Tag: student

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Free Back to School Resource for Laptop Schools

It’s back to school time again in the US! Time for fresh new school supplies, backpacks, or maybe some new laptops?

studentsupportlaptopcover

Student Support of Laptop Programs – new laptops? old laptops? Are you getting the benefit of making students allies in your laptop initiative? Peer mentoring, student-led training on new hardware and software, student tech support and other ideas can be time saving, cost effective, and best of all, good for students and the whole learning community.

This whitepaper contains research, case studies, practical information that you can use right now, whether you have one cart or are a 1:1 laptop school.

Student Support of Laptop Programs (PDF)

Sylvia

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Students Reap Academic Gains from Community Service

Rural Students Reap Academic Gains from Community Service | Edutopia.

Yes, I know the title of the Edutopia article says RURAL students reap academic gains from community service, but really, there’s nothing here in this article that wouldn’t apply to any student service, rural, urban, or suburban.

The service learning examples in this article are terrific, and there is a nice video accompanying it. In this district, academic scores are up, attendance up, and all kinds of other good schooly information is connected to the service learning.

But really, it all comes home for me when the students articulate what service and learning mean to them.

James (not his real name), a student who received many Fs his freshman year and who was a chronic truant until he moved to the Fowler district, surveys his shed with pride. “We accomplished something for the little kids,” he says. James, who is graduating from Casa Blanca, attributes much of his success to service learning. “Every day, this is what I love coming to school for — doing projects and building stuff for the community,” he explains.

James also points out that it’s more critical to do work right the first time on a construction project than on a math worksheet, where he can easily rework mistakes. “If you mess up on the real project, you can’t just erase it. You’ve got to buy more wood. It’s not cool.”

James is pointing out something that should be such a obvious principle of education, but often gets lost in the achievement/assessment/accountability shell game: Learning only matters if it matters to the learner. Achievement can be measured in pride, not wasting wood, and helping little kids–not filling out worksheets. The only reason anyone would be surprised that a “chronic truant” cares about his work or about little kids is that we rarely ask students to demonstrate their human capacity for caring for others while in school.

Hope everyone reads this terrific article and congratulations to the profiled school district in Fowler, California!

Sylvia

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The Gift

1076955_vibrant_giftA few weeks ago at the Constructing Modern Knowledge 2009 institute in Manchester, NH, I needed to make some copies. I walked down the quaint main street of this lovely New England town and found the local copy store.

Inside, the machine wasn’t working so the owner came over to help. We started talking and he asked me what I was doing in Manchester. I told him I was at a workshop with teachers learning about how to use computers in school. He immediately said something to the effect of, “That’s funny! Why don’t you have students teach the teachers, the kids know everything about technology already!”

We both laughed, sorted out the copying mess, and I walked back to the hotel meeting room where teachers were intently building robots, making movies, programing, creating art, building webpages, and more. Suddenly, it struck me. How wonderful is it that society actually believes that children are competent at something. Here in Everytown, USA, a random guy in a random moment confirmed a commonly held societal belief that children are competent human beings, in fact, MORE competent than adults. And better yet, competent at something important.

We see it in commercials where the exasperated parents hand the new, incomprehensible cell phone to their five year old to figure out. We hear ordinary people joke about getting their grandchild to set the blinking 12:00 on any appliance. And we all know that TV commercials and marketing professionals are very adept at mirroring the “norms” of society. Mention some problem using technology and more likely than not, someone will say, “Ha! You need to find a ten year old!” It’s always good for a chuckle when you tap into commonly held beliefs.

Of course this isn’t a sophisticated or deeply thought-out conclusion. There are underlying contradictions, simplifications and outright myths. The “digital native vs digital immigrant” slogan is a symptom of buying too deeply into this belief.

But what irony and what opportunity this is! What a gift that society actually thinks that children are competent at something, anything, especially something that is so vital for the future. When does this ever happen?

How can advocates for using technology to enhance learning leverage this gift to advance the cause?

I don’t think the answer is to lean on this myth or use it to justify NOT teaching students about technology. My main criticism of the digital native/immigrant metaphor is that it is used in just this way. (See my post Digital natives/immigrants – how much do we love this slogan?)

I DO think we need to find ways to build on this gift, to acknowledge that yes, indeed, kids do know a lot about technology, and that school must take that natural talent and nurture it into something MORE valuable for the student and for society.

So thank you, Madison Avenue, for helping portray children as competent individuals. Now, what can we do with this gift?

Sylvia

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Kids Use — and Teach — Digital Storytelling

Edutopia cover - Sept. 2009

California Kids Use — and Teach — Digital Storytelling

Veteran fourth-grade teacher Don Kinslow often hears colleagues say they would use technology if they had the time to get training. At Parkview Elementary School, in Chico, California, he has found a practical solution to this dilemma: He engages students as technology mentors.

This article appears in the September issue of Edutopia magazine as part of their stimulus funding series, “High Tech at Low Cost”, and is online here.

The story captures the essence of what many schools see when they include GenYES students in their technology outreach to teachers and the whole community. Don says, “It’s a simple idea, but it’s had huge outcomes.”

One of Kinslow’s students, for instance, was consistently reluctant to speak in class. For a book report, she narrated a digital story. “Her voice was clear. Her ideas were well organized,” Kinslow says. “For some kids, this was the first time they’d ever heard her talk.”

And we all know, this isn’t about saving money, it’s about giving kids experiences that change lives, either by being a GenYES student who finds her voice, or a student in a classroom where the teacher feels supported enough to try technology for the first time.

Part of the fun of this job is meeting teachers like Don Kinslow. He’s got great ideas and he tries things, lots of things. He’s given me some great stories to tell! If you’d like to read more about Don and his students, they are also one of the detailed case studies in my Student Support of Laptop Programs article. Their school uses laptops on carts and the GenYES students are part of the team a teacher can count on when they use the laptops for small student groupwork, digital storytelling across all grades and subjects, and special request projects for teachers.

By the way, don’t miss the article’s author, Suzie Boss, in the Edutopia blog lineup called Spiral Notebook.

Sylvia

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Every day is leadership day

Scott McLeod of the Dangerously Irrelevant blog has declared July 12, 2009 as Leadership Day 2009. He’s been doing this for two years now, and each year I’ve participated with a post.

  • 2007 – Leaders of the Future where I focused in developing the leader in every learner.
  • 2008 – Just Do It where I urged administrators to stop waiting for the district reorg or the next version of Windows or that bandwidth you were promised 3 years ago and get moving. Listen to kids, don’t listen the teachers who can’t seem to manage an email account, damn the torpedos and full steam ahead.

So what to do for 2009? I still believe that leadership has to be nurtured at every level. I still believe that we can’t wait for some perfect storm to implement our perfect plan. So what’s new?

What’s new in my mind is that it’s all linked together with choice, and more specifically agency. I’ve become increasingly aware that there is no leadership without choice at every level. I’m not talking about the now politicized “school choice” nor a meaningless choice between two barely distinguishable options. This isn’t about picking a red or blue cover for your 5 page essay. Students must have choices and true agency over their own learning.

To accomplish this, you must also have teachers who have choices and true agency over their own classroom and a say in their own school. Administrators who are leaders must have agency, choice, and a vision that others can follow – if they choose. If they are leaders, people will follow. But only if there is a real option to not follow. You aren’t a leader if everything is decided in advance. You aren’t be a leader if your followers are just there for the paycheck, or if they are students, graduation credit.

Leadership is inextricably bound to free will, in the same way democracy is.

And to insist on choice and agency, you must believe that learning is natural and that most children want to learn. You must believe that most teachers really do want to reach children and nurture that amazing natural spark; you must believe that most parents love their children and want what’s best for them. To believe otherwise is to crush that delicate flower with the iron glove of control. That’s not leadership.

“Unless the people who live in schools day in and day out, principally the kids and staff, are entrusted to use their intelligence on behalf of the task at hand, we’ll not get change for the better. Anything else is inefficient, a waste of our precious time and resources.” Deborah Meier, The Power of Their Ideas 1995

I like Scott’s graphic for Leadership Day 2009 – but if it were up to me, every light bulb would be lit. That’s leadership.

Leadership Day 2009 logo

Sylvia

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Tinkering School

Once a year at the TED conference, invited speakers from all fields and backgrounds gather to give short talks about their subjects of interest. The conference website holds a treasure trove of brilliant, moving examples of storytelling about things that matter.

In this 4 minute video, Gever Tulley talks about his Tinkering School. This is a subject I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, especially in regards to technology. My post a few months ago, Technology Literacy and Sustained Tinkering Time was about how looking at technology through the lens of tinkering makes more sense than approaching it through checklists and skill acquisition charts.

But I think this TED talk is nice because it shows kids doing things, and he talks about what is necessary to facilitate this kind of learning — time, materials, and openness to the serendipity of both success and failure. Time is such a key element. Time to think, time to change your mind, and time to work through frustration.

In the comment page for the video, there is a a lively discussion of how computers fit into this world of “stuff” for kids to mess around with. Some people look at computers (and video games) as taking children out of the “real world” of making things with hammers and nails, but I know that computers are not in opposition to children tinkering. Children, especially with open-ended, creative software tools can flow seamlessly between creating virtual and real things that have meaning to them.

This fits in perfectly with my work next week at the Constructing Modern Knowledge summer institute. I’m looking forward to 4 days of tinkering with all the cool materials and software we bring in. According to Gary Stager, who leads the institute, teachers often see student frustration as a failure, and want to “help” students through it as quickly as possible. He says that teachers simply need to fine tune their reactions to differentiate between “mouth up” and “mouth down” frustration. No one wants to just leave a student stuck forever in an endless loop of problems. But to rescue them too soon means they never develop the problem solving skills they need. At CMK, the teachers learn that lesson by going through it themselves, tackling complex projects that have natural cycles of success, frustration, and more success.

Here’s a video from CMK last year, made during the event by one of the participants, that shows some of this in action.

By the way, there are a few places left, so sign up and come on down. What better way to spend a week than going to technology tinkering school!

Sylvia

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Global collaboration projects and events from iEARN

Wow, the mailbox was full this morning! Here’s some amazing opportunities from iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) to involve your students in collaborative projects with students from around the world, or for teachers to participate in learning how to integrate global projects into the curriculum. There are even more at iEARN.org. Congratulations to iEARN as they celebrate 20 years of global youth involvement in making the world a nicer place.

WALLS TALKING PROJECT. The idea is to ‘listen’ to the graffiti talk around us (on our walls, doors, desks, chairs, floors, T-shirts, schoolbags, etc.), and to record and share interesting finds. If other interested teachers and students respond by posting photos and related info, this could turn into a nice project of the wall/s/talking in our schools, streets, towns, countries, world. Sketches, squiggles, doodles and other more sophisticated street art around us is the part of public spaces usually walked by, unnoticed by most people. More information | Flickr group | Wiki

SHARE YOUR MAGICAL MOMENTS FOR A GLOBAL ONLINE BOOK. Students around the world are invited to unite in sharing their magical moments in a global online book, showing youth that their personal magical moment is part of a human web that transcends borders is of incredible human value. And, it promotes values such as compassion and tolerance. Youth from Iceland, Zambia, Belarus, Romania, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sierra Leone, Portugal and Denmark have posted their magical moments. View online books and find out more here.

iEARN-THAILAND HOSTS 3-DAY WORKSHOP FOR TEACHERS, JUNE 11-13, 2009. Hosted in Bangkok, Thailand, approximately 25 English Language teachers have joined together with iEARN-Thailand Co-Coordinators Sonthida Keyuravong and Patcharee Sridakum, and Tina Habib of iEARN-USA for a workshop on how to integrate iEARN global projects into their curricula. Meet them in the online Teachers Forum.

iEARN-MOROCCO (MEARN) TO HOST 16th ANNUAL iEARN CONFERENCE AND 13TH YOUTH SUMMIT IN IFRANE, MOROCCO, JULY 19-25, 2009. Innovative Technologies and Cross Cultural Dialogue For Quality Education. Participants from 45 countries are already registered: Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, France, Brasil, Canada, Spain, UAE, USA, Japan, Mali, Mexico, Oman, Netherlands, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Senegal, Indonesia,Taiwan, Slovenia, Tunisia,Turky, Kenya, Morocco, Azerbaijan, Argentina, South Africa, Lebanon, Yemen, Israel, Belarus, Suriname, Nepal, Malaysia, Palestine, Iraq, Uzebekistan, Thailand, Pakistan, Georgia, and Poland.

Can’t make it to Morocco? Join the Conference Forum and Youth Summit Forum for ongoing discussions and updates.

Sylvia

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Join us online – student participation in building the learning environment

TONIGHT! Join us Wednesday, June 3rd, at 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 12am GMT for a panel discussion with both educators and students on the topic of Student Participation in Building the Learning Environment.

Moderator Susie Boss will lead a panel discussion with Connie Weber, Sylvia Martinez, Marcie Hull, Jane Krauss, and their students. The discussion will include:

  • How does more active participation change how students see themselves–and the wider world?
  • How can we shape learning spaces so that kids are able to take more of the lead of their own learning?
  • How can we change the culture of school so that student participation is the norm?

Date: Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 12am GMT (next day) (international times here)

Location: In Elluminate. Log in here. The Elluminate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate, please visit the support page.

Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event.

Thanks to Steve Hargadon for organizing this event – see you online!

Sylvia

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Constructivist Celebration @ NECC 2009

Constructivist Celebration logoThe third annual Constructivist Celebration @ NECC 2009 in Washington DC is now open for registration!

Join colleagues in a daylong celebration of creativity, computing & constructivist learning on June 28th, 2009. This is the day before the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in Washington, DC starts.

The Constructivist Celebration is an opportunity for you to let your creativity run free with the world’s best open-ended software tools in a great setting with enthusiastic colleagues who share your commitment to children, computing, creativity and constructivism. You might think of this stimulating event as a spa day for your mind and soul!

The day kicks off with a keynote, by Gary Stager “What Makes a Great Project?,” and a presentation by Melinda Kolk on unleashing student creativity.

Then you will enjoy five hours of creativity on your own laptop using software provided by consortium members FableVision, Inspiration, LCSI, and Tech4Learning. Representatives of SchooKiT and Generation YES will also be on-hand to assist.

The day ends with an inspirational talk by best-selling author, illustrator, animator and software developer, Peter Reynolds and an opportunity to reflect on the day.

The Constructivist Celebration is an incredibly affordable event for you and your colleagues. $35 gets you hundreds of dollars worth of open-ended creativity software, a great lunch and the day’s activities.

The Constructivist Celebration @ NECC
June 28, 2009, 9:00 – 4:00 PM
Sidwell Friends School
Washington, DC

Find out more and register today at:

http://www.constructivistconsortium.org

Register today! Space is extremely limited and this event was completely sold out last year.

Sylvia

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Last chance for free ebook from ASCD

Update – this offer is now expired. You can still get the e-book for $9.95 (or $7.95 if you are an ASCD member.) Still a pretty good deal if you ask me!

May 6, 2009 is the last day to download a free ebook, Educating the Whole Child, from ASCD. After this, this 366 page e-book will only be available for a fee.

Do students really want to learn? Can schools and classrooms become joyful? Are there natural links between standard curriculum and what motivates students to learn? Explore these and other questions in this e-book collection of articles from Educational Leadership by renowned authors such as Carol Ann Tomlinson, Richard Sagor, Nel Noddings, Thomas R. Guskey, and Allison Zmuda.

Besides these fabulous and well-known authors, you will also get our article, Working with Tech-Savvy Kids, along with other articles by Will Richardson, king of the edu-bloggers, and many more.

Don’t miss out on this free offer!

Educating the Whole Child ebook – free download link (valid April 15 – May 6, 2009)

Sylvia

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