Visited a forum on online publishing started by a guy who wants to have his students collaborate with students from around the world. Dozens of educators responded with advice, web apps, etc. Other forums included links to examples of assignments and related articles. Obviously the advantage to all of this is that you can connect with teachers who have similar goals and interests and find out what works and doesn’t work for them.

Then I hopped over to the resources wiki where I found a billion other…um…resources.

It’s overwhelming, but I suppose I get it. First there are the benefits for teachers pedagogically speaking. A place to go to learn and discover and ask questions. Then there are the benefits for the classroom. Starting one of these puppies up on a classroom scale with the kids building relationships and sharing resources and having conversations. Seems pretty unwieldy and like something I’d try down the road after I’ve done some blogging with the kids, built some wikis, maybe tried some Google docs.

But let me head on over to Ning in Education to learn a little more.

Spent some time checking out a few Nings. Many of the high school examples were closed which was a little frustrating. I did click on a Ning called Teachers as Writers, a small group of teachers who like to write. Clearly, it is the common interests of the members that are important. I’m not likely to find much of interest in a Spanish teacher Ning.

As far as the students go, it seems like they’d need pretty clear motivation to build out their Ning. I’m not talking about grades, but expectations, assignments, and tasks that make networking essential to success. I suppose the Ning could in a simpler sense be a place where the students collectively post work and get feedback. It could be a place where four students working together on a project could start a forum and communicate with each other and share ideas and resources.

I found this intriguing because this summer I’ve had to figure out A LOT of new tech stuff with a few support videos and some text help for each application. Not once could I call someone over. And I think if I’m going to introduce any of this I’m going to have push my students to figure out as much as they can on their own. Fortunately, most of the sites have FAQs and other kinds of support. Nevertheless, it’s daunting. I’ll certainly be happy to have the 23 Things wiki to use as a reference.

Ultimately, this is going to be about creating GOOD problems (by trying new things, by having students express themselves and collaborate and research in new ways) and solving those problems.

Then maybe we can all work for Google.

1)    OK. I like the idea of creating a personal home page with Pageflakes. Right now at home I’ve got the Google search bar. Not too exciting.

2)    I’m confused. Do I use Pageflakes for my teacher “website.” Or do I use a website for my website? Or Moodle? Or my blog? I can’t manage them all and still have time to go running. Nevertheless, Pageflakes does seem like an effective way to manage feeds and have students be able to check out what I’m collecting for them.

3)    I could see putting together theme-based pages. The Darfur page takes great advantage of tags and I could replicate that with other tags and topics. And students could create their own page flakes based on whatever topic they’re studying. This would be really cool for a history/current events class. But it also could be cool for more abstract topics (photos, videos, blogs about SURVIVAL).

First of all, I think I’m going to have my newspaper students write ALL of their articles on Google Docs. One of the biggest challenges has always been keeping track of drafts, ones that students have edited and ones that I’ve edited. With Docs there will always be a version that reflects all editing and contributions. On a separate note, students will never have the excuse that they left the document on their home computer. Seriously, this could be life changing.

A second idea is represented by the Google “word” doc I created called “Building Sentences Using Phrases and Clauses.” Different students will be able to add on to short sentences, building increasingly complex and interesting ones. I suppose they could also edit “mistakes” they find in their peers contributions.

Finally, I could see using Google Docs and presentations for collaborative projects. The students are busy, busy, busy, so if they can perform their tasks individually and add to the same document, say a short presentation on some chapters from “House on Mango Street,” then they can avoid some of the scheduling hassles. Hopefully, this wouldn’t preclude them from actually discussing the source material as well as what they create together.

This was another THING that made me think. When I was creating the Building Sentences document I had to really think about how to word my instructions to take into account the collaborative, cumulative nature of the task. The PURPOSE is manifold. To give students a chance to BUILD on the work of their peers. To give students a chance to LEARN from their peers (oh, so that’s how you use an absolute phrase). To give students a chance to EDIT the work of their peers (hey, Jane, not sure that’s a complete sentence).

And did I mention how excited I am to use Google Docs with the newspaper. I did? Well, I’m saying it again.

I watched the “Dancing” video the other day because I’d read about it in the Times. It’s of this dude dancing all over the world with random people. It’s joy inducing just like everyone says. Those viral videos that become a part of pop culture really demonstrate the democratic nature of Youtube and the net. From an educational perspective it tells me two things. First, I could use videos like that as “art pieces” to discuss and write about. Almost like a visual poem. Second, I could have students create video stories, whether or literal or abstract, connected to a text or not.

As part of my thing 19 search I typed in Oedipus into teachertube and up popped a very funny, clever and somewhat sophomoric (though not entirely in a bad way) video that is a spoof of the Real World but with characters from the play. It manages to deal with themes from the play while updating the ideas and including jokes that I’m sure made the project more fun for the students. I’m glad I found it, because it made me realize that I haven’t really used video in such a way. Now, I’m not QUITE sure yet of the benefits of uploading the videos. Isn’t creating the video the important part? I suppose it might give students extra motivation to know they can get feedback and that other students could see the videos. It seems to me that unless there’s some kind of instructional purpose to the video than it may be nothing more than a public forum for the student work—and maybe that’s enough?

I also checked out a video that a broadcast journalism class put on teachertube. It is a story about retiring teachers featuring interviews with the teachers, colleagues, and students. I could see trying out little stories like this for our newspaper blog. Similar to the audio clips from the previous lesson, video clips could really enhance the blog and draw students in. It could obviously become very distracting from our business of writing stories (not to mention bring up even more problems with monitoring appropriateness, not to mention require me to actually learn how to TEACH broadcast journalism), but it may just be that in 2008, video content is necessary and that we may need to jump and learn as we swim. I could see some person on the street interviews or great clips from games or video editorials or visits to nearby places of interest. It could hit really big. If it does, I’ll be sure to thank the folks at 23 things. No joke.

(BTW: I tried for about an hour to embed the teachertube videos to no avail. So i just put in the link instead. Frustrating!)

Here it is. I think I need to speak up next time. Hope you can hear it.

It’s a start. I liked the list of “uses” on the Evoca website. Of course, now I can’t find it. So why am I writing about it? Who knows! Maybe you’ll be able to find it.

Anyway, it inspired some ideas related to my newspaper class and the blog we’re hoping to start. Audio segments of interviews, interviews with athletes before or after games and actors before or after performances. Man on the street interviews and roundtable discussions (“OK, I’m sitting here with x, y, and j at lunch and we’re talking about school uniforms…”) Obviously there could be problems with people not wanting to be recorded, or wanting some control over editing, but my guess is many would be very interested. Goofballs might come out of the woodwork, but we might also get people really excited to hear the voices and sounds of Lovett life. And to be able to use the cellphone!!! Awesome.

The most immediately practical educational application I can see is for the big multi-genre theme project I do. Sometimes it’s tough for the students to find texts by genre or theme and I think the tag search could really help with that, not to mention give them immediate access to reviews.

From a personal standpoint, I’d love to get my own library catalogued (though I’m not exactly sure why yet). I’m only sorry that there are so many books I’ve read that aren’t on my shelf or that I’ve forgotten I’ve read that wouldn’t get catalogued. But for now, that’s just the snob in me speaking.

Application idea: It occurs to me that I could tag articles in the Times or elsewhere, organize them by topic, and share them out with my students. For example, in my newspaper class, I could tag great examples of sports articles for students writing sports pieces for the paper.

What would happen if we allowed students to have more freedom with their learning? What would they create, and if they made a mistake would we/they be gleeful even while cleaning up the mess?

Curiosity. Where do we allow for that in today’s educational/societal structure?

Indeed, allowing students to make messes is worthwhile and many of us probably don’t do it enough. I know with my own writing assignments, for example, I’ll often give graphic organizers or share student examples or write my own. I think in most cases it helps more than it hurts. They still have to come up with the ideas. They still have to develop their own voice. My support is intended to give them some sense of my expectations as well as the attributes of a meaningful piece of writing. Obviously, one could debate the meaning of meaningful. One could also debate the line between nurturing, generative support and stifling support. For example, if I want my students to include rich details in their writing I try to show them examples in literature or in my own writing. Where on the line does that fall?

This past year Melissa Fay Greene was the writer in residence at Lovett and in preparation for her coming I had my students read an article of hers (”A Writer’s Life in a Household of Children”) that, among other things, argues the merits of letting her own kids pull things off shelves in the playroom, dump things on the floor, and embrace the chaos. She happened to be using the parenting technique as a metaphor for writing (brainstorming and drafting=letting go and not cleaning up as you go). I like it both on the metaphorical and literal level, as a parent and as a teacher. When I share my own writing with my students I try to show original drafts, webs, notes scrawled on a torn sheet of paper. I don’t always do this and I wonder if that compromises the “modeling” experience and leads them to believe that I produce final drafts spontaneously, like Zeus giving birth to Athena from his head. They don’t see the mess in the creative process, the evolution, the change, the redirection, the narrowing down, the opening up, the adding here, the taking away there, the essence emerging from the chaos.

I think introducing technology is going to require me to let go a bit (a lot?) and try things out, perhaps sending dog food everywhere. Who knows? A pattern might emerge from the chaos.

In our fast-paced society, we do a bit too much of everything. As the long days of summer approach, now is the best time to do nothing.

I can identify with this. I offer the following example. At the beginning of the summer I read “Of Love and Other Demons” by G. G. Marquez and then “The History of Love,” by Nicole Krauss, which is one of my wife’s favorite books. Because the whole summer was ahead of me, I was able to read books that had absolutely no possible use for my teaching (they weren’t about pedagogy, they weren’t faculty summer reading books, they weren’t student summer reading books, they weren’t books that I was planning to teach) without the slightest bit of guilt. Now the fact that guilt was involved at all in the process of choosing a book to read during the summer might be my own problem—I’m just THAT dedicated of a teacher! Go me!—but it might also have to do with that “fast-paced society” Arthus spoke of and the belief that if we aren’t doing something that will have a clear benefit for our job, our family, etc. then we’re shirking our responsibilities.

Anyway, I finished the books (quite excellent—will certainly be able to recommend them for an outside reading selection (yikes! Maybe it did have a purpose beyond me own personal reading enjoyment (which by the way we’re trying to inculcate in students!))) and then was left to decide on my next one. I hit The New Yorker to buy some time. I was going to start “Water for Elephants” but then the voice in my head spoke up: “It’s July. You have the faculty read and the adviser read. You could reread the summer reading books you’ve taught for the past five years and have reread each summer. You could go out and buy the novellas you’re considering using in a literature circle book choice unit.” I fought the voice and started “Elephants.” It’s my summer! I told myself. And it’s a book! It’s not like I’m deciding between “War and Peace” and catching up on old episodes of “Who’s the Boss?” I found the opening chapter of “Elephants” very intriguing. And then it happened. I went downstairs to the bookshelf and grabbed “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Another tenth grade teacher uses it. I’m not planning on teaching it this year but might next year. It’s a classic. Now, I happen to be enjoying “All Quiet” very much (in the way you enjoy a story about war and death) but I wonder if I somehow compromised myself by choosing it.

Which is why I bristled at Anthony Chivetta’s response to Arthus’s post, entitled “Never Stop Doing.” He allows for time spent thinking and tinkering but he suggests that this can lead to the “intellectual void” where presumably people fall forever past spinning clocks and hourglasses. Ultimately I agree with Chivetta’s premise that we should lead a purposeful life of action and take advantage of every (or almost every) opportunity to create, learn, pursue and discover. Chivetta allows for wandering, but he feels we should wander somewhere. Now Chivetta himself wonders (as do some of those commenting on the post) if they’re actually arguing two sides of the same coin. But it’s when Chivetta writes about “working towards some end” that I think he and Arthus separate. I think the implication is that at the end of an activity there should be some clear outcome that has practical applications or relevance. And here’s where “Water for Elephants” vs. Book I Should/Need to Read comes in. In the end it may be that I love all the books I should/need to read. But I have this gut sense that choosing “Water for Elephants” would have been the healthier choice. It may also be why required summer reading should be a subject for debate.

A related (?) story…

I was sitting at the computer yesterday trying to quickly check email (school email at that!). I had put my son down on the floor in the hallway and figured he could entertain himself for a few minutes. I heard him crawl off to the kitchen but then got caught up in reading and responding to a particular email. A small voice in my head said, “Make this quick, dude, do you have any idea how much trouble that little one could get into in five minutes?” Still, I sat there and continued my reply. In the distance I heard the sound of a splash and knew that he had made his way over to the dog’s water/food bowls.

Here’s the thing. My son holds up a finger and makes the “No-no” sign when he approaches the bowl, but there seems to be a disconnect between the concept of “Touching the dog’s food is a no-no,” which I do think he grasps, and the reality of it being very fun to make a mess, watch the kernels expand in the water, and take an occasional bite. This is what I knew he was doing as I continued to sit at the computer. Still, I didn’t get up.

Was I tired? Not really. Was I being stubborn? Maybe just a bit. Stupid? Certainly, as the longer I waited the longer it would take to clean up the disaster zone. Was I feeling naughty? Perhaps. I like to think that I was being curious, that I was putting a positive spin on the proverbial “good man doing nothing.” And really, how many times had I pulled him away from the bowl? How many times had I made my life easier and his life less fun by saying “No-no.”

I kept on reading as I heard a splash here, a crunch there (hopefully my dog taking advantage of his good fortune and not my son dining on kibble), a laugh here, another splash there. I do think I hung my head and groaned when I heard the sound of food being dug from the bowl and cast across the floor. It sounded like he’d knocked over a box of Mardi Gras beads.

Finally, I decided to check out what my son (and I) had wrought. I walked slowly into the kitchen, passed the island, and turned the corner. There he was. Sitting on the dogfood bowl like an emperor, hundreds of kernels surrounding him like his minions. It was a veritable aureole of lamb bites. I laughed, because he had such a satisfied grin on his face, and for all the other obvious reasons. I lifted him up and his entire bottom was soaked because he’d obviously tried the water bowl first before deciding on the food bowl as a more comfortable throne. It was only when I put him in the highchair and strapped him in that he started to cry. Hopefully he wasn’t anticipating a long and boring future where you don’t get to sit in dogfood unless you’re pledging a fraternity or you’ve had too much to drink at the company party. Perhaps I should have comforted him by saying there are other fun things to do in life that are a bit naughty and not entirely socially unacceptable. It was a real mess, I have to say. Took me about fifteen minutes to clean up. But it was worth it. The sight of my little boy sitting on his dogfood throne. I felt like I’d come down on the side of tactile wonder. Of absurdity. Of freedom.

I tell you. It wasn’t nothing.

I only wish the camera hadn’t been in my wife’s purse.

The bowls a day later? Such neatness! Such cleanliness! Such quiet desparation!