Wiki's part 4: If it's wik-able can we get rid of the sticky wikit?

Wiki part 1
Wiki part 2
Wiki part 3



Our wiki math page has already begun. If you haven't read the first 3 postings on this topic, I've got links above.

What we are trying to do is take all 46 math indicators at the 7th grade level in our Ohio school and get the students to choose one and then try to teach themselves that one math indicator. Afterwards, our goal is to have each student visit every indicator before their May testing date and see if they can pick up a little extra math knowledge.

What does that mean for me, the techie guy who is the tech instructor in a lab setting where the math wikiwork is being done while the math teacher is far away in another room. To answer that question, you gotta know a couple things about me.

First, even though I'm the techie guy, I have a math certification and taught 6th and 7th grade math for several years before I got into the tech teaching side of the world. I also taught math part-time at Kent state for 7 years. I do have a math background, but I've been out of the business since we converted from Vic 20/Commodore 64's to our first Apple IIe days. In other words, I taught basic programming and math until the IIe's came in and then went full time computer ed. (I also have an masters in library science, but this is the math part of the story.)

I didn't care for math very much as a kid. By my senior year in high school, I had had enough of math and took a math class for students who never would do well in math. My guidance counselor suggested I major in math in college. I thought he was a crazy, old guy. (Sorry, Lou)

After being out of high school for 15 years, having a family, and losing my job as library/media specialist just because of seniority, I realized that math might be a worthwhile certification to get. I enrolled again at Kent State, atoned for my math sins by spending hours at the library while my poor wife suffered without help with the kids, and eventually gained the holy grail of ceritfications that eventually led me to teaching the dang subject; a subject that I learned to respect during this second go-around. (In the interim, I got my media job back...it's a long story.)

That's when I got my chance to teach math. I felt confident enough in math that, if someone threw problems at me and gave me a few minutes, I knew I would be able to solve a high percentage of them. If I was tired, or had a rough day for some reason, my percentage would drop. So, with total focus, I was pretty good. But, if tired...forget it. And with 3 young kids at home, coaching after school, and part time teaching, I had a lot of those tired days.

When I would prepare for a class, and it didn't matter if it was 6th grade or college I would start it a couple days before the class was supposed to be taught. I would try to go through every example, homework problem, and potential question that I thought might come up. Inevitably, though, during the lesson, someone would have a question that would pop up that I couldn't answer. Sometimes it was because of the way the question was asked to me other times was because I was having a brain flatulation at that moment.

As I look back on my past I would see myself as a slow learner who needed to have enough time to play with a concept before I could learn it. (I was so slow it would take me 3 minutes to play the minute waltz.) In high school, I felt like I could never keep up and, in math class, I hated the pressure of coming into school the next day and not really knowing the concept we learned the day before. I felt stupid.

Even with my slow rate of learning, though, if I learned something, I remembered it, or, at least I could work my way back to that learned, but forgotten, concept with some fundamental understanding of pre-concepts I could draw on and build to a repeat "Eureka" experience.

I always thought that the Eureka "learning a concept" experience was like a butterfly that would flutter toward me, land nearby for a moment where I could enjoy its beauty, suddenly flutter away for no reason, and land near you a second time for a brief moment. Just as quickly as it made its surprise stop, it would move on and out of sight. But I always have that memory of the beauty of that butterfly. Learning comes and goes just like that butterfly, but once we have the vision, we have it forever. We can call that vision back up when we need it.

And, I couldn't memorize. I remember one marching band season where our band director came in and said that we had to memorize our music instead of using music holders. I was a better than average trumpet player who became less than average on the field that season because I couldn't memorize the music. I knew then I could never be the next Louie Armstrong or Dizzy Gillespie because I never saw them playing off a music stand.

My whole career, I wouldn't tell anybody about these deficiencies, otherwise they'd boot me right out of teaching and I knew I couldn't support my family while flipping burgers. And, since I've been able to fool everyone all these years, I finally thought, what the heck, maybe I'm not the only teacher who suffers these same problems. Maybe I'm not as dumb as I thought.

Now, I'm not mentioning any of this to get you or me depressed about the future of teaching, I'm just trying to be honest. I have to work for what I get, others have to work for what they get, and, at times, even though we wish it was easier for all of us, we've got to come to terms with personal short-comings.

It's because of these short-comings that I like to work with other teachers. I have to embrace my short-comings. There are much smarter people than me, much better teachers than me, and by the grace and patience that they give me, I can improve at helping kids learn and feel a little more success and self-worth.

So back to the wikimath and what it means to someone like me. It makes me wish that Mrs. M. and I had more time to plan for this wiki. She has a great vision of learning, is one of our master teachers, and knows how to teach math well. But, we each had six classes, school obligations, families, meetings; it all adds up to very little time to plan.

Even with these limitations we decided to jump into the wikimath. We figured that, just the act of structuring a second daily period where students would get to mix with math concepts with technology, that it certainly couldn't hurt them in preparation for the May tests. So we passed a couple emails, chose the indicator theme, put together a few guidelines, discussed a picture of what we each wanted to see come out of this project, and we jumped in.

Originally, we were going to do a blog, but I decided to go the wiki route after thinking that the blog wasn't structured enough to offer the links we wanted to see. If we had more time, we wanted to work through an indicator ourselves, just to see where the possible pitfalls would be. I wish we had the time to do.

We didn't have the background experience in place or the hours of deliberation that teachers normally have when they plan an activity. I didn't know if the wiki was the right way to go, or if it would support the vision completely without causing a big mess. What if the kids didn't accept the project, or what if we got started and we didn't have the software tools in place to support them if they did embrace the project? I had never done a wiki before, so I didn't know the problems we might encounter.

Some of the pre-planning deficiencies did cause some problems, but, so far, we've been able to overcome them. Supplies included an 8mm video camera, (no capture card in school but I have one at home), a digital camera, access to a smart board (Students have been using it all year in Mrs. M.'s math class), and the 28 computers in the lab. Of course, our district tech guys have Deep-Freeze installed on our computers, so, if we needed to get some freebies installed, that wouldn't be done over night. As it was, we needed to get Windows Media Encoder and Audacity installed onto the computers which, we have Audacity now but no encoder, yet. We do have Window's Movie Maker on the computers which one group of 3 students used as of yesterday.

After 7 class days into the project and 2 of those 7 days without internet access, we did encounter some successes and some "not-yet" successes. I set up a video camera to record the class one day, just to see if students are on task. I'm afraid to view it, yet, but I promise I will. My cursory glances around the room in between motivating pep talks, answering questions, and trying to help students understand the indicator their working on, have show that a large percentage of the students are on task.

Each day at the beginning of class, I would try to re-affirm the importance of what they are doing, how they will be helping themselves and their classmates learn math. And, with the growing list of wiki hits picked up on our clustr map, I've been trying to point out the interest others around the world have in what these students are doing. (Talk about Schlechty and affirmation...this seems to be a natural.)

I have noticed problems in the lab, especially on the 2 days the internet went out, but since I'm in the middle of the organized chaos, I still have to step back, blog it out for a while, and reflect and analyze what I think is going on and compare it to what might really be going on in that room. The students were instructed that, what ever you were going to put into a wiki, you could type into Microsoft Word and perform a copy and paste later when the internet would be accessible. I think the internet outage effected about 50% of the kids, but I could have mis-read what was going on. I had to send for something called "math books" to be brought down to the lab so that the students could keep working on the indicators.

This morning (day 7) Mrs. McMahon (real math teacher) and I (real math teacher wannabe) talked about what we would have done different already. For example, Mrs. M. felt that with the indicators that we were too specific for the student choices. She said that we should have had the students work on math strands and concepts, develop those, and afterwards we would squeeze them into indicators. Those indicators are hard for teachers to know what they mean let alone to have 7th graders try to find the meaning. From my perspective I'd have to agree. Let the student's teach pythagorean theorem, scientific notation, and 3-dimensional shapes rather than something that says; Analyze problem situations involving measurement concepts, select appropriate strategies, and use an organized approach to solve narrative and increasingly complex problems.

Even though I have a math certification and I've taught math in the past, I looked at those indicators and thought, "What are these things?" I visited the Ohio Dept. of Ed web site and looked at their info for teachers and parents, viewed the Ohio Math Content Standards, and I realized that the idea of putting together a wiki to explain and give examples of each indicator would help me, parents, students, and math teachers. There just doesn't seem to be good examples, definitions, and quality teaching examples being produced by the leadership that are easily found and available for free downloads, assuming that ODE has produced them. No wonder our nation is slipping in math; we can't comprehend the indicators. Just kidding. I'm sure the real math teachers understand them just fine.

This leads to a weakness in the plan that we'll try to resolve next week and that is we'll make a switch for a day. Mrs. M. will get her math classes started and then we'll sprint down to each other's room, and I'll watch her math classes while she'll try to answer a few specific math-related questions in the tech class.

Another problem we're trying to resolve is that of learning math in a 21st century context. Both of us believe that an inhibitor to math learning is it's lack of "realness" to students. "When are we ever going to use this," has always, in the past, been the over-riding question of math students. I haven't heard that question, yet, but since one of our guidelines from the beginning of the wiki was to find real applications of their indicator, I've been trying to focus student attention to finding authentic examples of where their indicator is used in real life and try to teach that.

It would have been nice if I could have gone through the 7th grade math curriculum completely so that, when questions came up on how to find those connections to real life, I'd have a good handle on where to direct them to find the answer. That's where my library reference-skills background helps quite a bit but I still have fallen short on answers. Luckily, I've got a fast pen and scrap paper, so I can quickly write a pass and say, "go see Mrs. McMahon."

Another problem is my insecurity in knowing that what we are trying to accomplish is going to be successful. I want to be sure that the time invested by everyone will be time worth spent. Maybe that's unrealistic, but I wish I could be certain that the outcome will show some of the descriptors I put into a rubric that I just put up on the wikispace. I watched a great student produced video, Project Based Learning: Mummified Chicken, Mutant Frogs, and Rockets to the Moon and from that decided to visit the website of the Minnesota New County School where I found a rubric that they use at their high school. It didn't totally fit what I wanted to see but some of the decriptors formed the basis of the rubric we're using.

Assessments are another weakness of mine. A problem I'm facing now is, how do I measure the success students are having. How can I be sure that each student is on the right path of learning the things we want them to learn? In theory, I should be able to visit each wikispace and see the accomplishments of each student. I'm trying, but I don't have the organization of time (or maybe I don't have the time) to visit every page every night. And, if you remember from my story about how I learned math a little slower than others, I need the extra time to cogitate on each student's page.

Until this project is done, until we get to assess success, and until we see the final product, we won't know if "the juice was worth the squeeze." I think it is and I think we've had some successful pages already because they match the rubric. One good example is Kara Y.'s page. She had ownership and self-direction. And I think I see that in others but I haven't been good at measuring that. When I look around, I think the majority of students are self directed while a couple are snickering over something and a couple more are not anywhere near completion. As soon as I recognize that, I grab that rubric and have a one-on-one talk about being more self-directed, completing the rubric, staying on task when there are so many distractions on the internet, and reminding them that people across the world are visiting these pages. I also know that these conversations are a part of the daily, teacher's life and that there doesn't seem to be more of these discussions than normal, so that's a good thing.

So if you come across this blog, visit the harmon mathwiki site and see what positives and negatives you see from the product point of view. I'm always open for suggestions. Make a comment here. I check it every day when I have time.

At some point, when the project is done and if we see the mathwiki succeeding the way we envisioned, we'll have to decide how to invite others to join in to build a real math educational experience. Wouldn't it be neat to have, just like the wikipedia, a 21st century source for math education where all math instruction can be found in a 21st century context? What if we had a data base of all that we teach and how to teach it, not just math, where every piece was proven to have connections to the real world and in a way that it meant something to the students that will be learning it?

Are these delusions, or, with the power of the wiki and internet, the strength and participation of forward thinking people, are there a group of us able to accept the need for educational change, and make now the right time to initiate that change?

New to Blogs and how we respond

Funny. I really liked listening to Will Richardson at the Etech conference down in Columbus in Early March, 2007. It really got me thinking and, even though I've been involved in this technology thing since we got our first Vic 20's in our school, it never ceases to amaze me how, teachers communicating together, sometimes reminds me of trying to talk to someone up-wind in a 50 mph thunderstorm.

At 8:31 am Sunday morning, April 14, 2007, Will posted a response to an article and his posting, One Laptop Per Child Begins, talked about getting $100 laptops into the hands of 3rd world children to level the playing field. Richardson states that, "As Chris notes, it does make you wonder what it’s going to take to make this happen in this country as well...what’s it going to take before we understand what No Child Left Behind really means?"

I read the blog responses, I added my own response (look below) and the funny thing is, I think only a couple people were really responding to what each other said. It was like...well... like talking up wind in a thunderstorm; no one was hearing each other.

It seemed, too, that unless you wrote a book, no one really wanted to respond to what you were saying. I guess we're all sucking up to the "popular" and "famous" in the web 2.0 world. There is a blog pecking order and, since I'm new to blogs...I'm on the low end of that pecking order. (I guess some will call it sour grapes).

So, in case anybody of unimportance or someone lower in the pecking order than I am ever reads this blog, I'm going to post my "Will Richardson Response" to the newly, coined OLPC (one laptop per child) initiative that has been put in place.

By the way, I was up early that morning; my response was number 4 on Will's OLPC response list. That was exciting. I felt like John Candy in that 1984 movie Splash, where Candy gets his letter to the editor published in a magazine. (Gee, I forget the name of the mag). I'm running around with my keyboard waving in the air yelling, "It's on his blog...it's on his blog!)

So, to answer the One Laptop per child question posed about "what's it going to take" to get people in the United States to recognize the importance of getting technology into the hands of every U.S. student, here we go.

One would think that, if school districts, boards of education, and teachers could really see the importance of getting these tools into the hands of all students in America, it would get done in spite of the cost. And if we, in education, could change the way that we teach if every student had laptops, then we could probably make the sacrifices to find the finances to buy laptops, even more expensive ones, and get them into student’s hands.

For example, we could cut into a textbook budget for a year, learn to use free internet sources, drop boxes, paperless assignments, or other things that would help us find the money. We certainly wouldn't be hurt by using web info that has to be more up-to-date than the textbooks we use, and take that money saved for a year and spend it on 21st century tools.

So, what does it take. I think everyone realizes that. As the cliche goes, "It ain't rocket science." It takes systemic change, and human change, one person at a time, one small group at a time, and one heck of a communication job to get the point across to all entities involved that technology, used correctly in the right learning environment, can make a difference on what students learn. We need to gather more data that proves all students meet proficiencies through engaged, technology-enhanced, well-designed learning experiences and get that message out there to the people in charge of decision-making. It's a slow but necessary process and it's got to start somewhere. You can put laptops into the hands of millions, but if the people who count don't know what to do with the technology wants its placed, then, well, it's just like my first year of teaching when I walked into a Cleveland Elementary school, looked into a back storage room and found thousands of dollars of Title I equipment in that room with an inch of dust covering it all. Never used; never missed.

What would be really cool is if we could get all of these educational consultants all on the same page. Could we get them to quit their isolated approaches of "I know what’s best for education" and "Follow" me down "the yellow brick road" to Education-Oz where life is cheery and learning is maximized and it will only cost a small stipend. (Just take a look at all the web pages of everything from assessment specialists, value-added, 9 steps to student achievement, right brain/left brain/no brainers... everyone has the answer, but every answer can only be seen if you buy a membership to uncover the master wizardry of "their thing", and only one answer will work, so don't waste your time on others, and here, behind the magic curtain, is the Truth that you've been seeking...that will be $150.00, please.)

With organizations like George Lucas Educational Foundation and Partnership for 21st century skills, who seem so closely aligned in their framework and philosophies, it would seem that, if all the ed consultants across our nation really cared about changing the educational world for the better, they could band together under one umbrella, convince people in power how to effect change, and they would still make their money helping teachers and administrators learn how to adapt to our new, flat world. The Partnership for 21st century skills or a George Lucas Edutopian foundation, these are good organizations. There philosopies are very similar and they encompass all of these private consultant philosophies. (Why don't these two groups join forces. Bill and Melinda Gates, Dr. Phil Schlechty, don't they all basically want the same thing and aren't their beliefs basically the same?)

Once aligned, as a group, we could all make a difference. In Washington, D.C., in state legislatures, in local school districts, and in colleges where new and experienced teachers are trained, we could, as a group, communicate with everyone who is involved in education and prove with new research and data what common sense tells us; that people (students and teachers) can be engaged to learn if we create the right experiences, assist the right guidance, and help them by providing the right equipment to get the job done.

We always need consultants and we always need their help and support to get the word out and to help teachers; theres plenty of money around. The only difference is that now we work together instead of separately. We get organized. We use the same education language. If we stand together, we can effect change. We help each other instead of competing; we use the same, successful teaching skills, we get support of the non-educational community. We could get every teacher up to speed with the way subjects need to be taught in this advanced technological world and to more technologically savvy students. We could call the movement, No Teacher Left Behind.

So, I guess what I’m saying is that, the $100 dollar laptop isn’t the problem. It wouldn’t matter if it cost $1000. We in teaching are certainly part of the problem. Until we can get educators more concerned and more knowledgeable about what student’s really need to know as they enter the adult world; until we get legislatures more in tune with the same important knowledge, until we get our own special interest group with teachers, administrators, and consultants leading the demand for change, then we’ll still be here, 50 years from now, wondering why we can’t get the “$5.00 expandable cell phone/laptop/snickerdoodle” or whatever the technology will be, into the hands of our students.

And if we do get that equipment into the hands of the students, hopefully, we won't be wondering, as teachers, "Well, now that we have it, what do we do with it?"

5 year strategic plan part 2

Our School District Action Plan

The Partnership for 21^st Century Skills organization takes a comprehensive approach to preparing students for the future. During the research and presentations of our 5 year strategic planning group, many questions, concerns, and suggested directions were expressed that clearly aligned with the goals stated by the Partnership for 21^st Century Skills. From formative assessments, state standards, multi-cultural approach to education, and NCLB to the skills necessary for students to be successful in our rapidly changing world, this partnership offers a direction that a forward-thinking school district such as ours should adopt as its own.

One of the statements at the on-set of our strategic planning group was, “Don’t re-invent the wheel,” and, with adoption of this partnerships platform we could put our district on a well-planned course of action that rides on the shoulders of many community, business, and educational leaders who spent countless hours developing a plan that we could not match in time or resources. This organization has developed plans that cover learning and teaching as well as leading, managing, and partnering,

It would be wise for us to spend time to really get to know this platform and its full potential before we adopt an action plan that could be short-sighted and leave us without focus and constantly scrambling to put together other in-service opportunities that may or may not accomplish what they set out to do. We need to adopt an all-encompassing vision for our district that guides our decision-making in curriculum, instruction, technology, assessments, community, and results in us fulfilling our mission statement; our promise to the community to deliver the best possible education that we can.

We need to either embrace this Partnership or find another path. I think that, if we really get to know what this partnership is all about, we’ll see that it covers the need to focus on math and science, languages, NCLB, and the critical skills for graduates of our digital world. This organization offers resources to districts to assess where the district is and what it needs to do next. I think we’ll find that its objectives are similar to our International Baccalaureate program, but that these objectives are for everyone, not just a select few.

What we need to do as a group is have everyone view their small group presentation in relation to the 21stcenturyskills.org materials and see if it is inclusive of the group’s findings. It could make our job a little easier, because then, we could adopt the 21^st century platform and work from a cohesive vision.

What I mean is, we need a common thread in our action plan that incorporates the 5 part action plan developed by our leaders. My fear is that this set of 5 action plans will be done in isolation of each other when, in fact they should be done blended together in a 21^st century framework, with 21^st century tools, skills, and assessments. If we think some things are left out, we should easily be able to plug them into this plan.

So, what I’ve done is taken the 5 step action plan proposed by our leaders and plugged it into a 21^st century framework with some modifications.

The outcome of that effort is below.

Action plan: Adopt 21st century skills, as stated by the partnership for 21st Century skills, and embed these skills into our school district's standards.

Action Steps:

1. Perform self-assessment of district using Partnership for 21^st Century Skills Mile Guide and begin our action from where we are now.

(The Partnership for 21st Century Skills developed the Milestones for Improving Learning and Education (MILE) Guide for 21st Century Skills to assist educators and administrators in measuring the progress of their schools in defining, teaching and assessing 21st Century Skills.)

2. Embed 21st century skills into every grade and into every core subject, as identified by NCLB and the Partnership for 21^st Century Skills.

3. Align incoming state and federal requirements into a 21^st century framework.

4. Align all professional Development opportunities to support the goal of providing 21^st century education to all students.

a. Train administrators in 21st century skills.

b. Bring in support from Partnership for 21^st Century Skills

c. Visit states incorporating 21^st Century Skills into standards.

d. Visit school districts that have incorportated 21^st century skills into their standards, such as Lawrence Township Schools, Indiana.

e. Provide on-going professional development in a 21^st century framework and teaching in a 21^st century context.

f. Develop a collection of teacher produced examples of technology-curricular integration best practice lessons (podcasts, vodcasts, webcasts, etc.)

g.Create instructional technology position for each building to assist teachers to be able to integrate technology skills into the classroom.

h.Formally recognize and support the efforts of the Sandbox technology team who research and develop the technology advancements that will impact our students.

i. Provide time and training to continue the successful implementation of professional learning communities in a 21^st century framework. This should encompass all aspects of the framework includingdevelopment/revision of common summative and formative assessments and to increase teacher assessment literacy.

j. Provide all teachers the comprehensive definition of assessment literacy. (Differentiation, authentic learning)

k. Develop a graduate credit course offering within the district focusing on the essential assessment skills to increase student learning and guide daily instruction in a 21^st century framework.

Embed the 21st century framework into the curriculum maps/pacing and common assessment development in the curriculum revision process.

5. Provide all students with opportunities to work in a 21^st century framework with 21^st century tools.

1. To provide transportation opportunities for students involved in after school programs (PARTA, Activity Bus, Parent volunteers)
2. Establish a high school course for credit for students that provide community service hours (tutoring, mentoring, etc,)
3. Develop additional club(s) to provide opportunities for social development and multi-cultural experiences for students.
4. Extend the computer labs hours outside of the regular school day to provide opportunities for every student to have greater access to technology.
5. Development of a Pyramid of Strategies for each building utilizing best practice interventions for student academic and behavioral support.
6. Institution of a process for referral of a student to the intervention system. Using classroom data (AimsWeb, classroom assessment) to identify the appropriate intervention level.
7. Adoption of a social skills curriculum for students needing additional support.
8. Identify pre-Kindergarten students that do not meet the academic benchmarks and provide opportunities for intervention to close the gap.
9. Adopt the Physical Education waiver approved by the Ohio State Legislation for students who have two seasons of athletics, marching band, or cheerleading, giving students the required graduation credit, and allowing these students to replace that time with other 21^st century skill opportunities.
10. Provide an expanded Foreign Language program for students beginning in the elementary school so that all students can learn in a 21^st century context and “utilize non-English languages as a tool for understanding other nations and cultures.”

These plans above are based on the following Partnership for 21^st Century Skills 9 steps to build momentum as presented in the Mile Guide.

1. Embrace a powerful vision of public education that includes 21st century skills.

2. Align leadership, management and resources with educational goals.

3. Use this tool (Mile Guide) to assess where schools are now.

4. Develop priorities for 21^st century skills.

5. Develop a professional development plan for 21st century skills.

6. Make sure students have equitable access to a 21^st century education.

7. Begin developing assessments to measure student progress in 21st century skills.

8. Collaborate with outside partners.

9. Plan collectively and strategically for the future.

Definitions:

A 21^st century framework includes the core subjects as identified by NCLB, 21^st century content (global awareness, financial, economic, business and entrepreneurial literacy,), learning and thinking skills (critical thinking and problem solving skills, communication skills, creativity and innovation skills, collaboration skills, information and media literacy skills, and contextual learning skills), information and communications technology skills(ability to use technology to develop 21^st century content knowledge and skills), life skills (leadership, ethics, accountability, adaptability, personal productivity, personal responsibility, people skills, self direction, and social responsibility), and 21^st century assessments “(Authentic 21st century assessments are the essential foundation of a 21st century education. Assessments must measure all five results that matter - core subjects; 21st century content; learning skills; ICT literacy; and life skills. To be effective, sustainable and affordable, assessments must use modern technologies to increase efficiency and timeliness. Standardized tests alone can measure only a few of the important skills and knowledge students should learn. A balance of assessments, including high-quality standardized testing along with effective classroom assessments, offers students a powerful way to master the content and skills central to success).”

21st century context: teaching through the use of relevant real-world examples, applications and settings to frame academic content for students, enabling them to see the connection between their studies and the world in which they live.

Taken from Framework for 21^st Century Learning by The Parnership for 21^st Century Skills.

Look Mom, no hands; Starting the Math Wiki without training wheels

There is a wiki part 1





So we've already started the math wikipage and without training wheels. The purpose of this blog is to act as counsel to anyone who wants to start a wiki page and a few things to look for. Since we're doing this without training wheels, I'm sure we'll find a lot of problems that will crop up and, of course, we're not sure about any success; we are making our best guess that, any work students will do on this math wiki, will be better than no work.

The goal we decided on was to take all of the Ohio math indicators for 7th grade and have students teach it the way they think it should be taught. We (Mrs. McMahon. and I) tried to set up some guidelines, requirements, and a sample page in the limited time we had to plan. We both have 6 classes of 7th graders and I, as the techie class teacher, have most of her math students.

Mrs. M. named the wiki and came up with the original description of the task at hand. I added my perspective on the project after reading Mrs. M's, and I added an mp3 and an embedded youtube video, so that the students could see the possibilities.

We knew that, because of scheduling and after-school conflicts, we really weren't going to have much more time to plan together. Since testing is coming up soon, we figured that any re-visiting of math indicators outside of math class would be better than no re-visiting, so we decided to just jump into the project and if a couple kids got something out of it we would be further ahead. We also believe that this project fits all of the ISTE standards as proposed in their Jan. 07 draft of technology standards.

So thus begins the project called:

A Student's Point of View: The Ohio Math Standards

I had already gotten the free educational wikispace from wikispaces.com and named the url for the page. During our techie classes, I did a random, visual survey, just to see if any of the students had done wiki pages before or knew what they were and, surprisingly, no one had. But, even more surprisingly, more than half of our students had myspace accounts.

While Mrs. M. was introducing the project in math classes, I began doing a similar intro in my classes, but, to be honest, my intro was more wiki and safety oriented than math oriented. I talked about a TV news investigator series about how a reporter found out addresses, sports, and other family activities, including dates and times, at a myspace account of a high school sophomore or junior. He met her at her house one day and told her so many things about her that she swore she never put on myspace. The reporter said that she didn't, but all her visitors did.

I think kids were surprised at the story, but, I'll have to do a questionaire at the end to see if my observation was accurate.

Then we jumped right into the assignment: Student chooses a math indicator (that the student doesn't know), learn everything about it, and teach it the way you think it should be taught. Luckily, everyone knew about the new TV show, "Are you smarter than a 5th grader", so it was easy to say that, from that show we've learned that parents aren't as smart as us so, we should teach the math concept as if we were trying to teach our parents. (I haven't heard the parental complaints, yet. I just hope there's a sense of humor out there.)

I told the students to check how well they teach the concept by asking their parents to read the wiki page and get their opinion. Hopefully, they do ask their parents because any affirmation they give to the importance of the assignment could increase engagement in the project.

A slight digression

Anything Schlechty that we can do we'll squeeze in. Our middle school went through Schlechty training back in the late 90's as part of our Schoolnet Raising the bar, 3 year project. Sometimes it's sad how some perfectly sound principles of education are abandoned because of a new fad that comes along, but that's for another blog entry.

So, here's my Schlechty checklist for the project

☛ Content and substance ( math indicators and iste indicators)
☛ Organization of knowledge (We are hoping that the modeling we've done, the guidelines, the demo of how to find keywords in the indicator and searching the web, and the pre-instruction on the indicators done in math class, will stimulate active participation, self-instruction, and, with the novelty/affirmation and other Schlechty elements of engaged learning, that the students will persevere until the task is complete.)
☛ Product focus ( meaningful to students, we hope that this is by virtue of "teaching each other the way you think it should be taught," that the world will access this wiki, tests coming up in May, and that each student will be visiting and learning from your page)
☛ Clear and compelling product standards (This is a weakness from not enough planning. We've given a demo of what it could look like and guidelines/checklist on what we would like to see in the presentation of the wikipage, but we need more. Us teachers needed to work through a concept together to be more specific on the final outcome. Maybe what we have is enough...)
☛ Protection from adverse consequences for initial failures (this is in the process. In other words, we need to visit pages on a consistent basis to make sure that the student is on a successful path. We are doing this, but, as the project moves on, we'll need to communicate to every student, which is difficult just like any assignment is difficult to give immediate feedback on. Hopefully the teachers will succeed).
☛ Affirmation of the significance of performance (we have had a couple visitors to our pages from outside our little world after only a day on the project. We'll try to get parents viewing the pages, also.)
☛ Affiliation (Students can work with partners)
☛ Novelty and variety(Students teaching the concept, use of wiki, podcasts, vodcasts and other audiovisuals)
☛ Choice (Students can work with partners, indicators chosen, how to teach the concept, audiovisuals used).
☛ Authenticity(Finding how the concept is used in real life, teaching others in school and all who access the wikipage.)

So following this post will be other postings on the progress of this project. I need to get this down now that I've got a spring break and can have some time to reflect on the start of the project. We've had a couple problems already, which I'll put in my next post.

Using a Wiki in School Part 1

Getting ready to invest courage in a 7th grade math project with my classes was, well, scary. First, I haven't taught math in years, since I began being the tech guy at our school, and, second, because as I stated in one of my other postings, I was caught sleeping during the Web 2.0 invasion. It was an etech conference in Columbus this year and listening to keynote speakers Will Richardson and Susan Patrick that finally slapped me awake. Just as Susan Patrick was telling her education analogy about steamships and planes, I found myself on an old, steamship bound for 1961 (The year Roger Maris broke the Babe's 60 homerun barrier.) I guess, since 1961, better conditioning techniques, equipment (livelier balls), and training entered the game and "possibly" brought about the advancement of new homerun hitters like, McGwire and Sosa. But whether it was bouncier baseballs or not, the new techniques of developing our athletes certainly has had an impact on the game.

Now, just like baseball, education has new techniques, equipment, and training and I need to take advantage of what's available or I won't be an effective hitter in the game. Occasionally, I might be able to hit the homerun ball but I really want to hit over 60 of them in a school year (about 1 every 3 school days).

I guess, to carry the analogy a little further, the web 2.0; wikis, blogs, youtubes, flickr, vods and pods are the steroids that enter the game. They can be dangerous but they certainly enhance performance, and it's that danger that scares me. I know what kind of garbage is out there; the bad sites and the bad people. Most of our parents know what's out there and as a teacher and parent, I want to engage students so that they really want to learn, but I want to make sure that they want to learn the "right" things. I want to help them learn the things that will develop them to become a major league hitter in whatever profession they choose.

The Partnership for 21st century skills, Edutopia, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation certainly have identified those skills that students need to have and the approach that educators need to take to get our students to learn how to learn, and no matter what us old-timers say and do, we can't avoid the impact of that hi-tech trans-atlantic airplane/rocket/space shuttle/space elevator that is rapidly flying over our heads while our young ones fly in it every day without a well-defined, positive destination.

I certainly can't solve all the problems in the world or in education and I've already proven by my great sleeping ability that I'm not a leader in this field of technology integration. But, when I see something that makes sense and stimulates my desire to learn, like the potential value in education of a wiki or a secondlife.com, I've got to jump in regardless of my fears.

Luckily, I'm not in it alone, because I've got a real math teacher who also will invest her courage and time into the project. Collaboration; a 21st century skill, I guess it really is important.

A Five year Strategic Plan

It's funny how schools have to develop a 5 year strategic plan. My gut reaction is, a 5 year plan without our "best guess_ vision" of what we think education can look like in 5 years will only put us another 5 years behind. In fact, at the rate of technological innovation and invention of new ways to apply it to education, we could fall even a higher multiple of 5 years behind. So, whatever plan schools develop, there has to be a built in flexibility, a "research and development" initiative that will do it's best to keep up with the on-line educational community and technology.

This is the strategy our committee was given:

Strategy #1 Develop and implement plans for the integration of technology, curriculum, instruction and assessment to help students meet Aurora Standards on Achievement tests and academic benchmarks, to include special needs students and co-curricular programs.


Our first step was to define a couple words from above


Definition of education - noun
the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university: a course of education. • the theory and practice of teaching: colleges of education. • [count noun] a body of knowledge acquired while being educated: his ...
(From The Oxford Dictionary of English (2nd edition revised) in English Dictionaries & Thesauruses)

Definition - to instruct
impart knowledge to; direct, command; put in order.

(From The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology in English Language Reference)

Our first step as a group was to decide on whether the questions that were in the “instruction” category actually were questions dealing with “instruction”.

Second we decided to categorize the research ideas and questions into 4 divisions. Those divisions were:

1. Assessment
…the process of gathering information about students-what they know and can do.
(From Authentic Assessment a handbook for educators ; Diane Hart, Addison-Wesley pub., c.1994)

• What is Collaboration and common assessments?
• What is Systemic strategy for intervention and support?
• How do we measure continued improvement on test scores? (moved from Aurora Standards)
• What models are available for systematic intervention and support?
• Are common assessments teacher friendly? (are we about teachers or students)
• Are these common assessments learning friendly; student friendly?
• Can we differentiate and still have common assessments?
• How well do Aurora students compare to international standards?
• How does authentic assessment impact students with significant needs – what does it look like?
• How do we analyze data, tests and assessments and get it to teachers in a usable way so teachers can be more effective in helping students learn what they need to learn?

2. Teacher Training
The training of teacher’s on “how-to” do things.

• How to teach problem solving and critical thinking
• PLC increase time for collaboration
• How do we retrain existing teachers to prepare for the 21st century
• How are fluid class groupings managed/organized
• How can we embrace differences in teaching styles

3. Teaching Methods
Different ways that teacher’s help students to learn.

• Focus on science and math instruction
• Student choice
• Learning environment, not teaching environment
• Authentic learning
• How can we get more efficient contact time with students
• How do we make math and science more enjoyable for our students
• How do real scientists and mathematicians think
• How can we differentiate in large classrooms

4. Structure
The organization of the school day.

• More contact time with students

What is Assessment?

Assessment , as stated earlier is the process of gathering information about students-what they know and can do. Evaluation is the process of interpreting and making judgments about assessment information. By itself assessment data is neither good or bad. It simply mirrors what is going on in the classroom. This information becomes meaningful only when we decide that it reflects something that we value, such as how well a student has mastered long division. The key question in evaluation is: Are students learning what we want them to learn? (From Authentic Assessment a handbook for educators ; Diane Hart, Addison-Wesley pub., c.1994

In January, 2007, Gene R. Carter, Executive Director of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, wrote an article titled, “Why Tests Aren’t Enough”. In his article, he cites why the ASCD High School Reform Proposal is making one of it’s top 5 priorities to be multiple ways of assessing student learning. “The ASCD High School Reform Proposal includes multiple measures of assessment as one of its top five priorities because we know tests alone are an incomplete measure of what we want students to know and do well.

ASCD has also included multiple measures of assessment as a top priority in its Legislative Agenda, because a more sophisticated system of assessment is essential for students of all ages. Better assessment systems with multiple measures mean better accountability for school improvement and better data that educators can use to help each student succeed.”
States and districts need high quality standardized tests that measure students’ performance of the elements of a 21st century education. However, standardized tests alone can measure only a few of the important skills and knowledge we hope our students will learn. A balance of assessments — that is, high-quality standardized testing for accountability purposes and classroom assessments for improved teaching and learning in the classroom — offers students a powerful way to master the content and skills central to success in the 21st century. To be effective, sustainable and affordable, sophisticated assessment at all levels must use new information technologies to increase efficiency and timeliness. From “Learning for the 21st Century: A Report and MILE Guide for 21st Century Skills by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, www.21stcenturyskills.org .



Assessment is one of the most powerful educational tools for promoting effective learning. But it must be used in the right way. There is no evidence that increasing the amount of testing will enhance learning. Instead the focus needs to be on helping teachers use assessment, as part of teaching and learning, in ways that will raise pupils’ achievement. The Assessment Reform Group, Assessment for Learning: Beyond the black box, currently funded by The Nuffield Foundation and consists of: Professor Patricia Broadfoot, University
of Bristol Professor Richard Daugherty, University of Wales, Aberystwyth; et al. http://www.qca.org.uk/7444.html

Why Assess?

• Provide diagnosis
• Set standards
• Evaluate progress
• Communicate results
• Motivate performance

My proposal for the 5 year plan is 3-fold:

1. One of our strategies should be to investigate and utilize a variety of assessment systems to help teachers in the classroom with as immediate as possible, formative assessment data and strategies to help each student be more successful in school. We need to find the right blend of formative assessments. We need to include assessments of 21st Century Learning skills such as, Higher-Order Thinking skills, Problem Solving, Critical Thinking, information and communication skills, and interpersonal and self-directional skills.
This includes a mix of:

A. Completion, Short-Answer, and extended response
B. Multiple-Choice and Matching Exercises
C. Essay Assessment Tasks
D. Performance, Portfolio, and Authentic




2. We need to provide teachers with the training, environment, and support to be successful in utilizing a variety of teaching methods, assessment development, assessment data and interpretation, and strategies to use the information to help students be more successful. This includes:

A. Assessment tools and technology
B. On-line educational environments that meet standards with viable and immediate assessment feedback

3. We need to provide a “Research and Development” initiative to keep the school district aware of and working with new developments in education, not just in the area of educational philosophy but also in the research-driven, technological enhancement of student learning. This includes hardware, software, on-line educational environments, and other developments that have yet to be discovered.

Where is Education Going?

Will there really be school buildings in the future? Will all of education be like RiverCity or SecondLife?

Is it years away or is it just around the corner?

My opinion is that the new "schoolhouse" is in development now and pieces and parts of it have been put together for our kids, already, if we are ready to see it. That's what my goal is, now is to incorporate as much of this new stuff as I can. Reminds me of Thomas Friedman's book, "The World is flat"; that is, Friedman keeps referring to, "While I slept..." the world changed on him. Realistically, he was one of the few who was awake. For me, I'm supposed to be in the middle of the tech world as a teacher, but, I've been asleep, too, and the world has changed. "Web 2.0" has taken over, and left me behind. Also, true visionaries in education, like Chris Dede of Harvard and his "River City" project, certainly has nudged me toward the new and better direction of education and I find that it will be a place where "No child will be left behind" because the "distributed learning" concept of Dr. Dede's will become the norm.

Imagine a virtual world where every country has created learning environments for all of the subject areas deemed important for societies to live and grow; music, math, science, languages, art, history, geography, and others. Imagine the opportunity for any student of any age to visit and be immersed into those areas of choice where he or she will be challenged to collaborate with others, learn new things, develop new knowledge, and share discoveries. What an engaging, virtual world we live in. And, to continue with Chris Dede's philosophy of new learning styles, with the power of handhelds, laptops, and other technological advances that we might not be aware of yet, teachers will have open to them a plethora of real and virtual learning tools available to them in there 21st century toolbox for teaching. After all, we still have all the educational teaching tools from the 20th century. Not that all of them are outdated, but we certainly have to be selective in what we choose to utilize and aware that, no matter what types of teaching tools that we use, we still have to find the blend of tools that will work best.

Here's a great video of Chris Dede as a keynote speaker being presented by Alan November. Please watch.

http://nlcommunities.com/podcasts/1798/blc06/entry84465.aspx

The Orchestration of Education: Analysis not Paralysis

These are Random thoughts not yet complete - feel free to complete them

1. First, there needs to be a desire to play an instrument or to play in the band. Students have heard, seen, or felt something that captured their heart and imagination. Sometimes an external force (like a parent) gets them into it.
2. Certain skills are taught on an individual basis. Reading music, playing scales. The fundamentals are given to individuals. The instrument is technology. It is the means through which we create the music.
3. Section skills are taught, i.e., trumpets can go into a separate room and try playing certain passages of a song. More experienced students can help the less experienced students.
4. Every lesson needs to be Schlechty-ized to engage as many students as possible. The juice has to be worth the squeeze. If all the student’s are playing and if the director knows the score, the director can hear a general area where someone isn’t quite right with their playing. So the director focuses in on that section, 3rd trumpet for example, and has only that section play until the person making the mistake is recognized and corrected either immediately, if possible, or later if the individual skill has to be re-taught. We need to recognize those few who aren’t playing their instrument, and raise the level of desire or the level of anxiety so that they will want to play the instrument.
5. Like a band class, everybody needs to perform
6. Every body needs to practice, but there always has to be a way that the practice is efficient and that everyone practices the right things. People have to have immediate, individual response during practice. Skills must be taught and re-taught so that the student has a good vision of what is right and if something goes wrong, how to self-correct. What are individual tendencies, how to be aware of those tendencies, and how to correct ourselves. Self correction is a must because the teacher can not always be there during the practice time. In sports, it’s muscle memory or feeling how to start a golf swing, to feel where the back swing goes, to feel how to transition to the fore swing, and then trusting to let it go. See it. Feel it. Trust it. In music, could it be hear it, feel it, trust it.
7. Change our focus of assessing. In other words, if everyone is playing their “instrument, it’s the one’s with the wrong notes that we hear and need to correct immediately. The other students who seem to be proficient (who aren’t playing the wrong notes) need to have direction on “where do I go from here.” In other words, what fine tunings are necessary and how do I get to the next level. There should always be a “where do I go from here” for everyone. On the other hand, there should always be an opportunity to sit back momentarily and enjoy what one has accomplished. This is also a “learned” behavior, and it’s necessary to keep the motivation up and moving forward.
8. So now, let’s apply this to every subject. Math, science, language arts, etc.


a. Individual Motivation
b. Confidence
c. Must have the skills needed to perform
d. Must be able to recognize when you aren’t in tune or sounding good.
e. Must be able to self-correct
f. Always think about how to reach another level
g. Enjoy your success
h. Be able to move on.

Now, let's think like a scientist. Let's assume that all things are possible. Let's look at a "Space Elevator" and think: if this can be accomplished, what can we do in our schools?