From learning management to digital citizenship

We need a starting point.  I believe we need to ask some big questions about digital citizenship, the biggest as educators being:

What actually teaches digital citizenship, and what does not? 

(see how big the question is?)

So here is a bold statement.  It arises out of my understanding of attachment theory, but it also is based in my experience.  I tweeted it out one day just to get some dialogue on my stance:

Do we hand a fishing rod or a soccer ball to ours kids, say get out and learn some skills, and then sit down to watch the Whitecaps game as they walk out the door?  No: our involvement makes the difference.  The neighbourhood kids might know a thing or two about soccer or fishing. . .or Facebook.  But we can't rely on them.  They are just muddling through themselves.  And without our involvement, we'd lose the pleasure of teaching them.

...even if we are muddling through soccer, fishing, or Facebook ourselves. 

We can't teach skills from afar: cyber etiquette or otherwise.  I want to share some practical ideas about this:

I presented on a learning management system called Edmodo at the CUEBC 2013 conference in Vancouver, BC.  The slides are shared here:

Edmodo by Robinson for CUEBC 2013 from Sean Robinson

When I started putting together my slides for the CUEBC 2013 Conference, I was very excited to share about Edmodo--a free social learning network that acted as a learning management system.  I thought I'd tack a little digital citizenship on to the back end of it.  As I continued perfecting my slides, I realized that I'd rather have my attendees play and I took out some of the "teaching slides".  I also added some real online Edmodo dialogue that had taken place in my class for discussion at the workshop.

As I looked at the online dialogue, I realized the juxtaposition of the significant with the insignificant.  My sharing about a learning management system seemed so trifling as compared to the sharing about how to deal with the weighty citizenship issues.  I had to re-jig the slides again!

That same day, I stumbled on the Edscape 2013 conference's keynote Saturday morning being live streamed on teachercast.tv.  George Couros was sharing about and highlighted a young girls blog.  You can find it here: Alyssa's Blog.  Her blog is filled with comments by adults: Uncle Phil, Mrs. Hogg, George Couros.  I realized that this young lady is part of a healthy adult involved community.  She is contributing to the great conversation of learning.  I wasn't surprised when I found out that her father was an educator.

She is learning to be a digital citizen--not just a non-bullyer--but a true contributing citizen of the digital world.  And her online involvement is with many adults who can support and contribute.

Edmodo calls itself a social learning tool.  Sure, I can post assignments and students can hand in their work.  But more than that, they can interact with each other. . .and with me.  If and when the interaction gets out of hand, I intervene.  I say something like this: 

Then in the context of a morning meeting, we can look at what happened.  We can talk about the effects of the improper interactions and we can talk about better ways of dealing with each other.

I believe this process actually teaches students about online behaviour.  It teaches digital citizenship.  And this has led me to my bold statement.

Your thoughts?

Project-Based Learning for Dummies

It feels like I made a promise.  When I cut up the BC Learning Outcomes, parsed them out into projects, then blogged about it, I set up an expectation.  "Tell me how it goes.", "Keep us updated.", "Make sure you blog about it." was what I heard.

Shoot.

You mean I've got to go through with it?  I have great systems in place.  Math routines.  Class sets of textbooks.  Colleagues to teach my students some courses.  Change?  Really?

As teachers, though, new is nothing new.

And as always, step by step is the way it works for me.  So below are a few steps I took to make my foray into the PBL world.  But first a proviso: I know that simply attaching learning outcomes to projects is not what project-based learning is all about.  I know.  But I had to do something like that to transition from the world of "courses" to the world of genuine-real-life-I-can-learn-something-through-these projects.  Remember, I am the eternal:

So here are a few steps I've taken.

1) Reduce platooning
I now have my students 90% of the week. At first I thought that would be crazy: juggling all those balls in the air?  But with projects, the juggling is easier. And I don't have to keep track of so much from the students in the other classes. So far (it's still September), this is doable.  Having lots of time with the same students has been really important to provide the time needed to work on our projects.  Class has been a lot more free flowing and it has been great not having to change gears every 45 minutes.

2) Read some articles
7 Essentials For Project-Based Learning by John Larmer and John R. Mergendoller
What Project-Based Learning Is - And What It Isn't by Katrina Schwartz
Project-Based Learning: A Short History by Suzie Boss



3) Find a learning network
I've got a couple things going here.  I've been encouraging our staff to communicate more through twitter and we now have a common learning hashtag to follow.  This has increased and deepened the level of collaboration.  And just like there is a buzz you can feel when your students are deeply engaged in what they're doing, there is a buzz when teachers are sharing, collaborating and learning.  I feel that buzz at my school.

Leyton Schnellert with SD43

Also, I am fortunate that my own learning desires have been coupled with my district's.  Leyton Schnellert has been brought in to facilitate our development in "Engaging Learners Through Community and Inquiry in the Middle Years".  Schnellert has expanded our horizons by sharing experiences ranging from participating in simple inquiry activities to observing a full blown PBL class.  Below is Kim Ondrik's class up in Vernon.  It is hard to explain the kind of genuine learning community she has up there (called the O-zone).  Her grade 6/7 students work on real life activities: from tying flies to chopping carrots for needed meals to taking pictures of animals in the nearby wetlands to raking up nearby leaves to taking up roles in the civic council chambers.  Her kids have a voice.  They solve problems.  And they still meet learning outcomes.

Kim Ondrik and the Ozone

4) Jump right in
Project 1: My Perfect Classroom.  I asked my students to find the dimensions of our class and design the perfect classroom.  (Was it wrong to ask them to figure out the floor area of the class in square meters as well? :) )  I bought dollar store tape measurers and asked the students to work in their table groups to find the classroom dimensions.  I made available some instructional videos on finding area of parallelograms and triangles.  After calculating area, students were to design their idea of the perfect learning space.  Though they could be as creative as they wanted, I tried to instill the fact that their ideas could find themselves being played out in real life.  The plans are coming in and I'm interested to see what we can do with all these ideas.

Making wide scale changes isn't easy.  Sometimes, however, the risk not to change is greater than the risk to change.  When faced with great, good just isn't good enough.  I am much happier seeing my students climbing on the counters toting tape measurers, than I am having them regurgitate words on a page.  And I think they're much happier too.

It's a start.

Citizenship! Digital or not.

Before we start talking about digital citizenship, I think we need to talk about just plain old citizenship.  Possibly the problems we have with: "who should be teaching it" and "what should be taught" might be solved better if we take the digital out of citizenship for a moment.  Here is a popular Youtube Video (by xinz57) about it:

It's fast but at the end we get some definitions:

Digital Citizenship is: etiquette, access, responsibility, using the internet effectively, easy to learn, communication, understanding technology, literacy, social media done right, respect, being private, commerce, appropriate use, creating, important, sharing, the future, participating, your internet trail, yours.

(spent enough time pausing and playing cassette tapes to learn guitar licks and love song lyrics in my day. . .this was child's play)

Anyway, the list has that "do the right thing" emphasis: etiquette, responsibility, effectiveness, appropriateness, done right-ness.  Even the ideas like creating and sharing are just the start of what I think we might consider citizenship.  Now, I like the video.  I think I may have even used the video at some point.  But we must go deeper.

Recently, at the fourth #bcedchat, digital citizenship was the topic.  Here is an excerpt:

Though there was the "watch out there is danger out there" and the "thou shalt not's" in terms of piracy, I was very encouraged that I saw some positive citizenship ideas.

What a sad state we would be in if in life we lived by the watch-outs and the do-nots.   Doesn't citizenship include: do something great.  Do something kind.  Do something meaningful.  Sure we can include: do something proper and do something safe; but safe and proper doesn't make the world a better place.  Just makes it properly safe.

I think we know what model citizens are.  Here are some examples: 10-year-old helps catch suspect in theft, receives Citizen Award; 18-year-old who raised money for Islamic Relief Syria Appeal nominated for award.  These students have risen above safety and what is proper.  They've done something caring, something selfless, even put themselves on the line.  That is what true citizenship is; and we know it.  We've seen cities, countries, even the whole world come together to aid when a certain disaster has happened.  So let's not narrow our idea of citizenship when we add the word digital in front of it.

So let's add the digital.  Let's add the digital to what we already know about citizenship.  What is the difference?

Could it be put simply as: extending our reach in doing great, kind and meaningful things with the help of technology?  How is that for a starting point?  Does that definition change how we might instill digital citizenship in our students?  Can digital citizenship really be taught apart from plain old citizenship?

When fear drives the bus

I wish I could explain the extent to how boneheaded I've been.  I'll try.

It was the first assignment I had given out in a new teaching job: a friendly letter to the teacher.  I required students to type out all the necessary components of a letter: names, addresses, greetings.  And I wanted each student to tell me in this letter about themselves, their family make up, what they like to do.  But I wanted to take the assignment one step further.  No one was going to print this letter out.  No.  We were going paperless.  Each student would upload the letter to my webpage and I would mark the assignment from there.

I was called into the office the next day.  Seems the webpage was an unprotected site.  I had created an online predator's dream: names, addresses, descriptions.  Needless to say the site came down quick, fast and in a hurry and some trees paid the ultimate price for this assignment's submission.

Now this was before we had hand-in boxes and SharePoint levels of access.  It was a time when we were all just figuring things out.

But it scared me.

I was reminded of how I have to tread slowly in my use of technology as I teach.  Maybe my passions were quelled, my excitement abated.  The experience may have even stalled me from the tech immersion direction in which I may have been headed.  Paper just seemed so much...safer.

I am wondering if that feeling, that fear of putting the wrong things out there, is more common than we think.  I have seen student blog sites locked down tighter than Knox.  I have heard Facebook spoken in schools as if it was a dirty word.  And I have known districts to move at a snail's pace when it came to addressing social media and education.

And now you know I can empathize.

 

Unfortunately, there is another growing fear in Canadian education: FIPPA fear.  FIPPA (Freedom of Information / Protection of Privacy Act), especially in British Columbia, is a tight policy that includes stringent rules around public bodies storing their clients information outside of Canada.
 

Storage and access must be in Canada

from: Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act

[RSBC 1996] CHAPTER 165

 

Every cloud based service and their dog stores their data outside of Canada.  It's much cheaper and allows some of the smaller companies to even survive.  So that means that Google Apps, Dropbox, Khan Academy, Edmodo, Edublogs, Prezi and pretty much every other educational tech offering are off limits to BCers without parental consent in the prescribed manner.  But even with consent, there seems to be a feeling of: "I gotta watch myself here."

Trepidation may lead to "why bother, it's too complicated."  My experience has been that because of this trepidation, I've had to push myself to move ahead and often I have felt alone in it.  I wonder if there are others out there that feel the same.

"We can do it ourselves" is often the answer to FIPPA.  Is it the best answer?  Are we, the Canadians, leading the world in cutting edge tech offerings for our students?  Now, I am not advocating changes to FIPPA nor am I saying that thoughtfulness when considering the incorporation of tech initiatives in schools is a waste of time.

What I am getting at is that fear shouldn't be behind the wheel.  In fact, if we pull an ostrich-head-sanding maneuver, we're actually being negligent.  Students are signing up for social media sights faster than ipod touch users take to unlocked wifi.  They need guidance.  The discussions about digital citizenship, social media, and learning management systems need to happen.  Districts would do well to walk in the teachers' shoes and ask: "what do you need?" and "how can we make that happen?"  And collaborative mentorship guiding teachers to use technology properly and safely is paramount.  The fear of technology in whatever form it takes can be faced.

Throwing the idea of subjects out the window

It turned out that I got a lot of twitter support for the idea that this picture represents: saying goodbye to subjects.

Here's what I said:

Now I am not totally against subjects per se.  Hey, I like organization just as much as the next guy.  But my heart was begging my mind to look at things differently.  And I needed to do physically what teachers end up doing in their heads.  It all started with this:

For years now, my middle school team has been divvying up the subjects (and therefore divvying up the BC Prescribed Learning Outcomes) and teaching courses to our grade 6's and 7's.  This led to, I believe, an experience of being out of touch: out of touch with what was going on in other classes, and out of touch with the students themselves.  It was the latter that caused us to do things differently this year.  Going to a more project oriented class is a by-product: a by-product that feels right.

So what did I find:
Well two types of projects emerged as I looked through the PLOs and started combining them: term projects and year-long projects.  Here is what grade 7 began to look like: (excuse the goofy titles)

Year-long:
Classroom Meeting
Reading Plus
Anthology Panthology
Blogging Makes Me Happy
Math for Smarties (Math that doesn't fit anywhere else)


Term: (having a beginning and an end)
The Perfect Classroom
I want an Accent
Job Me
More Ancient than My Teacher
The Novel Novel
The Atrocity Project
They Lie!!!
What are the Chances
My Money Making Scheme
Media: It's more than Youtube
My Man/My Gal

These projects included all grade 7 PLO's except for Science and Art and those were left out for school organizational purposes.  They would have fit into this process swimmingly.

Where to go from here:
Really, the students should be doing this kind of organization themselves.  Valerie Irvine (@valerei) jumped on that right away.  Hoping to collaborate with her to make the PLO's accessible to students.

Then they can organize how they want to tackle them themselves...with support.  

Thanks to all who retweeted.

I trust you. You trust me

Trust.

It's one of the big ideas that has come out of the edtech chats I have been involved in. It has been part of my recent discussions concerning BYOT.  And it has been on my mind.  When you have your students take the world out of their pockets and have that world right there sitting on their desks in class, trust becomes an issue.

Before summer holidays, I surveyed my middle school students.  The benefits of having a big class is that I get a variety of opinions.  I have a great sample size.  And I get a few of those kids that just tell it like it is.  So sometimes rather than asking the adult experts, it is just more helpful to ask the students.  Here is a Wordle from the responses from the students on my survey about trust:

What did I ask?

 Yes everyone, the survey was on paper.  Sorry. 

What was I expecting?

I was thoroughly expecting that the majority of my students didn't feel I trusted them.  With BYOT being new to me, I spent a lot of time walking around, checking up on what was going on.  I felt the relationship I had with my class was strained.  I just plain thought our trust-matters could be better.

And what did they say?

Results of my Informal Trust Survey

Do you feel that your teacher trusts you? 85% said yes

Do you trust that your teacher wants the best for you? 89% said yes

Do you trust that school will help you achieve your goals?  37% said yes

Some highlights:

I was surprised that such a high majority of my students felt I trusted them.  Possibly I have given them what they have never had before: a chance to use their device in the class, a chance to fail and then to try again.  Maybe.

I was pleased that the majority of my students felt I wanted the best for them.  With my teaching co-focus being attachment, having them know that I want the best for them is what the relationship is all about.

Don't think, however, that I have forgotten about those in the minority: those that feel that I don't trust them, those that don't think I want the best for them.  It's not great thinking that some students spend a whole year with me and feel that way.  There's always more work to do.

Their comments:

The most meaningful information from the survey, however, were the comments.  Here are a few of them:

What would cause you to trust your teacher more?

- connect with students more

- do more things (risks)

- if he trusted me more (said twice)

- not to over explain things

- more freedom to do things in class

And what could lead you to becoming more trustworthy?

- if I didn't get in trouble as much (said twice)

- if class were more fun (said twice)

- if you trusted me more

I believe, however, the most poignant answer was the one student who said: "I trust you.  You trust me."  How else can trust be built but by mutuality.  One party takes a risk with another.  It goes well and trust is built.  But trust can't grow one-sided.  Without the other party doing the same, trust plateaus.  So I am hoping to take some more risks next year, and open it up for my students to do the same.  A BYOT classroom without trust is just another computer lab.

On a side note, the fact that only 37% of my students trust that school will help them achieve their goals is not lost on me.  But that is for another post. . .

Top ten meet-ups at ISTE 2013

For me, ISTE13, the biggest educational technology conference in North America, was about meeting the people.  Workshops and keynotes took a back seat to the disruptive meet-ups that I had in the dry heat or AC cool of San Antonio.  But these meetings didn't require me stalking the keynotes or standing by the VIP sections for nods and smiles.  These were the real deals: the educators in the trenches, the innovators who scare up buried resources to make things happen for students, the coordinators who support thousands of teachers ranging from early adopters to email shrugging Luddites.  Below are ten of my best meet-ups and my take on their deal.

@cordym
The meet:
While grabbing my Surface RT at the Microsoft command centre, a young educator with a twinkle in her eye sat down beside me.  She picked up that I was confused about something and asked me: "What is your burning question?"  I was kinda sorry that I didn't have one.  Through conversation, we discovered that we were both Canadians.  She revealed that she was going to be sharing at the opening Ignite session and that I needed to cheer loudly for her.  I mentioned that I wanted to follow her on Twitter but I didn't have data.  She said "I don't have data either but I just used the code the Microsoft's techs were putting in the Surfaces."  I was instantly impressed.  Who knew she was going to be doing this Ignite (TED-talk-like) presentation in front of 10,000 people.  And she killed it.

Her deal:
She blogs here about Hacking the Classroom, sharing her adventures in transforming education.  It's genuine stuff: she is a true hacker.  She hacked her way into "basically a keynote", karaoke, and several after parties all with a pizazz that showed the she should be there.  She has an amazing and inspiring way of turning things on their head.  She brings out the inner hacker in everyone she meets.  Made me think that anything is possible. 

Now to hacking a pool into my backyard.

@bkuhn
The meet:
"hey we should connect, I arrive around 5" "landed, should be settled 5:30ish" were the tweets I received Saturday night at ISTE13.  We had never really talked before.  But in minutes I was about to hang out with someone I had huge respect for.  His current title is the CIO for Vancouver School District.  I knew him from his previous school district and only had a FTF when I attended one of his workshops.  I read his blog regularly though and have connected with him on Twitter.  We had dinner by the river; we visited the Alamo; we cruised the Riverwalk.  All the while I got to pick his brain about the big ideas and the details of technology in education.

His deal:
Very much looking at the big picture.  He both strives to mold and prepare for the future.  Conversation with him inspires ideas about what the future can be like and what the great disruptions and disruptors that have molded our present are.  When I am thinking about "hand in boxes", he's thinking about the future of augmented reality in the classroom.  When I'm pondering a good learning management system, he's wondering how he can form a student "genius bar" for teachers to turn to for advice.  One of his tweets: "Education needs to become a covert operation where learning secretly happens and the kids don't realize it but they love it"

@jagill
The meet:
My partner in crime all ISTE13 long.  Yet this was the first chance we really got to meet.  He promised me he would introduce me to some great people and he did not disappoint.  And though he got me 1 breakfast, 2 parties, 3 dinners, and a whole wack of karaoke, it was the many connections he helped me make and the inspirational conversations we kept up that made my trip worth it.  With him as a sounding board, we plotted how all of this ISTE learning could work back in SD43.  We're planning some disruption of our own.

His deal:
His blog here is called Gone "Digital" Native.  And it is so aptly named.  For the nearly six years since this guy has started blogging about his dive head first into technological solutions for learning, he has been immersing himself in the business of teaching better through tech.  Whether it is using embed codes to beef up classroom websites, using Google translate to help ESL kids read, using Voicethread to give aboriginal students a more authentic voice, teaching Kandinsky to a computer class, or using Audacity to help LD kids write, he masters the tech and then imparts it to students.  But he is so much more than his tech.  It is the connections he makes with his students that speaks even more loudly.  You'll hear him say: "tell kids they are smart enough", "empower kids to troubleshoot" or "so I decided to ask my students on this. . ."  He really loves what he does and inspires the rest of us to do the same.

@BYOTNetwork
The meet:
One's first (first love, first car, first house) is always special.  Well, I stumbled into the edchat world serendipitously and discovered  #byotchat, my first edchat.  It was amazing.  I felt I had found my home.  People there were truly interested in helping this novice get somewhere with his BYOT environment.  And @BYOTNetwork was one of the facilitators.  He helped me start my BYOT class and so getting to meet him for a FTF at ISTE13's blogging café was amazing.

His deal:
He's about sharing and connecting.  Even when we met at ISTE he made sure I got connected with yet another edtech person.  He's about taking people from the no-no's of tech in the classroom to Acceptable Use Guidelines, focusing on the 95% of students who are going to do the right thing.  I love his Forsyth County Schools' "I will" approach, as opposed to "You can't": 

And he's about cultivating a learning community of trust--whether on twitter in his #byotchat gathering or in the hundreds of classrooms that he supports.

@dkvandergugten , @LJakes42 , @rorypayment
The meet:
I was excited to meet BCers at ISTE13 more than anyone else.  They know the FIPPA problems we deal with; they're not preoccupied by thinking Common Core, and they share a common need to be able to address and surmount the BC curriculum.  I talk about these three individuals together as they came across as a united team.  The meet was over several dinners and Riverwalk walks; it was great to pick each brain.

Their deal:
I'd like to say that they come from an innovative school district but it would be more accurate to say that they are developing an innovative school district.  I enjoyed hearing about their reading fluency enhancing Ipod touch/Ipad project in particular as it related to my own BYOT classroom.  You can learn about the project here.  I also appreciated their foray into a new report card template which includes pieces such as these: a student inclusive conferencing model, a section on critical thinking, a spot for student self evaluation, and an emphasis on teacher and student coming together to set learning goals.

@troystein
The meet: Over enchiladas and gelato

His deal:
Introduced to by @jagill, I had a chance to have several motivating conversations with him.  Being a Techsmith employee, you'd think he would be all about Camtasia, SnagIt, and Jing.  Really, the software wasn't the focus, though he knew his stuff.  Through conversation he inspired me to think about teaching better.  And while I was interested in classroom flipping, he prompted me to inquire about. . .inquiry.  He made sure to introduce me to people I had to meet.  One was @ramusallam. 

@ramusallam
His deal:
You have got to see his Ted Talk here.  He's a chemistry teacher whose teaching has been transformed since his operation for a life threatening heart aneurism.  He, like his surgeon, decided on three rules to guide his occupation: curiosity comes first, embrace the mess, practice reflection.  He implores teachers to become cultivators of curiosity and inquiry.  He challenges teachers to confuse and perplex students, bringing out their own natural questions.  What could this look like in an elementary classroom?  What could it look like in middle school?  I'm very inspired to pursue this more.

@stevewandler
The meet:
I've got to give credit to this fellow as he was the one who told me about ISTE13.  He was surprised I had never heard about it.  So was I.  But that conversation lead to my attending.  And as Obi Wan says, my "first step into a larger world". Our meet-up almost never happened as the conference wifi problems created time travelling tweet black holes.  By the time I got his message that he was coming to me, I was already where he said he was.  It was very Three's Company-ish. 

His deal:
Though he isn't a teacher, he has a lot of the characteristics of a great one.  He's a connected learner who listens carefully and applies the learning to the next step.  It's formative assessment.  It's crucial whether you are a teacher imparting fraction adding or an entrepreneur teasing out the need and looking to meet it.  He's one of the founders of Freshgrade, an app to aid teachers with student assessment.  The team is using technology and innovation to make assessment meaningful, immediate, and even easy.  It's every teacher's dream and they're working on it!

Many people have asked me what I learned from ISTE13.  It has been hard responding to the question.  To me, learning cannot be disconnected from connection.  I have a hard time sharing a new concept without mentioning a person, an expert, and "inspirator".  Connection, attachment, and learning: is it any surprise that this is where the post ends up.  It's the people that make the learning enjoyable.  As teachers, as parents, as leaders, we can never forget that.