One End Result: an example of a student translation via a Tweet test and thoughts about the nature of what a blog means in terms of end-of-year review

Here's an example of the final result of one student's translation from the Twitter-enhanced Latin test. Not too shabby for a Latin II student.

This is the first of two paragraphs... my comments back to the student are in brackets; I post my edit as a comment to the student's blog post and then record the grade in my PowerGrade online gradebook.

No paper.

LATIN:
His rebus adducti et auctoritate Orgetorigis permoti constituerunt ea quae ad proficiscendum pertinerent comparare, iumentorum et carrorum quam maximum numerum coemere, sementes quam maximas facere, ut in itinere copia frumenti suppeteret, cum proximis civitatibus pacem et amicitiam confirmare. Ad eas res conficiendas biennium sibi satis esse duxerunt; in tertium annum profectionem lege confirmant. Ad eas res conficiendas Orgetorix deligitur. Is sibi legationem ad civitates suscipit.


ENGLISH:
Persuaded [you got the participles; good job!] by these events and moved deeply by the clout/authority [good -- 'clout' is really the sense of 'auctoritas', though it is often translated as 'authority'] of Orgetorix, they prepared to gather what they needed to be sent out onto the field [they began gathering the things they'd need], to buy the greatest number of mules and carts [in English you can render better by putting -ing on that infinitive: 'buying as many mules and carts as possible'], to do a large amount of planting ['facere' has a broad semantic range: try 'sowing' (think about using an English word that describes better the 'making/doing' being expressed in 'facere')], in order to have enough/sufficient supplies for their journey, and to confirm peace and an alliance with the citizens [in this context, likely 'tribes'] close by. Two years was enough for these things to be led [I'd like you to reconstrue this sentence -- let's go over in class]; in the third year, they confirmed their motion of departure [lege -- 'by law' or 'by decree']. Orgetorix was chosen [nice, you got the passive correct] to prepare these things. He undertook the mission of the citizens upon himself. [Again, bring this up in class; we'll reconstrue together]

In addition, by blogging all of this, the student gets to keep a record of the Tweet-transcript, the final draft, my edits, and the grade on the assessment.

Come preparation for the final exam, the student will be able to go over a record of everything done in class by reviewing the blog. This is beneficial in two ways: first, there is no need for me to reinvent the wheel and handout end-of-the-year review sheets because, in effect, the students have been creating their own reviews throughout the year on their blogs. Second, rather than get a review sheet that reads like a page from a textbook, the students are actually able to review from their own work and work they've collaborated on with fellow students. The result is that student draw not just on prior knowledge, but on prior experience.

The blog itself is essentially a record of experiences interacting with the content of the course.

Transcript of a Twitter-enhanced Latin II Test

Here is the feed from today's Twitter-enhanced Latin II test as live blogged on CiL.

We've been working with Twitter in this class for about a week and a half. This was our first test featuring Twitter as a lifeline.

This feed does not include the finished translations -- they are posted on individual student blogs. This is just the raw feed from the session.

Two notes: 1) Not all students are featured in this transcript; I just chose a handful at random to make accessible via CiL. 2) Twitter IDs have been altered.

It may be a geeky thing, but I think there is something wonderful in this raw feed. But the really wonderful thing is that in the last week I've seen comprehension on pre-assessments rise at a greater rate than I've ever seen after introducing a new technique into my teaching.

8:38 Shelly_at_TP
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:38 AM
Ok. So yesterday we were having connection issues... I blogged about that here: http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com/2009/05/and-what-about-when-technology-fails.html
But this morning everything seems to be working well. Students have started their test and Tweets are coming in. I'm working on linking them in directly to this feed.
8:41 MrW via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:41 AM
Yup. RT @tschaf @ayyybr are you asking if that's the right spelling of it or how to spell it, because i think thats right?
8:44 Dantho via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:44 AM
where it is in 240 miles longitude and 180 miles latitude.
8:44 Shelly_at_TP
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:44 AM
Have patched into the feed on Twitter. Should be up and running in a few.
8:46 whowantpanca via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:46 AM
Among the Helvetii, Orgetorix was by far the most famous and rich. Back when Marcus Messala and Marcus Piso were reiging consuls he was ...
8:46 Dantho via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:46 AM
The 140 character limit makes it hard to put the latin in with the english without breaking it up into really small pieces
8:47 whowantpanca via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:47 AM
Apud Helvetios longe nobilissimus fuit et ditissimus Orgetorix. Is M. Messala, [et P.] M. Pisone consulibus regni cupiditate inductus co ...
8:49 whowantpanca via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:49 AM
perfacile esse? need help
8:50 MrW via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:50 AM
Help out, folks: RT @whowantpanca perfacile esse? need help
8:51 kazame via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:51 AM
Die constituta causae dictionis Orgetorix ad iudicium omnem suam familiam, ad hominum milia decem, undique coegit,
8:51 barkel via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:51 AM
His rebus adducti et auctoritate Orgetorigis permoti constituerunt ea quae ad proficiscendum pertinerent comparare, iumentorum et carror ...
8:51 kazame via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:51 AM
THe day that Orgetorix's trial was set to be held, he called to the trial everyone in his family, numbering about two thousand men
8:52 barkel via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:52 AM
Persuaded by these events and moved deeply by the clout/authority of Orgetorix,
8:52 barkel via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:52 AM
they prepared to gather what they needed to be sent out onto the field, to buy the greatest number of mules and carts,
8:52 kazame via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:52 AM
and gathered from every direction
8:53 Dantho via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:53 AM
it means "it is very easy"
8:53 barkel via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:53 AM
to do a large amount of planting, in order to have enough/sufficient supplies for their journey, and to confirm peace and an alliance with
8:53 whowantpanca via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:53 AM
M. does mean Marcus? Right?
8:53 barkel via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:53 AM
the citizens close by. Two years was enough for these things to be led; in the third year, they confirmed their motion of departure.
8:53 Dantho via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:53 AM
Flumen est Arar, quod per fines Haeduorum et Sequanorum in Rhodanum influit
Arar is a river which flows by the border of the Haedui and ...
8:54 ayyybr via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:54 AM
in which merchants often travel to cause minds to weaken,minimeque ad eos mercatores saepe commeant atque ea quae ad effeminandos animos ...
8:54 Dantho via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:54 AM
Arar is a river which flows by the border of the Haedui and Sequani into the Rhone,
8:54 barkel via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:54 AM
how do you direct message someone?
8:55 Dantho via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:55 AM
incredibili lenitate, ita ut oculis in utram partem fluat iudicari non possit
incredibly smooth as the eye can not judge which part of ...
8:55 Dantho via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:55 AM
...which part of it flows
8:55 Shelly_at_TP
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:55 AM
Now we are cooking with gas. The students are Tweeting their translations as they are working.
8:56 tschaf via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:56 AM
frumentum omne, praeter quod secum portaturi erant, comburunt,-> they burned up all the corn, except what they were to carry with them,
8:56 ayyybr via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:56 AM
proximique
8:56 ayyybr via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:56 AM
?
8:57 kazame via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:57 AM
What do u guys think about this part? - per eos ne causam diceret se eripuit. - To speak during his trial and rescue him.
8:58 Dantho via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:58 AM
Id Helvetii ratibus ac lintribus iunctis transibant.
They crossed on a Helveti ship and small boat joined together
8:59 barkel via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:59 AM
alyssa-- close to or nearby
8:59 whowantpanca via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:59 AM
...he told them it would be easy, becasue they are all gifted with valor, so they can totally conquer and command Gaul.
8:59 barkel via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:59 AM
Haeduii??-- i know it is a tribe but does it translate to something else in english?
8:59 whowantpanca via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:59 AM
perfacile esse, cum virtute omnibus praestarent, totius Galliae imperio potiri.
9:00 ayyybr via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:00 AM
thankssss (:
9:01 ayyybr via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:01 AM
Matrona?
9:02 MrW via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:02 AM
Which river is this, folks? RT @ayyybr Matrona?
9:03 whowantpanca via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:03 AM
its quality over quantity on these paragraphs right?
9:06 ayyybr via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:06 AM
haha
9:07 barkel via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:07 AM
Eodem tempore-- at the same time
9:09 MrW via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:09 AM
Keep posting your Latin/translations to the feed, folks.
9:10 barkel via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:10 AM
eodem tempore-- ablative
9:10 ayyybr via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:10 AM
to produce as much planting, to be sufficient in corn for the journey..sementes quam maximas facere, ut in itinere copia frumenti suppeteret
9:11 whowantpanca via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:11 AM
He persuaded them even more easially, because Helvetii's are surounded on every side by the rank of thier nature.
9:11 barkel via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:11 AM
Helvetii iam per angustias et fines Sequanorum suas copias traduxerant et in Haeduorum fines pervenerant eorumque agros populabantur.
9:11 whowantpanca via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:11 AM
Id hoc facilius iis persuasit, quod undique loci natura Helvetii continentur
9:11 tschaf via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:11 AM
trium mensum molita cibaria sibi quemque domo efferre iubent....they commanded everyone himself to take home provisions for three months.
9:12 barkel via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:12 AM
Now, the Helvetii led their troops across to the boundaries of the Sequani through a narrow passage, and arrived at the territories of t ...
9:12 Shelly_at_TP
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:12 AM
The students are basically using Twitter here a) as a lifeline and b) as a place to post 'first drafts' of translations for me to check before they continue. That way, they are on solid ground to produce a meaningful and coherent translation. Too often students get frustrated with foreign languages precisely because they don't receive any formative assessment -- especially on tests. Twitter allows assessment to be formative and ongoing during the actual process of translating itself.
9:14 kazame via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:14 AM
would Tolosatium finibus be the borders of the Tolosati?
9:15 barkel via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:15 AM
consanguinei--- of related of the blood?
9:16 barkel via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:16 AM
what is that supposed to mean? blood- related??
9:16 whowantpanca via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:16 AM
Iura? What does this mean?
9:16 ayyybr via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:16 AM
to call to witness..maybe related to judgement
9:18 whowantpanca via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:18 AM
altera ex parte monte 'Iura' altissimo That word doesn't seem to fit in the sentance
9:19 Dantho via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:19 AM
Ubi per exploratores Caesar certior factus est tres iam partes copiarum Helvetios id flumen traduxisse
Where Caesar's scouts became set ...
9:20 Dantho via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:20 AM
Where Caesar's scouts became settled they had already lead three parts of the many Helveti across the river
9:20 MrW via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:20 AM
Someone help out: RT @whowantpanca altera ex parte monte 'Iura' altissimo That word doesn't seem to fit in the sentance
9:20 Dantho via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:20 AM
quartam vero partem citra flumen Ararim reliquam esse, in truth, the rest of the fourth part is on this side of the Arar
9:22 whowantpanca via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:22 AM
lacu Lemanno? What lake????
9:23 Dantho via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:23 AM
lura means pale. Maybe it's referring to the light color of the snow topped mountains.
9:24 barkel via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:24 AM
brett: out of the highest part of the mountain
9:25 Dantho via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:25 AM
from the third watch with the third part of the people the army set out to go walk over our part which the river has not yet reached.
9:25 Dantho via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:25 AM
e tertia vigilia cum legionibus tribus e castris profectus ad eam partem pervenit quae nondum flumen transierat.
9:25 whowantpanca via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:25 AM
thanks guys
9:26 Dantho via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:26 AM
Pyrenees mountains castro
9:27 Shelly_at_TP
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:27 AM
So, as the students are working here, they are posting the completed portions of their translations on their individual class blogs.
9:29 Shelly_at_TP
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:29 AM
That's where I will give them a summative assessment. The participatory part is all wrapped up in the formative.
9:30 Shelly_at_TP
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:30 AM
Ok. We're finishing up here. Quote from student: "That wasn't so bad... usually you take a test and get stuck on one part and spend like twenty minutes on it."
9:33 MrW via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:33 AM
Ok folks... That's time. Post to yr blog whereever you are. Looks like most got through last third of 2nd para.
9:33 MrW via twitter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:33 AM
Be sure to check my blog for HW. Thanks!
9:34 Shelly_at_TP
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:34 AM
Ok. I'm going to post this transcript later today with some comments and ideas. This was our first test in Latin II taken with Twitter as a lifeline. They are getting the hang of it.

Dell Must Hate Us

Ok, so what does the Computer World think of us Ed Techies? Well, here's a clue as to what Dell thinks:

r u kidding? I am freaking out - I totally hav a problem! NYC is my fave!

Maybe that's not representative as to the corporate line... how about this:

either way not as tummy w/o the tequila:)

No, no, that's not it... how about:

showing my hubby how Twitter works, can anyone say hi? TY! :)

I'm sorry, I have to step away for a minute to throw up.

You see, these are not the rambling Tweets of a totally-freaking-out sorority girl wannabe. These are the 'official' public Tweets of the lead representative of Dell Computer's Edu4U program.

Now, I'm all for playful Tweets. There is a time and place for everything. And I'm sure that I've got more than my fair share of comments on the Web that can easily be taken out of context. I'm not a newb. I know how these things work. But, in looking over "Bri's" Tweets today, we're talking about the world's second largest computer-seller portraying Ed Tech teachers and thinkers as the Gossip Girls.

Now, why is this freaky and not just in bad taste?

Because Mark Horan, Vice President and General Manager for Dell’s Public Accounts group in the United States, is on the board of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

It is absolutely unlikely that the folks involved in Mr. Horan's work on that board would not be aware of the tenor of Dell's Ed Tech flagship site.

This is unacceptable.

If nothing else, it undermines the professionalism of the thousands of educators and ed tech thinkers who actually rely on Twitter and various Web 2.0 sites on a daily basis both for information and as platforms for creative expression and learning in their classes.

We're catching enough hell for trying to use these resources to teach kids. The last thing we need is a fake Ed Techie obscuring what we're trying to do with Valley Girl talk.

As a teacher who has been actively experimenting with Twitter as a learning tool and who has seen Twitter infuse the engagement of students with a fresh spirit, as well as better assessment scores, I find Dell's foray into social networking to be insulting and completely out-of-touch.

And what about when technology fails you?

Days of foul weather have caused disruption to our line. So...

Had to cancel tests for three classes. Also had to cancel the live blogging we were set to do from one of my Latin classes.

And now I sit here at my desk, slightly despondent.

This is the type of thing that some folks point to and say, "That's exactly why I don't use technology."

But that's like seeing a car with a blown-out tire on the Interstate and saying "That's exactly why I don't drive."

Things go haywire occasionally.

I was asked a while ago by a teacher about what I do when the technology fails to work properly. And my answer was two-fold.

First, it rarely happens. At least it rarely happens in such a way as today where I had to shut down three classes. Generally, I've found that most tech issues are related to students' having forgot to update something or leaving a machine on and wearing out the battery. Sure, these things happen; you can't pretend they don't. But one student being without a computer for a day isn't going to destroy your paperless classroom. Just pair them up with someone else while the computer is fixed.

More pressing is a case like today where we're having issues with our line. As I type this, I'm having to ignore the lag between what I type and what appears on the screen. But these issues are temporary. They'll be fixed.

And the threat of a flat tire won't keep me off the road.

The second part of my answer had to do with what you do when everything does fall apart. Well, you improvise. Right now, my students -- who were able to get onto their online texts -- are working together in pairs and actually completing what translations they would have had on their test today. They'll post these to their blogs and I'll check 'em this evening.

So, all is not lost; they get an extra day to study and I get an extra opportunity to check out the state of their translating before they take the final plunge.

Except that it's not a plunge. It's all part of the process. Even the bit about the technology going haywire: that's part of the process.

Because if I were to just throw my hands up and say "The hell with it," I would be doing a disservice to my students. One of the most important 21st Century Skills we can model for our kids is how to deal rationally with technology when things don't go as planned.

Live Blogging a Twitter-Enhanced Latin Test

At 1PM this afternoon, I'll be live blogging from my classroom as my Latin II students take a test on Caesar's Gallic Wars. I'll be reporting on all aspects of the test taking and will be reposting from our live class Tweet feed.

Tweet feed?

Yes, because they'll be doing the entire test online via their blogs, exclusively using online dictionaries, and using Twitter as a live lifeline and place to help one another through the test.

"SO," the cynic says, "they are just going to copy the work of the smartest kid in class, right?"

Well, no... not exactly. Because each student will be translating a different section of the text.

To get students involved actively in the Tweet feed, there will be a requirement to participate in the Tweets. But, this will not be a 'minimum' requirement -- that just encourages students to post some junk quickly so they can get that out of the way. Rather, this will be an 'equivalent' participation requirement -- meaning that students will be required to pay attention to the feed and reply in proportion to what is incoming.

And the kicker? Students will be receiving two grades: one for their individual work and one for their helping other students and taking an engaged and active role in the Tweets.

We've been working for the past week and a half on setting up this situation and making sure everyone in class is comfortable with it. That's not to say that we spent a week and a half learning to use Twitter: that would be silly. Rather, a week and a half ago, I started projecting a Tweet feed on the wall during class translations and allowed students to take part in the feed while we were having discussion and while we were working on the translations.

It worked like a charm. Over the last week alone, I've seen student confidence in translation work increase and on the last informal assessment I gave, the overall class average was up 5 to 8%.

Check out the live blogging at 1PM EST. Available via RSS, on this site, and via Cover it Live.

Teaching Latin via 21st Century Skills and teaching 21st Century Skills via Latin: that's what we do.

For the Glory

Only in the USA would we co-opt a regional Mexican historical stand against Napoleon III's invaders and turn it into a reason to close the bar at Applebee's.

And so, here at TeachPaperless, we say: Chain restaurants and beer distributors stole Cinco de Mayo from Zaragosa... we're stealing it back.

(Actually I quite like using 'we' to speak of myself in the editorial sense).

So, here's the deal: Send in your ideas for using Web 2.0 in the classroom. At the end of the day, an esteemed panel of judges (me and my cat) will decide who gets the glory and this year's title of Cinco de Mayo Ed Tech Visionary of 2009! And why not Tweet yr idea to @TeachPaperless so that everybody can see it.

I've already received three submissions and it's only 6:25AM EST, which just goes to show that Ed Tech folks are obsessive freaks; this should be fun.

Cinco 2.0

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, (the USA's most important holiday -- if you are in the brewing industry --), blow someone's mind today using Web 2.0.

Then @ me on Twitter (@TeachPaperless) & I'll be giving a virtual prize to the best at the end of the day here on TP.

No Fear

It is time to get over your fear.

Yes, I'm talking to you Mr. 'But MySpace is Full of Stalkers and You Just Can't Trust Kids and I'm Scared to Death of Being Sued and I've Never Actually Used Social Networking and Have No Idea What I'm Talking About'.

I'm also talking to you, Mr. 'I Used Social Networking in College and I'm TOTALLY Not Wanting Students to Find Pics of Me Doing Kegstands'.

And I'm talking to you Mr. 'I Hate Technology SO Much, I'm Just Gonna Have to Blog About It'.

I'm talking to you. Listen up.

The White House -- that is to say, the executive center of the free world (Canadian readers, please disregard my hubris; I'm a fully functional ironist) -- has just begun a Web 2.0 program. You can now keep in touch with Barry on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.

And I, for one, think we're all the better for it.

Years ago, social networking was thought of as kids' stuff. Then Obama's organization used Facebook to mobilize millions.

Ain't kids' stuff anymore.

You might wanna mention that to your students.

Web 2.0 is what you make of it. Use it to keep the powers that be transparent and honest. Use it as a force for equality and democracy. Use it to make the world a better place.

Nothing to be afraid of.

Twitter for Teachers

A student in Latin III this morning:

"Over the weekend I tried using Twitter for personal stuff. And it was just awful. I guess it's really just an educational tool."

Ha!

Here's a great new resource that's really developed over the last week: Twitter for Teachers.

It's a wiki designed to help you find other educators using Twitter in the classroom and for professional development. You might be surprised to see just how many folks are Tweeting.

Talking Alumni Blues

Almost missed posting today because I was at an event at school.

We throw an annual Country Fair at John Carroll and this year, one of our teachers put together a music stage full of student and local bands as well as teachers' groups. I did a solo set of electric blues following a great set of Irish and Scottish ballads performed by an ensemble led by one of our art teachers.

One of the great things to see, despite the rain we've had all day, was the number of alumni who showed up to support the current students as well as their former teachers. I think it's really important for both our current students and our alumni to see us as real people and not just in the confines of the classroom.

Been thinking about alumni alot recently because we are entering into the week where we start evaluating Senior Projects. Many alumni have supported our Seniors as mentors and it's really a great way to make connections between students recent and past. Those connections are what allows a school to fit into the larger community.

A lot of people have been discussing community and the larger role of schools recently. There actually still is an idea out there that schools aren't predicated on the concept of test scores, but that schools are foundational as the places that instill a understanding of and sense of power in democracy.

And I think that's where 21st century learning fits in perfectly.

The Internet provides access to information. Any student in just about any public library in this country has immediate access to almost all of the information that humanity has produced over the last 5000 or so years. So it becomes a matter of what to do with it.

And that's where alumni mentoring programs fit in perfectly.

We often approach education from the point-of-view of creating and training new professional teachers. But what about the greatest resource our schools produce: alumni. Our alumni are going to be entering into a wide variety of careers. Careers that operate within the reality of a 21st century digital world.

So why not activate that alumni connection and help former students create authentic bonds with current students.

It is authenticity that we're going for, isn't it?

Passive vs. Active Media

@mjtrigger Tweets:

Thomas Edison said that TVs were going to replace textbooks. Interesting idea, never happened.

The reason that TVs did not replace textbooks is that both are passive forms.

Web 2.0 is a whole other kettle of fish. It is by nature interactive, customizable, and social.

It's actually more like a sandbox in a public park.

Accounting

My son couldn't sleep the night before last.

He was totally freaked out and started complaining about headaches and stomach cramps.

Swine Flu?

No.

Test anxiety.

This week, our kids' public school system is doing the testing ritual. My twin sons are in second grade. And for the last two weeks they've been indoctrinated with test-speak and test-prep. The week before the tests, that's all they did. In fact, the school asked that the kids be sent to school wearing certain types/colors of clothes each day of test-prep to somehow 'help' them to remember the 'importance' of how to approach the tests. (Like wearing pajamas one day to help them 'remember' to get enough sleep the night before the test).

And so, my son approached the tests with the anxiety of someone who really thought that failure on the test would mean a lifetime of pain.

Did I mention he's in second grade?

His twin brother, meanwhile, could care less. He's never been one to really give a damn what anybody thought. At age six, he entered the Peabody Preparatory for music. He's been playing trumpet along with Miles Davis records since age seven. He's also diagnosed dyslexic and like his brother suffered delayed speech acquisition. The tests don't mean much to him; he's got other things on his mind.

I'm thinking about this now because I'm doing my own year-end assessments here at school. Being an independent school, we aren't required to jump through all of the standardized testing hoops. Instead, I spend the end of the year interviewing my students. I get feedback on what they think about what they've learned over the course of the year. They tell me what they think of me as a teacher. Really what they think. I've had students criticize me to my face in front of a class and I am so proud of those sorts of students. They remind me why I do what I do.

A lot of people in and around education talk about being 'accountable'. But that usually just amounts to nailing scores on the type of tests my boys took this week. That just doesn't cut it for me. I think you can give all the bubble tests in the world and you can boast at how well you did on those tests as a school, but if you don't really know your students -- if you don't really take the time to ask them what they think about all of it -- then you aren't being 'accountable'.

You are being complacent.

The closest thing to standardized tests I have to deal with at my school is the AP exams. But I don't judge my worth as a teacher based on the AP scores of my Seniors. And I tell my Seniors never to base their opinion of themselves or each other on those scores. There's nothing a three hour test can tell you better than nine-months of classwork.

An analogy:

A woman finds out she is going to have a baby. She spends nine months learning everything she can about childbirth. She takes birthing classes. She talks with other women who have had babies. All the while her body changes. She experiences things in new ways. Her mind develops new and engaging habits of thought related to birth and motherhood. And then the time comes for her to give birth. She is in great pain; she struggles; she feels like she will never make it through. And suddenly the doctor stops the event and leads a stork into the room. Cuddled in a blanket tied hanging from the stork's beak is a baby. "See," says the doctor,"babies really do come from storks!" And the hospital supervisor puts a check mark next to a box that reads 'Successful Delivery'.

The completely unauthentic ending to that story mirrors what I see as the problem with the way in which we use year-end standardized testing -- whether you are talking about state tests or the AP. And in the same way that the stork undermines the very idea of what the process of pregnancy and childbirth is all about in the real world, likewise year-end high-stakes standardized tests undermine the very idea of what the process of authentic ongoing learning is all about in the classroom.

Furthermore, the idea that the best way to evaluate the intellectual development of a student is to give that student a series of questions designed by someone who has never known and who will never know that student is just plain bogus.

Would anyone in their right mind define a distinguished effective teacher as someone who has never even spoken to their students yet who assumes to 'assess' them?

And so my boys spend their days filling in bubbles and I spend mine talking to students. And it's a frustrating place to be as a parent.

I've just cobbled together some of my conversations with students about what they think about being in a paperless classroom and I will be sharing that soon online in iMovie form. In the meantime, I encourage all of you teachers out there stuck giving bubble tests to take the opportunity to talk to your kids; I know that the best of you do. But right now it's really important that you let them know that their lives are not defined by their school's ability to 'account' to anyone.

I Was a Paper Junkie

I was a paper junkie.

My first year teaching, I was so scared of speeding through a lesson and not having something for the students to do that I used to run off several copies of "fun" assignments each day (crosswords, games, whatever I could scrounge up each morning from the old file cabinet in the closet I'd inherited as an office). This inevitably added up to two or three sheets of paper per student per day. And this would be stuff I'd never even see again once I'd handed it out. I'm not even counting the handouts I'd work up for the day's lesson.

But, I was a paper junkie.

That first year teaching, we had a copy limit of somewhere between 10 and 15 thousand copies per teacher. I think I maxed out in January.

Like I said: I was a paper junkie.

I used to pride myself on the physical weight of my mid-term and final exams. Students in my Latin classes used to complain about their hands cramping up and I'd boast about the 22 page final exam I'd written in Greek History class back in college.

I was unrepentant.

When I came to my present school, I found three copy machines whereas my previous school only had two for almost twice as large a faculty. I was in heaven.

I once made a copy of a seventeen page annotated version of T.S. Eliot's 'The Wasteland' for each student in all five sections of the American Lit class I was teaching at the time. (I hope the statute of limitations is over for that one...).

But I think the most egregious use of paper came when I used to run off fresh copies of everyone's poems in Poetry Club so that we could all mark 'em up during workshops. I easily made a half-dozen copies of each poem per each one student in that club. In other words, each student would wind up with six copies of the exact same poem. And we used to read lots of poems.

But I was a paper junkie.

I used to print out copies of ebooks. (I remember that at that first school, I'd been given a curriculum guide on CD and I actually decided to print the whole thing).

I used to print out my grades in triplicate.

I used to forget to fill the toner cartridge in my desktop printer and have to go back and reprint dozens of copies of a twelve-page test.

I even got a special card from the office supply store to make copies in bulk.

And then I woke up.

I think it was the year our school moved to 1:1 computing. No one in administration suggested not using paper (in fact, I don't think any of them had even heard the term 'blog' at that point). None one on the facilities staff said anything (and they were the guys who hauled in those ton-sized pallets stacked with reams). I think it was really just a matter of me sitting down and playing around with this new laptop and before long realizing that I'd written hundreds of pages worth of notes and ideas and meeting minutes and lesson plans and hadn't printed a single piece of paper.

And why hadn't I printed anything from my new laptop?

Because I couldn't figure out how to.

That's how this whole foray into paperlessness began. It wasn't that I was some tech wizard. I certainly wasn't all that environmentally conscious. I barely used the Internet with the exception of reading bulletin boards and getting my morning news.

Rather, the reason I got into paperlessness was because I was too dumb to figure out how to hook a printer up to my new laptop and too stubborn to ask the IT department to do it for me.

I totally slacked my way into paperlessness.

It was only once I was there that I realized what had happened. And then the epiphany came: "Hey buddy," my mind said to me, "you don't really need paper to teach a class".

And so, I didn't go back. And over the last three years, I've been on a crazy journey where I've easily saved over 40,000 sheets of paper. And that doesn't even count the paper my kids have saved in my class. Whereas I used to like to brag that kids would burn through two notebooks over the course of my AP Latin class, now not a single notebook ever needs be opened.

Just for fun today, I cut-and-pasted the contents of a single student blog into Word. This was a blog that a student in my Latin II class has kept this year. So we're talking from September to April. When that blog popped up in 12pt font as a Word document, it turned out to be 107 pages long.

107 pages.

Written by a 15 year old.

In one class.

If nothing else, my experience with a paperless classroom has proven to me demonstrably that there is just so much waste that we take for granted in education. And it's an ongoing eyeopening experience for me to see just how much a change a little change can make.

The old me never understood that. But he was a paper junkie.

Social Media and Cheating

Reader MagistraM writes:

I love how you have placed the responsibility for learning so clearly on your students. A common concern about using digital tools for classwork and assessments is that the students will be "cheating". This lesson demonstrates how the social tools facilitate every student's learning - and demands each student to contribute.

I would say that social media actually may present us with a new post-cheating paradigm. I liken it to students in an oil painting class: barring having someone else do it for you, you just "can't" cheat on an oil painting.

Because of the transparency of Web 2.0, cheating in the traditional forms -- plagiarism, copying, cribnotes -- is severely limited in a practical sense. Because of the individuality and personalization of assessment and creation via Web 2.0, cheating itself becomes a rather uninteresting option.

Students tend to cheat out of a mix of boredom and procrastination; cheating is a manifestation of a lack of motivation to be authentic -- whether we're talking about the total slacker who cut-and-pastes from Encarta, or the 'sophisticated' cheater who tries to juke the SAT.

Unauthentic assessment will produce cheaters.

And what is unauthentic assessment? I'd define it as assessment that fails in its structural makeup to address the realities of society -- both at a local and global level.

Now, I'm no spring chicken. I know there are kids who will try to cheat their way around anything. I've caught a few in my own classes. But, if the teacher is using the tools available to engage the students rather than just to talk 'at' them, the teacher has got a much better shot of fostering the type of community in the classroom where cheating will not be tolerated among the students themselves. Web 2.0, by its very nature is a medium that requires you to give of yourself to get anything in return. And that's the sort of thing that a good teacher can tap into both to encourage authentic engagement as well as to foster a spirit of classroom-wide local goodwill. Combined, cheating becomes a much less cool option.

Latin Test via Twitter

As I'm writing this, my Latin II students are taking a pre-test translating sections of Book I of the Gallic Wars. I allow them to open the text on Latin Library, a tab of one or both of two solid online Latin dictionaries, and a tab of the hyperlinked-grammar version of the text in Perseus. For the test, they won't be able to use Perseus.

I also let them use Twitter to ask each other questions and give each other help. I follow the Tweets and can easily swing into action to help with a tricky verb form or a misconstrued phrase; in addition, during the pre-test sessions, the students themselves will often cite websites in their Tweets to be included in our ongoing hyperlinked bibliographies.

Last week, I gave my first Latin test using Twitter. My Latin III students had to translate the 'In Taberna' section of Carmina Burana. I allowed them to do it as a collaborative assessment and I gave a single score to the entire class so long as everyone contributed equally in the Tweet feed. Students had the text open in a Latin Library tab, had their online dictionaries open, had their blogs open in which to post their sections and organize their translations, and followed each other on Twitter. The trick was that although this was a collaborative assignment, the students -- under penalty of forfeiting the grade for the whole class -- were not allowed to talk.

All discussion had to take place on Twitter.

The results were extraordinary. I watched as they used Twitter to chunk the seven stanzas of the text and organize who would be available to help in different ways. Some students focused on looking up vocab and figuring out morphology while others construed the sections into a unified whole. A particularly interesting exchange occurred when three students realized that their chunks contained shared words that individually each had broad semantic ranges -- so they had to make compromise decisions on what definition to use for each.

I would not want anyone to think that this is the only way I assess the students. In fact, I'm a big supporter of using as many different sorts of assessments as possible -- after all, the students have to be ready for anything in the 'real world'. But, in terms of using Latin to teach 21st century networking and using 21st century networking to teach Latin, this experiment produced excellent results.

Here are portions of our feed with names changed (for chronology, read from bottom to top... it's a Twitter feed). BTW, for those of you who do not use Twitter (yet), this is going to look very strange to you. It may even look quite useless. But strange as this all may look, imagine: a class of Latin III students knocking out a strong translation of the entire 'In Taberna' from the original Medieval Latin by sight with the aid of only a dictionary in just over a half-hour's time. In addition, as opposed to traditional small group projects where one student might do the majority of the work and the others might slack, on Twitter you can see in real time the contributions of each student in the class. You can see precisely the types of mistakes they are making AS THEY ARE MAKING THEM. And a record is kept of that.

This is just a random sample; for those keeping score at home, we produced about 125 Tweets in less than 35 minutes.

Here is an example where I am watching the editing of several translation drafts at once and setting up student teams to organize sections into unified wholes. Students are directing each other to full versions of the sections I have looked over located on their own class blogs. Remember to read from the bottom of the selection.

54. MrW @gol You and Alesia need to compare because you have many of the same words. Decide which translations you want. 15 minutes ago from web in reply to gol
55. koko 2nd half of stanza 1: When in the tavern he is led by it, where coin is the barmaid, that is work, so he may grumble, but let me speak s ... 15 minutes ago from web
56. TAstu Stanza 6: http://musilatin.blo... 15 minutes ago from web
57. brandi http://romansp.blogspot... STANZA 4 is on my blog. first link 15 minutes ago from web
58. TAstu Stanza 6: Lines 1-3 The poor man drinks, the sick drink the outcasts drink, the strange drink the boys drink, the old drink 16 minutes ago from web
59. gol @MrW what do you mean? 16 minutes ago from web
60. MrW @TAstu Check with Austin. 16 minutes ago from web in reply to TAstu
61. gol posted on my blog, http://latin.blog... 24 minutes ago from web

Here is a section where I am directing students to definitions live as they are sight reading. You will notice that our discussion evolves from my making a student explain herself in the use of a translated word; in a few Tweets, I manage to catch three different students who otherwise would have made translation errors and would have been thrown off later in their sections. Also, I pick up a mixed construction in the process. By nailing down these problems AS THE STUDENTS ARE TRANSLATING rather than waiting for them to finish and turn something in, we all wind up with a less frustrating and more accurate finished product. Read from the bottom.

62. MrW@gol 'wanderer's' 25 minutes ago from web in reply to gol
63. TAstu How about the 'wanderers' or 'outcasts' mr w? 25 minutes ago from web
64. koko 1st half of stanza 1 .... When we are in the tavern, do not care where the ground may be, but they do hurry to gamble, who always sweat. 25 minutes ago from web
65. MrW Everyone, please provide a link to your section. 25 minutes ago from web
66. Chel26 @MrW thank you 25 minutes ago from web in reply to MrW
70. MrW @Chel26 "who drink first is captured" Mixed COnstruction 26 minutes ago from web in reply to Chel26
77. MrW @Chel26 No. Libertine does not mean 'free men', it means basically 'partiers' 27 minutes ago from web in reply to Chel26
78. gol the master drinks, the mistress drinks, the soldier drinks, the clergy drinks, he drinks, she drinks, the maid serving drinks, some ... 27 minutes ago from web
79. brandi times for the learners, twelve times for those who repent, and thirteen times for those who journey. For the pope and king are al ... 27 minutes ago from web
80. Chel26 freed men. not libertines... 28 minutes ago from web
81. MrW @TAstu 'exiled' drink? 28 minutes ago from web in reply to TAstu
82. Chel26 http://latinmove.blo... this is my blog link and carmina burana stanza 3 is the top post 29 minutes ago from web
83. MrW @Chel26 What are 'libertines'? 29 minutes ago from web in reply to Chel26
84. MrW @brandi Not 'scattered'; look up that word. 30 minutes ago from web in reply to brandi
85. Chel26 heres stanza three completed i have to post it piece by piece! "First of all the wine maker is giving drinks to the libertines.. 30 minutes ago from web

This sample is from the end of the test. You can see that I am still helping individual students with grammar issues while other students are preparing the final copy for submittal. The final version -- comprised of the work of all of the students -- was then posted on a single blog that all of them subscribe to.

1. MrW Ok. That's time. Rachel agreed to post the final to her blog. I'll check it there at 12:45PM for group grade. Thank you! Great work. less than 10 seconds ago from web
2. Sbt @MrW will do 3 minutes ago from web
3. MrW @Sbt ...attention to who is teasing... rephrase / object problem 3 minutes ago from web in reply to Sbt
4. brandi. Alesia's 3 minutes ago from web
5. koko have it all on my blog 3 minutes ago from web
6. Sbt But according to Bacchi, they dismiss their fate. (end) 3 minutes ago from web
7. TAstu I'll do it 3 minutes ago from web
8. Sbt because they are able to dress oneself with someone's wallet. There no one fears death... 4 minutes ago from web
9. MrW Let's choose one person's blog to be the place where the final version gets published for the class grade. Ok, decide. 4 minutes ago from web

Now, as I'm following this Tweet feed, I'm also following each student individually on their own blogs where they are live-blogging their edits. Might sound complicated, but really just a matter of tabbed browsing. The end result of all of this is me -- the teacher -- having a much better feel for the formative aspects of the students' skills in translating and the students having an immediate feedback session where they are collaborating both with their teacher and with their peers.

Last year, when I started experimenting with this type of assessment, I did it live through a collaborative Google Doc. Twitter, however, now makes everything far more efficient -- and each student is left with their own copy/transcript of the entire event.

I would like to know how other teachers are using Twitter. I see it as one of the most powerful tools for education available in Web 2.0. One of the things I really like is the use of @Tweets. Students are able to directly address one another or directly address me and I am able to directly address that particular student in return; but because we do it via @Tweets, the exchange shows up in the transcript of each of the students' feeds. So, even if a student was not working on a particular part during the assignment, they now have a record of another student's questions and my responses to those other sections. In a way, the @Tweets make the Twitter feed a document far more complex than anything we could have created merely via a back-and-forth; for students, this is great because now in addition to having taken part in a collaborative assessment, they also have a complete transcript which can be used as a study guide for the final exam. In fact, I am thinking that I'm going to have the students go over the transcript and create hyperlinked annotations back to Perseus for all matters of vocab and grammar. Those documents will then be combined and shared via a Google Doc as a practice guide for the year end summative assessments.

From Pong to WoW to Math Scores?

The State of Virginia tries out video games to improve math scores:

"The traditional view of video games has been that they are distractions from the task of learning, said Ntiedo Etuk, CEO and co-founder of Tabula Digita. "But this research clearly shows the opposite is true."

Just heard of the Quest school in NYC going game-ed. Interesting to see a state do it.

Wonder how many admins down there are gamers...

You Mean I Don't Have a Fan Base in Antarctica?

One of the most beautiful things about the Internet is its ability to produce chaos.

At least from a theoretical point-of-view. And you should know that. Because in a paperless classroom, you will have students whose intent is to produce chaos. And that's something to tap into.

I'm talking about something simple here: the ability to be anonymous. Using Web 2.0, students can easily create multiple accounts or claim to be 75 years old or claim to live in Antarctica.

One of my Freshman recently pulled the latter on his Pixton profile. And so now I have a fan who 'lives' at the South Pole. Things could be worse.

Some folks are scared to death of this type of ironic anonymity. But as a child of post-Modernism, I have no such problems. In fact, I have a great fondness for this sort of thing.

The trick is to turn this feature of the Internet into something that can produce educational value. So, why not have Shakespeare start a Facebook page? Dickens and Poe can debate the finer parts of what makes a good short story in an IM chat. Ansel Adams can photograph the landscape of your middle school ballfields and post the pics up on Picasa along with an accompanying essay by Rachel Carson.

The anonymous aspects of the Web can lend themselves to theatrics that can produce some wicked results. So, don't fear the chaos. Tap into it. Use it to draw learning out of all of those multiple intelligences.

Looking for Exemplary 21st Century Schools

CASTLE is looking for schools with strong 21C programs and initiatives.

Check out the Moving Forward wiki on Exemplary 21st Century Schools and please add information about your own programs.

For more info on the wiki, see this recent post over at Dangerously Irrelevant.

Lots of Information. Really lots.

The way in which we think about saving information is about to change drastically. According to the NY Times, GE has developed a holographic CD capable of storing 100 DVDs' worth of info.

Blu-ray is available in 25-gigabyte and 50-gigabyte discs, and a standard DVD holds 5 gigabytes.

The new CDs?

But holographic discs, with the technology G.E. has attained, could hold 500 gigabytes of data.

If you are as clutter-challenged as me, the only question is: what do you do now when you've lost a disc containing 100 DVDs on it?

WSJ Bell Curve Apologist Loves Willingham's New Book

CK is excited about the WSJ's "glowing review"...

From the pen of Christopher F. Chabris:

So why don't students like school? According to Mr. Willingham, one major reason is that what school requires students to do -- think abstractly -- is in fact not something our brains are designed to be good at or to enjoy. When we confront a task that requires us to exert mental effort, it is critical that the task be just difficult enough to hold our interest but not so difficult that we give up in frustration.

And previously from the pen of Christopher F. Chabris:

The most basic claim put forth by Herrnstein and Murray was that smart people do better than dumb people. What is so troubling about that? We rarely encounter an argument over the fact that beautiful people do better than ugly people, or tall people better than short ones, though each of these propositions is also true. Is an intellectual meritocracy less just or moral than a physical one?

My emphasis.

I'd Rather do ANYTHING than...

A reader writes:

For me, Twitter has been invaluable in not only finding resources that I can digest on my own time, but also live, "in-the-moment" professional development. There have been countless times that I've contributed to workshops or parent nights in places that I may never physically see.

Some of the Twittering-conference experiences I've had have been much more meaningful than actual events I've been to. Part of it has to do with the fact that the folks you are going to find taking part in professional development via Tweets and backchannels are the totally obsessive types who really love what they do and love to talk about teaching and technology.

They are more akin to insane record collectors at a vinyl conference than to (no offense, but honestly) the typical required-prof-development ed conference crowd. In short: if someone is taking the time to take part in a conference via Twitter, then they probably REALLY WANT TO BE THERE. As in: given the choice between going to the ed conference and doing ANYTHING ELSE, they'd choose the ed conference.

Thinking in a New Way

February 2nd, 2009.

That was the day I wrote the first post on this blog. And I haven't missed a single day since. Sometime very soon (like in a day or so) we'll hit 250 posts. I never thought this blog would take off in quite the way it has, nor did I think it would become such a fundamental part of my professional life. I've really come to see blogging itself as a form of professional development. I never would have considered that on Feb 1st, 2009.

I've found myself constantly challenged (in the positive way) by readers and commenters on all sorts of subjects related both to the broad philosophical and political implications of educational technology as well as the day-to-day issues of running a paperless classroom. This discussion has led to further exploration of education itself as well as technology. And I think it remains very important that we don't forget the 'education' part of 'educational technology'.

And I've been learning constantly. Three months ago, I was a Twitter newb. Last Thursday, I actually gave a Latin test entirely on Twitter. Things change. They change fast. To paraphrase my response to a Tweet not long ago: the most important thing you can have in a paperless classroom is fearlessness.

Thanks to all of the regular readers of this blog. If you have not subscribed, please do; it's easy and it's a good boost to my ego (!).

In return, I will continue, in the spirit of that first post way back in the Winter, to blog about education AND technology.

"Because it's not just about saving paper. It's about thinking in a new way."

Deep Listening and Untethering

Just got back from a trip to NYC to perform a free improvised music concert with an ensemble I play in called Second Nature.

One of the essential skills of free improvised music is 'deep listening'. The idea is to listen so carefully to your co-collaborators that you can practically anticipate what move they will make next. The result is a completely improvised non-idiomatic music that sounds to the listener to be akin to musical telepathy.

When it all works out, the results are breathtaking. Particularly in an ensemble like Second Nature where you are talking about not just three or four musicians -- but fifteen!

I think this deep listening approach is something with a lot of value in our everyday lives and in the way that we understand our society. And with that in mind, this recent article by Fisch concerning the coming 'untethering' of electronics and the implications for education is most astute.

Internet Ubiquity

Hello to all of the new readers who have subscribed to this blog! You can also follow TeachPaperless on Twitter and join the TeachPaperless group on Facebook.

Then hop on over to TeachPaperless's Classroom 2.0 profile and be sure to check out the TeachPaperless custom EdCast mix of NPR programming.

Then go learn a new language.

Thoughts on Last Night's Paperless Classroom Presentation at JHU

Some really interesting responses from the audience last night. One question was about fear.

I say: Fear is as Fear does.

Years ago, when we first started the process of becoming a 1:1 computing school, there was a lot of fear about MySpace. We heard about the threats of online predators, credit-card thieves, and harassment. Years on down the road we look at MySpace and what is it? A glorified mall. It's got record shops, a video arcade, and places for teenagers to hang out. And the whole thing is run by an enormous corporation.

It's a mall.

I remember as a kid watching TV and seeing those news reports of the occasional mall kidnapping. Scary stuff. But did that really make anyone stop going to the mall? Maybe what it did was make some people become more aware of what their kids were doing at the mall. Just like those rare cases of perverts on MySpace made people aware.

Funny way to become aware of your kids. But, fear is as fear does.

The admins here have always been supportive of relatively open Internet access here at school, yet they remain wary of social networking. Maybe it has to do with the word 'social'. That word has certain connotations in a high school. Maybe we should change it from 'social networking' to 'networked society'. Because that's what's really going on from Facebook to Twitter and beyond.

This isn't kids' stuff.

The Obama campaign waged the most unlikely successful political battle in American history using Facebook as a virtual headquarters. If the man who is elected president trusts his staff to use social networking for professional purposes, why in the heck can't principals and supers across this country -- in schools both public and private -- trust their staffs to use social networking for professional purposes?

This isn't kids' stuff.

But fear is as fear does.

Last night, no less than a dozen people came up to me after the presentation and told me that they previously had opened Twitter accounts, but then didn't know what to do with them and so they just sort of ignored them; now, however, they were going to hop right back on and see what it could do. I stopped by Twitter last night before going to bed, and eight of them had already logged in to follow my feed. One was already using her feed to broadcast Autism info into the Tweet-o-sphere.

Reader Knaus stopped by during our presentation last night via Twitter. His Tweet said it all: Twitter is the best Professional Development you will ever have. By the end of a very short session on blogs, Tweets, RSS, and Web 2.0, many of those in the audience were in agreement with him.

I spend all my time in front of high school kids. So, when I get up in front of a room of adults, I often feel weird -- my attempts at humor are usually the first thing to bomb! But I saw a lot of faces come to life last night. It's that same glow of sudden understanding I see in kids when they finally understand the importance of the fourth principle part of a verb or when they realize the connection between 16th century sculpture and its ancient antecedents. It's the reason we are educators.

Tweeting Opportunity

A week ago today I was in Massachusetts.

Well, not really. I was actually in my kitchen right here in Maryland's beautiful Patapsco Valley.

Home on Spring Break, I was up early reading some blogs when a Tweet came in that there was gonna be a cool Blue Ribbon Institute ed tech development day broadcast online. Will Richardson was giving the morning keynote, so I headed over to Ustream and caught the video feed. The backchannel was already chatting away and I found out that many of the day's events would be covered both via video feed and live blogging on Cover it Live.

In and out throughout the morning, I spent about four hours watching live feeds, taking part in discussions, sharing links with teachers. Discussions spilled over onto Twitter and into chats. And I wasn't the only one. Folks from Canada to China were online that morning, all sharing; all learning. We were all in Massachusetts.

Turned out to be one of the most powerful professional development experiences I've ever had. And I wouldn't have even known about it if it hadn't come through on Twitter.

We are living in an age where opportunity is in front of us all of the time despite our best intentions to think otherwise.

Opportunity doesn't work on a schedule. We are living post-schedule.

JHU New Developments in Education: Live Blogging from Apr 23, 2009

And here is the transcript of the live blogging from the event. Thanks to all of the presenters, professors, School of Education and Alumni folks, and thanks to a fantastic audience!

More on the McKinsey Report Debate

Pondiscio gets into the McKinsey Report debate over at CK:

Teachers, raise your hand if you chose your profession because you wanted to raise GDP? Anyone??

Here's a response I posted there. I think it's more concise and clear about how I feel about the report than my previous posts here on TP or over at Burell's blog.

I think the report said that GDP would have risen ‘if’ several achievement gaps would have been closed. Who doesn’t want to close achievement gaps?

And I think in terms of ‘performance’, the report notes Finland and South Korea specifically because of the success rates in education in those two countries with regards specifically to MATH and SCIENCE.

For the amount of money we all pay, both for public and private education, the US still basically sucks at math compared to the rest of the industrialized world. Don’t we want to change that?

Friedman and the McKinsey report may not be the best messengers, but in the haze of big money and big economics that cloud this report, there is actually some stuff we ought to look at much more closely.

Robert's original post states:

Look, everyone gets the connection between education, income and productivity. But economic arguments, however troubling, will neither win hearts and minds among teachers, nor create the “sense of urgency and follow-through” Friedman wants to see.

I would agree, except that at work today, two out of the three times I had conversations with teachers it was over this issue and they thought this IS the sort of thing that would create a “sense of urgency and follow-through”.

Folks are really attuned to what's going on in the economy right now. It will be interesting to see if TF's op-ed has any traction with the majority middle-class U.S. teaching profession.

Going Paperless!

Teachers are trying out the paperless path!

Just got a Tweet from @concretekax:

Used 5.34 pieces of paper/student for 9 week class mostly graph paper and my principle required a parent letter.

That's a good start.

It takes time to do the paperless thing... it's not just a matter of 'giving it up'. I staged it over three years: first year doing research, learning how to blog, and reading and writing blogs constantly; second year a) setting up class blogs and giving all of my assignments and exams exclusively online and b) getting kids used to using online texts as their 'main text'; third year a) setting up the students with their own personal blogs as a place to submit all classwork b) teaching students to use and evaluate the effectiveness of Web 2.0; next year will mark my first year with zero physical books -- all readings/books will be online.

I have the good fortune of having my Latin students for at least three years, which gives us a real opportunity to figure out what works and what doesn't. In fact, they help make all of our decisions about what tech to use.

It's a process.

Glad to hear of teachers trying it out. Would love to hear more stories.

'New Developments' Panel tonight at JHU

I'll be taking part in a panel discussion on 'New Developments' in Ed this evening at Johns Hopkins' Columbia Center. Here's the info, stop by if you are in the area.

Best Practices in Leading and Learning
Thursday, April 23, 2009
6:30 p.m.

Join us for the next 100th Anniversary event, featuring four alumni of the Department of Teacher Development and Leadership, who will share their expertise in literacy and technology. Edward Pajak, professor and department chair, will moderate. The event is free of charge; students and alumni from all programs are welcome. A reception will follow.

Columbia Center
Room 218
6740 Alexander Bell Drive
Columbia, MD 21046
410.516.9700 or 301.621.3377

Literacy Learning for At-Risk Adolescents
Tamitha Campbell (EdD, Teacher Development and Leadership '07)
Socio-cultural perspectives and the research on effective components of adolescent literacy interventions are paramount when preparing students for a world that expects college and career readiness. As educators continue to analyze student performance data, their heightened awareness of the reading deficiencies for certain groups of students compels them to restructure in innovative ways to meet these challenges despite budget restrictions. The presenter will discuss her research on the successes of one secondary school’s literacy program that addressed at-risk adolescents.

Family Reading Nights
Darcy J. Hutchins (MS, Educational Studies '05)
Multiple research studies indicate that parental involvement is an integral for student achievement. Family reading night is one example of an activity that many schools conduct as part of a comprehensive school-family-community partnership program for student success. The presenter discusses promising strategies that help educators to plan, implement, and evaluate monthly family readings nights at the elementary school level.

Innovations in School-Based Technology
Ryan Imbriale (MS, Technology for Education '00)
Students need 21st-century knowledge and skills to succeed as contributing citizens in the 21st century. How can schools address the gap between the knowledge and skills most students learn in school and the knowledge and skills they need in 21st-century jobs. The presenter will discuss online collaboration tools, cell phones in the classroom, podcasting, and other strategies that help address 21st-century literacy.

Teaching and Learning in a Paperless Classroom
R. Richard "Shelly" Wojewodzki (MS, Educational Studies '05)
Blogs, RSS technology, and Web 2.0 apps allow for teachers and students alike to abandon the old static modes of paperwork and step into a collaborative, real-time, connected and dynamic 21st-century environment. This presentation will both highlight some of the best practices in a paperless classroom, as well as address the philosophical and pedagogical debates surrounding the paperless movement.

Digital Education and Open Content: Tonight on Classroom 2.0

Interesting discussion about open content and education: tonight live on Elluminate.

A discussion of the open content movement in education, where creative work is "published in a format that explicitly allows copying and modifying of its information by anyone" (Wikipedia).

Date: Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 12am GMT

Location: In Elluminate.

Guests:

Karen Fasimpaur. An enthusiastic user of mobile technologies and an evangelist for Open Education, Karen Fasimpaur has over fifteen years experience in education and educational technology, working with schools and educational organizations to integrate technology. Ms. Fasimpaur is currently President of K12 Handhelds, which focuses on using mobile computing in education. She is also the founder of the K12 Open Ed web site and the Kids Open Dictionary project. K12 Open Ed (www.k12opened.com). K12 Handhelds (www.k12handhelds.com).

Anne Schreiber. Anne has over 20 years experience as a multi-media publisher, product designer and educator. She is currently the Chief Academic Officer of Curriki – Global Education and Learning Community. Curriki, which was founded by Sun Microsystems is an organization dedicated to the creation of validated, open source K-12 curricula, which is completely free and available globally. Before joining Curriki, Anne was Vice President of Product at the Grow Network/McGraw-Hill, an assessment and instructional reporting company, providing customized instruction based on summative assessment data. Anne began her career as an elementary school teacher, developing staff and student enrichment programs. She is the author of more than a dozen books for young children.

CB on TF

Burell pokes Friedman in the eye.

Call me crazy, but I suspect we could make a connection between the wealth gap and the achievement gap in those halcyon days to the "decline of education" Friedman is wringing his hands about here.

I think there are all sorts of reasons why both American education pales in comparison to the position of America as a global power and why America faces the economic difficulties that it does. But when Burell notes that:

Friedman's fixation on test score rankings divorced from poverty rankings needs fixing. But it's standard in education punditry today. We ignore poverty, and instead only focus on schools and teachers.

he seems to overlook the part where TF quotes the 'ifs':

If America had closed the international achievement gap between 1983 and 1998 and had raised its performance to the level of such nations as Finland and South Korea, United States G.D.P. in 2008 would have been between $1.3 trillion and $2.3 trillion higher. If we had closed the racial achievement gap and black and Latino student performance had caught up with that of white students by 1998, G.D.P. in 2008 would have been between $310 billion and $525 billion higher. If the gap between low-income students and the rest had been narrowed, G.D.P. in 2008 would have been $400 billion to $670 billion higher.

The McKinsey Report suffers in its lack of definition, particularly with regard to any explanation of 'performance' that goes beyond comparative test scores. But, unlike some folks (perhaps even TF), I tend to read this not as prescriptive -- as in "let's us business-types show those durned teachers how if they just taught better, we'd all have more money"; but rather as damning -- as in "if" US education (and in the comparison with Finland and South Korea, the focus is directed here at math, science, and technology) were not lagging behind its global peers (and had not for the years 1983-98), "then" the result would have been a smarter and more competitive US populace and therefore (by Mc/TF standards) higher GDP.

This is basic economics stuff, it's just that the numbers crunchers don't always see the myriad social realities and the folks on the other side of the spectrum don't trust the reasoning.

Burell is absolutely on target in criticizing the report for its failure to recognize the impact of poverty on education in the US (even more importantly the distribution of poverty -- after all, on paper South Korea has got more poverty than the US [in terms of percentage of population / not raw numbers]). He also rightly gets under TF's skin for seeming to simplify exactly what the 'decline' of anything actually means. But I think in the end this report actually might offer a glimmer of hope in the ironic fact that it pars big economics with the international comparisons in education and in doing so, puts the educational comparisons in the limelight. It therefore could serve as catalyst for a more open and widespread discussion -- one much more open than the report itself could ever be.

Question about Ustream

Reader Ann asks:

So does Ustream record the broadcast for later showings, and can comments be added every time it is viewed? I would love to use Ustream at school as a way to observe each other in the classroom, but obviously the rest of the staff isn't going to sit and watch the video at the same time.

Yes. You need to make your own channel and you can save your broadcasts. Backchannel is only open during the broadcast (I think), but there is a section for later comments under each recorded show.

One thing I hope they fix: the backchannel chats get deleted after the broadcast, so if you want to keep them, you need to cut-and-paste every so often.

I Need Sleep

Blogging before 6AM is a contact sport.

And I coughed one up earlier today.

A reader caught my mistake and I duly fixed it having meant the Dept of Ed and having blearily typed NEA. Thanks for being another set of eyes... and just think how long it would have taken to get a correction in a paper version (oh, the irony) of this blog!

Rhetoric...? Moi?

A reader writes:

I appreciate the points made and understand that the rhetoric helps describe a sense of urgency...

In reality, as in most complex issues, people are spread along a continuum, not stacked at two ends. An old truth in social psychology is that the more I put you in an opposite group, the less I will be able to convince you. Many people, myself included, are skeptical about technology in education/training because so many people (corporate CEOs, so-called learning advocates, and yes, school teachers) mistake the means for the goal. Or make, for example, use Web 2.0 the goal, and not education itself. Yes, use the tools, but not at the expense of both real education and achievement.

So, be careful not to throw the ones who will use the tools cautiously, even skeptically, in the same group with the ones who are just plain pigheaded.

Thank you for your comment. Most of the folks who follow this blog regularly have probably figured out by now that I can be a bit less-than-discreet when arguing a point. So I absolutely depend upon the true eloquence that comes from the comments you all post here.

I think we all tend to jumble up, however, what exactly we mean when we talk about means, ends, and goals.

My feeling about education is that learning 'how to think' is more important than learning 'what to think (or think about)'. Therefore, learning is really about learning how to learn. Within this view, and given the context of the present and future prospects of the Digital Age, I do see integration with the immediate global network offered and maintained by Internet technology to be an absolutely necessary part of learning today. What I'm getting at is that I don't really see anymore the distinctions between the means and the ends. Rather the means offers a plethora of ends -- Twitter is the perfect example... a Post-Structuralist's dream.

And I am hesitant to define the meaning of a 'real education'.

If it wasn't that long ago that the medium became the message, then I'd say that the thrust of digital technology on society and the catch-up job in education actually demonstrates a situation now where the medium and the mediator are in a sympathetic relationship.

The Digital Age is something to be lived in, not just something to be talked about. So, thanks again to all readers for comments and ideas and talk. Makes it not so lonely out on this cliff.

Face the Devastation

Devastating stuff from the new McKinsey report. Friedman is practically willing to let the report speak for itself.

According to the report:

"The longer American children are in school, the worse they perform compared to their international peers".

There are millions of kids who are in modern suburban schools “who don’t realize how far behind they are,” said Matt Miller, one of the authors. “They are being prepared for $12-an-hour jobs — not $40 to $50 an hour.”

And the kicker:

According to the report,

If America had closed the international achievement gap between 1983 and 1998 and had raised its performance to the level of such nations as Finland and South Korea, United States G.D.P. in 2008 would have been between $1.3 trillion and $2.3 trillion higher. If we had closed the racial achievement gap and black and Latino student performance had caught up with that of white students by 1998, G.D.P. in 2008 would have been between $310 billion and $525 billion higher. If the gap between low-income students and the rest had been narrowed, G.D.P. in 2008 would have been $400 billion to $670 billion higher.

Autonomy's Fault?

A reader writes:

So let me play devil's advocate here. Wasn't it autonomy that got us into this whole NCLB and economic mess. Schools weren't cutting it or couldn't agree on a good way to show that they were doing their job so now there are articulated standards and state mandated tests. Banks did what they wanted and now there are bailouts so they don't fail and talk of better oversight.

When you're traveling out of state where do you stop to get something to eat, the autonomous independently-owned restaurant or a familiar name brand chain? In some cases the independent restaurant might have the better meal, but often we'll sacrifice the risk for the known - not that all chains guarantee the same quality but let's assume a minimum standard of quality as opposed to a range far above and below for the independents.

I don't think it was autonomy that got us into NCLB. I think the failures in public education were partly a result of the 80's practice of 'starving the beast' and partly a case of limited imagination on behalf of all actors involved. I always appreciate the devil's being advocated for, but I find it hard to blame the autonomy of teachers in their classrooms for the historical political in-fighting and failures of conscience between the big players in Washington.

A quick glance at the early history of the Dept of Ed -- [Ed. I made a flub... blogging too fast, too early in the morning and mistakenly wrote NEA, which is interesting in its own right but not what I meant... Amended 3PM, Apr 22, 2009] and the political reactionism of what would become the Reagan campaign/admin demonstrates this in spades. Subsequent failures were predicated by this initial clash of ideology and the extended battle in policy that was waged throughout the era of Dynasty and big hair.

That's not to say that teachers themselves should be let off the hook. That's exactly where the transparency piece fits in.

In terms of current practice, transparency is of utmost importance. Autonomy should be a matter of responsibility that hinges upon it. And for the first time in history, we have the means -- via Web 2.0 -- to involve all actors -- teachers, students, parents, admins, and politicians, as well as the community at large -- in real time connections with the facts of what learning looks like in a 21st century classroom on a second-by-second basis.

Let's encourage that dialogue.

And if we see that it ain't working, let's work together with the community to fix it.

Bubble-tests be damned.

As for the restaurants, I always go local.

DigitalAge Twibe

Started a Twibe group for Twitter folks interested in all things DigitalAge! Join up and Tweet away...

Game Based Learning

Go figure... looks like game based learning is here.

"What do I do with all of this obsolete junk?"

Well, check out your new EPA's electronics recycling podcasts and get facts and strategies for dealing with old computers, cell phones, and consumer electronics.

Autonomy, Responsibility, and Transparency in the Digital Age

Yesterday's lead post was about autonomy.

Teachers need autonomy to make decisions in teaching style and curriculum choices. Teachers need to choose what types of technology work best and fit most naturally into their classrooms. For example, SharePoint is the bane of my existence and I refuse to use it -- but I have tech-reasoning and not tech-philistinism behind that decision: namely, I make a more effective use of technology in the classroom when using Web 2.0 and open source apps. For others, SharePoint might be the way to go. And that's fine.

But autonomy doesn't mean you get a free-pass to be a tech naysayer. Rather, it hinges on the teacher actively experimenting with technology and then making informed decisions. And I would argue that autonomy produces good teaching. But that autonomy must be informed by the fact that our kids are growing up in a digitally connected world.

So don't you dare pan educational technology if you still don't know the difference between Twitter and a podcast. No dice.

Teachers in the Digital Age have a responsibility to their students to be tech literate and autonomy is only effective when it is tied to responsibility.

And responsibility is tied to consequences.

Now I'm not exactly what you'd call the Grand Inquisitor, so don't think that I'd have an axe ready for any teachers not willing to hop on the digital train. In fact, I think the reason many teachers are anti-tech is precisely because they've only dealt with tech in ways that invoke their fear and survival mechanisms.

They are freaked out.

Rather, if given the great grail of power, what I'd do is encourage teachers themselves to ACTIVATE responsibility by making their classrooms as transparent as possible.

And two mildly-visionary methods the Internet and Web 2.0 offers are webcam broadcasting and live blogging. The best sources I've used so far to engage in this way are Ustream and Cover it Live.

Ustream gives you the opportunity to really make transparent your classroom by actually opening it up to the entire world. It is a Web 2.0 broadcasting service that allows you and a webcam to become your newest local satellite TV station. But, as with most things Web 2.0, you can adjust the service to serve your specific needs as a teacher. So how about this: start by broadcasting all of your sections live to other teachers in your department. In fact, all of the teachers in the department can broadcast live to each other. I guarantee that within a week -- if that long -- you will discover things either about your own teaching or the teaching of others that will change and improve your practice. Ustream offers a live chat feed to each broadcast, so viewers -- such as your department members -- can comment and make sugestions/observations in real time.

Where this really gets radical is in taking it out of the security of the department and streaming directly into the computers of your administration and parents. What Ustream allows you to do is say: "This is what I do in class". And show it.

Are you up for it?

Here are notes taken at a recent talk by Ken Robinson. They were live-blogged by @vvrotny [Twitter tag] using Cover it Live. You can see that what the app offers is real-time instant blogging. A cool feature is that you can open it up as a real-time chat and save the entire thing. So, in terms of classroom transparency, you could allow your students to back-channel (that is, chat on the side) live to a lecture/discussion/lab/project/whatever that you were doing in class and then have a record of it to read later and see what kinds of things are going through their heads as you are working. You could then take the next step and open up your back-channel to colleagues in your department, other teachers, (gasp admins), and even parents to take part live in the discussion about what's happening in class. Live connections like Twitter have only demonstrated that this sort of immediate engagement from across the Web is actually extremely beneficial in terms of discussion and access to external sources of knowledge and experience.

Just this last Friday, I took part in a CiL/Twitter/Ustreamed conference up in Massachusetts and I was struck so much by the fact that despite the fact that I was sitting in my kitchen in Maryland on Spring Break, I felt like I was actually taking part in the conference a 9 hour car ride away.

Now how is all of this connected to autonomy? Well, it's via that responsibility thing. Transparent broadcasts make us all to aware of our shortcomings. And therein lies a tale: the best of us try to get better and the worst of us make excuses. Used effectively and honestly, live feeds open up your teaching and will help you grow.

As for the consequences? Well, the Grand Inquisitor is you. And this type of open and transparent teaching makes you EARN your autonomy. Be your own harshest critic. Live up to the challenge of what you might be.

More Risk

Hersh lays down some thought at Ed Week:

Instant access to 21st-century information technology does not absolve us of the need to master appropriate content, a fact that E.D. Hirsch Jr. has well articulated. But equally necessary is the ability to connect disparate dots across virtually infinite information—to think critically, apply knowledge, solve problems, and write and speak well (thinking made public). And thus those arguing for teaching "21st-century skills" are also on very solid ground. The debate is not just about the ends of education but, equally important, its means...

DUMP...

the SAT!

Teaching ain't no 'Fallback'

The full story in the NY Times...

Those who are thinking of teaching should be prepared for a steep learning curve in the first few years on the job. Research suggests that it takes about 4-5 years for a teacher to hit her stride; unfortunately, by year 5, all too many teachers stride out of the profession.

Indeed.

Autonomy

As a teacher in an independent school with three children of my own in public school, I often find myself torn on several of the big issues facing ed policy.

I think of myself as having a wide view given my experiences with schools. I myself am a product of 12 years of Catholic school, mostly in Baltimore. My old high school was one of those old two-hundred year-old affairs sitting in what now is another West Baltimore war-zone. After high school, I did a stint at the commuter arm of the state university before hitting the road and dropping out to become an artist full-time. A few moves and a few adventures later, I was sitting in a classroom in Harvard Yard where I would earn a degree studying the Classics. Turning down the opportunity to become more completely obscured by academia, I made a subsequent move back home with my family, took a job at a big public high school on the volatile East side of Baltimore County and started a grad program at Hopkins. At JHU, I pursued an interest in GT education, observing and studying the Center for Talented Youth as I continued to struggle at finding my voice as a teacher at the big high school. When the opportunity arose to start my own Latin program at a Catholic independent school serving Harford County -- a northern Maryland county comprised in its lower part of Baltimore suburbs and in the upper half of vast tracts of rural horse country -- I jumped at the chance. I've been here ever since.

With my own kids, the decision was how best to give them the education they needed. Neither my wife nor I being of the wealthy variety, we decided to buy the most decrepit old house we could find in the county with the best public school system. And so we are constantly maintaining a house built in the year William Henry Harrison met his untimely demise a full hour's drive away from the school at which I work. When my son was diagnosed with dyslexia, however, I knew that we had made the right choice.

And so, life has offered me the opportunity to experience all kinds of schools from all sorts of different angles. And that brings me to the topic of this post.

In each of those situations -- the Catholic schools in Baltimore, the state university, the Ivy League, ed school and the CTY, the big public high school, the semi-rural independent school, and the Blue Ribbon public elementary -- I've found one common link that separates the good from the bad:

Autonomy.

I can not tell you how important it was to me to get into a situation where I could design my own program. Since coming here to John Carroll, I've expanded a two-year Latin program to a four year program culminating in AP Vergil. I've started an AP Art History course and a program in Digital Audio Production. I've worked it so that there are no pre-requisites to get into the AP Art History course -- so students who otherwise might be denied based on academic record or writing ability can take (and succeed at) a college level course in high school. And, of course, I made all of my courses paperless. NONE of this would have happened without the trust of the administration and the autonomy I've been allowed in the classroom.

I know that this is not the experience of all teachers and I feel very fortunate to be in the situation I'm in. But at the same time, many teachers make presumptions about the differences between top-down and bottom-up systems that just aren't true. The most crucial mistake people make is to think that classroom autonomy makes it 'easier' to teach. While certainly I don't have the pressure of meeting state goals on bubble tests, or following someone else's curriculum, I do face a different sort of pressure: I am completely responsible for what goes on in my classroom. This is not to say that teachers in other situations are not responsible, rather what I am saying is that when things go wrong in my classroom there's no one else to blame. I can't blame the department. Can't blame the administration or the district. Can't blame the test. And I refuse to blame the kids. It's just me.

It's a very Meursault place to be.

But I would not rather be anywhere else.

Is it idealistic to want autonomy in every classroom? Absolutely. And that's exactly why I am advocating it over the suffocating and cynical approach of state-demanded testing and standardization. The last thing I want for my own children is for them to be 'standard'. We need a little idealism around here. I respect teachers as professionals and as visionaries and I'd rather them share their vision than teach my kids the proper way to use a number 2 pencil on a Scantron.

And that's why when I receive bulletins from my kids' school telling me that all next week they'll be 'preparing for testing', I get all shook up.

If there is one thing I would encourage in education, it's not technology for technology's sake. It's not content for content's sake. It's certainly not more testing. It's autonomy. Autonomy for all teachers, public or private. And with that autonomy should come responsibilities. Responsibilities to the students. Because effective teachers aren't teachers who make test scores go up; they are teachers who raise their students up.

So that the students can be autonomous.

RIP JG Ballard

A giant in future-thinking passes.

Rocket Man

One of the hidden gems of Maryland's cultural landscape is the Goddard Space Flight Center Visitor Center. Though relatively small in scale, it's a testament to the ways in which interactive technology and learning can be linked. Computer stations where you can plot the trajectory of a rocket mission, interactive video displays exploring the Hubble telescope, sphere screens documenting storms on the Sun... so much cool stuff. In short, NASA offers a ton of educational value.

But my (and my kids') favorite thing is the weekly model rocket launch.

Last time there, we saw four rockets launched up to heights of a few thousand feet. And let me tell you model rockets = awesome.

But when it comes to model rockets, perhaps nothing will ever be able to beat the event that's planned to happen this coming Saturday on Maryland's Eastern Shore when a guy by the name of Steve Eves plans to launch a 36 foot tall 1,600 lbs model rocket. Read the incredible history of this endeavor here.

Game School

Have already received a couple comments and a few emails about my last post. Hmm... could we be on to something here?

More than one reader is taking me seriously about the experimental game developer high school (now all we need is a millionaire and a building... [cough] Mr. Gates?):

Let's see what they might need to do. Content - Create a structured narrative that is not necessarily linear (English), establish rules, create puzzles or obstacles that require logic and reasoning to solve (Math), have an appealing look (Art), represent a physical world (Science), have a setting in time and space (Social Studies). Yeah, I think we can get that going.

Skills- team collaboration, use of contemporary technology and tools, troubleshooting/problem solving.

I'm sure there's more, but this is what I've got just off the top of my head. Sounds good, let's go.

Game Development as a Learning Process

On the Media has a great piece on DIY game development.

Anyone want to go in with me on a new experimental high school completely based on students as game developers?

Project Dropout

Here's a fascinating series of webcasts from WGBH and WBUR on the plight of school dropouts. It's called Project Dropout and it is a perfect example of how valuable the Internet can be.