. And content does indeed come first, yes it does.

Background, a little:

• Classblogmeister, the blogging tool developed by David Warlick (and offered for FREE to teachers for the last 5 years) has always been text only, for any blog publishing - teacher or student. Html is accepted, but you gotta know how, and type in raw html code. As a result, 99% of student blog articles have been text only, w/o hyperlinks or any html formatting.
• A couple of days ago David announced on the YahooGroups list for Classblogmeister that he had found a way to incorporate a wysiwyg editor into classblogmeister. This came with an apology from David for taking so long, it would be at the end of the year for N. hemisphere teachers and so on. Well, I look on this as a perfect opportunity for me to think about the new possibilities over the next two months without kids. And I still have a couple of weeks to try it out with my third graders who know what they are doing on their blogs. Today one of my kids posted a blog article using the new "graphical" interface, then another... Tomorrow the teaching starts for all, and it will be different, because the tool has changed.
• You know, teaching writing is SO different now. Any teacher NOT teaching writing in a web 2.0 environment like a blog or wiki is shortchanging his or her students. It is that clear in my mind.

So anyway, this is really exciting. I see doors opening everywhere, leading in many different directions. Thank you, David!

technorati tags: classblogmeister roomtwelve blogs html

A large neighborhood walkabout

An OLPC Neighborhood
Originally uploaded by mahlness

I was eating lunch today at my desk, as I often do when I'm way far behind in my classroom. Regular laptop at the right, XO on the left. When I clicked on the XO neighborhood, I did not see anything like this picture, when the xochat.org jabber server was going full steam last December.

Today I saw our 4 XO's, as usual - but there was this chat icon showing as well. Unusual, lately. So I clicked on it, and soon I was in a chat conversation with a guy fron Zagreb, Croatia. Nice guy, has a couple of kids, etc.

It's amazing to me that this can happen at all. And it happens so easily. This fellow had connected to the jabber server near Seattle. All four of our classroom XO's connect there.

I'm especially grateful to have these XO's right now in a district where any kind of chat, Skype, IM and so on is forbidden. This is definitely under the radar. So it's nice to get out once in a while. (grin)

This is one of those times at the end of the school year when I wish I had more time with my kids. There is so much more to teach and share, and I can't possibly get it all in. Here is a smattering of things I want to get to in the next three weeks (ha):
- connecting my class with kids/adults elsewhere via these XO's in chat, video, or Classroom Presenter.
- getting a collection of books for kids ready to roll on our XO's, so silent reading choices will include using our 4 XO's as e-book readers (I'm close on this!)
- doing at least ONE VoiceThread with my class!

(while writing this in the evening at home, the xo on my left showed a chat invitation, and I joined of course - this time a couple of people, one from Seattle)

lost my train of thought here, but never mind...

I find this sort of connection extremely exciting. We all know the world is so huge, and we are all just grains of sand on one of many beaches. I think this every time I fly across the US and look down at the vast expanse ("there a million stories in the Naked City") out the window - which goes on for hour after hour...

So when you get a chance to reach out and make contact with one of those grains of sand, it is extraordinary. If you're from different beaches, well how cool! We are meeting with a few variables in common of course, but still... the randomness is stunning, the opportunity is unprecedented, and the potential for GOOD is so enormous.

To Davor and Julien: it was nice to meet you today. Let's connect again soon.

End of an era

I just posted the following on the blog of The Earth Day Groceries Project. This was not an easy decision:

---

Wow! An amazing 197 schools sent in pictures of their efforts on the Earth Day Groceries Project in 2008. And 35 0f them were from Romania - go figure... If anybody knows what happened in Romania to cause this big spike, please let me know.

Anyway, all pictures sent in have been placed on new web pages. We'll probably top 200 school submissions by the end of May, a record by a long shot.

Unfortunately, The Earth Day Groceries Project will not be able to host pictures for schools from now on. We will certainly add links to other web pages and collections with pictures, but...

The issue is time. It takes an average of 10 minutes to convert and archive an email with picture attachments into a web page for a school. For 200 web pages, that's a lot of minutes - and way too many hours to add to my teaching life, even if I got paid for it :) Many thanks to all the teachers and group leaders who have sent in their pictures over the years - they are incredible! They will always remain on the website as testimony to the comittment of millions of schoolchildren to saving our Earth.

I'll close this chapter in the project by sharng the very first picture from another school ever sent in to the web site. From 1996, Royston Elementary in Royston, BC, Canada - thanks, Kelsey!

tags: earthday earthdaybags

Another list is gone, almost

Change is hard, and some (of us, myself included) find it hard to deal with. This one is more of a loss, but it struck me as a big deal.

I just got an email from Ernie Anderson, the moderator of Ednet, one of the longest running educational technology lists out there. He's been in the hospital, apologized for the list silence lately - and asked if anybody wanted to take over the list - now at "slightly less than 200 subscribers".

This made me real sad, for a couple of reasons:

• Ednet has been there since 1992. There is a lot of important history and good work that has come out of that list, a couple of particular interest to me - I posted the first invitation to join in The Earth Day Groceries Project on Ednet. It has carried Louis Schmier's Random Thoughts since he began writing them in 1993. And many fine moments and conversations over the years. I will never forget Prescott Smith, moderator in the mid-nineties, sending a note to the list where he mentioned me and Bonnie Bracey in the same sentence, in a complimentary way. I printed that one out, and you better believe I still have it.
• It triggered in me the thought of how far we have to go in schools to get out of the world of lists. Yes, I'm sad to see Ednet on its last legs, but even sadder when it reminds me of just how far the education community has to go to move beyond this web 1.0 list technology. It's just not where we should be, right now. I cringe when I think about a comment (I think) I left for Will Richardson, taking him to task for not being more involved in the educational list community. Yeesh. He responded very nicely and apologetically. Will, I'm, sorry. The list is dead - or will be, soon.
• It reminded me of my own struggles moderating a list for educators in Seattle for many years, tictech. It was very successful for many years, but this past January I closed it down, fed up with getting slammed off list by folks for things I said on the list - and also feeling it was time to MOVE ON, for goodness sake. I started a Tictech 2.0 Ning site, a group on Diigo... we'll see where it goes. It was an extremely hard decision to terminate that list. Although I owned/moderated it for 7 or 8 years, it was not founded by me. In my opinion it leaves a void in Seattle that has not been filled.

There are, of course, thousands of Internet lists that are doing amazing and useful things. A couple I'm on that I love:

• Our PTSA list at my school. It's extremely useful and provides an additional dimension to our school community.
• Tweeters, an (unmoderated) list for birders in the Pac NW. At over 2,000 subscribers, I think, this list amazes me. There are online tiffs, of course, but to have such civility on a wide open list with so many members - well, I think it's a tribute to all its members, and to a strong list owner.

Then there are education lists that I just go ho-hum over, these days - because I get my information about technology in education other ways. I don't have time to read through every post like I used to, but I stay subscribed .... Edtech - a biggie, dealing with many technical questions, and Andy Carvin's wwwedu, - the one that is closest to home for my leanings and politics - but I rarely post there any more. I've done a few guest moderator stints for Andy over the years. In its heyday, it was one jumpin' list.

But people are moving on. I think.

• How many people in their 20's and 30's check out a social networking site with their morning coffee before they check their email? How many educators (of any age) do that?
• How many educators check a news aggregator like Bloglines or Netvibes, etc - before they check their email? Does the percentage who do reflect that of the general public?

As I said, I'm sad to hear about Ednet. It may live on with a new moderator, but its number of subscribers has dwindled. I am incredibly grateful for the things I learned on Ednet, for the encouragement I got, and for the people who stretched my thinking. A list message from Bonnie Bracey came in while I was writing this...

Year of the XO, part 2: Memorial Day

Memorial Day relaxing 2
Originally uploaded by mahlness

Made it to this benchmark in the school year, one more time - yippee skippee! While other teachers have hung it up for the year, I'm looking at 3+ weeks to go. I'm not complaining, though. The end of a school year is always very sweet and intense - kind of like the dessert so incredible you can only handle it once a year...

I am writing this from my backyard, on XO laptop #2 (Earthday). I just took the picture of me sitting here with it- and uploaded it to Flickr. There simply is no better laptop for the outdoors than this little guy... no worries about spilling on it, dropping it, overheating, etc - and it's so easy to tote around. Plus, it's great in sunlight (not always an issue in Seattle - but today is awfully nice).

When I first heard about the xo laptop, nearly two years ago, I was very skeptical. But I bought one in November anyway, because I thought it might be a good thing in my classroom. So here I sit, running an experimental "build" (703, it's on all 4 of them), because I needed to upgrade to run a program we were going to demo in my classsroom for some university students. Nothing could have been further from my mind back in November... and now I'm planning/plotting sharing that activity with others, via jabber server - I know it will work :)

I'll write more here about the XO experience in my classroom, but for now I'll just enjoy the rest of the afternoon with Earthday - hanging out, batching it, while my wife is with her family, dodging tornadoes in Kansas.

Instincts

I have not had an hour like this - ever.

Yesterday in my third grade classroom I was at a teacher computer. I invited the whole class, in seven student computer groups, to join me in an activity, a series of questions about our recent field trip to Seattle's Pike Place Market.

The medium was a series of "slides", as you might see in PowerPoint. The questions were written on the slides, which were a series of pictures we took at the Market. The kids were to draw directly on their computer screens or enter text to answer the questions. Then they were to "submit" them to me.

I saw their submissions immediately. I could share any group's answers instantly on all the computers, with a couple of clicks. I moved them all to a different slide when it was time, and they worked on a new task - then they sent in answers, changed their answers even, resubmitted, etc, etc. Amazing and mind boggling, truly.

I circulated, laptop cradled in my arm, chatting with groups at their computers, clicking on this or that to focus the learning, asking for more, congratulating, and so on. Finally, I turned them loose, unlocking their computers, so they could navigate from slide to slide, to finish the rest of the slides - and to go back and change their submissions on previous ones.

We were all on XO laptops. Eight of them.

Sometimes when you follow your instincts, you get lucky.

What these four University of Washington students developed is amazing. They worked on it for four months, I think. They had vision, saw a need, and came up with a possible solution. I think what they developed is remarkable. The program was stable and robust, working almost perfectly in a classroom of third graders who certainly did give it a good run...

In the midst of the excitement and chaos I took a few pictures - and I kicked myself for not taking any video.

Instincts - it's important to trust and follow them. I bought an XO laptop because it felt right, and I thought it would be great with the kids I teach. I ended up with FOUR in my classroom. I replied to a group of university students in a forum setting because they were working on a program for the XO, were looking for a classroom, and were in our neighborhood. It felt right - and look where we ended up.

To think that this program could run in a remote village anywhere in the world, even one without electricity - well, that really excites me. I think a few of my kids got that as well.

tags: xo olpc roomtwelve

Year of the XO, part 1

I imagine I will write more along these lines as the school year ends, hence the post title. I simply must, because of the impact these little green and white laptops have had in my classroom, and my life. When the school year started last September, nothing was further from my mind.

I'll start from the (almost) end. After school today I met for the third time with University of Washington students who have developed an innovative piece of software for the XO. This was the dry run - it went pretty well, I think. In a few days we'll try it out with my third graders. They'll be working like crazy in the meantime to iron out bugs.

Several things strike me right now.

• It's great to have the chance to work with university students in my classroom. Oh, I've had student teachers before, but this is different. These guys are in the computer science program, and they're about to graduate.
• It surprises me how little I hear about direct collaboration between public elementary schools and universities - in any field. But in computer science especially - good grief, if those departments started looking at preparing their graduates for successful careers that included a little more recognition of societal need...

• This comes at a time when OLPC is fraught with political posturing and battles over development and future vision. Heck, I'm so excited about the potential of these things in my classroom, I can hardly stand it... I want to scream at the doubters, critics, and power grabbers, "Hey, hold on. LOOK at this!"
• But last, I am encouraged - by the vision, innovation, and determination of the young men I've just met. I'm hoping there are a lot more out there like these guys. They are our future of course...

tags: xo olpc roomtwelve

Project Athena

In the mid-nineties I wrote and collaborated with some very talented people who thought the Internet might be a good thing to use in education...

Today I got an email from a teacher who mentioned a colleague had been using some of my instructional materials for years - but they thought the site they came from was down, and did I know where those materials were now? They are/were called "Task Cards". What a flashback.

Those task cards are on Project Athena, funded by a NASA grant. Man, those were heady times. The fact that the site endures, and is used, over a dozen years later, astounds me. It speaks to the quality and vision of the project creators - and to the capability that we have to keep ANYthing of value - forever.

The image here is one I developed in response to what I (and a couple of others) thought was a less than adequate design for the home page. Aaack, politics are here forever. The page lives on in my school's website here.

I haven't used the site (or the materials I developed for it) in my third grade classroom for 6 or 7 years.

Serious personal and educational whiplash.

Silent Running

I loved the 1972 sci-fi movie on space exploration with Bruce Dern. This is where many classroom teachers are right now - under the radar, behind the sonar... running silently in classrooms, working hard to wrap up another school year - and still keep exploring.

This blog has been very silent lately. Here's what's running in one classroom:

• My third graders blog regularly, and they do so very easily - to post a blog article is just a couple more (easy) steps they take independently when they finish writing.
• Counting our 4 XO laptops, we have 21 computers in my classroom of 25 third graders. None of them is a donated junker.
• We just finished coordinating the largest educational activity coordinated on the Internet, for the 15th year.
• In a few days, we will have 8 XO laptops in our classroom, to demo a project developed by some U. of Washington students - an exciting new XO program.

Some of this may be news to readers here, but it is definitely news to my school and district colleagues.

I encourage school district leaders, tech administrators, tech integration spcialists - anyone who cares about technology in our schools - to visit as many classrooms as possible as the school year winds down. Check out what's happening first hand. What's under the surface may well surprise you.

For me right now, it's good to run silent, run deep. It is quiet, the water is very cold - but it is oh so exciting.

Coming up for air

It's not that I've given up on this blog - far from it. I am pitifully backlogged with ideas and partially written drafts. But Earth Day was a couple of weeks ago...


The Earth Day Groceries Project now has a record 174 pages on Pictures for 2008 - and there are 5 more that came in today. Last weekend I caught up. At an average of 10 minutes to transform each of them from an email with picture attachments to a school web page - well, it was a big task.

This is certainly the last year I will continue picture inclusion the way I have for the last 14 years. From now on, it'll have to be "links only" - where pictures will have to be on a school server or Flickr or something.... This is not an easy decision, as I know it means so much for so many schools to have their pictures "on" the site.... I just cannot do it anymore - because of the time it takes.


In the meantime, what or who lit a fire under Romania this year?!! Nearly 30 reports from schools who participated - and nearly that many picture submissions from those schools. Man, I wish I spoke the language...


Anyway, it feels very good to pull even and come up for air - temporarily. I look forward to getting back into the web 2.0 mix again, real soon.

Swamped, but Saved

I am swamped, overwhelmed in the midst of dealing with a massive deluge of email (pictures) and database entries (reports) for The Earth Day Groceries Project. Now, this kind of thing happens every year, this huge spike in activity, but this year seems different. Here's what's happening:

• there are way more people sending in pictures to be put on the web site
• people are sending in multiple, huge image files - like emails with three - 2MB images. I had several of those today - a total of 75 MB (so far) of images via email, yikes
• there are currently 81 reports waiting to be individually edited and approved for addition to the website database
• this all happened in one day. Way more than this has come in already. MUCH more will come in in the next few days...
• I'm looking at 15 hours of work that landed in my lap today - hard, intense, coding...
• Tomorrow that total will be added to... more the next, etc. It is that time of year.

Swamped, I am.

On the other hand, today there was a first in my third grade classroom. I gave a writing assignment this morning (Earth Day), and by the end of the day, every single student had posted an article to his/her blog, and they were all approved. To the non-teacher, this may not seem like any big whoops, but for the teacher who understands the differences in ability and individual motivation in each and every child in today's classrooms, well....

I'm saved.

Maybe part of their sucess in writing had to do with the fact that they saw themselves on a video on the Internet for the first time. If so, I'm getting a new video camera and filming every day!

Anyway, they ALL wrote, and many wrote very well. They had like 15 minutes, and they wrote off the tops of their heads. Check their posts on 4/22 on the left side of roomtwelve.com. One more time I say thank goodness for the kids.

Live event - Earthcast 2008 - join in!

On Earthday, April 22nd, there will be a 24 hour webcast about the health of our planet, planned and implemented by educators. I'm very honored to be participating as an invited guest, talking about The Earth Day Groceries Project. I hope other project participants will join in the conversation!

The event is called Earthcast 2008, and it will be broadcast/shared in a variety of ways for 24 hours. Be sure to tune in and participate, if you want, on Earthday. It begins at 12:00 AM GMT on Earthday. (that's 9 PM April 21 on the East Coast of the US, 6 PM on the West Coast, etc)

I'll be there on April 21st, from 6 to 7 PM, West Coast time.

"If you can't say something nice..."

"If you can't say something nice... don't say nothing at all."
- Thumper, quoting advice from his dad, when admonished for being critical, in Bambi.

So I have been very quiet here lately. I've been trying to put together a single positive sentence about my experiences with technology and education right now - and I just can't.

I will be able soon, I hope - but for now, I had to go to a different place to leave something nice. Here's a sweet love song from Alison Krauss that brightened my day:

XO Users - Connect!

There is a new jabber server set up on Bainbridge Island (near Seattle), and it's working great. It is one of only FOUR in North America currently functioning.

Briefly, a jabber server is a place XO laptop users can connect to that will allow them to share anything (pretty much) on their XO laptop with anybody else connected to the same server. This includes chat, video, write, and more... incredible technology!

Here's a link to the forum discussion with the location of the server: http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=2094.new#new

tags: xo olpc

I talked with my brother today

This is a break from educational technology - to personal technology. So...

I talked with my brother today. He called me, and we talked. I called him back and we talked some more.

My brother Dave lives in Connecticut, and I'm in Seattle. He's deaf/blind(legally), and I'm lucky enough to still have those senses.

Today we spoke on the phone - well, I was on the phone at least. Dave was watching an interpreter on a TV (up really close) who signed to him what I said. His TV is hooked up to a camera, so the interpreter can see what he is signing, and relay that back on to me. Yes, in the middle of all this technology there is a person (maybe hundreds, I don't know) who makes it meaningful for the people on either end.

Just amazing technology. Carried over the Internet. Getting him a big new TV was only part of it - he needed high speed Internet access, too.

But he needed somebody to set up the hardware and software to make the magic happen. Someday I hope to meet James, from the HKNC, in person. We've spoken, via the same video relay system before, and we've exchanged lots of email. James, if you're reading here, a big shoutout thank you!

So I spoke with my brother today, but for the first time, I could not reach out and touch him. I'm ever so grateful for the people with the vision to make this happen.

Tomorrow, tomorrow...

I never would have predicted this as the school year started. But that is just how fast technology changes.

I now have four XO laptops in my third grade classroom. We also have 12 screaming multimedia machines, 2 laser printers, and 5 wireless laptops.

Playing with Mark's XO
Originally uploaded by timlauer

Guess which computers are in the highest demand? The XO laptops, of course. Slow-mo, no matter. Small screens and limited processing speed, so what? If you are a kid, these machines are irresistable. Heck , if you're a grown-up, they're pretty cool, too.

Today we turned a page and leapt into another dimension. We started a chat with somebody in east Texas - Longview, to be exact. On the Internet, via a Jabber server.

My kids were really stunned. They had been having a great time the past week chatting with each other in class. But when somebody is writing to you, realtime, from 1,000 miles away, well, it makes you put down your crayons.

When the school day was over I connected with "Hans" again, via chat. I set up one more of our XO's and joined it to the chat. I got another teacher to be in charge of that one. We soon switched to "Record". Take a picture on your XO, and everybody sees it. Record a video on your XO, and everybody sees it.

Real time. All three of us contributing - at once. We took pictures, we made videos. Everything each of us captured was available to all of us - immediately. This is such amazing technology, and the potential is so exciting.

My kids will have a fun day tomorrow. That IS what it's all about.

Technorati tags: olpc xo roomtwelve

Third Time's the Charm

On February 28, 2008 I presented a one hour concurrent session, Third Time's the Charm - at NCCE in Seattle, WA. Here's how it went.

The idea of the whole thing was to talk about blogging with my third graders at roomtwelve.com. This is my third year doing so, hence the real catchy title... Part of my reason for presenting was that it was a requirement (to do a regional presentation) of the grant I was awarded last April, a 2007 Qwest Foundation Learning Technology Grant

I was extremely anxious about this presentation. Besides worrying about getting nervous speaking, there was the concern of nobody showing up - or just a handful. Anyway, I went on with my prep, did a PowerPoint preso (very little text), prepared a one page handout, made it into a pdf, and put all this stuff on a wiki: roomtwelve.wikispaces.com

There were 50 to 60 people there, easily 80% teachers, and most of them elementary. It was a good audience. The tech stuff set up easily, I was able to use my own laptop, and I was off....

So I just talked. I had been over this enough in my mind and with notes, so it was really a breeze. Then came the risky part. I checked my email in the middle of the preso to see if my kids had sent in any blog articles to be published.

Bingo! 25 emails were there, waiting for me to approve articles to my third graders' blogs. So we went on. We went over a few of them live, looking at the emails, navigating the back end of classblogmeister, the whole works. People asked a fair number of questions along the way, which was great. I had to cut some things short. I never thought I'd run out of time.

In the hurry to wrap it up, I forgot to ask if anybody had the answer to the bird quiz. I also forgot to start my mp3 recorder - I was going to use some of it in a podcast - darn!!

Here are the bird pics I showed. ID them correctly through a comment (without clicking on them of course), and win a prize! (well not really)

tags: ncce2008 roomtwelve

24

No, it's not the TV show. It's the number of blog articles published by my third graders in the two days I was out of the classroom. Some posts were on a topic I had assigned, some were on a topic the sub came up with, and some were whatever the kids had on their minds. Now, I had to approve them for publication while I was at home or at my conference, but still...

There they were, basically working independently - thinking, writing, blogging. They had a great sub - but she knew nothing about how they write - blog. There are another 10 or so submitted articles I need to take a closer look at, offer feedback on, etc. Amazing.

Note to Room Twelve

I posted this on my classroom blog at the start of my second day out of my classroom, to attend NCCE 2008. The kids could not see the picture because Flickr is blocked in our district - and hence, could not see our FOURTH XO laptop. OMG, wait 'til Monday.... (thanks, Glenn and Tami!). This was the first time in several years I'd missed a day of school. My anxiety was obviously higher than my kids'.

---

Hi Room Twelve, this is Mr. Ahlness. I talked with Mrs. Luke last night, and she said things went really well in class on Thursday, and that many of you were very helpful to her and each other. Wow! That sure made me feel good - nice job.

And your writing - oh my goodness! I checked my email at 1:30 in the middle of my presentation (to about 50 teachers), and there were 28 messages!! I approved a couple, some we looked at quickly and decided to wait on, but most we did not even get to - sorry! You wrote so much!! You should be proud of yourselves.

I'm about to hop on the bus to go back downtown, but I thought I'd leave a little picture for you. You won't be able to see it at school on Friday, but maybe you can check from home over the weekend. See you Monday! - Mr. A.

tags: ncce2008 roomtwelve olpc xo

Follow NCCE in Seattle

I just set up a Hitchhikr page for the Northwest Council for Computer Education (NCCE), February 26-28, 2008 in Seattle. Head there for latest blog posts and flickr images tagged with ncce2008.

Grab the rss feed while you're there, so they'll all come to you.

So if you're going, or if you comment on any activities happening at NCCE, please use this Technorati Tag:

ncce2008

Twitter, finally

I've read lots of posts like this one. I bet many have. I'm not rolling my eyes anymore. Here goes.

I finally broke down yesterday and jumped in to Twitter. I had held off for a variety of reasons, most related to not having enough time to do everything as it was. There was also this fear of getting involved in one more really addictive computer activity. And I really could not see what the value might possibly be.

I had set up an account months ago, and followed one person, David Warlick. I figured he was safe :) There the account sat, until yesterday. It was Mid-winter break. My wife was off doing extra work stuff. I had no excuse.

It was amazing getting started. Choosing people to "Follow", getting emails saying so and so is "Following" you, etc. Finally figuring out something worthy to say. Figuring out how to indicate an individual when you're replying to somebody in the chaos of a free for all conversation with hundreds, thousands of speakers. I'm currently following around 100, and being followed by about 50. Sounds kind of creepy at first.

If there was "Twitter for Dummies" on hand, it probably would have been helpful. Too late, I'm figuring it out on my own, like everybody else.

There are the conference folks talking: Shareski, Richardson, Levine, etc. There is the earth rhythm, as eastern N. America folks turn out the lights (except for Vicki Davis), folk out west keep going, and those in Asia start to wake up... The exchanges are funny, informative, meaningless, helpful, questioning - what a wide range.

So is it any good? Well, yes. It is amazing in a way that is hard to describe. I've seen some incredible work I flat out would have missed. Stuff I will use. Great ideas have been flying in front of my eyes constantly. And I've just been on for one day.

So there you go, my "I'm on Twitter" post. I kinda feel like one of the last edtech people in the world to jump in, and I'm sorry I held off so long. But it's good to be in there.

twitter

An XO Tale

OK, so I finally took the plunge and put together a little VoiceThread preso. The tipping point in this was discovering that it is unblocked at school! Nothing fancy here, I just used the pictures the kids had taken and are stored on our local server. Did it using my laptop's mike, as I can't get voice recording to work on our cpu's.

XO Joy

I know it seems like I've gone off the deep end with all this talk here, and in other places, about the XO laptop. Well, sometimes things happen, and you have to decide if you're on the train or off. I'm on, and my classroom is a marvelous mix of exploration and chaos right now. It's exhausting sometimes. Mostly, it's just so much fun.

Last week my classroom received another donation of an XO. We had our first donation a couple of weeks earlier. I had brought in the one that I bought right after Christmas vacation. So my kids were pretty amazed. It was funny, in some ways. I told them, exasperated, that I had just figured out how they could share TWO XO's - and now we had THREE, for goodness sake. They thought this was pretty cool, and wondered if we'd be getting more...

It's not like we don't have any other computers - we're swimming in them at this point. The XO's have put us perilously close to 1:1. Just when I thought I had all computer management issues worked out, we have three more.

But these three are so different. They connect to the internet (and thus the kids' blogs), but they can't print to our printers. They can chat and instantly share applications with each other, but they can't get to all the kids' work saved on our network. One of the biggest hurdles is it's difficult to show the kids how to use them, and find enough time for them to explore on them. It's not like a different OS, or platform - it's more like using a computer that uses a totally different language - that also does totally different things.

We are having a truly great time with them. This past week they started producing PowerPoint presentations about our XO's. They were taking pictures of them, working with a partner, still learning PowerPoint (only the second time they've used it) - but having a bast. They were almost done when we got another one - so we all rolled our eyeballs in joy as they took pictures of the three, and had to change slide content. Some of the presentations turned out pretty good, and I'll put 3 or 4 of the best online, soon. Naturally, we will be doing video later on....

Then there are the things you just never do. Like send kids to different parts of the school to see if they can still chat with each other. Good grief. We are still experimenting with the range of the mesh network - it is definitely bigger than from our WAP. But I knew I had really gone too far when I found myself pouring water on an XO keyboard so my kids could take a picture of the XO's waterproof qualities for their presentations. I really did this, I can't believe it. Of course the XO was fine.

This joy of exploration with children is one of the bonuses that comes with being a teacher. I don't get to do it every day, but I'm really thankful when it comes.



And yes, the kids are writing about our XO's. They have blogged their initial impressions (when we only had one), so there will definitely be more.

tags: xo olpc

Being a Part of the Process

Can't remember if I've ever posted about politics here before.... Here goes.

I attended my precinct's democratic caucus today at my local high school. I'd never been to a caucus before. I always thought a caucus was some sort of old fashioned throwback they used in places like Iowa. Probably served hotdishes at them....

Wrong in so many ways, and I am so glad I went. Turnout was huge. Excitement was everywhere. People scrambled to figure out what to do. When we divided up into our precinct groups, we got down to business.

(To get an idea of the look of it all, head to this post on the West Seattle Blog. The first two pictures are from the caucus at my own school. Also note the 32 comments in the 2 hours following the post, as caucus goers shared their results)

First, we had to elect a leader. We did. Somebody (actually a group) read through all the instructions in our packet. It was kind of like being on a jury. Except we had 45 adults crowded into a high school classroom. About 90% of our group had never been to a caucus before.

After a group counted everybody's initial declarations, it was announced Clinton 13, Obama 31.

Anybody had a chance to speak for up to 60 seconds. About a dozen did. I spoke briefly as a long time third grade teacher who thought the right candidate was the one who would change the lives the most for those kids as they grew up. (Had to be there to know who I thought that was - sorry).

Then everyone was asked if they wanted to change their candidate preference. Nobody did. One woman who had not decided was asked if she had a preference. She said Obama. Holy crud, I thought. How different this process was from stepping into a private voting booth.

We split up into two groups to select delegates. The Obama group got to choose 3, the Clinton group chose 1. Those delegates will go to a couple more gatherings - at the county and then the state levels - to represent us.

I personally knew or recognized about 1/4 of the people in the room. Pretty good, I thought, for city dwellers these days. All those summer block parties...

In the end it was a fantastic experience in participatory democracy. On the way out, I stopped with several others to watch a very spirited precinct in a lobby area of the school still going through the 60 seconds to speak about their candidates. So much passion. Everybody clapped for everybody (well, most of the time).

I walked home with a new acquaintance neighbor whose daughter is best friends with one of the kids in my classroom. A small world, brought even closer together by this chance to participate in a unique experience.

(I recommend In Praise of Chaotic Caucuses by Eli Sanders for a well written description of the caucus process)

A Tale of Two XO's

I haven't had so much fun just playing, since I got my Lincoln Logs set. And this time it was at school.

I had bought an XO laptop, and my kids had enjoyed exploring with it. They had blogged about their initial impressions. Some had even read from their blogs on it at a Barnes and Noble "Coffeehouse Night".

A week ago my classroom received a donation of a second XO laptop. Management of "fair" access to the first one in my third grade classroom had been a challenge, to say the least. Then all of a sudden we had TWO.

(Larry, if you are reading here, you have no idea - THANK YOU!)

Anyway, there we were with two of the coolest things you can imagine for an 8 or 9 year old. Sitting on my desk, next to my grown-up laptop.

Yesterday I somehow figured out how the two XO's could chat, via the built in mesh network. This I had heard about, but when I saw it in action, it was amazing. When my kids saw it, well they just about came unglued. The next time we tried it, it didn't work. So we worked on it, me and the kids.

Today, we finally figured out the procedure for starting a chat, extending an invitation to chat to another XO, the acceptance of that invitation, and getting started.

Once the connection was made, all else was easy. Instant IM mode: capital letters disappeared, grammar/spelling entered a different dimension... The kids were entranced.

I had let our new XO sit on the desk of our "student of the week" for 2 days. She could use it whenever she had a free moment. That was bad enough, but imagine the chorus of "Not Fair" when a couple of kids got to actually "chat" with her from the other XO. We dealt with that, weathered that storm. They know their time will come. But waiting is hard.

Enjoying this success during my lunch, sitting at my desk, I wondered whether you could share other applications on the mesh network. Silly me. Besides chat, I found "write" could be shared. It was kind of like having two keyboards with input to the same document - but not side by side. They could be a long ways apart - like maybe even from one side of a village to the other... this will be amazing, I think.

But when I found I could share "Record", I knew I really had something. Take a picture on your XO, and the other XO sees it. Record a video on your XO, and the other XO sees it. And obviously vice-versa. You don't have to "send" anything to the other XO - it is just THERE, instantly. It was mind boggling.

As you might imagine, when I showed my kids, they went nuts. I joined them. Can't remember a time when I had so much fun in the classroom. The school day ended way too soon.

Somebody might ask, "yes, but were you teaching anything, and were your kids learning anything?" Duh.

During the day we talked about what it might be like in a village somewhere where there was no electricity - but many of the kids had XO laptops, powered by hand cranks or pull strings. We talked about what it might be like for a child sitting in a little cottage sending a message to one - or many other - kids in the village on an XO. We talked, and they thought, about what life might be like in that kind of world.

We are just beginning to understand the potential of this amazing machine, just beginning to understand the collaborative vision of its creators, and just beginning to understand that there is a big wide world out there, and that our life on it is blessed with good fortune.

tags: xo olpc

Our XO Laptop

Just posted to my classroom blog:

---

We just added one more computer to our classroom. Now, we have lots of fast computers - 12 desktops and 5 laptops. So you might think the newest addition would be REALLY fast. It's not. It's the slowest one, and the smallest.

It is the XO Laptop, from OLPC (One Laptop Per Child). What it lacks in speed and size, it make up for in its very cool design and its ability to do many things.

For the past two weeks, the students in Room Twelve have been trying it out. Here are some of their initial impressions, after just half an hour apiece on our XO:

About Our XO

ps - to the kids in Room Twelve.... word has it that we will probably be getting another one!


tags: olpc xo

Tictech - a little history

The following is cross posted from a list I moderate. Or HAVE moderated.

I'm putting it here because it's important to document significant moves. This one is certainly significant. In many ways.

---

I've been thinking quite a bit about the history of tictech as it comes to a close. I thought it might be useful, hopefully informative, and maybe a little nostalgic for some, to review its history. Here goes...

Tictech was founded by Currie Morrison, a teacher at Nathan Hale HS in Seattle, in the 1997-98 school year, (maybe in the 1996-07 year?). I have an archive of tictech emails going back to the summer of 1998, with a "welcome back" message Currie sent to the list.

Currie came up with the name tic-tech because of the "Technology Innovation Challenge Grant", which provided some funding for him or the list; I'm not sure which. The "tic" part of the name came from Technology Innovation Challenge... the tech part just was kind of natural to add on.

In November of 1999, Currie handed the list over to me. Just looking through the email exchanges I had with him then make this hard to write at the moment. He was so wise, and he was so good. He was such a good teacher.

Tictech was at that time run using Listserv software. All text based, of course. Not user friendly - and very labor intensive.

In January of 2002 I moved the entire list to a new server, provided by The Learning Space. The Challenge Grant server running tictech had been failing, and there was nobody to provide support for list issues. This move was a big one, not without issues. I remember on the day of the move, frantically calling Ann McGlone, who was in charge of the server for The Learning Space, telling her to turn it OFF, because everybody was getting every message, sent to everyone else. I think it got shut down after each member received my "Welcome" message about 150 times. Not a real great start. I wrote some specifics about "the move" here: http://tinyurl.com/3cw6qs

But it ended up being really a good move. The list was now running on Majordomo software, and the server was very stable. Still text only (ugh), but a little friendlier and more flexible - at least I thought so... Tictech ran on that platform and at that address for a year and a half.

In the summer of 2003 I moved tictech to YahooGroups. Basically, I was real tired of the copy/paste text editing to approve list messages. But here's the email describing more specific reasons for the move: http://tinyurl.com/2surqq In the course of its stay on YahooGroups, I have made the message archive available to the public. We've been there for four and a half years. All messages posted to the list since that move are archived and searchable: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tictech

Earlier messages, posted to tictech from October, 2000 to June, 2003, are archived at http://www.halcyon.com/arborhts/tictech/ I do have a personal archive of earlier tictech messages, saved from a Netscape "tictech" email folder, somehow culled from my "Pine" folders, I have no idea how - but I am happy they remain in a place where I can reminisce at times like this....

If anyone has corrections to make or details to add, please feel free... Thanks - Mark

Clarence, for the teacher

On the off chance you have come here and have not yet read Clarence Fisher's An Open Letter To Gary Stager (and comments) - go there, now.

Thanks Clarence!

Seattle XO Users

It has been a while since I've been to a meeting like this. People drawn together by a cause, by their knowledge, and by a need for assistance.

I had asked earlier if there were other educators in Seattle using XO laptops in their classrooms. I was the only teacher at this meeting, for sure. I was very intimidated by the level of expertise surrounding me. People were talking about re-imaging, builds, jabber, and sugar - to name only a few of the words whizzing around that I only knew a little about.

But everyone was so helpful and friendly. Next to me was a dad with his son, trying to get a game downloaded and installed on their XO. A really nice and smart guy named Karl (from the UW, I think) was on my other side, providing tech support for even the silliest question I could offer. He told me how you "save", "open", and "explore" on the little guy.

I took a picture here (with my XO) of folks across the table and put it on a flash drive. If you asked a question, it was as likely somebody across the room would respond as the person next to you. And there were three rooms full of us. I learned that Control-Q will force closed an application. I learned the SD slot (which I had just discovered earlier in the day) supports an unlimited amount of GB. I learned there is another Jabber server set up in Seattle, and I wrote down the location. And so much more.

There was a guy who actually works for OLPC as a kind of regional rep. who spoke with the whole group for a while. That was real cool. People volunteered to start up hardware support regionally. I even spoke with a couple of folks after the official business was over about setting up a Ning for OLPC users.

Tags: olpc xo

Public vs Private

It has to be public. Transparency wins. I should have known better.

In my rush to start up a social network on Ning for my educator colleagues, I made a decision to go with a private network. Part of this was to get rid of the ads. For an educational network that might include 13-18 year olds (secondary kids in a tech support role), Ning was willing to get rid of the ads. But I had to make the network private.

Only members could see it. Members had to be approved by me. These were for sure backward steps from where I had hoped to go, but I wanted the ads gone and the biggie was I thought I'd have a chance of getting the Ning through our school district filter.

I should have read the Ning FAQ on Public vs. Private.

Private networks do not have rss feeds.

End of discussion.

tictech.ning.com is public.

OLPC in the classroom

Yesterday I upgraded to a newer build (653) on the OLPC so I can get Internet access on it from the classtoom. WPA encription was not on the original version. It works great from home- I'm actually posting this on it via Opera at home. I'm crossing my fingers, hoping my kids will be blogging from it as well.

I've had the laptop in class this past week, and I've found very little time to let the kids really spend enough time exploring its potential. I've had to show them how to do things I know they could figure out on their own if they had enough time - and how fun is that?

Making videos is of course way fun, and gets everybody too goofy to allow it to go on for very long... and there's so much more to explore. The kids need time.

How to share equitably, ands still give every child meaningful time. It reminds me of not so many years ago when I had one computer in my classroom, and was going through the same thing.

I think I'll come up with a schedule, like 30 minutes per week per child.... If anybody has ideas or experiences to share on getting this little marvel into the hands of as many kids as possible, please leave a note here - thanks.

Letting go and pushing on

The 17 days since I last wrote here have been intense, to say the least. Rather than tell several tedious stories, I'll recount some major events - no, actions I took, and that is important - in the last 4 of those days.

• I resigned two stipend positions I've had at my school - one in building leadership, and one in technology leadership/responsibility.
• I announced the closure of an email list I've owned/moderated for tech folks in my district for a decade.
• I started a social network to replace that email list.

It was all about exercising control over things that I still have some say in. I am not walking away from doing things. I'm walking away from positions where I was looked to for action because I was in a position, and it was my "job".

I will provide that action and that help as an individual. Because I care, and because I can. Because I always have.

With the stipend positions, the obligations that came from being part of the institutions of school and district are now shed. It will cost us a sizeable chunk of change every month. The relief is fantastic. My wife and I will make do. She's with me every step of the way here.

These were not easy moves, but the termination of the list (that frequently got me in trouble with my organization) was awfully hard. I'd have done away with that 1.0 list long ago, but I could not figure out where to put that energy, that enthusiasm, and that fire - on a local level. I inherited the list from a local edtech visionary, and I most definitely felt an obligation to continue on with his pushing of the system - for the kids.

So I started a social network for edtech people in my school district. After just a few days, I'm already in the middle of a big decision over private vs. public - which could be huge, if I want the district to allow access to it through our filter. The private network is really pretty clean, with lots of external links to dubious stuff removed, etc. But in this age of transparency, it rankles me to have go this way. It is a Faustian 2.0 tech tale... stay tuned.

I have no idea where Tictech 2.0 will go, but I'm excited to test the waters. I'm a member of several small social networks, as well as Faceboook and MySpace, but I'm not very active on any of them right now. I've never started one up before on this level. We shall see...

A break to start the year

Off to the WA coast for a few days to really get away from it all. No phone, TV, or Internet. Even the cell phone doesn't work. Just the fire, the ocean, and silence. Hoping to focus my passions for the New Year. Have a good one, everybody!

Mid Year's Day thoughts

It's New Year's Eve, and I've been barraged by print, TV, and now blogs with end of the year reflections. You know - best of, worst of...

But I'm smack dab in the middle of a school year. If I start thinking back to February or March of 2007, it's sooo long ago. Those kids in that class are no longer a close part of my life. How can I think about the year of 2007 as a separate entity? It has two distinct and incomplete parts: the class of 2006-07, and the class of 2007-08.

It is this annual cycle of the classroom teacher. It starts in August and ends in June. There is a definite rhythm and pacing to a year - starting up, getting to know you, building skills, building relationships, more, more, more, and then letting go. I doubt there are many professions with such a cycle, especially where you start all over every year.

It's like a living, breathing organism. You get to "be" a part of that special organism for ten months, then shed its skin (which takes a part of you with it every time), and then take a deep breath and do it all over again.

But I love it. I love the age I teach (8/9 year olds, third grade), and I love the process.

There is much handwringing going on in some edtech blogs as the year "ends". Much ado about the state of schools, the educational system, what's wrong with teachers, why teach anymore, etc. Here are three noteworthy ones, especially because of the comments:

• Parable 2.0 from Graham Wegner
• Some New Years’ Dreaming from Will Richardson
• On Leaving Teaching to Become a Teacher from Clay Burell

I thought about adding my 2 cents on all of them, but I ran out of gas. I am outraged at many of the same things these guys talk about. But this is what keeps me going:

The 9:00 bell. That's when the kids come in the door. Thank goodness for the kids. There, I've said it again.

Yes, it kills me when I see dysfunction in my educational system. Yes, it breaks my heart when I see 4th and 5th graders not using, and losing, the incredible tech skills they had in my classroom. Yes, it is incredibly frustrating when absolutely nothing I have tried in over a decade of encouraging technology use with my colleagues has made a bit of difference.

But that 9:00 bell keeps ringing. For one year my kids and I will have an incredible experience. Nobody can take that away from us, and my kids will remember.

So, Happy Mid Year to all you classroom teachers out there, especially Clarence, Doug, Brian, and Sarah. Enjoy the rest of it!

Leaving town to find the neighborhood

It's Christmas, and I'm having a great time playing. Today I had a couple of hours, during which I left my little house and connected to people in my town - because I first connected with a worldwide network.

My vehicle for this trip was my XO laptop, named Lincoln.

I had been following Tom Hoffman's posts about the OLPC, and found one of particular interest: xochat.org Up Seemed cool to try out, so I managed to get connected today - and was amazed as little XO user icons began to populate my "Neighborhood". Great fun, and a little intimidating, as I wasn't sure exactly what to do... I asked a couple of folks to chat (I think), joined a couple of chats, and looked in on a couple of shared activities: drawing and photo/video (this made me nervous, so I didn't stay long)...

With mouse over the XO users, I saw a couple of names I recognized. Then I found one who ID'd himself from Seattle. A short Google search brought me to an XO user group - in Seattle! They even have a blog - and a F2F meeting tomorrow. I don't think I can make the meeting, but I'm definitely following the blog. I know a few of the people involved. Such a small world, but sometimes you have to travel far to find what's in your back yard.

Bouyed with confidence, I decided to try installing Opera on my XO, since the the default browser is definitely wimpy. Now, that was a challenge. I felt like I was back in the early nineties, groping around in DOS... Point and click, what's that? Only a couple of typos interrupted my progress, until I eventually had Opera running - and added as an "Activity" to my interface. Many thanks to those maintaining the OLPC wiki on the Opera install for making the procedure pretty clear and relatively painless. Web browsing is already ten times better - and once I get the hang of Opera, it'll be great. The machine really is pretty quick on the web.

Funny that it took flying so far to find something right around the corner. Such is the world in which we live.

I can't wait to get this little laptop running in my classroom. There are classroom networks and neighborhoods forming around the XO right now. I want to be ready for this. Maybe we'll find another class in Seattle :)

The Three Amigos

The Three Amigos
Originally uploaded by mahlness

Overwhelmed with an embarrassment of laptops, here they all are, with the TV in the background. Left to right:

• a Dell Latitude 610, property of Seattle Public Schools (via the grant I wrote). This doubles as my "teacher workstation".
• the XO, owned by us (via my wife's parents' generosity)
• an IBM Thinkpad R51e - owned by The Earth Day Groceries Project.
  

FW: New Feature: "Teacher Assignments"

I mentioned this before here as a part of a larger bunch of thoughts. It is such a wonderful development that I think it needs its own space and mention. I just posted this to my classroom blog on Classblogmeister:

To the readers of this blog, there is a new feature here which you might find interesting: "Teacher Assignments". In the left column of this page are assignments given by me (the teacher, Mr. Ahlness) to the third graders at roomtwelve.com.

So if you are interested in reading different points of view on and different interpretations of those assignments, please check out this feature by clicking on an assignment. All student writing on that topic will be listed in the center column (where you are reading now), underneath my description and expectations of the writers.

Many thanks to David Warlick for adding this to our blog. Happy Holidays! - Mr. A.

A Merry Christmas Story - and Poem

Doug Noon just posted a wonderful holiday greeting from E. B. White. Thank you, Doug. In that spirit of sharing on a special day, here's a poem, and a story that came our way today, on Christmas.

My wife and I were midway through our walk through our neighborhood park, and I thought the home-brewed stout I had in my pocket would have to wait for another day. But out of the corner of my eye I saw Chris. We called out, waved, and I ran over to him. I delivered the stout a little sheepishly (you would too, if you were delivering one you made to an Irishman who knows a good stout) . It has become a bit of a tradition.

Handshakes, laughs, and many thank you's later, we parted, but I heard a faint, "Mark...!" We stopped. Chris ran up to us and hurriedly put in my hand a poem he said his sister had sent him - with his reply below. We did not read it until we got home. It had started to snow...

A SOUL'S DESTROYER.

WHAT IS THIS LIFE, FULL OF CARE
WE HAVE NO TIME TO STAND AND STARE :

NO TIME TO STAND BENEATH THE BOUGHS
AND STAND AS LONG AS SHEEP AND COWS

NO TIME TO SEE, WHEN WOODS WE PASS,
WHERE SQUIRREL'S, THEIR NUTS AND GRASS.

NO TIME TO SEE IN BROAD DAYLIGHT,
STREAMS FULL OF STARS, LIKE SKIES AT NIGHT.

NO TIME TO TURN AT BEAUTY'S GLANCE
AND WATCH HER FEET, HOW THEY DANCE.

NO TIME TO WAIT TILL HER MOUTH CAN,
ENRICH THAT SMILE HER EYES BEGAN.

A POOR LIFE THIS, IF, FULL OF CARE
WE HAVE NO TIME TO STAND AND STARE.

WM. DAVIES 1871-1940.

We do indeed have time,
to stand and stare and thank
our god for all we see.
It is the same in any
age, if we but realize
that all we see is passing
and has no permanence.

The comment is so Chris, the ultimate Irish philosopher and nature lover. Added by hand with a manual typewriter, I'm pretty sure. If there were ever a time to think about this, it would be now.

It's snowing at the moment in Seattle - hard - on Christmas. Unbelievable.

Merry Christmas!

Blogging, responsibility, and letting go

So much happened in my third grade classroom the week before Christmas Vacation. We finished up their first PowerPoint presentations ("How to make a six sided snowflake", done in cooperative pairs). They wrote scripts for a video of "how to make a six sided snowflake". This was to be their first video. They storyboarded, and they task analyzed - again. They performed and recorded, and a few partners actually produced a simple movie, with title/credits and some simple transition effects. I hope to have a few of them available on the Internet soon. Then they blogged - see below...

The last day they created "stained glass" windows. It's always tough as Christmas approaches in elementary school. Everybody wants to be visited by Santa, no matter what their religion. There are wish lists appearing everywhere, even on their blogs. So we went for it. Even listened to The Polar Express, by Chris Van Allsburg - read by Liam Neeson on that last day.

But eclipsing all this glitzy technology and holiday celebration was the WRITING they were doing on their blogs. I have not seen this much productivity before. There is a true writing frenzy going on in my classroom. I start and direct some of it, but a lot arises organically from the environment I've created. I have had to redefine and stretch that environment regularly - because my kids want to write.

(As you look below, please understand, for a teacher to be able so see for himself, for parents and kids to see, and indeed the world to look at an assignment and see what each child did with it, how they compared with their peers, etc - is just phenomenal. One more incredible development David Warlick has added to Classblogmeister!)

• The kids blogged their thoughts on all this in About the Holidays
• A month earlier they wrote a fantasy Thanksgiving story in Turkey Escape
• A week before that they got down their thoughts on being thankful in Giving Thanks
• Two weeks before that they wrote another fantasy in Halloween story

They write when they are supposed to at "writing time", but also when they finish other work early, when it's recess, when they have earned "free time", and so on. The culture of the classroom is changing.

When people talk about student directed learning, they are often referring to older students. Elementary school teachers are real clear on what happens when you just let students decide what they want to do - chaos - and not much learning. You can't just let them go, for goodness sake. Overly simplistic here, I know, but for a teacher, well, it can be a big stretch, and a larger leap of faith, to loosen the decision-making boundary.

But in my classroom of third graders, we have been playing with that boundary. It's not always pretty, and it's hard for the kids sometimes when they do not see, hear, and feel the teacher imposed boundary they are so used to. It's hard for the teacher, too :) It is a dance we do, the setting and relaxing of these boundaries and responsibilities.

Oh well. "Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn't" - Chief Dan George, in Little Big Man - one of my favorite movie lines of all time. And that's what it often feels like right now. And in the mystery and uncertainty of the days just before Christmas, it feels good to go to a more relaxed and trusting place, knowing it is all good.

Holiday greetings from the guys

It has been very quiet on the blogs I usually read. I imagine many are scrambling with last minute shopping and family plans for the holidays.

In the chaos of the last week of school before Christmas Vacation, I managed to snag a couple of videos that I hope capture some of the joy, the fun, the spontaneity, and the delight that is still possible - as a teacher in an elementary school. With apologies to the ladies (sort of) from an oppressed minority:

The Men's Cookie Exchange (http://www.menbakebetter.com/)


The Men's Bell Choir (premiere performance)


Happy Holidays, everyone!

OLPC - Merry Christmas!

OLPC - Merry Christmas!
Originally uploaded by mahlness

OK, the little guy arrived in Seattle on Dec 19th. One hour later I am blogging this from its cute mini keyboard. Been on the Internet (to school first of course), been to MySpace, uploaded this picture to Flickr from it, and am posting this via Flickr. Did not read one bit of directions - there weren't any with it, anyway. Managed to figure it out with oldster intuition. Kids would have figured it out twice as fast.

No matter what you hear about this, it is simply breathtaking. One Laptop Per Child - the buy one, give one program goes through Dec 31st in North America.

Somewhere in a place where they don't have much, some kid will be having a fantastic time with one just like this little guy.

Too much

Sometimes we bite off too much. It's only Wednesday evening, and I feel like it should be Sunday night. Don't try this at home (while teaching third grade):

• Monday - Family Internet Night, in my classroom, 6-7 PM. Six families in attendance, about 20 people. A new PowerPoint presentation, recorded audio for video mesh of mp3/ppt, coming soon.
  
  
• Tuesday - Presentation/participation in, via speakerphone, the K-20 Network's Board Meeting. My third graders and I all had a chance to contribute, in our classroom. Using 19th century tools to talk about 21st century practices... (maybe more here later on this)
  
  
• Tuesday evening - Family Internet Night, as on Monday - a repeat presentation for those who could not make it Monday - six in attendance: two families and a colleague. Recorded part that I missed on Monday. (had enough snacks left over - whew) . The video here is a screencast of the version from December, 2006. Live screencast version coming soon...



• Wednesday - Jr Seahawk News Reporter meeting in my classroom. Snacks, writing via the news reporter blog.

• Wednesday - Introduction of video production, via RCA Small Wonder, of How to Make a Six Sided Snowflake (and completion of PowerPoint presentation of the same).

Alumni - Your Blogs are Back!

I just posted the following to my classroom blog at roomtwelve.com:

To all past bloggers here at roomtwelve.com - all of your blog articles are back online! For the past few weeks, they have been unavailable, while the servers for classblogmeister were upgraded.

So, for those in Room Twelve from 2005-06, your blogs are all intact, right here, where they always have been. There is also a "Related Link" to your blog on the upper left corner of this page.

For those in Room Twelve in 2006-07, your articles are now ALL back, under "Room Twelve Alumni", on the right side of this page.

Many, many thanks to David Warlick, for giving us Classblogmeister, the wonderful tool that lets us blog here safely!

May not seem like such a big deal, but I had groups of former students coming in to my class asking about their blogs - like, what happened to our blogs? Are they gone?

Although most of these kids are not actively contributing (right now), it's clear their writing is still important to them - even what they wrote way back in third grade.

I wonder if they'd be checking back with me just to be sure I had their Writing Portfolio from third grade intact - or if I'd I had passed it on - and if their 4th and 5th grade teachers had their third grade writing safely tucked away in manilla folders in file cabinets...?

Men Bake Better, 2007

OK, the holidays are fast approaching, and it's time to let go of some of those debilitating worries about being all PC.

At my school, for the 11th straight year, the men are preparing for The Men's Cookie Exchange. If you are a male teacher in a school, please consider organizing the guys - and sending us your story/recipes/pictures/video! We will share it on our web site and our wiki!.

Gosh, a few years ago we even had Sara Moulton feature us in a Food Network Special. Here Sara takes a picture of us during a break in the filming in my classroom. She spent the day with her crew at my house and in my classroom. We play the video of the special every year at our event. We've definitely had our 15 minutes! Be sure to check out: Dave's Christmas Crunch Cookies and my Toffee Bars - both featured in the show.

Here's a slideshow of my set on Flickr, with pictures going back to 1998, of the Men's Cookie Exchange. Just a bunch of guys having fun:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

We may have eight bakers this year! Guys, please join in! Our results will be posted on the web, the wiki, and YouTube, of course.

Two steps forward...

...and only one step back, that's progress. Today I introduced my third grade bloggers to PowerPoint, a program and technology older than they are. For goodness sakes, they've been blogging for two months. Yikes!

You'd think it was a backward step, but I look at it as necessary:

• They will need to know how to use this program in their immediate future, as they move through middle and high school. I believe in that short term, PowerPoint is a necessary critical skill to know - one that will help them, will give them a leg up if they are fluent in its use. I know this sounds really stodgy, but I am visited regularly by middle school kids who thank me for teaching them how to use this program...
• I'm ultimately moving toward video production with them, and it seems like this is a necessary step - kind of like doing a storyboard before you write a book (excuse the 20th century analogy). We DID do paper/pencil storyboard work last week, in task analysis work for a "How To" writing piece.
• For the kids I teach, PowerPoint has the perfect learning curve, with enough carrots along the way that they absolutely gobble up the knowledge and crave more...
• I see it as a prerequisite, in terms of students preparing a quality presentation of an idea for a multimedia world. For a wonderful exploration of web 2.0 technologies from an artistic design perspective, see Dean Shareski's presentation from the K12 Online Conference "Design Matters".
• Finally, the beginning mastery of this program, as I teach it, encourages collaboration, exploration, and fearlessness in approaching the unknown. In their future workplaces these kids will go far, I believe it.

Every year, for the past 6 or 7 years, I have introduced PowerPoint to my third graders. Every group I've had is able to do twice as much as the previous year has - in the same amount of time. So we ultimately get more sophisticated than, and we will go much farther than, their predecessors.

Look for "How to Make a Six-Sided Snowflake" - in multiple forms, soon....

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