Did You Know?

As I was completing my video entry for the 2009 Google Teacher Academy, I kept coming back to a phrase I heard somewhere, "We are currently preparing students for jobs and technologies that don't yet exist, using technologies that haven't been invented, in order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet." That line has stuck with me since I first heard it.

I meet so many teachers that think we are instilling knowledge into children. The best teachers think that we are teaching students how to think and learn, for the knowledge will become obsolete.

For my project, I was determined to find the source of this great quote.

My search led me to The Fischbowl blog and a post about the original PowerPoint presentation, entitled "Did You Know?," created by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod. Apparently, XPLANE has reworked the information into this thought provoking video (2007).

Encyclopedia od Educational Technology

I ran across this neat resource the other day. Published by the San Diego State University Department of Educational Technology, this Encyclopedia of Educational Technology contains entries on such topics as wikis, brain-based learning and myth of multitasking. Check out the Table of Contents!

Twittering Your Life Away...

I don't get the fascination with Twitter. Yet. I just don't think people would care what I am doing or thinking in 140 characters or less. I have enough trouble deciding if anyone cares about my infrequent status updates on Facebook. And between Facebook, email, SMS, and life, I have enough chatter in my existence... do I need to "follow" more?

I had to laugh when I watched the following clip, part of an animated sketch series called "SuperNews" on current.com. (Fair warning: there is a cartoon compound fracture/blood at the end... you'd think I'm over-reacting, but I've had a number of students faint from Discovery Channel's computer animated bleeding.)



According to its website, Supernews is "seen by millions spares neither the topical nor the timely. From atheism and gay marriage, to Obama’s presidential cabinet and the massive pressure to be witty in Evite replies, SuperNews takes on the best (and worst) of politics, pop culture and technology."

RIP: iMovie 06 download is no longer available

So, I'll admit it, I haven't been keeping up on my Mac news. I heard about Steve Job's health issues, the new iPod Shuffle and the contract-free iPhone, but somehow I missed this - Apple pulled their iMovie 06 download?!

I was horrified by the new iMovie 08. However, I was mollified by Apple graciously providing a free download of iMovie HD 6 to all registered users of iLife ’08. This afternoon, a young filmaker asked me how to "get that version of iMovie that's cool" because she doesn't like "the one with the star." So, I head over to my trusty link and... gasp!... page not found! Apparently, on Jan 27, 2009, blogs started to report that Apple had removed the download page for iMovie HD 6 in preparation for their iMovie 09 release.

Oh, how I wished I had archived that dmg....

Wonderful Website: Learn.Genetics

It's been too long since I have blogged, however, I am inspired by a number of excellent websites I have been using. My goal is to highlight one each week. Here is one of my all-time favorites:


Learn.Genetics

About the organization: The Genetic Science Learning Center is a science and health education that is part of the University of Utah. Their mission is "making science easy for everyone to understand." Learn.Genetics delivers educational materials on genetics, bioscience and health topics. Another site, Teach.Genetics, provides resources for K-12 teachers, higher education faculty, and public educators.

About the site: There is a wealth of user-friendly reference material on stem cells, cloning and more. There is a collection of Virtual Labs and a wonderful Tour of the Basics.

Shelfari - Social Networking for Book Lovers!

I love books, bordering on an addiction. I don't watch movies, and I don't even own a TV, but I read more than I should. Reading entertains me, educates me, and provides an excellent form of procrastination. And it passes the time on public transportation.

So, imagine my glee when a student "requested friendship" to a site called Shelfari. Now, as a middle school teacher, I have been invited to join MySpace, Facebook, IMVU, and even Club Penguin by my students. I have shied away from such social networking sites in the past, however, I have never been able to resist a good book.

I checked out the site and it was love at first sight. The site allows you to track which books you have read, are reading, and are planning to read. You can give ratings, write reviews and document when you completed each book. Like most social networking sites, you can post questions to discussion boards and read others' reviews. You can also recommend books to friends. Plus the user interface is really clear and easy.

At first, I thought I wouldn't want to take the time to upkeep my account, but there is something strangely satisfying about seeing all those texts sitting on my "shelf," chronicling my recent literary adventures. It is also great to add book recommendations to my "planning to read shelf" since I have often written recommendations on scrap paper, only to lose them by the time I checked out my next book.

Shelfari was launched in October 2006. This Seattle startup was founded by former RealNetworks employees Josh Hug and Kevin Beukelman. "Just as Flickr was social media around photos or YouTube around videos or Digg around news, we are building the first social media site focused on people that read books," said Hug.

Shelfari, like any self-respecting website, has its own blog. From their blog, I learned that Shelfari was acquired by Amazon in late August, 2008.

Although, all does not seem to be rosy. According to a blog post of one of Shelfari's competitors, LibraryThing, Shelfari has some nefarious practices that can result in spam being sent to your address book. According to this post:

The method is simple. When you sign up for Shelfari you are dumped into a screen that offers to send out check-out-my-books invitations to friends. The user interface is confusing and deceptive, and what seems like an attempt to continue into the site really sends out hundreds or thousands of letters to everyone you've ever known by email. Reminder-letters follow. Skipping this step requires clicking out-of-the-way, gray non-underlined text.

I don't think I've had a problem with it. Perhaps I was diligent in checking the "out-of-the-way, gray, non-underlined text." Or, maybe because I don't let ANY website troll my address books for "friends" (already on Shelfari). Apparently, if you choose to do that, the site is unclear. One blog commenter says, "The thing is, I didn't even see the 600 checked names (many of whom I promised not to spam) because they were checked down below my screen, and the "Send Invitations" button right underneath your "Friends Already on Shelfari" makes it look like you're only sending invitations to those guys. Slick, slick, slick." So keep your eyes open. And just type in your friend's addresses if you want to invite anyone.

I still think it is a great site. If anyone has used its competitors, GoodReads or LibraryThing, I would love to know your thoughts.

Dreaming of ScreenFlow

So, a few months back, I researched screencast software and video converters. Now I need to find a way to accent my mouseclicks (Mouseposé 3?) As I embark on this new screencasting adventure, I think I have found the ultimate program - ScreenFlow, released by Vara Software in February 2008, with the most recent update to version 1.1 just weeks ago. Here are just some comments from the blogosphere that lead me to check it out:

• "a recently released product called ScreenFlow just flat out rocks. For how simple it is to make great screen casts, it’s pretty mind blowing really." - I, Blog
• "screencasts made on Macs just got exponentially better"- tauw.com
• "I’m calling it The iTunes of Screencasting" - Fraser Speirs
• "Users who need to create video tutorials will find a program like ScreenFlow indispensable" - macnn
  
• "comes as a huge sigh of relief and wave of elation for Mac screencasters everywhere" - WebTVWire

I was smitten when I saw the introductory video, then became completely enraptured when I watched the screencast tutorials. (Screencasts of screencasts?)

You can record multiple tracks, mouse callouts, and video effects using a linear editor that looks as simple as iMovie! The only drawbacks? Some may be put off by the $99 price tag and it's (gulp) only available for Mac OS X Leopard. (The OS upgrade is only $116 at the Apple Education Store....)

Bill Nye & Buoyancy

OK, I'll admit it. I love Bill Nye. Well, I am not exactly in love with William S. Nye himself, but I am smitten with his videos. Back in the midwest, I would often rent the videos to watch his "Try this at home" and "Consider the following" segments in order to supplement my own lessons.

However, now that I moved, my public library Bill Nye supply has been cut off. And the videos are quite expensive to purchase. Luckily, someone has been posting episodes on YouTube. I know, I know, I should feel bad about viewing copyrighted material for free. But, as you know, many teachers depend on the CASE* method.

One recent example of how Bill Nye enhanced my teaching involves a 2nd grade unit on floating and sinking. I did all the traditional hands-on activites. We made clay boats and saw how many pennies they would hold. We measured the mass and volume of various objects using over-sized plastic graduated cylinders and looked for the pattern in the data. However, when I showed the class short clips from Buoyancy 1, Buoyancy 2, and Buoyancy 3, the students really solidified their learning.

In the "Buoyancy 1" clip, 0:58 to 4:34 is possibly the clearest displacement demonstration I have ever seen. I showed this 4 minute clip to my group of 2nd graders. They were more clearly able to understand the concept of the displaced water weighing the same as the submerged part of the boat, and they literally squealed in delight when they found out the water filled up the exact print of the boat. (Well, at least until they have the magic broken when they find out that only works for liquids with a density of 1 g/ml.)

I am now inspired to set up a similar contraption next year so that the kids can mass the displaced water, rather than indirectly figuring it out by measuring the mass of the object and the volume of the displaced liquid. I'll add that to the list of things Bill Nye (or at least his writers) has taught me.

* Copy And Steal Everything

Bill Nye for Adults?

I don't often publish similar posts on both my professional and kid-oriented blog. However, Bill Nye's "new" show warrants investigation by both age groups.

Bill Nye, the science guy. Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill!

This time he is making a science show for teens and adults. Go to the website and click "Menu" and "Episodes" to see clips and more. Each clip has some tabs - the best one, in my opinion, is called "the flip side." Here, he provides links to information about alternate viewpoints on that topic.

The entire 13 episode set can be purchased for $499. Apparently the first shows aired in 2005, but according to the website, some stations are still airing the show. There are also a few examples on YouTube (here's one on Cloning)... at least until Bill Nye pulls them off for copyright infringement.

Episode list:

1. Astrobiology
2. Psuedoscience
3. Addiction
4. Cloning
5. Nuclear Energy
6. Sports
7. Population
8. Race
9. Antibiotics
10. Genetically Modified Foods
11. Transportation
12. Global Climate Change
13. Evolution of Sex

Converting .mov to .swf for Mac

In a previous post, I discussed my purchase of two screencast programs. One of them was kind of cumbersome, and the other one was easy to use, but did not output to .swf. I almost spent another $65 for a new program that was easy to use and outputted to .swf (Screen Mimic). Moments before I clicked "buy," a friend suggested I look for a program to convert my Quicktime files to Flash.

It was like a door was opened for me, leading to vast golden fields reflecting the late summer sun... OK, maybe I am being a bit melodramatic, but I was really excited. This means that I could record a silent screencast in iShowU, then import the Quicktime into iMovie 06 to edit the video and add voiceovers at my leisure. I had been frustrated that one stutter or misspoken word in a screencast often necessitated starting over.

So I found a blog post about converting Quicktime files into Flash which also had a tutorial for Mac users interested in using the (free) program FFMPEGX. However, this program only converts to FLA and there is a whole other process to be able to play it on the internet.

I need something simpler.

Video to Flash Converter 5.7 seems to be a popular choice, but it also seems to only work with Windows, despite what some sites claim. In fact, there seems to be no shortage of shareware for Windows use. I was getting discouraged.


Finally, I found Video2Swf which, ironically, is produced by the same company that makes Screenography. For $45 (on "sale") it seems to be a good choice. It even allows you to chose from a number of players to embed your video. (The Luddite in me enjoyed choosing the pretty designs.) The demo was clear and easy to use. (The demo puts a watermark across the middle of your output file.) Here's my first demo sample (a video inspired by a 2006 school trip to Europe):

iTunes is More Than Just Music

I have to admit, I haven't been keeping up with all the developments of iTunes. For years, I have used it as a great way to purchase music. But a recent article reopened my eyes to the wonderful host of resources within the iTunes store.

He is part of a new generation of academic stars who hold forth in cyberspace on their college Web sites and even, without charge, on iTunes U, which went up in May on Apple’s iTunes Store.

This inspired me look past the search bar in iTunes and to create a list of the coolest things I found that are not music (in no particular order). You will notice, however, that the list is heavily biased towards science. :)

1. Scientific American 60 Second Science Video Podcast - complex ideas broken down into a managable 1 minute segment
2. How Stuff Works - one of my favorite websites - now a podcast!
3. VH1 Best Week Ever - when I gave up my TV, I only missed VH1 and the Discovery Channel. Now I can catch one of my favorite "guilty pleasure" shows. (Totally non-academic)
4. Teacher 2.0 (a group of educators who want to share ideas about using technology to help prepare students for the 21st century. "We're tired of preparing them for the Industrial Age.")
5. National Geographic - Wild Chronicles - cool short video segments on topics like the zoo dentist.
6. iTunes U (I just downloaded a couple lectures from Stanford on Global Warming)
7. KQED Public Broadcasting (QUEST in Northern California) - video segments on topics such as earthquakes, the physics of baseball, forensic science and nanotechnology. You can also download the corresponding educator guides!

For every topic I type in, there are free podcasts and videos. There are tutorials for things like Final Cut Pro and screencasts. And I haven't even started with the music videos yet. (Another unfortunate loss when I gave up my TV.) If you haven't checked iTunes out lately, look a little deeper than your music library.

Screencast for Mac

So, I was inspired to create some tutorials, and needed to find a program to create screencasts. (What's a screencast? Check out articles in InfoWorld (2005), O'Reilly (2005), and see some fancy examples on the Apple site.)

A friend found me a very helpful blog post entitled Mac Options For Capturing A Video of Your Screen. "Brian" reviews a few options for screen capture, and I decided to give them a try myself, plus check out another program Screenography. All of these programs have free demos. They also all have similar customizable screen capture sizing and hot buttons.

Here is what I found:

App #1: Screen Mimic 2.2.1
Price: $64.95
Demo: 30 second movies only with a watermark on video recording

This was my favorite and by far the easiest to use, however, it is also fairly expensive. Screen Mimic allows you to save your project as Adobe Flash (SWF), Flash Video (FLV), or Quicktime (MOV) files. The encoding seems fairly quick and the quality of the video is excellent. I also like the idea, as "Brian" blogged, that you get a second chance to encode a selection if you change you mind.

Brian's issue with this program (in 2006) was the lack of audio recording. I can only imagine that the $24.95 version he reviewed lacked the audio options this more expensive version now has.

App #2: iShowU
Price: $20
Demo: Large green text on video recording

Somewhat more complex to use, but still fairly easy. There are a variety of presets, but at my level of experience, this is not a great help to me. I do like that you have the option to slow the capture rate when your mouse is not moving, which helps keep the file size down. The encoding is immediate, although you do not have a Flash option.

For $42, you can bundle iShowU with Stomp, a program which allows you to compress, crop and apply affects to your videos.

App #3: Screenography 1.013
Price: $39.95 / $9.95 (for the lite version - stills only)
Demo: Giant yellow watermark on final capture

Another easy to use program, with the option of exporting as a QuickTime (mov) or Flash Animation (swf).

App #4: Snapz Pro X 2.1.2
Price: $29 (still capture) / $69 (movie capture)
Demo: 30 days unlimited, with annoying pop-ups (I haven't confirmed this)

This one is easy to use, and has cute little sound effects like "Action", "Cut", and "That's a Wrap." But I am not convinced it is worth the significant price difference.

Brian's final opinion:

After trying them all, I think I’ll stick with iShowU. The developer offers a good product at a good price. Also, he is quick to offer support. The second option would be Screen Mimic, especially if you are intending to work with flash videos.

My final opinion:

It's a tough choice between iShowU ($20) and Screenography ($40). However, I want the Flash option. I am perhaps biased towards iShowU due to its partnership with Stomp (though, admittedly, iMovie 08 has some similar features to Stomp, but I am a little salty about that release). I think I will stick with Screenography.

Update 1.3.07: Unfortunately I found the demos don't really reflect the actual usage of the programs, so here's my opinion after using the full versions. Granted, my experience is shaped my my personal machine and internet speed, but here are my reflections.

I started with Screenography, and was happy with my short (less than 30 seconds) clips and very happy with their being published to a .swf file. However, as I used it for longer projects, I found the rendering time to be long. After 3 minutes of recording, when I hit the hot key combination, it seemed to take up to 30 seconds to register, and then a number of minutes after that to render the movie enough to give me a "save" screen. This did not include the additional time to save the file. It was an exercise in patience. Also, the program would frequently "unexpectedly shut down."

For the $20, I decided to purchase iShowU. This one hasn't crashed on me, even up to a 4.5 minute presentation, but as far as I can tell, my only output option is Quicktime. I love the very fast rendering time, but miss the versatility of the Flash output.

So now I find myself longingly reading again about Screen Mimic. Even though I originally deemed it too expensive, I am finding myself with $60 spent on programs that did not best fit my needs. I'll keep you posted on how Screen Mimic works out for me.

How do We Teach the to Future?

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach has a lot to say about 21st century collaborative learning. I ran across a keynote she delivered as part of the Tuanz Educational Conference 2007 in New Zealand and was struck by some of the following questions:

• Have you used the new WWW? The new WWW: Whatever, Wherever, Whenever.
• What do you need to know, when most of recorded knowledge is a mouse click away?
• In light of this, what do students still need to memorize?
• How do we prepare our students for jobs that don't exist yet, using technologies that haven't yet been invented in order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet?

It's sort of daunting to think that we are preparing students for a world that we cannot predict, or begin to understand. As a science teacher and technology teacher, I know that the "cutting edge" will be ancient history when these kids are grown.

This reminds me of a podcast I recently ran across. (You can find them on Twitter or check out the podcast on iTunes) The description states that "Teachers 2.0 is a loose group of educators who want to share ideas about using technology to help prepare students for the 21st century. We're tired of preparing them for the Industrial Age." They have a good point. I look forward to hearing what they have to say.

Ten Essential Qualities for a Happy, Healthy Life

The Chicago Tribune ran a blurb on a new book, Great Kids: Helping Your Baby and Child Develop the Ten Essential Qualities for a Happy, Healthy Life.

I haven't read the book yet, but check out this list of "Ten Essential Qualities":

1. Engagement (relating to others)
2. Empathy
3. Curiosity
4. Communication
5. Emotional Range
6. Genuine Self-Esteem
7. Internal Discipline
8. Creativity and Vision
9. Logical Thinking
10. Moral Integrity

Wouldn't the world be a better place if every person had these ten qualities? I can use this list to focus on what traits I am encouraging and rewarding in my middle school students.

I'm glad he wrote the book, but wouldn't it be great if we didn't need it? It seems childrearing used to be intuitive, but now requires explicit instructions to avoid raising a menace to society.

Two of the most powerful ideas I ran across in this article were:
1. Learning to empathize begins in infancy. Suggest helping him/her tunes into others' feelings by making your feelings clear, in facial expression and voice.
2. Your child will learn ethics from how you treat him/her, not by what you say.

Ain't THAT the truth?!

Finally Joined YouTube

OK, I did it. I joined YouTube. You'd think as a pseudo-geek, I would have jumped on this earlier, but I finally have my own channel, inspired by my kid blog.

YouTube is interesting. Yes, if you are not careful, you will find yourself surfing videos of laughing babies, dancers in banana suits, and the latest variation of Charlie the Unicorn. However, as I have said before, I have used it extensively for science and media literacy lessons in grades 1 through 8.

So I wonder why, when the first time a student asked me if he could use YouTube as a source for a class project, my gut reaction was, "no." When I thought about it for a minute, I changed my mind. YouTube is almost a philosophical extension of Wikipedia. And I decided to treat it as such. Sure, the student can use it as a source. But, like any article on Wikipedia, they must double-check their facts on another reputable source. However, how valuable was it for them to watch and interview with Barack Obama, or to hear a theremin played? Certainly more so than merely text and still images could provide.

One concern is that students may quickly fall off task, or be subjected to inappropriate language in the comments section. This just seems like a teachable moment (at least at the middle school level) regarding media literacy and responsible internet use.

Sadly enough, my old district banned both YouTube and Wikipedia in its schools. I wonder if this is a positive move or a disservice to the students. Social networking sites and wikis are not going away... shouldn't we embrace the opportunity to teach the kids to use these tools responsibly instead of taking them away?

Anyway, back to YouTube, someone should have warned me. Once I signed up, I got this message in the second box below. Wow. Harsh. :)

Review of iMovie '08 ... the Shock of My iLife!

I was so excited. I unwrapped my new Macbook Pro ceremoniously, reverently hit the power button and waited with anticipation. I had worked with iMovie for years, and was especially pleased with iMovie '06. Now, I would have my first look at the newest version of iMovie. When my dock appeared, I was pleasantly surprised by the slick new icon.

As I opened up the program, I was a little awed at the total transformation. My simple little program screen had turned into a completely different movie app.

However, as I navigated around the new program, I thought: Apple, what are you thinking?

I have used iMovie for years in the classroom. It is simple and offers many options for kids to create quite polished products. Some of the better features of iMovie 06 include:

• Timeline view
• Multiple audio track editing
• Themes
• Many editing options (transitions / titles / Video FX like reverse & slow)
• Ability to open more than one project at a time, and copy & paste clips
• Exporting selected clips only
  

I also liked:

• DVD chapters and integration with iDVD
• Option for third party plug-ins

However, guess what is missing from iMovie 08?

• Timeline view
• Multiple audio track editing
• Themes
• Many editing options (transitions / titles / Video FX like reverse & slow)
• Ability to open more than one project at a time, and copy & paste clips
• Exporting selected clips only
• DVD chapters and integration with iDVD
  
• Option for third party plug-ins

And the worst part? iMovie 08 CAN'T OPEN older iMovie projects. Apparently, iMovie 08 is a stripped-down version of 06, perfect for beginners, or people looking to throw together a 2 minute YouTube video. (Read this blogger's top 10 features missing from iMovie 08.) However, I almost wept as I thought of the years of video projects I have made with my students: V-show productions, Greek Myths, the Virtual Digestive System, not to mention all of the projects they did just for fun. Was my digital video life destined to fall prey to limited creativity in the name of efficiency?

To be fair, some people like the improvements. MacWorld calls it "the iPhoto for movies." There is more color-correction and cropping options, and no rendering time when you add effects. Also, it can input a wider variety of video formats. But, that's about it. Some people theorize that Apple wanted to prevent iMovie from competing with Final Cut Pro. Other people recognize the good along with the bad.

When I recovered enough to open up a new tab in Firefox, I read that many people are outraged. Thankfully, Apple offers a free download of iMovie 06. (CORRECTION 3/21/09: The download is no longer available as iMovie 09 is released.)

I can breathe again.

Content Cake and Technology Frosting

My last post reminded me of one of my favorite teaching "rules." I love introducing technology to my classes. However, it is inevitable that the "bells and whistles" will draw kids' attention away from the content.

So, a few years ago, we came up with the "cake and frosting" analogy. The content is the "cake." Obviously, if the cake is terrible, I don't care how good the frosting is, people aren't going to eat it. And, if you are planning on handing me a plateful of frosting without any cake, I am going to be rather offended.

We go on to discuss that you can make some frosting ahead of time, but it needs to stay in the fridge until the cake is ready to be frosted. If you focus too much on making the frosting and don't pay attention to the cake, it can burn or collapse and you'll have to start over.

Once they have a good cake, they can decorate with "frosting" (the effects, comedic interludes, or (shudder) "bloopers".) However, we discuss how the best cakes have simple, well chosen frosting for dramatic effect. (In fact, when the class and I create a rubric together after viewing previous student work, they almost always add a requirement to "limit random distractions." However, once they actually begin a project, they see how tempting it is....)

With every technology project I have implemented, I have had open lab time and often I am shooing kids out of the room at 5 pm, 6 pm and even later. They put even more effort into their content, so that they can add the "fun stuff" later. In fact, my kids have (on average) put more creative effort into digital projects than anything they've turned in on paper.

Of course, the kids take the analogy as far as they can. For instance, one kid tells me, "my sister likes to scrape the frosting off the cake and eat it by itself." I tell them that after they finish the cake for me, they are welcome to scrape off the frosting and post it on YouTube...

Teaching with Tech: Does it Work?

A recent article on MSN.com asks, "Are students in the digital age getting dumber?" Tom Oppenheimer, author of The Flickering Mind: Saving Education From the False Promise of Technology, is quoted throughout the text and he believes technology is wasting our kids' time and energy. I agree that the article brings up some valid points, but I believe teachers have been dealing with similar issues in different formats for years. The article claims:

• Technology, such as Powerpoint, results in kids creating weak and inaccurate content, while spending an inordinate amount of time on graphics that don't matter.
• IM lingo is a problem in today's schools.
• Laptops in the classroom actually interfere with student learning.

Weak, inaccurate and time-wasting? It certainly is easier to copy and paste information from the web, rather than laboriously copy text from an encyclopedia by hand, however, I can argue that my own classmates and I produced reports in which they "didn't absorb" the material either. Kids' learning is dependent on their investment, whether by hand or machine. If they don't care about the learning, they often won't care about the accuracy either. (The "let's just get this over with" mentality.) And, one only has to look as far as the file cabinets of saved class materials in college frats to realize that cheating existed well before the existence of term paper sites. These problems have been here for a while. Now that it is even more convenient for students to be lazy, educators need to be even more aware of student involvement and ownership.

Think back to all the reports you wrote as a kid. I was a good student, and I remember writing reports on the sun, medieval entertainment, leaves, and the state of Arizona (or was it Arkansas?). What do I remember from these reports? The posters I made, the pictures I colored, the poster I created. I don't remember a thing about Arizona or Arkansas. I don't believe it is only technology that tempts kids to "spent nearly twice the time working on the graphics than ... researching the report." I refer to this as the cake and the frosting. My kids know what I mean.

But, what I DO like about technology is that is levels the presentation playing field. I remember back to one of the first iMovie projects I incorporated into my science class in 2002. The day before the students were to share their work, one of my special education students said to me, "This is the first time I am proud to show off my work because it looks as good as everyone else's." Here was a kid with a written expression disability who spent years seeing his written work hung up next to all the rest. He volunteered to share his iMovie first.

IM is a problem? Mignon Fogarty, author of Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips to Clean Up Your Writing, believes that when kids text habitually, they in effect train themselves in writing a form of shorthand. "They'd be tempted to use it on their homework and exams. They might even slip into using abbreviations unconsciously." Again, I think it is up to educators (and kids) to know the difference between formal and informal writing. It's all about communication.

A student recently emailed to me, ""...prolly you would yell at my grammer but then again u dont teach LA." This email was informal. He clearly communicated his point to me in his message. He has never "unconsciously slipped" in his formal writing (homework, lab reports) for me. Why? Because he is conscientious enough to differentiate between formal and informal language. He cares enough consider his audience and the situation for his writing. I have no problem with IM. I do struggle with student apathy. As adults, we know the difference between writing a grocery list and a legal document. We talk differently socializing with our peers than talking with our grandmother. Kids can be taught an appropriate audience and situation for their IM-speak. Oppenheimer says, "There’s no job in the real world that allows writing in IM lingo." Sure there's not... yet.

Laptops are distracting? The article quotes a study in which laptop-equipped students, "On average, the students spent 17 minutes out of a 75-minute class doing activities not related to class work." Umm... that's not a problem limited to laptops. Un-engaged students are distracted by passed notes, open windows, shiny objects, and their own thoughts.

None of these problems are new. I think it is easy to "blame" technology. Students will learn when they are engaged and invested. In my opinion, technology is a tool to increase student engagement. Educators and students must use it effectively. Just as I would never put in a 50 minute video and sit at my desk during a class period, neither would I set up situations in my classrooms where technology will be a crutch to facilitate sub-par learning. Technology isn't the enemy here. Apathy, on the part of students and teachers, is. C'mon ppl, old skool doesnt cut it if we want r kidz 2 learn in 2day's world. :)

To Filter or Not to Filter?

Blogger Andy Carvin writes about his recent experience in which he invited to give a presentation to a group of "educators, historians and media professionals participating in their annual summer educational institute." (There's a link to the presentation in the post - interesting stuff!) He clicked to show a visual on YouTube and it was "flagged as inappropriate" and blocked!

The room went totally silent for a moment, then erupted in laughter. Here we were, a group of educators participating in a professional development seminar trying to discuss the role that Web 2.0 sites can play in civic education - at a presidential library, no less - and we were denied access to the information and tools we needed to have that discussion. My hosts at the library did their best to override the filters, but no one could figure out how to do it. I literally had to pantomime some of the video clips to give them a sense of what I was going to show them - and obviously, I couldn’t do any of them justice. One teacher then offered a tip to the group: if you ever get blocked, ask your students for help - they can show you a number of ways to get around the filter and access YouTube.

It's that teacher's comment that impacts me the most. S/he's right. By middle school, most kids can get around the filter. So, when no one is watching, they are accessing whatever content they want. And, all it takes is a "clear history" to outsmart the next most popular parent/teacher content-checking "trick." On the other hand, the kid who researching breast cancer or sex discrimination is blocked.

And, I've had it work the other way as well. While looking up an image of a medieval plant used for cosmetic purposes, our "filtered" Google Images pulled up a woman who no doubt had a botanically-inspired stage name. Oh yeah, and she was not even wearing a fig leaf to cover up.

In Carvin's case, a single video** was flagged for inappropriate content, but the story brings back my reoccuring fear that our district might soon chose to block YouTube. After all, they have already blocked a variety of social networking sites, including MySpace. There is certainly enough non-academic material on YouTube to warrant a filter, however, I've often used the site in the classroom to teach about topics including the theremin, cicadas, electric cars, and more. It helps bring in items that are too expensive and/or difficult to bring into the classroom. The multimedia is a nice (and free) addition to plain text resources. Another benefit is the ability to quickly assemble clips from opposing viewpoints to begin a discussion on media literacy. And, honestly, sometimes it's just plain fun.

Filtering cannot be the only answer. There is no substitute for pre-screening materials and supervision. I would never blindly search for clips in front of a classroom, nor would I allow my students to use the Internet without circulating and monitoring their usage. Another post discusses a recent U.S. Senate Hearing , in which the committee chair speaks against relying on technologies, like filters, to protect our kids.

Rather, our efforts must rely on a multi-layered strategy – one that teaches our children about safe and responsible online behavior; one that encourages industry action to develop tools that will aid parents in their efforts to restrict inappropriate material from their children’s access; and one that relies on swift and certain action by law enforcement officials in finding and punishing those who would use the Internet to harm children.

We cannot rely on filters alone. We need to teach kids responsible, ethical use of the Internet. As a middle school teacher, I know we cannot shelter them forever, so we might as well teach them how to navigate responsibility. And, if educators are committed to this goal, it needs to become part of the curriculum. (In my new position this fall, I am excited to have the opportunity to develop such a focus.) Additionally, everything we teach kids about responsible use, media literacy, and safety is applicable in also other areas of their lives. I think the senator has the right idea.

** CORRECTION 8/10: I misunderstood. It ends up ALL YouTube videos were blocked. That's exactly what I fear.

Why Teachers Should Travel

As I pulled up my Chicago roots and headed out west for new adventures, I learned why people say "getting there is half the fun." Granted, there is a whole lot of South Dakota that isn't much fun, but overall I had an amazing and satisfyingly geeky trip.

At one point during the long drive, a friend and I got to talking about teachers travelling. He mentioned that the government should subsidize travel for teachers. As continued on my trip, I couldn't agree more. I've taught earth science in 2001, 2002, and again in 2006, and I have read a lot of information on plate tectonics and watched a number Discovery Channel specials. However, this hardly compares to the opportunity to being there and experiencing things like lava tubes and thermophilic bacterial mats firsthand. It's the ultimate "hands-on" learning. This trip will make me a better science teacher. If only we could charter a plane for field trips....

I've posted some of the scientific highlights of my trip on my more kid-oriented blog.

Students Recognize Global Warming - Team Project

Our school has run a successful paper recycling program for years, however that environmental spirit never quite made it to aluminum cans. Sure, we had a separate can recycling container in the cafeteria, but you know how it is with middle school kids.... Aluminum ended up in the trash, and trash ended up in the recycling containers. Ultimately and simply, the cans ended up in the dumpster along with the rest of the trash. In an effort to authenticate our environmental science unit, our team took on the challenge of recycling the school's aluminum.

STEP 1: Research & pitch - We researched about the ecological benefits of recycling. I think the kids' favorite statistic was that "when you recycle an aluminum can, you save enough energy to power your television or computer for three hours." (Our sources included Earth911.org, the Utah State University recycling site , and Novelis.)

The kids developed their pitch and met with the school principal and head custodian. I was proud of my group. They took this meeting very seriously. Our "committee" asked great questions, and gave thoughtful responses to the administrations' concerns. Finally, we were approved for a one month trial.

STEP 2 - Promotion - The students then made posters (made from paper we took from the paper recycling bin, of course) and hung them around the school. Small groups of kids from our team rotated through the lunch periods for a week, acting as "recycling cheerleaders" - encouraging and applauding for their peers who chose to recycle their cans in the appropriate canister, rather than in the trash. The students recognized that, in order for this to work, the other 700 kids in the school would have to develop habits that helped our cause.

STEP 3: Recycle! - This was the "fun part." (Well, unless you asked the kids in January when we were crushing cans in boots and gloves in sub-zero Chicagoland weather!) Twice a week, I unleashed the crew. In 15 minutes, we were usually able to process 200-300 cans, going from stinky cafeteria bags of aluminum mixed with various foodstuffs to bags of somewhat clean, crushed cans ready for the scrap metal facility. (We also pulled tabs to donate to the Ronald McDonald House.)

STEP 4: Manage profits - While the kids knew the environmental benefits of energy and resource conservation, there was an added bonus of generated funds from turning in the aluminum. In fact, we made over $200 during the year. In one of our many brainstorming sessions, after voting down reclining chairs and a team vending machine (sigh), one student piped up, "wouldn't it be cool if we planted a tree to help fight global warming?" Now, I recognize there is some debate as to the carbon sequestering benefits of planting trees, but I thought it was a great idea. We had learned about carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases. We had learned about photosynthesis. And, we had learned about our soon-to- emerge periodical cicadas and their effect on newly planted trees. Great, let's plant a tree! We opted to plant a ginkgo tree.

STEP 4A: The "plaque" - The kids weren't done yet. They wanted to install a plaque, to commemorate our ordeal. Since we had discussed Chicago's "Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet" program this summer, a student suggested we make our own globe. Now, I can seldom resist an artistic challenge, however, we were out of funds. (The PTO had already graciously kicked in funds to pay for the planting of the tree.)

But, we were determined and a bit lucky. A generous eBay seller (with a little encouragement) donated an antique finial. (And I drove 6.5 hours to pick it up... unfortunately, in my CO2 emitting vehicle.) A moment of serendipity introduced us to a local artist who suggested pique assiette, rather than paint, for our final project. Plus, she was willing to work with the kids to teach them the technique.

This began a flurry of plate gathering - which the kids thoroughly enjoyed breaking into pieces.... The entire project was completed by the students themselves, from design submissions, to voting on the final design, to sketching, breaking and reassembling the pieces, and finally the grouting and polishing. My favorite part is the cicada the kids included at the base, near the "2007," to commemorate our 17-year visitors.

When it was all finished, we had a stupendous final product. I hope the kids are proud, keep recycling, and come back to visit our tree for many years to come.

Skype Makes the Class Whole

While surfing the web, I came across the most amazing story. Brian Crosby was teaching his fourth grade class at Agnes Risley Elementary School near Reno, NV, when he learned he was getting a new student.

Now this is now unusual at his school, as he explains that mobility rate is high in his classes. But, what made this new student unusual is that she was not actually going to attend school at all. Celest McCaskey was had leukemia and, as a consequence, an immune system too weak to attend school.

Mr. Crosby decided to use Skype, a free voice- and video-conferencing software that was launched in 2003, to virtually bring Celest to class. This is even more impressive when you consider that Celeste does not even own a computer. Mr. Crosby and a school counselor found donors for a computer, the DSL line and monthly Internet service.

Crosby's school is designated as "at risk" by the Washoe County School District, with more than 80 percent of the students qualifying for free or reduced lunch. This isn't a district where kids generally have computers at home. Yet, Crosby is doing amazing things with technology in his class. Through funds approved by the 2005 legislature, each student in Crosby's class has their own wireless laptop computer.

They aren't the latest models. The machines are seven years old. But they work.

This makes me think of my own suburban school where we have resources this school may never have. I can only imagine what we would be able to do if our teachers were similarly creative with technology. Clearly the innovation is paramount over the actual equipment.

You might want to watch the newscast of the story, but even better - Mr. Crosby's class created a movie describing their experience.

You can read more about what this teacher is doing on his blog, Learning is Messy. I am very, very impressed.

The Monotillation of Traxoline

As I turn in my final trimester grades, I think about my students and can't help but think about traxoline. This bit of educational humor/realism is often attributed to Judy Lanier.

It is very important that you learn about traxoline. Traxoline is a new form of zionter. It is monotilled in Ceristanna. The Ceristannians gristerlate large amounts of fevon and then bracter it to quasel traxoline. Traxoline may well be one of our most lukised snezlaus in the future because of our zionter lescelidge.

1. What is traxoline?
2. Where is traxoline monotilled?
3. How is traxoline quaselled?
4. Why is traxoline important?

Every adult and student I have talked with scores 100% on the post-test. However, not one of them knows a thing about traxoline, or for that matter, cares. But had this been a real quiz, each person would have received an "A."

Now, this might seem like just a silly exercise, but one blogger illustrates this point using an example from his own specialty of paleoecology:

It is very important that you learn about arcellacean taphonomy. Arcellaceans are a major group of testaceous rhizopods. During preservation in any depositional environment, taphonomy produces different thanatocoenoses from extant biocoenoses. Thenatocoenoses are the result of differental preservation during burial, but differ between environments of deposition due to differences in original biocoenoses and soil biogeochemistry. Arcellaceans are one of our most useful paleoindicators for lacustrine environments.

1. What are arcellaceans?
2. How do thanatocoenoses form?
3. Why do thanatocoenoses differ?
4. Why are arcellaceans important?

I could write many similar examples from my own curriculum. This is one reason I never use the multiple-choice and vocabulary tests in the back of the science test supplementary resources. Public school is a game in many ways, and many kids have learned to play it without actually absorbing any knowledge.

Science isn't about memorization. Science is about being curious, asking questions, exploring data, asking more questions, researching, and making connections between what you learn and what you already know. These are hard things to measure on a 90 - 80 -70 - 60 grading scale.

I am not really even a fan of "hands-on" learning for "hands-on" sake. Kids can go through the motions without ever engaging in any real learning. That's why I think it is so important to work with predictions and make those connections between kids and their learning. This is more "hand-on, minds-on" learning. Such activities focus more on predicting, asking questions and thinking scientifically and actively rather than training passive learners to earn "A's" through the successful completion of tasks. Science shouldn't be about memorization.

Brad Hoge disscusses questioning in his post about "well-meaning examples of constructivism go[ne] awry,"

It's okay to say, "I don't know" to a student's question, if fact it is important to do so, so long as that response is followed by "let's find out". Science is about the finding out. The knowledge accumulated by centuries of science in practice is needed to solve new problems. No one has all of the answers, but everyone can learn to think scientifically. This includes the skills of knowledge acquisition and problem solving.

As written in a previous post, I couldn't agree more.

Banana Inspiration

The other day, a student approached me waving a piece of notebook paper.

"Wanna read my poem?"

The subject was bananas.

Curious, I took the paper, read it, and smiled. It was an assignment done for her language arts class, but she wanted to share it with me.

When asked the inspiration for her art, the student replied that she wrote it "because in health class, we had to pick a fruit or vegetable to do a poem on, and I picked a banana" and she showed me because she knew I was "amused by bananas." (She must have been tipped off by my post celebrating bananas, as well as the banana sock tacked to my bulletin board....) She agreed I could publish the poem to my next banana post.

Ode To Bananas

It must be hard to be picked off trees
every time you turn green.
Banana, how it would hurt to be blended
mashed and creamed.

Your taste so soft and creamy
your texture so soft and smooth
I am sorry kids mistake you for a moon.

Banana you must get an extra special feeling
when you save lives with your potassium.

Banana you are a celebrity
appearing on socks, commercials, and pyramids (food pyramid).

It must be awesome to make everything taste good,
banana may I ask,
how would we survive without you!

Are News Sites "Dumbing Down"?

A few months ago, I noticed a disturbing trend. When I clicked to read an article on CNN, an unfamiliar box appeared at the top of my article.


We live in a world of Cliff Notes & bullet points. Do we really need them in our news sources too? Textbooks are constantly becoming more clear and organized, to facilitate student's content reading skills. But what is going to happen when they encounter information that is not separated into color-coded headings? What will they do when the sentences do not all end at the bottom of the page?

In my experience, most (middle school) kids will do the bare minimum to complete their work. They are well trained to look for the bold words and fill in the blanks. I strive to give them assignments that force them to consider the gestalt before composing their answers. I think the "Story Highlights" are a step in the wrong direction.

Inspiration: New Blog Title

My blog used to be called "Mytko Miscellany in Education." Then, when I wrote a previous post, something about its title stuck with me over the next few days. I realized that those two words, "Post-its" and "ponderings," pretty much summed up my teaching experiences! (OK, OK, to be truly comprehensive, I should add the words "adolescent angst" and "chaos" too, but they just don't offer the same type of alliteration....)

One day, I decided to document my inspiration. On any given day (in this case, April 20th) my desktop computer looks like this:

This image represents one week's worth of post-its. Each post-it note is handcrafted by a student needing something from me or, more likely, having a question we were not able to answer in class. I treat student questions very seriously, as I believe curiosity is essential for science.

If I don't know the answer to a question, it ends up on a post-it note.


From there, we use a variety of resources to unearth the answer (our favorites being HowStuffWorks and Ask a Scientist). All of the answers end up taped to my classroom door, and some make it to my other blog. Not only do I enjoy seeing students learn more about a subject, but I also think it is powerful to show that their questions are valued and worth pursuing.

This week's door features an article on Chicago's proposed 150-story twisted tower, questions about the hand boilers on my desk, a description of banana slug's odd mating rituals (slug link is PG13 for mild language and invertebrate sexual content), and lots of answers to questions about cnidarians (my favorite: Can jellyfish sting each other?).

Now, I realize "ponderings" is not a word that you will find in the dictionary. But since improvisation is a middle school survival skill, an invented word like "ponderings" should raise few brows. The definition of ponder (verb) is "to reflect or consider with thoroughness and care." I'd like to think that my teaching is full of thoroughness and care. By adding -ing to the end of the verb, one forms the present participle of a verb, concerned with actually doing the action in the present. A second definition of pondering (adjective) is "deeply or seriously thoughtful." So, it would not be unreasonable to assume the pondering (noun) would refer to "an act of thorough, deep, and careful reflection." And I know adding an "s" makes nouns plural. So, there it is. Teaching is all about being thorough and careful, reflecting and being thoughtful on your feet. And a bit of improv.

It appears the term is catching on, as evidenced by the 4378 blog posts tagged "Ponderings" on Technorati.

Post-Its and Ponderings

Today, a student asked me if invertebrates sleep. This is the type of question that reminds me how much I enjoy teaching and learning. I have sat through many university lectures, read hundreds of pages of science texts, and taken volumes of notes, but every so often a child makes me look at things from a fresh perspective. I know a lot about invertebrates, but never once wondered if they sleep.

I have gone through hundreds of post-its in my career, many with questions scribbled in a childish hand and then stuck to my computer screen for later investigation. After almost ten years of teaching, I am always impressed by the fresh questions they think to ask. I've learned some interesting things through investigating those post-its.

As you imagine, sometimes we cannot find an answer. In such a case, my favorite resource is the UCSB ScienceLine where "research scientists from UC Santa Barbara answer science questions from teachers and students in K-12 schools."

Some of my favorites asked by my students and answered by UCSB scientists over the years:

1. If a person in a machine travelling faster than the speed of sound cannot hear the noise of a sonic boom, what might a person "see" or not see if they could (hypothetically) pass the "light speed" barrier? What would we, on the ground, see?

2. We've learned that all arthropods have a tough outer covering called an exoskeleton. However, we have also learned that some arthropods, such as "honey-pot" ants and ticks actually expand as they collect honey or blood in their body. Is the exoskeleton able to expand? Do these organisms have a different type of exoskeleton that other arthropods?

PS - In case you too are wondering, it is unclear if invertebrates sleep. (source: Neuroscience for Kids)

Media Literacy - in the curriculum?

Andy Carvin (author of a recent post on learning.now) relates a discussion he had with Dan Rather regarding media literacy. He concludes his post by commenting,

Countless kids today are producing media, and they rarely get any guidance from schools. We don’t invest the time needed for today’s students to learn how to think critically about digital media, either through analyzing content or creating new content to understand the techniques that go into it.

Everyone now has the power to influence everyone - and teaching students to these technologies responsibly requires a serious commitment from educators. Are we prepared to commit?

My curriculum is already full of topics I should teach. It is a constant exercise in prioritization to decide what I can cover in a relatively short time. However, I think media literacy is vital and I want to work to make it a priority in my classroom. It is no longer necessary for kids too memorize the lists scientific facts I recall being relentlessly quizzed over as a student. Students today can access any information they need in a fraction of a second on the Internet. The question is, do they know what to do with it?

Too often, I see teachers who assign "research projects," leaving the kids to their own devices on the Internet. Most teachers teach how to cite sources, but few spend time discussing image usage and web site evaluation. Alternately, many teachers limit student searches to a few reputable teacher-chosen sites. Many warn their kids against using Wikipedia. One of my co-workers even forbids students to search on Google.

However, this strict control does not prepare our students to use the Internet as a tool. As Andy Carvin states, "...every kid in America with a camera phone and access to YouTube" contributes to the massive amounts of media available to them. And they obviously are using this media when there are not teachers around to "control" them.

I've run across a few tools to teach responsible media usage. A Madison, WI site includes an evaluation checklist and example sites to investigate. UC Berkeley and Cornell University are just two of the colleges that have suggestions of how to evaluate websites. One interactive kid-friendly site, Jo Fool or J Cool, allows kids to visit mock-ups of web pages to determine whether they are legitimate sites or bad ideas. One of my goals for this year is to adapt these resources for use in my own classroom in order to improve the media literacy of my own students.

All this only addresses our students as consumers of media. As technology becomes more available and mainstream, I think schools will have a responsibility to guide students in the responsible production of media as well. Our kids' usage is far outpacing their expertise at this point. Schools can help close this gap.

A Higher Standard

I just read an article (another article, blogpost) about a Florida teacher who was given an ultimatum by his school district: either cover up his brief nudity in his performance of the Full Monty, quit the community production, or resign from his job as a teacher of high school music and chorus.

He was told that "Because teachers are held to a higher standard than most people, you have to look at how that affects the community and his role as a classroom teacher," said Barbara Melanson, the school district's director of human resources.

This standard has recently been an issue at my school. What would be perceived as sarcastic humor with any other adult, is construed as inappropriate in a classroom setting. In a similar situation, if an educator so much as slips out a "shut up" in frustration, you'd better believe we will have to explain our actions to our administrators.

It's strange to be a constant pillar in today's society of crumbling morals. However, the more I think about it, the more important I think it is for kids to have at least a few adult role models in their lives. Unfortunately, parents do not always fulfill this role. And clearly, the media runs amok with inappropriate models. Teachers may well be the only ones left.

However, in the case of this Florida teacher, I think we run into dangerous territory when teachers have their right to be human stripped away. (OK, pun intended.) Context is important. This teacher is not on a street corner mooning cars. He is a sanctioned community production. I think the school district is being ridiculous. There are bigger battles to fight.

Pizza Hut: Literacy Friend or Corporate Foe?

A recent article criticizes the Pizza Hut Book It! Program. I was unfamiliar with the program, so I did a little research. Promotion on Pizza Hut site declares,

It's about kids. It's about books. It's about the joy of reading. In 1985, Pizza Hut® created a reading motivation program called the BOOK IT!® National Reading Incentive Program for children in grades K-6. More than 22 million students participate in the program every year, and Pizza Hut rewards these young readers for their accomplishments with free pizza, praise and recognition.

However, critics disagree.

"[Book It] epitomizes everything that's wrong with corporate-sponsored programs in school," said Susan Linn, a Harvard psychologist and co-founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.

Apparently, Linn has been upset by this corporate sponsorship for some time, but is using recent rising concern for childhood obesity as fuel for her fight against the pizza chain.

The general idea is simple. Schools sign up. Teachers and students set reading goals. And if a student reaches his or her reading goal, he or she receives a coupon for a free pizza. Apparently, the program earned recognition from President Reagan in 1988, and its advisory board includes representatives of various prominent education groups, including teachers unions and the American Library Association.

Critics argue that the program encourages kids to eat junk food in an era of schools limiting sweets and sodas in their cafeterias. Other critics uphold that corporate America is weaseling its way into American households through such programs.

I hardly think this program contributes to either. I doubt there are many raw food families that feel pressured to consume winning pizzas. Nor do I know of any families with young children that do not get pizza as a treat once in a while. Furthermore, I think it quite possible to integrate an occasional pizza into a healthy lifestyle.

As for the "pressure" to eat Pizza Hut specifically? It's advertising, not unlike the deluge of commercialism kids encounter in all aspects of their lives. Restaurant marquees tout current specials, coupons for two-for-one specials tempt harried parents, and noone can use any sort of media without encountering ads. Pizza Hut just took a different approach. Not only are they advertising for business, but there is an added bonus of helping kids get involved in reading.

Among those campaigning against Book It is Alfie Kohn, author of “Punished By Rewards." Now, I think it worth pondering the ideas of this critic.

Kohn questions the value of incentive programs in general.

“The more kids see books as a way to get pizza or some other prize, the less interest they’ll have in reading itself,” Kohn, a former teacher, said in a telephone interview. “They tend to choose easier books to get through faster.”

I agree. I find extrinsic motivation to be a quick and easy remedy for pervasive apathy. I don't like it in theory, but I'll even admit to using it in my own classroom from time to time. Kohn says,

They do work in the short term, but at a great cost. Rewards, like punishments, are useful for getting exactly one thing: temporary compliance. By bribing or threatening kids, you can get them to do what you want as long as the reward or the punishment keeps coming. You'll never get anything more substantial than that.

I think the only thing the Book It program can be criticized for is blatant extrinsic motivation. I would also have a problem with any school that would make the program mandatory. However, I think I would have to find Book It not guilty on charges of commercialised pressure and causing childhood obesity. I even find it difficult to uphold the charges of extrinsic motivation when I live in a community where parents will often pay kids a particular sum (let's say, $20 each) for each "A" on the report card.

I would much rather find a way to foster authentic love of reading from a young age by modeling a love of reading myself. Or, if I chose to buy into extrinsic rewards, I would like to set something up that was not economic in nature, but rather a reward of time or experience.

We do have problems with how we raise and reward our children today, however, I don't think Pizza Hut is the enemy here. I say to those kids, keep reading and enjoy your pizza!

When Worlds Collide: Global Warming

Last week, my teammate stopped by and told me that he was going to be studying the Middle East and the politics of oil in his social studies class. Would I want to do anything about oil?

Well, we have already "covered" the environment in September, and we were currently studying plants, but I figured dead plants make up fossil fuels. Close enough.

So, my students and I looked into the science of fossil fuels and alternative fuels. (LiveScience has written its Top 10 ways to power the future.) We culminated our short study with selections from Who Killed the Electric Car? and The Inconvenient Truth. (LiveScience also updates us on current electric car technology.)

That night, at home, I was scrolling through the Chicago Tribune, when I came across Mayor Daley and Chicago's timely response to recent reports (BBC, CNN) that humans are mainly responsible for global warming.

Similar to the fiberglass "Cows on Parade" from 1999, one hundred 5-foot-wide globes will be featured this summer in areas along the lakefront. Each globe will feature an artist's design to help "bring awareness to the need for solutions to reduce global warming." (Chicago Tribune article)

Mayor Daley announced his plans on February 6 and plans to call the exhibit "Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet."

"We all share responsibility for global warming," Daley said. "We can all be a part of the solution."

Now, here's the even cooler part. After the globes hang out at the lakefront for the summer, they will be auctioned off. The money raised from the auction will be used to expand environmental programs and conservation clubs in the Chicago public schools. Now, that is a great way to give back to schools and empower our kids.

Art teacher Turtel Onli sponsors such a program at Kenwood Academy High School. He says,

"We want to help children make the transition from consumers to committed, passionate citizens"

Character Does Count

I read an article recently about a Wisconsin Police Chief, Richard Knoebel, who wrote himself a ticket for accidently passing a school bus with its lights flashing. As he believed he should not be treated any differently than any other resident, he wrote himself a $235 ticket last September and paid the fine the next day. No one really knew about it, until a newspaper wrote about it after stumbling across the fine in public court records. Asked about the recent press coverage, Knoebel responds,

If it brings notice to people that they should be stopping for school buses, I don't mind the notoriety

Now this is a story that impresses me.

So often, I feel as though I am fighting a losing moral battle with my middle school students. While I strive to model emotional intelligence and remain a pillar of good character in my classroom, the kids are constantly bombarded with mixed messages outside the classroom. Inside the classroom, there are posters telling them that a measure of character is how they act when no one is watching. However, outside the classroom, it is often expressed (even by parents) that "it's OK as long as you don't get caught."

We've been talking a lot about commitment in my classroom lately. In the beginning of the year, we decided to recycle the aluminum cans at our school. After much research and negotiation with the principal, I stood in front of my kids and took a "heads-down, hands-up" vote of whether we should take on this responsibility. I strongly reinforced that this commitment would require going outside twice a week for about 20 minutes to sort through the garbage and crush the cans, for the entire year. This would include the midwest winter months, which are brutal at best. All but one of my students made a promise that they would commit to our goal.

Now, in February, the whining is at its peak. "Do we have to?" "But it's cold!" "This is stupid." I remind them that they made a commitment. I tell them to bring a hat and gloves. (Which, in middle school, is decidedly 'uncool.') We agreed that this was important, and that this mattered to the environment. And I will not let them back out of their agreement, as they are allowed to do so often in their lives. Some kids are starting to get it. When it is below freezing outside, I do give the kids a choice. (I'm not that crazy.) Lately, some kids have been saying "We made a commitment - I'm in!"

I read about pillars of character, and believe kids should be encouraged to embrace these ideals. But, there's part of me that wonders... how many adults do I know who embrace these characteristics? Sometimes, I get discouraged with society. But, once in a while, I am reminded by people such as Richard Knoebel that good character still exists. Nice work!

Failure in School: Whose Fault Is It?

I've got to admit, I really enjoy reading Dennis Fermoyle's blog, From the Trenches of Public Ed.. I find myself nodding in agreement to much of what he writes about. In one post, he pulls an except from his own book.

I think it's reasonable to say that when teachers are making a real effort to engage their students, the responsibility for trying to learn should lie with the students. But we have been brainwashed. We have been taught to blame ourselves when students refuse to try. It sounds so noble for a teacher to say, "If any of my students fail, then I have failed," but I'm convinced that this is actually harmful. An example I used in the book I wrote illustrates just where this "nobility" is getting us.

I attended a workshop in which the presenter, a teacher-turned- college-professor, told the story of a sixth grade girl with whom he had worked. The girl had refused to do a required assignment. The presenter said he tried everything he could to encourage her, but she wouldn't do it. Finally, he asked her why she wouldn't just give it a try. She told him, "Because if I try, it won't be very good,and I'll be a failure; but if I don't try, then you're the failure."

I think is is important to stress Fermoyle's first line, "I think it's reasonable to say that when teachers are making a real effort to engage their students, the responsibility for trying to learn should lie with the students." I agree that teachers have a responsibility to engage and inspire learners. I am in no way excusing bad teaching. But I recognize that, even when good teachers are trying their best, they all too often can relate to the selection above.

Why is it that good teachers beat themselves up over their student's shortcomings? Students spend roughly 45 minutes a day with a single teacher, which is a little over 3% of their entire day. In fact, kids only spend 6.5 hours (or 27%) of their day in school, and 73% at home. So why are individual teachers expected to be so responsible for students' academic motivation, social health, emotional well-being and character development?

I talk to my students about responsibility for their actions. In response to "Who is ultimately responsible for your own learning?" most will respond, "I am." However, do they really believe that? If they don't turn in an assignment, I am expected to keep track, make a list, recopy the sheets, and schedule a time for them to redo a lab or use the supplies. If they don't pay attention in class, I am expected to stay after school to re-teach the concepts missed. If a student misbehaves, I need to have them serve a detention with me after school. If they receive a failing grade, I am the one who has to go to the principal to explain myself to the administration and to the parent. What message does this send to the student? I agree with the sixth grader above. The message is: if students do not try, then it is the teacher who is labeled the failure and is responsible for fixing the situation.

I love my job, and I work far beyond my 6.5 "contract hours" per day. However, I want to give my time to creating engaging lessons, making meaningful assessments, giving thoughtful feedback, and helping those students who make an effort, but truly struggle. Most afternoons, I give my time to various extracurricular activities to help develop the "whole child." Every hour I spend on a single student, is an hour taken away from the other 99% of my team. I know that is all part of the deal of teaching, but less than 5% of my students take up over 90% of my efforts. I do believe all students can learn, and I want to make a difference, but I am struggling with finding the time to make it happen.

I'm saddened that report cards are no longer considered feedback on student progress. They have become some sort of permanent record of monumental importance, that teachers must remain in virtually constant contact with parents, as to carefully craft the single letter that will remain etched in ink. It is no longer enough to send a progress report every six weeks. Teachers are expected to immediately contact the parent with any drop in percentage and initiate interventions to reverse low performance, in the form of behavior contracts, modified assignments, alternate assessments, and additional help. I am to happy to oblige, but it all of this takes time away from meaningful pedagogical contributions to the rest of the class. As I watch some of my apathetic students, I wonder - what happened to the students' role in all of this?

Social Impact Games & Gaming in Education

I'll be the first to admit, I'm not much into video games, yet even I have heard kids excitedly discussing WarCraft and Halo. I think it safe to say that most kids are significantly more engaged with their video game console than their schoolwork. I, like many educators, have considered: what if we could somehow combine the two?

In reading Hungarian medical student, Bertalan Meskó's, blog post on medical video games, I was reminded of a very interesting site which compiles "social impact games." One such linked game explains,

The Liemandt Foundation is dedicated to facilitating, testing, and promoting “stealth education” video games so that they can make learning fun for kids who might enjoy playing games more than listening to teachers.

There are specific learning games, such as Kinetic City's Nowhere to Hide demo on natural selection (birds, bugs, and pollution). The political and social games range from interesting, to disturbing, to downright offensive for some.

Check out some of these games at Social Impact Games and the Serious Games Initiative.

However, this brings me to an interesting dilemma. Where is the balance between our need to educate and our expectation (by today's kids) to entertain? Is there a satisfactory and possible compromise?

Magazine T.H.E. Journal believes education is Trending the the Right Direction. Also, considering the issue of using gaming and interactive software in education is the focus of an upcoming international symposium sponsored by The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), I think it is an important trend to watch.

There are salient differences between the design environment for those who design games and those who develop products for the K-12 market. One difference is that game developers are largely unconstrained by national or state mandated curriculum and can design their products for integrity and validity as a stand alone experience. Also, game designers must count on the nature of the experience to engage the student rather than relying on an adult authority to require kids to use it.

To date, there has been limited cross-over between the worlds of education and gaming/interactive software. This Symposium will explore if there are effective strategies for stimulating greater synergy between these sectors with the goal of providing more compelling and engaging learning environments for our children.

I plan on attending that March 27th symposium. I'll keep you posted.

School is Boring

Dennis Fermoyle's blog post describes how Marc Prensky's article, Engage Me or Enrage Me (2005), was placed in teacher's mailboxes, presumably to inspire and motivate the educators. However, it ended up enraging some of the teachers instead. Of course, I had to check it out myself, and had a similar reaction. From the article...

The big difference from today is this: the kids back then didn’t expect to be engaged by everything they did. There were no video games, no CDs, no MP3s—none of today’s special effects. Those kids’ lives were a lot less rich—and not just in money: less rich in media, less rich in communication, much less rich in creative opportunities for students outside of school. Many if not most of them never even knew what real engagement feels like.

I've heard this from veteran teachers. They talk about the frustration of "competing" with students' multimedia outside world.

Life for today’s kids may be a lot of things—including stressful—but it’s certainly not unengaging.

Except in school.

And there it is so boring that the kids, used to this other life, just can’t stand it.

In fact, kids often seem over-engaged. The only time they get to relax is in school, and many kids take this mental vacation to new heights during school hours.

Yesterday’s education for tomorrow’s kids. Where is the programming, the genomics, the bioethics, the nanotech—the stuff of their time? It’s not there. Not even once a week on Fridays.

That’s one more reason the kids are so enraged—they know their stuff is missing!

I might argue against that. Do they really know that their stuff is missing? Or do they only know they want something different?

The fact is that even if you are the most engaging old-style teacher in the world, you are not going to capture most of our students’ attention the old way. “Their short attention spans,” as one professor put it, “are [only] for the old ways of learning.” They certainly don’t have short attention spans for their games, movies, music, or Internet surfing. More and more, they just don’t tolerate the old ways—and they are enraged we are not doing better by them.

And if we educators don’t start coming up with some damned good curricular gameplay for our students—and soon—they’ll all come to school wearing (at least virtually in their minds) the T-shirt I recently saw a kid wearing in New York City: “It’s Not ADD—I’m Just Not Listening!”

Whew. It's tough just to pick out a few parts of that article to comment on. It is rather enraging. I frequently remind students that I am not "a paid entertainer" and part of the responsibility to make things interesting rests on their shoulders. I don't think it is acceptable for students to sit back and to send the message, "Engage me or Enrage me."

However, I do see some valid points to the article. The world IS changing, and education should be forced to change with it. However, as with any innovation, there needs to be time, money and support.

I use various technologies in my classroom. I have been using digital video, internet simulations and powerpoint lessons for years. I am currently looking into implementing blogs, wikis, and Flash into my curriculum. However, I struggle with the time. From the moment I wake up at 4 am, until I leave school at 6 pm or later, I am racing around. I can only imagine what I might be able to come up with given an uninterrupted chunk of time with similarly-minded professionals. We have a lot of good ideas inside of us, but not the time to flush them out.

Money is also an issue. Teachers need experts to train them. However, what would be the motivation for a technology expert to accept a position in a school district for $50,000 a year, when they can make that much in 6 or 7 weeks in a lucrative tech field? From limited personal experience, this is a growing problem, as science and technology trained professionals leave teaching to pursue more appropriate compensation for their talents. Schools also need money to upgrade their equipment. Prensky demands "some damned good curricular gameplay." We need the equipment and network to support it. To implement technology to the extent to which Prensky refers, we need more that a few computer carts for schools 500+ kids. And, as the technology gets more interactive, the strain on the limited systems will become more pronounced.

And, most importantly, there needs to be support. Prensky asks, "Where is the programming, the genomics, the bioethics, the nanotech—the stuff of their time? " It's out there, but teachers can't yet grasp it. When a technology start-up encounters an area of non-expertise, what do they do? They secure additional funding and hire a consultant. However, across the country, school district budgets are being slashed. Just as a start-up would not ask a non-expert to waste their time muddling through a problem they cannot solve, teachers should not be held responsible for being unable to integrate such technology into the current curriculum. Provide us with the expertise, the training and the time to learn, and I am sure we would see more invigorating results.

Prensky, while initially raising the hairs on the back of my neck, makes some very valid points. Education does have to change. But in order to do so, the current time and funding structures will have to change as well. An African proverb says, "It takes a village to raise a child." Well, it's going to take a whole lot more than just teachers to change education. But with the necessary resources, we are up for the challenge!

CFG: Critical Friends Group

In the hectic schedule of meetings and obligations, there is one commitment that I eagerly anticipate - our CFG meetings. This is the second year I have participated in a Critical Friends Group (CFG) at my school. A group of us meet each month to discuss a piece of work or an issue brought in by one of our colleagues. Our structured conversations last about an hour, but the renewed pedagogical vigor lasts for days to follow.

We use protocols, such as the Collaborative Assessment Conference, Tuning Protocol, Consultancy and others. They all differ slightly, but all share a similar characteristics: all provide for a structured conversation about a piece of student work or an educational issue. This formal discussion is far more effective than the typical "teacher's lounge" conversation.

CFGs are a trend quickly infiltrating school systems. The National School Reform Faculty maintains an entire website on the subject of CFGs.

I agree with Carol Nejman when she says, "In a teacher's life there are always a thousand things to do and not enough time to do it all. Disciplining myself to take the time to meet with colleagues on a voluntary basis was difficult at first. Later, the work became so invigorating I couldn't stay away."

That's what CFGs do for me. I think they are fantastic. Too often, as educators, we are isolated in our own classrooms. In fact, I haven't really formally observed another teacher since I completed my preservice training. I can learn a lot from my colleagues, however, the system is not currently designed to encourage such interactivity. Any move towards making professional development more collaborative receives high marks from me.

Muscle Song in Prep for Frog Dissection

When studying comparative anatomy, my students sing the following song, to remember the function (lyrics) and location (motions) of some major muscles. They tease me for making up the song, but I've heard more than one student hum the tune while taking the muscle test!

(to the tune of "If You're Happy & You Know It." Instead of clapping twice, as in the original song, we do the indicated motions twice.)

The Pectoralis is a muscle in my chest, (cross arms over chest)
My Deltoids lift my arms the best, (lift arms as if flying)
If I wanna take a peek, (hand up as if shielding your eyes from the sun)
Then I'll have to use Oblique (turn and bend diagonally)
The Pectoralis is a muscle in my chest. (cross arms over chest)

Use my Rectus Abdominus in a crunch, (crunch forward)
My Triceps Brachii help throw a punch, (punch motion)
Now to lift my leg like this, (lift leg in 90 degree angle from hip)
I'll have to use my Femoris, (hold pose)
Use my Rectus Abdominus in a crunch. (crunch forward)

My Gastrocnemius is kinda neat, (stand up on tip toe)
It's the muscle that helps me point my feet, (lift foot and point toe)
Now you might think I'm a nut, (no particular motion here)
But my Gluteus is my butt, (turn and point to butt)
My Gastrocnemius is kinda neat. (stand up on tip toe)

Microbe Wanted Poster & Plagiarism

Every life science teacher in my building does some variation of the "Wanted Poster" during our study of microbes. (Feel free to modify my checklist.) Search Google, and you can find many teachers who are using a similar project. Not only does it allow for a little creativity, but a project like this helps dissuade the plagiarism beast.

Media literacy is as big of an issue to tackle as plagiarism, so for this assignment, instead of letting them loose on the Internet, I restrict their search to a list of trusted sites.

With all of these great resources available on diseases, a straight report would be an open invitation for plagiarism. We've all heard our students claim "but, the author wrote it exactly the way I would write it already!" In the old days, plagiarism meant painstakingly copying sentences from an encyclopedia. However, nowadays, "cut-and-paste plagiarism" is much more convenient and prevalent.

I used information from Indiana University and Lisa Hinchliffe to create a PowerPoint to use with my students at the start of this project. At each natural stopping point, I allowed my students to write and share their own paraphrasing of the selections. It was a good discussion and all of the kids said they learned something from the activity.

Does this mean I have never had instances of plagiarism again? Not quite. There will always be those students whose waited well beyond the last minute or who are looking for the "easy A". However, it did cut down tremendously on the amount of "uninformed plagiarists" - those kids who honestly didn't realize what they were doing was wrong.

An Inconvenient Truth

Recently, I saw An Inconvenient Truth at my local library. I found it quite fascinating, although one of my students had previously described it to me as a "snooze cruise." Granted, for a 12 year old, watching 96 minutes of diagrams and charts might get a little boring. But the message isn't dull. In fact, I intend to show clips from the movie to my students in managable, discussable chunks. Not only will it foster a discussion on global warming, but it also provides a chance to incorporate some digital age literacy skills.

Many people believe the message is too important to ignore or even to pay for. Michael Eakes writes to encourage Al Gore to share his message freely. One educator responds to the "DVD Giveaway" with a similar request. Interestingly enough, I have very recently learned that someone DID post An Inconvenient Truth on YouTube. However, you'll have to watch it in parts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 or watch the trailer. UPDATE: a UK weblog has aggregated the clips onto one site.) It will be interesting to see how long the posting persists, or whether it is in copyright violation.

Personally interesting is the controversy over the recent educator "DVD giveaway" offer. When Al Gore first approached the National Science Teacher's Association (NSTA) with an offer to give away 50,000 DVDs to educators, they refused. Since then, there have been a flurry of articles and blogs speculating on the NSTA's reasons. NSTA cites a potential risk to funding from key supporters and a desire to abstain from political endorsements.

Some people, including John Stossel, claim that Al Gore is all hype, but it doesn't change appearance of this issues in recent news: the rise in ocean levels, the endangerment of polar bears, breaking off of ancient ice shelves, more? In fact, National Geographic actually consulted with Eric Steig, an earth scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle, to check the facts of the movie.

He says the documentary handles the science well.

"I was looking for errors," he said.

"But nothing much struck me as overblown or wrong."

Just in case we are on the verge of global disaster, maybe we'd better start making some changes.

How to Build a Student for the 21st Century

A recent Time article begins with a clever snapshot of Rip Van Winkle awaking from his 100 year nap to find himself immersed in unfamiliar technology, only to seek refuge in the one institution that has not appeared to change at all - a school.

The article was prompted by the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce's December 14th publication of its powerful recommendations for sweeping change in American education. Although there is apparent controversy with some of the bold proposals, the consensus of these educators and business folk is that "we need to bring what we teach and how we teach into the 21st century."

Time Magazine specifically highlights these four "21st century skills."

1. Knowing more about the world - As global citizens, students have an obligation to become aware of and sensitive to other geographies, cultures, and languages.

2. Thinking outside the box - Future job opportunities will focus on creativity and innovation, not rote or repetitive tasks. Time cites NCLB as one of the reasons schools have actually steered away from this goal in recent years. The need for more interdisciplinary curriculums is also stressed.

3. Becoming smarter about new sources of information - There is no question students can access more information that ever before. Educators must now facilitate skills in managing, validating, and interpreting that information.

4. Developing good people skills - Today, a person's EQ ("Emotional Intelligence") is even more important than their IQ. Traditional schooling can be competitive and individualistic, which does not bode well for tomorrow's collaborative workforce.


Learning 2.0

These goals are important and attainable. For example, we pioneered and do continue to focus on civil behavior, with our building specifically concentrating on the five domains of Emotional Intelligence.

1. Self-Awareness, 2. Self-Regulation, 3. Motivation. 4. Empathy, 5. Social Skills.

These qualities have been shown to directly impact students' academic learning, particularly among early adolescents

Our students know the vocabulary. They are used to referring to the domains when complementing other students or when discussing disciplinary infractions. A poster listing the five domains hangs in every classroom.

The need for updated literacy skills are as critical as social-emotional skills. NCREL's EnGauge website discusses the importance of this digital-age literacy as part of a necessary set of 21st century skills.

Systemic change takes time, but there are steps parents and educators can take. The Time article discusses curriki.org, a curriculum clearinghouse based on the wiki concept. NCREL has created a variety of frameworks (such as the the one below) that an educator can use to become more mindful of the integration of 21st century skills into current lesson plans and activities.

Educating these "21st century students" remains a daunting task in my mind. It is easy to get bogged down with the daily grind of the current public school system, however, I have to vow to not give up trying to address these goals of global awareness, innovative thinking, increased digital literacy, and social-emotional competencies. These skills are vitally important for our students.

Schools featured in the Time article include Seattle's John Stanford International School, Michigan's Henry Ford Academy, New York's Baccalaureate School for Global Education, and Michigan's Farmington High.

A great post at Learning.now highlights the irony of the Dec. 25th Time issue directly following this Dec. 18th article.

I find it fascinating how the article suggests that eventually projects like Curriki might “take the Web 2.0 revolution to school,” as if there aren’t countless educators working their butts off to demonstrate to their peers how blogs, podcasts, wikis and other tools can be used to improve student learning. It’s as if the amazing, transformative universe documented in the Person of the Year issue hasn’t even come knocking at education’s door yet. Or perhaps the industrial-era schoolhouse walls of are simply too thick for us to hear it knocking. Maybe it’s because too many educators and students who embrace Web 2.0 are finding themselves in conflict with a system that worries what might happen if students are given too many opportunities to express themselves online, whether at school or at home.

Educational Games on the Web

As any educator, I spend hours trolling the internet for games that are both educational and appealing to my hard-to-please seventh graders. However, this week I unleashed 48 seventh-graders onto the Web with instructions to identify and evaluate some educational sites they felt fit the aforementioned criteria.

Their favorites?

Brainpop, Quia, and Funbrain were frequently mentioned. Coolmath was popular, although even the kids commented that the games "could use more math."

Other sites of interest included:

getsmarter.org - let's kids compare their math and science scores with students worldwide
BBC Maths File - math games with an amusing twist (what is Hypatia doing?!)

12 Days of Christmas - Math Lesson on Percentages

It was getting close to the holidays, and my students' attention for math was beginning to wane. So I developed an activity so that they could exercise their imaginations, while practicing their math skills.

You might know the song… “On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… a partridge in a pear tree” etc. If you really bought all 78 items sung on the last day of the “Twelve Days of Christmas,” it would cost you $18,920 this year, according to USA Today.

If you were to choose 12 days of gifts for your own true love, what would they be? More importantly, how much is it going to cost you?

It is kind of interesting to see what my middle school kids would buy in this lesson on percentages! (I got a lot of spinning rims (did you know they made them for bikes?!), iPods and grills.) Feel free to borrow, copy, or modify the activity.

The Power of "I Don't Know"

I think many teachers are compelled to give their students the impression that they know everything. Maybe I'm just lucky to be teaching in a discipline of theories, where ideas are expected to be introduced, challenged, rejected, and modified over time.

I have resigned myself to realize that even the most rigorous college science training does not prepare one for the questions 7th graders ask. "What state of matter is fire?" (hot gas). "Are there siamese-twin animals?" (there are). "How do bears pee when they're hibernating?" (they don't. they recycle the nitrogen into protein). "What would happen if you dropped antimatter in the earth's mantle?" (I don't know).

You'll notice none of them ask me what the Na/K ratio is in the sodium-potassium pump. Or what is the adductor to conteract the deltoid muscle. They don't ask me how many electrons are in the outermost orbital of a noble gas. Nope, my college education does not help me when kids start asking questions.

But, what does help me is a pad of post-its, an insatiable desire to learn, and access to the internet. At the end of the day, when my computer screen is littered with question-riddled post-its, a few students and I will look for the answers, and those we can't find, we submit to the experts. My favorite site is the UCSB Scienceline, where actual scientists email responses to student questions, although Wonderquest and The Why Files have helped us out, too. And I can't leave How Stuff Works off the list of most helpful sites.

"When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it; this is knowledge." - Confucius

"The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds." - John F. Kennedy

"The more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know." - Albert Einstein

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." - Socrates

These are some pretty smart guys, and they seem to be sharing a similar message. Ignorance itself is not to be feared. It is an tool to define the parameters of your current knowedge and to identify areas in which to expand your knowledge.

I firmly believe in admitting when I don't know something. In fact, I think it is very powerful to say to a student, "I don't know," followed by, "but we can certainly find out!"

Should Wikipedia be used in school?

A funny thing happens when you mention Wikipedia in schools. Some teachers stare at you blankly while trying to place the origin of that strange word you just used. Other teachers start shifting from foot to foot, until they explode in a tirade professing that any responsible teacher would keep their students far away from that unreliable source. Still others nonchalantly shift away from the conversation, not wanting to admit that they didn't realize Wikipedia wasn't just an ordinary encyclopedia after all.

Of course, this is an exaggeration. But not by much. I conducted an informal survey at my own school. Of the paltry 24 responses I received from my little query: 4 (17%) teachers sheepishly asked what Wikipedia was (introduction), 13 (54%) said Wikipedia should not be acceptable as a credible source, 3 (13%) said they would allow students to cite Wikipedia, and another 4 (17%) said they would allow it as a source, but not as a sole source.

Perhaps one of the most colorful responses I received comes, not surprisingly, from an art teacher.

This sounds like the perfect resource! I could make it say anything I wanted, anytime I wanted! (Sort of like the painter vs. the photographer. The painter can change the season with a brush stoke and a color change, depending on his mood. The photographer has to be a slave for reality and wait for real time to change the season.)

Interestingly, one might reasonably argue that technology is even changing the way photographers can capture and manipulate reality. But I digress...

The Wikipedia debate is not new. In a July 2005 blog, Andy Carver acknowledges educators' "hostility" towards the resource, although he describes how "Wikipedia's flaws actually make it an ideal learning tool for students." In fact, Wikipedia surely embraces Carver's ideas, as these same ideas are quoted in Wikipedia's Schools' FAQ. Wikipedia never claimed to be valid. The disclaimer on the bottom of every page makes this quite clear. Sure, anyone can edit a wiki, and write that the moon truly is made of cheese. Although, in a heavily disputed study, Nature "suggests that such high-profile examples are the exception rather than the rule" as it found natural science entries in Wikipedia to rival those in Encyclopedia Britannica.

Whatever your stance, we all must agree that the wiki is not going away. So, as with many emerging technologies, we must find ways to use it as an educational opportunity.

Michael Eakes weighs in on the debate,

There is no guarantee of quality for any given Wikipedia article. But more importantly, Wikipedia remains incredibly useful as an initial resource that provides a contextual framework for more exhaustive research.

Perhaps those four teachers had the right idea. Wikipedia is a valuable source, but should not be relied upon as an only source.

Andy Carvin takes it a step further in March 2006,

Students and teachers should debate Wikipedia and even contribute to it; remember, it's a work-in-progress, not a finished body of work. But all too often, the debate over Wikipedia's merits is left among the educators only, with students left out of the conversation and operating on a simple directive: don't use it. By ignoring Wikipedia rather than teaching critical, responsible uses of it, schools are practically inviting students to edit Wikipedia at their own peril. We should be preparing students for constructive participation in the Read/Write Web; otherwise it might as well be the Read/Vandalize Web.

Andy Carvin did his own survey of educators and found little consensus among educators when it came to Wikipedia.

Opinions abound on Wikipedia's usefulness in schools. I personally agree that Wikipedia is a useful springboard to further research, and an opportunity to really teach media literacy and fact validation techniques. In the world that awaits our student's tomorrows, I cannot think of two more valuable lessons for our kids.

More blogposts tackling Wikipedia : Infinite Thinking Machine

Happy Feet are not as lighthearted as you might think

I saw Happy Feet this weekend. I was expecting to be entertained by some cute animated flightless birds, but the movie is much more than that. If you've seen the trailer, the movie appears quite innocuous, however, I found the movie to be rather dark at times.

There are strong messages about tolerance, diversity, foreigners, ecological destruction, capativity, and even religion. All wrapped up with singing penguins.

However, it's an entirely separate issue to have a film essentially mock religion as an opiate for the masses and take the environmental issue to the point of actually showing debates in the U.N. It would have been very simple to have Mumble inspire the world in harmony to protect the environment. - firstshowing.net

What happened to carefree family animated movies? When did they get so satirical? I was even a little surprised by the previews (Happily N'Ever After, whose buxom animated star proclaims, "Happy endings are SO yesterday," and Fred Claus). Entertainment has changed since I was a kid.

I liked the movie. In fact, I would show it in my 7th grade life science classes. The subtext could inspire some interesting social-emotional and ecological discussions.

What people are saying about Happy Feet:
The movie has strengths & weaknesses
The last half hour is inappropriate for a kids' movie
The movie mocks christians
The plot has too much "message"
The movie is charming and entertaining
I wouldn't take a child under 7 or 8 to see "Happy Feet."

The Baltimore Sun's Chris Kaltenbach calls Happy Feet a

"...tedious affair that spends half its time on some heavy-handed moralizing, the other half in the mistaken belief that people can never get enough of singing penguins.... this is a perfect film for penguin lovers who also are devoted members of the Green party."

Going with the FLOW

On any given day, I encounter a myriad of emotions in my classroom. A single lovingly crafted lesson may resonate with a particular group of students, propelling them onward towards success, while others in the class may react with anxiety, apathy, or frustration.

This phenomenon, perhaps, was a bit of a mystery in my fledgling years as an educator. However, as I gained experience, I began to see patterns.

However, it wasn't until I was exposed to the ideas of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and his idea of "Flow" that I had a tangible expression of these patterns. Education is a constant balance. The great myth is that every student receives a similar education in a particular class. We educators provide the challenge, but as the chart suggests, a fixed challenge may elicit very different reactions in students of varying skill levels.

This is why I believe in differentiation. I don't want students to be bored, apathetic or anxious in my classroom. It isn't even enough for them to be relaxed or in control. In order for each student to grow, they need to be presented with the appropriate high challenge level for their current set of skills. Similarily, if they lack the skills to work on the expected challenge, it is up to me to provide support in building those needed skills.

This is not to say I think differentiation is easy. In fact, I think this is the most difficult aspect of my job. Unfortunately, I also think it is one of the most necessary. In a classroom of 30 kids, it is impossible to get simultaneous flow without differentiation.

We all have experienced flow. We may have called it being "in the zone" or "in the groove," but we recognize the state in which time flies by as we are engaged in something we competently enjoy. Flow is often described as an optimal state of intrinsic motivation.

Wouldn't education be effective if all students worked in an "optimal state of intrinsic motivation"?

Defective Blueberries vs. Challenging Kids

This is a wonderful story for educators and non-educators alike. People so frequently try and project the "business model" onto schools. This model is ill-fitted to the realities of education.

The Blueberry Story By Jamie Robert Vollmer

I stood before an auditorium filled with outraged teachers who were becoming angrier by the minute. My speech had entirely consumed their precious 90 minutes of in- service training.

I represented a group of business people dedicated to improving public schools. I was an executive at an ice cream company that became famous in the middle-1980s when People Magazine chose its blueberry flavor as the "Best Ice Cream in America."

I was convinced of two things. First, public schools needed to change; they were archaic selecting and sorting mechanisms designed for the Industrial Age and out of step with the needs of our emerging "knowledge society." Second, educators were a major part of the problem: They resisted change, hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by tenure and shielded by a bureaucratic monopoly. They needed to look to business. We knew how to produce quality. Zero defects! Total Quality Management! Continuous improvement!

In retrospect, the speech was perfectly balanced—equal parts ignorance and arrogance.

As soon as I finished, a woman's hand shot up. She appeared polite, pleasant. She was, in fact, a razor-edged, veteran high school English teacher who had been waiting to unload.

She began quietly, "We are told, sir, that you manage a company that makes good ice cream."

I smugly replied, "Best ice cream in America, ma'am."

"Premium ingredients?" she inquired.

"Super-premium! Nothing but triple-A." I was on a roll. I never saw the next line coming.

"Mr. Vollmer," she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, "when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?"

In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap snap. I was dead meat, but I wasn't going to lie.

"I send them back."

"That's right!" she barked, "and we can never send back our blueberries. We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant. We take them with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second language. We take them all. Every one. And that, Mr. Vollmer, is why it's not a business. It's school."

In an explosion, all 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aides, custodians, and secretaries jumped to their feet and yelled, "Yeah! Blueberries! Blueberries!"

Speaking of NCLB, read another teacher's opinion Of "No Child Left Behind" and Blueberries (2003)

AYP: Are You Preposterous?

On January 8, 2002, President Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (see legislation or wikipedia article). In theory, it is a wonderful proposition focused on stronger accountability, more freedom for states and communities, proven education methods, and more choices for parents.

One of the requirements of NCLB is that by 2013-14 all students meet or exceed state learning standards. In 2001, an average of about 40% of Illinois students met or exceeded state standards. In a high performing district, this might be closer to 85 %.

The graph represents Illinois' plan to reach the 100% mark by 2014. Source: IL State Board of Ed website (I'm not sure why we take an "improvement break" between 2012 & 2013.)

Schools are held accountable in their entirety, and also within particular sub-groups.

The 9 groups considered for AYP analyses are:

1. The Entire School
2. American Indians/ Alaskan Natives
3. Asians/ Pacific Islanders
4. Hispanics
5. Black/ African Americans
6. White/ Caucasians
7. Students with an Individualized Educational Plan
8. Students of Limited English Proficiency
9. Students receiving Free or Reduced Price Lunches

If any one of the 9 groups does not meet the criteria for the AYP indicators: (participation, academic acheivement, attendance, etc...), the entire school is designated as not demonstrating Adequate Yearly Progress. In other words, in 2014, if 100% of your LEP kids, or special education kids, are not meeting or exceeding state standards, your entire school is considered "failing." (There are currently 25% of public schools considered failing in the US... and current AYP goals hover in the 40% range right now.... you predict the trend in the percentage of schools considered failing over the next five years.)

Go figure: In 2003, all special education students had to take the same state test as other students and their scores countes in their school's AYP. Shortly thereafter, the federal gov't relaxed the requirement slightly, and schools are able to exempt up to 1% of their population from taking the standardized test. This means students with severe mental retardation, autism, traumatic brain injuries, and other severe disabilities have the option to "not count" against AYP for a school. (Remember, if one subgroup fails, the entire school is labeled as failing.)

Many people argue that AYP requirements unfairly target large, diverse districts. If you have many subgroups, you have "more chances" to fail. Also, a subgroup must have at least 30 kids to "count," so smaller districts often can work around the requirements.

The consequences for not making AYP can be serious, ranging from giving students the option to transfer to another school (transportation paid for by sending school), to providing extra tutoring, to shutting down the school completely and re-opening it as a charter school or under the direction of a private firm.

By the way, right now, according to a 8.16.06 article on cnn.com, "Under the No Child Left Behind law, states were supposed to have highly qualified teachers in every core academic class by the end of the last [05-06] school year. None made it." In addition, independent studies predict that 99% of public schools will be labeled as "failing" by 2014 due to issues with AYP requirements.

Wow. Nearly a 100% failure rate. I firmly support the ideals promoted but the law, but could it be that NCLB is a bit quixotic?

You know you teach middle school science when...

... you find this on your desk when you return from the copy room.


(Our school mascot is the lion. I'm glad to see the students can use them creatively.)

You'll never know when you're making a difference

Teaching middle school is a funny thing. Year after year, you work with students in perhaps the most tumultuous time of their lives. School sucks. Parents are lame. And all authority is to be challenged. We do our best, then let them go.

Years later, an amazing phenomenon unfolds. Some of them come back. They tell tales of moments amidst the middle school chaos that penetrated their identity-crazed self-obsessed beings and affected their very core. Out of the 226,800 moments of their middle school careers (defining a "moment" as one minute), it never ceases to amaze me which moments earn this influential honor.

A sophomore came back and shared a recent English 2 assignment with me about the pressures she feels in high school. She was not a student I was particularily close to; in fact, I rarely recall exchanging any words with her outside the curriculum.

In her paper, she recalls the first few minutes of ninth period of her 7th grade year, a set of moments that have long escaped my memory. She states in her paper, "I don't remember much of what she said that day, or really anything from that entire year. But that day, she unintentionally taught me the most valuable lesson of my life."

She proceeds to write a verbatim record of my brief statements explaining why I have never experimented with tobacco or drugs. My comments lasted no longer than a minute or two, though, according to her, "my life was drastically changed for the better that first day of seventh grade."

I am aware of my words, actions and reactions every moment of my teaching experiences. Among the clamoring adolescents, I just never know who might be listening.

Microbes in the Flesh

On my maiden voyage into blogging, I passed this ship in the night.

Adopt A Microbe - This is the stuff science teachers dream of. Well done!

In fact, I think people underestimate the desirability of micobes in noninfectious forms. Who needs a teddy bear when you can cuddle the Ebola virus at night?

This makes me think fondly of one of my favorite sites, Microbe World, full of microbe news and experiments.