TeachPaperless Wikis

This is just a reminder to folks to take advantage of the TeachPaperless wikis. Dozens of teachers have offered advice and observations on topics ranging from paperless lesson planning to 21C education course design.

The Paperless Earth Day Wiki presents documentation by teachers who took the 2010 Paperless Earth Day Pledge. There are lesson plans and examples of paperlessness both lo-tech and high-tech.

The Social Technology in Education Lesson Plan Wiki presents examples of lesson plans incorporating social and participatory media; it also includes a 'discussion' tab with examples of social tech integrated plans written up by grad students in my class at JHU.

Finally, the 21C Ed Grad Wiki is a new project seeking to answer the question: "What should an authentic 21C graduate program in education look like?"

All of these wikis are open to public editing and we encourage all teachers and admins with something to say to take part in helping to create more helpful resources for 21C learning.

Speech and Debate

So it looks like @schickbob and I are co-moderating the Speech and Debate Team next year.

I remember forensics from my high school days and I wonder how (if?) it has changed. I mean, it's one thing to prepare for a random-topic LD debate back in the days of pencil and notecards and a half-a-brain full of scattered trivia and select reusable quotes. It's a whole other story in the days of an iPhone and a pocketful of immediate access to most of the knowledge and events of human civilization.

And when it comes to speeches these days... well... what constitutes a speech? I see a handful of NPC monologues from MMOGs as well as various viral YouTube clips just as potent for interpretive address as any speech of Patton or Henry V.

I guess I'm just thinking out loud, but I'm looking forward to the challenge; and I'm also humbly asking any Speech and Debate coaches among you for advice. What flys? What doesn't? This will be my first year and I really don't know what to expect.

And alas, since this is a request for forensics advice, I submit my petition unto you in the worst possible paraphrase jumble of Shakespeare that I could conjure, so: "Friends, Tweeters, Blogsphere! Lend me your Comments!"

I Have an Edge: Thoughts on Being a Paperless Student

One of my students left some interesting comments on her classblog about her experience as a student in a paperless classroom:

When I first heard we were going paperless, I was a little worried. But it has turned out to be one of the best things I have gotten to experience in the classroom so far during my time here at JC.

I feel like I have an edge over most students because our class has been so exposed to what's out there for us to see and learn. It saves time, enables us to communicate to others outside the classroom in a heartbeat, and prepares us for what we're going to experience in the real world.

Final Exams: Of the Students, By the Students, For the Students

It's that time of year again.

That time of year when teachers start reviewing months' worth of information and learning for the sake of cramming enough into the minds of students that they'll be able to sit in a chair for two hours and complete a final exam without throwing the curve off by too much.

I'm not a huge fan of final exams; but I am a huge fan of finding out what students know. So, this year, my Latin III students -- kids I've taught for three straight years -- will be designing their own final exam as a way of showing me what it is that they know.

I've given them all next week to collaborate on the design of the exam -- the questions, the content, the way the whole thing should be assessed. I'll be there to help out, to meddle, and to instigate them to dig deeper into what they have learned to produce an exam that will ultimately better demonstrate how it is that they've developed as learners over these three years.

But ultimately it'll be there's.

If they make it purposefully easy, well, by our agreement that's what it'll be: an easy exam. But I've told them expressly that I expect them to push themselves to and beyond their max -- and not to give in to the easy option.

And time and again -- in fact most everytime I've given them complete control over their learning destiny -- they've pushed themselves harder than I would have thought to push them.

Which, of course, ups the ante.

So here they are with one week to prepare the exam that will accurately assess the learning they've done over the past three years, the trust we have fostered over that span, and the quality of their development as they see it -- not with them as bit-players -- entries in a gradebook -- but as young adults with full awareness of what they are capable of, full cognizance of what the challenges are, and full responsibility for pushing themselves further than they thought they could go.

My students are writing their own final exam.

And I'd bet my last nickel that it's going to be the most challenging exam they've ever sat for.

What Teachers Can Learn From Skateparks

NY Times ran a story today about the closing of the Brooklyn Banks, a small hangout under the Brooklyn Bridge that became a world famous skateboarding park.

Check out this video of skater Mike Vallely talking about the history of the place and why it was so great. In a way I think it speaks volumes about the DIY ethic, and -- at least the way I grew up -- that ethic prevailed as the fundamental starting point for all endeavors: a) Yes, you can do it. b) Yes, you can do it yourself. c) The reason you can do it is because you are going to use what is already there in a new way to achieve your goals and express yourself. You are going to see the beauty in things that other people discard and you are going to use those things to empower yourself and your community.



At the end of the video, Vallely says that the Banks was the best skatepark in the world because it was never meant to be a skatepark. And there's a lot in that sentiment for us teachers to learn from. Kids don't learn just because you are teaching out of an educationally-approved textbook. Kids don't learn just because they are playing an "educational" video game. Kids only learn because they and their teachers dig in and find the transcendent value in the common material of this life and use creativity and passion to push their understanding to new levels.

Skate or die.

A 21C Education... for Teachers.

Here's the question: If you had the opportunity to create your own graduate program in education for 21st century teachers, what would it look like?

I've started a brainstorming wiki: http://21cedgrad.wikispaces.com/ and I'd love folks to contribute ideas. The wiki is open and may be edited by anybody, please share among friends and colleagues and don't be afraid to think way outside the box!

Student Access

TechCrunch reports on big news on the Google front today. It's about 'Froyo', the new Android 2.2, and it has huge implications for web access in schools:

Froyo will have built in USB tethering so you can share your data connection with your laptop... And even better: you can turn your Android phone into a portable wifi hotspot as well.

@concretekax asks four great questions this morning on his blog that all school admins and teachers should be thinking about right about now:

• Will this type of technology make cable connections obsolete
• Is paying to put Wi-Fi hotspots in school buildings also a waste of money?
• Will schools allow students to use this technology or pay waste money on equipment to block the signals?
• Will this help end the filtering debates and make CIPA irrelevant?

Are you ready for students creating their own wi-fi hotspots? You better be. Because this is the type of thing that more than anything suggests what the future looks like: it's mobile, it's accessible, what used to be public is personal and what used to be personal is public.

Better get to work on those new digital health classes you are going to be offering. You'll have a couple extra bucks to pay for 'em now that your Internet blocking software is obsolete.

Distinctions

Had the pleasure yesterday of sharing a lunch -- via Skype -- with teachers in Sparta Township Public Schools thanks to the work of @pjhiggins.


Patrick was kind enough to post a write-up of our conversation that includes some Tweets sent out during the session.


One of the things I walked away from the meeting with was an agreement that things have already changed and that we as teachers now aren't on the van-guard of technology, but rather the front-line of relevancy for our kids.


That's an important distinction.


For all we talk about ed tech, that's not really the point; any more than the point of a rally car race is to enjoy the scenery. The point of all our talk is ultimately to engage our students in meaningful and relevant learning. And in a dynamic and authentic 21C environment, that means -- by default -- using the tools of the social web and the materials of participatory media to make learning happen.


A question came up during the discussion about whether our kids spend too much time in front of the computer. And to paraphrase what I suggested in response: that question itself will soon be obsolete. Because the walls between the online world and the physical world are quickly disintegrating. Mobile and handheld computing, personal projection, Augmented Reality, ubiquitous wireless access, and public surface computing are changing the game. As the technology becomes less expensive and more options are created for public access, this will amount to a complete break from the "screen centered" world of personal computing and usher in an age of direct experiential computing where the digital will be as much a part of our physical reality as bricks and mortar.


Naturally, we tend to think about things in bricks and mortar ways. That's what we know. We tend to think of computers in terms of a "connection" -- i.e. you sit at a computer or carry an iPhone so that you have a device with which to connect to the digital world. I see a future where computing is not a matter of machines and connections, but environments and "being".


That's another important distinction.


And I'll stand by what I said yesterday: "We are probably the last generation that will make the distinction between being online and not being online."


Thanks to Patrick and all the teachers for a great conversation yesterday.

We're Not In This for Tomorrow

"We're in this for the next decade," asserts a Warner executive.  "We're not in this for tomorrow." -- from Business Week article 'Atari's bet on home computers' (1981)

I've been pondering that statement for the last hour or so. Surely it was meant as: we're in this for the long haul. But in retrospect, it reads like: we're in this for the next ten years. And not more than that.

It's the latter reading of the statement that should concern educators.

Recently I was talking with my son's 3rd grade teacher about his future. And it occurred to me that what we were really talking about was how he would fare in middle school. And of course, middle school -- or something like it -- is part of the educational scheme. But is middle school really what we should be "preparing" a student for?

Today is the last day for seniors here at JC. They're all wearing their college t-shirts. And that's great. Because we prepared them for college. But is that really what we should be doing?

Or are we part of the short view?

Is it our job to prepare students to handle the next decade of their lives? Or is it our job to prepare them to handle whatever life throws at them -- whenever that may be?

Does our teaching have a half-life? Or are we teaching this generation so that they may teach the next?

In this age of entrance tests and exit tests and "college-level" exams and PSATs and SATs and HSAs and ACTs and endless Scantrons and gradebooks full of "data", are we really preparing our kids for something beyond school? And in the lack of poetry that those tests and data represent, are we stifling the poetry of all our futures?

I do fear that in our quest for immediate results and solutions that gauge their worth by their efficacy in getting students through the next hoop that we very well may be preparing our students for the next ten years -- but not at all preparing them for tomorrow.

 

The End of Phonebooks

The New York Times is reporting today that Verizon wants the White Pages phonebook to go the way of the rotary phone.

Verizon, the dominant local phone company in the state, asked regulators on Friday to allow it to end the annual delivery of millions of White Pages to all of its customers in New York. The company estimates that it would save nearly 5,000 tons of paper by ending the automatic distribution of the books.

This would be a great move in source reduction.

It also points out the fact that culture itself is moving towards paperlessness. And while there will likely always be certain things we print -- diplomas, religious texts, wedding invitations -- by and large, most of what we print -- newspapers, government documents, classroom worksheets -- is easily sourced to a digital alternative.

When even the phone company wants to stop printing its own phone book, one could make the suggestion that when it comes down to the brass tacks: society is eventually going to go paperless by default, whether it's trying to or not.

School Supplies: Pencil case, Calculator, Twitter...

This August, all of our incoming Freshmen will be picking up one tool for school that may not be as familiar as the pencils, pens, and calculators they've been accustomed to.

That's because we're requiring all incoming 9th graders to have a Twitter account.

We run an annual one day Tech Camp for all incoming students and this year we'll be demonstrating the many ways students can use Twitter in their educations. From following current events to backchanneling lectures and labs to connecting with experts to building community lifelines and collaborating with their peers in sharing hashtags of links, apps, observations, and ideas -- students will be getting a crash course in the utility of the social web.

Right now, our tech committee is planning this year's camp. Among things to discuss are the nuts-and-bolts of computing in a 1:1 environment, digital citizenship and social media, and using the resources of Web 2.0 to connect with the world of education beyond the classroom walls.

We'd love to hear your ideas on what should be addressed at a high school tech camp!

More on Using Google Wave in the Foreign Language Classroom

I've really taken to Google Wave as a scratchpad for collaborative translation work.

Splitting my Latin II class up into small groups, I requested that each group create a Wave in which to help one another translate a chunk of a larger passage from the Gallic Wars.

Here's a screenshot of a brief section of translation being worked on by one of the small groups. Among the things that I love about working like this, foremost is the fact that I can watch live as each student helps contribute in real-time to the same document. Wave automatically tells me which student is doing what; so, if I see that one student is having problems in one area, I can easily give them a little more attention in real-time or link them together with other another student for some quick peer-tutoring -- or even make a new Wave to use as a 1:1 tutoring block in which I can directly help the student (or multiple students having the same problem) without disrupting the flow of the class, forcing faster students to slow down, or causing anxiety by publicly "pointing out" the kids who need extra help.

Another thing I like about Wave is that it archives everything typed into it and allows me to play back the Wave's history. So I have a complete step-by-step record of the kinds of mistakes my students are making. Which of course lets me address any common problems quickly and effectively.

What Is an Educator?

So, Ning is planning to remain free for educators.

Which begs the question: what's an educator?

I guess in the past it's been easy enough to say that an educator is a classroom teacher. But, as the role of both classrooms and teachers are finding themselves caught in the upheaval of change, we might ask if that definition really cuts it anymore.

Is a homeschooler an educator?

Is a private tutor an educator? (Isn't that what Aristotle did?)

Is a private online teacher/mentor/guru an educator?

What about school librarians?

Coaches?

Enrichment coordinators?

Folks working in the education departments of museums? archives? new media and digital collections?

DIY teachers who post how-to videos on YouTube?

What is an educator? How do we define this role? And not just so that we can score (or maintain) free Ning accounts, but so that we know more about what we are talking about when we are talking about education.

Because It Was the Only Way

Norman Constantine left a really striking comment on a post here recently, saying:

"We memorized before the internet not because it was the best way to learn but because it was the only way to have recall."

Would love to hear folks' opinions; I think Norman may have struck on something very interesting: traditionally, we think of prior knowledge generally as an internal thing; but could we not imagine a future where prior knowledge is a public or external thing?

And how best would we teach our kids in such a world? By continuing to plug knowledge into them or by plugging them into the knowledge?

The "Open" Classroom and Cheating

Question of the Day: Does an "open" assessment approach (open texts, Net, real-time studentsharing) promote or dissuade cheating?

I'm posting this as I'm watching my students take an open Latin assessment. Basically my concern is three-fold:

1) There is no where outside of the traditional classroom that someone would not be able to use whatever resources they wanted to complete a task -- [yeah, yeah, I can already hear the desert island iPhone battery jokes]. 

2) What we usually call "tests" are anything but.

3) As far as "cheating" goes: why not just create assessments that a) don't assess the ability to memorize and b) are different for each kid?

Want to know your thoughts. Do you give open assessments? Do you let students use resources (Net, notes, each other)? How do you define "cheating"? Why do teachers create assessments that can be "cheated" on?

 

"We launched our own computer lab in my classroom."

I continue to be absolutely humbled by the fearlessness of teachers and students who took part in last week's Paperless Earth Day.

A few days back, I published a post of things teachers had done to go paperless in their classrooms.  Some were high-tech and some were lo-tech. They were all creative, thoughtful, determined, and pro-student.

This evening I got word of another project a teacher and his students took on. And I'm in awe.

"My 130 + students decided that we were not going to go paperless for just Earth Day, but rather the remainder of the year. We discussed a plan and then put that plan into action. My students and I were able to take a laptop cart that had been abandoned by most at the school due to the operating issue of the machines, which are about six years old. We spent the next few weeks leading up to Earth Day repairing and cleaning the machines up after school.

"On April 22, we launched our own computer lab in my classroom."

That's from a post by Mike Meechin, a high school teacher in Florida. He posted it on his blog -- Innovate Education -- and I, for one, am looking forward to checking in throughout these last several weeks of the school year to see how he and his students are doing.

Teaching Doesn't Take a Lunch Break

ASCD ran a list of interesting ways educators are embracing the "green theme" in their classrooms.

I'm especially interested in the piece they cite by Elizabeth Puccini on the 'Fed Up with Lunch' blog where she explains how:

"Starting in October 2009, our schools were the first in New York City to have Meatless Mondays."

I'd love to hear your thoughts on school cuisine -- both in terms of things 'green' and things 'healthy'. For it's ironic that as people we recognize the value of good food in fostering good conversation and camaraderie, yet so often our school cafeteria lines are full of fried, salty, sugary heart-attack food seemingly at best bent on fostering bad breath and stomach cramps.

Maybe we ought to keep in mind that 'teaching' doesn't take a lunch break.

Paperless Earth Day: What Teachers Did

One of my favorite things to have come out of yesterday's Paperless Pledge is the documentation teachers have been making of their day's classroom experiences.

Dave Glenn, a 6th grade teacher from North Carolina, blogged about his paperless day using Make Believe Comix with students.

Andrea Schlager's 3rd grade class made a podcast documenting their Paperless Earth Day experience.

Ann Leaness and her class cleaned up the front entrance to their school.

Other teachers wrote about recycling initiatives, applying Web 2.0 to Earth Day, Zimmertwins, digital photography in math class, bike rides and waste-free lunches, and student blogging.

Throughout the day, teachers participating in the paperless pledge contributed to our Paperless Earth Day Wiki. From Glogster and digital camera scavenger hunts in math class to digital science projects to online collaborative storytelling to conversations with experts via TodaysMeet: you'll find projects, ideas, and dynamic and collaborative paperless alternatives -- some high tech and some lo tech -- that you can incorporate into your own teaching.

I look forward to hearing many more stories about paperless Earth Day, and I encourage you all to post documentation of your experiences to the Paperless Earth Day Wiki. Thanks!

Happy Paperless Earth Day!

[Updated w/ screenshot of 1,500th pledge coming in at 12:25PM EST.]

Over 1,500 teachers from Vietnam to Kenya to the UK to Missouri to Venezuela have all taken the pledge to go paperless for Earth Day.

The pledge list is available online and is organized by school. Congratulations to all of the schools represented!

Teachers pledging today can do so on our Google Form; we'll leave it open until Midnight today to be accessible to teachers taking on paperless night classes this evening.

All teacher participants are invited to contribute their paperless classroom experiences to our Paperless Earth Day Wiki. We've already got some FANTASTIC contributions!

Steve Katz -- the guy who first proposed this idea to begin with -- has started a Google Doc called "Going Paperless"; it's an excellent resource for classroom paperlessness. Steve is an inspiration to the paperless movement.

Thanks to the Earth Day Network for helping out and giving us the extra "push".

Thanks to folks in the media for helping to get the word out about the Paperless Earth Day Pledge -- especially the New York Times, the Arizona Republic, the Baltimore Sun, and the Dallas Examiner.

Thanks to Edutopia for featuring the pledge in its just-released issue of Think Green!

And most of all: thank you to all of the teachers, students, and admins who have made this possible. You all are fearless.

For posterity's sake, here's a link to the original call on TeachPaperless. I remember at the time, Steve and I were hoping to get 100 teachers to join us. The results have exceeded our wildest expectations.


Happy Earth Day,

Shelly Blake-Plock
@TeachPaperless

NY Times: Ten Ways to ‘Go Green’ and Mark Earth Day

The New York Times takes notice of the Paperless Earth Day Pledge in its list of Ten Ways to 'Go Green' and Mark Earth Day.

Lots of great ideas there. My fav: "Plant a Tree".

Update on Paperless Earth Day

As of 9:20PM EST, there are 1,458 teachers worldwide pledged to go paperless on Earth Day.

News about the pledge has been reported this evening on the blogs of the Baltimore Sun, Arizona Republic, and Dallas Examiner. And Edutopia ran a piece on the pledge in the just-released issue of Think Green.

Most exciting, documentation is already cropping up on the Paperless Earth Day Wiki!

The pledge form is still open: you can sign it here.

With Hours to Go: We've Got 1,443 Teachers Pledged to Go Paperless for Earth Day 2010

Here's the story: Earth Day is tomorrow.

As of 4PM EST, we've got 1,443 teachers pledged to go paperless in their classrooms tomorrow.

That's awesome.

Click here to see the full list of our paperless teachers (alphabetical by school).

And click here to sign the pledge.

Teachers are Going Paperless for Earth Day

Teachers are celebrating the 40th annual Earth Day by going paperless in their classrooms.

Nearly Over 1,400 teachers from six continents have pledged to go paperless for Earth Day [updated 4.21]. They are sharing ideas and documentation of their experiences on the Paperless Earth Day Wiki which has been created especially for the event as well as on educator Steve Katz's "Going Paperless" Google Doc.

The pledge drive is being supported by the Earth Day Network as well as a word-of-tweet network of educators on Twitter.

TeachPaperless will be working over the next two days to help teachers work out last minute paperless plans and to help them document their work. Follow @TeachPaperless to get the latest information and to keep up with the paperless discussion.

Teachers can sign the pledge to go paperless on Earth Day by following this link to the Pledge Form.

Making History with Issuu, a Paperless Magazine Maker

The students in my West Civ class just published a series of "Year in Review" history magazines. Exported as pdfs to Issuu.com, I think they make an impressive case for opting for digital over paper in student publishing.

Thought I'd share an example with you!



Check out the 'works cited' page at the end; the student editors of this edition found some excellent resources online (we've been working on increasing the quality of our source and reference material). A primary source compendium that's become standard in our class is the Internet History Sourcebooks Project -- it and the BBC History site have literally made history textbooks in our classroom... well... history.

Best of all, the kids loved making these magazines. For the past couple of days, our room has been transformed into a virtual publishing house. And when technology and content together can foster that kind of engagement, you know you're on the right track.

"Going Paperless" for Earth Day!

Steve Katz started a "Going Paperless" Google Doc full of ideas to help folks go paperless on Earth Day. You can contribute to the Doc and are welcome to take and share ideas with fellow teachers.

Again, if you have any questions or need any advice on creating paperless lessons for Thursday's event, just post a comment here on TeachPaperless and I'll do my best to help you out.

As of 12:30 EST, we're at 1,323 teachers pledged to go paperless for Earth Day. We've got just three more days to go! Please pass the pledge on to fellow teachers and remember to document what you do in your classrooms on Earth Day by publishing text, pictures, video, and whatever else to the Paperless Earth Day Wiki.

Paperlessness: First Come, First Served

Took a few days off before our final push to Earth Day.

Now, I'm ready to go.

Each day leading up to April 22, I'll be posting customized ideas for going paperless in your classrooms. Basically, if you give me a topic/objective and your tech capabilities, I'll give you a lesson plan/idea. If you don't want to use tech, that's fine; I'll come up with an alternative.

Basically, I'm offering three years of paperless experience to help you design paperless lessons that will work for you on Earth Day.

First come, first served; I'll do as many as I can and post them on the Paperless Earth Day Wiki.

Meanwhile, please remind your colleagues to join 1,300 of their colleagues and pledge to go paperless for Earth Day!

Nearly 1200 Teachers Have Pledged to Go Paperless for Earth Day

With just over a week to go, nearly 1200 teachers worldwide have pledged to go paperless for Earth Day.

The pledge has been featured in the posts of a number of bloggers including stories in Learning Today and on Greenopolis; Richard Byrne made a really cool pledge map to show where we all come from; and our friends at the Earth Day Network have helped to get the word out along with tons of great folks on Twitter.

Thank you to all of you. We started with just a handful of pledges and never had any idea it would get this big. It's your dedication and generosity that has made this possible.

Now, it's crunch time. We've got just over a week to let as many educators as possible know about the pledge. I'm asking that all of you help by telling a colleague, a friend, your Twitter PLN all about the pledge. Let's push this thing a little further and see what happens.

Also -- and this is a big also -- I've set up the Paperless Earth Day Wiki which will act as a repository for documentation of what you all do in your classrooms. I'd like this to become a communal resource for lesson plans, ideas, and the sharing of stories. Make it whatever you want to make it: it's yours. For my part, I'm going to document our Earth Day in pics and post a photostream on the wiki.

Think big; be creative. It's yours.

This pledge drive began as an idea in Steve Katz's head; I'd like to thank him for the work he's done. Here's the original post that went out in February explaining how and why we were doing this.

Thanks to all of you who have pledged so far. Tell your friends and colleagues to take the pledge to go paperless in their classrooms on April 22nd -- the 40th annual celebration of Earth Day -- by clicking here and signing up.

Thanks folks. You all are amazing.

Paperless Earth Day Wiki

After you check out the list of over 1150 teachers worldwide who have pledged to go paperless for Earth Day 2010... and after you have yourself pledged to go paperless... then it's time to share ideas and documentation on the new Paperless Earth Day Wiki.

Teachers have already started submitting their own plans for the day!

Open Blog: What Device is it that Students and Teachers are Looking For?

So, the Google Tablet is imminent.

And so it's time to open up the bloglines to some reader opinion and comments.

For you iPad-wielding folks, based on your experience so far, what's needed to make these types of devices more applicable for students and teachers? Or is the 'right' device something entirely different?

Can/Would education benefit from a ubiquitous device? And let's just talk devices for a moment.

What do we teachers 'need' in terms of a device? What do our students need? What exactly is it that we 'need' to get to -- and use -- all our stuff out there on the Web?

Lot's of questions. Let's hear what you've got to say.

What We Do

Had a great conversation with a retired veteran teacher last night.

The thing he said that I keep coming back to in my mind:

"It's easy for anybody to point out what a kid does wrong. But that's not what a good teacher does. A good teacher goes out of his way to figure out what the kid does right and then sets the kid on a path of confidence and success."

As I prepare to go back to school tomorrow after a week and a few days of Spring Break, this is exactly the kind of advice I need to keep at the front of my mind. Focus on success, not failure. Turn failure into success and turn success into confidence. Seems like such a simple formula, and yet we as a profession struggle over it over and over again.

Interview at Learning Today

Learning Today followed up on the paperless pledge piece with an interview. It was a pleasure to chat with them.

The ed software blog over there is a great resource, well worth your time scouring their archives.

A 'Map a List' Map of Paperless Pledges

Richard Byrne used Map a List to make a really cool map featuring all of the folks who have pledged to go paperless in their classrooms on Earth Day. Check it out.

BTW: I dare you to try to say the title of this post five times fast.

Learning Today: On the Paperless Classroom Earth Day Pledge

Thanks to 'Learning Today's' Educational Software Blog for writing a piece on the Paperless Classroom Earth Day Pledge!

Lots of love to all of the folks who have been spreading the word as we count down to April 22nd. All we need is twenty teachers to sign the pledge today and we'll hit 1100!

See the list of teachers and schools that have taken the pledge, and then click here to take the pledge yourself.

Pass it on to friends and colleagues!

The Earth Day Educator's Network

The Earth Day Action Center has set up an Educator's Network:

Earth Day Network is a national leader in environmental education. Check out our lesson plans, education grant programsand more! Find school greening information, lessons and action plans, and learn about our school greening projects. Discover youth from across the world engaged in their schools and communities with our International Green Schools program, global curriculum and EE projects!

This is a really nice collection of resources. Be sure to check out the list of events educators are taking part in worldwide; and while you are in an Earth Day state of mind, be sure to stop by and see the list of nearly 1100 teachers worldwide who have signed our pledge to teach paperless for Earth Day.

If you'd like to sign up to take the pledge, click here. And spread the word among your colleagues!

Paperless Classrooms for Earth Day 2010

The first Earth Day took place 40 years ago this April.

And on this Earth Day, teachers from around the world will be honoring a pledge to teach paperless on April 22nd.

So far, over one-thousand teachers have taken the pledge. Click here to see the complete list of participants. And click here to make the pledge.

I've also started a wiki for teachers to use in documenting their paperless day.

Let's make this a special event both for saving paper and for thinking outside the box in terms of the ways that we engage with our students.

Today's Big Tech-Product Release

One word: iMarsupial

Contact me or @irasocol for info.

News and an Update on the Paperless Earth Day Pledge for Teachers

It was a nice surprise this morning to wake up to a post on Paperless Earth Day from Greenopolis on 3BLMedia.

Very cool. Thanks for the support!

As for an update on the drive: we've got 21 days to go and we're at 1025 teachers signed up so far pledging to go paperless in their classrooms for Earth Day. Ask a friend to pledge now!

This is Our Classroom

Welcome to our classroom. Pardon the mess... we've been busy.

Our room is a large semi-industrial studio. The students in the foreground are sitting in our Blogger's Lounge while in the distance, two students are projecting student work and leading a peer review session, and to the right a cluster of students have a chat session around a table to plan for their presentation; two more groups hang in our mini Mac lab just to the left of where this picture is cropped.

We're a 1:1 school and all of the students have Tablet PCs. You'll notice the two cameras as well in the picture below; that's because we share this room with @schickbob and his fantastic TV and Film students; this area doubles as a soundstage for student-directed video and TV as well as a blackbox theatre during in-class student productions and performances. We've also got exposed rafters and a nice semi-mobile mounted lighting system that we use to give productions that authentic feel.

Here's our larger than life-sized class Twitter feed projected up on the wall. Students use this for everything from chatting and sharing ideas and links to organizing bibliographies and resources via hashtags.

During the class session when we shot these pics, the students were peer reviewing outlines and rough drafts of academic essays. Each group rotated into the middle of the room at some point during the class to post their work on the big screen and present their arguments. They used Twitter to organize their group efforts and they presented all of their work via Blogger.

Each student has his or her own Blogger account. The students keep all classwork as well as all notes and long-term assignments on their blogs, so by the end of a semester they have a complete portfolio of work. Students write daily blogposts on questions gathered from our crowdsourced wiki-syllabus; the best writing goes up on our public class blog.

With the exception of the sofa, everything in our room is either on wheels or light enough to easily move around. As a teacher, I've found that to be key. The more flexible your space, the more engaging your classroom.

And there's the authenticity piece. Life isn't an orderly row of desks. I want my students to own their room and be able to adapt it to their needs.

Over 1000 Teachers Worldwide Sign Pledge to Go Paperless for Earth Day 2010

Happy to report that over 1000 teachers have now signed our pledge to go paperless for Earth Day!

Is your school represented?

Click here to see the complete list of participants. And click here to make the pledge.

I've also started a wiki where teachers can document the things they do with their students on Earth Day. Feel free to leave documentation of all sorts -- written, audio, video.

I'd love this to become an evolving resource for teachers looking to go paperless.

The Stick

This, my friends, should be the new standardized test to replace the NCLB/SAT/ACT/HSA/BS:

The Stick

In comparison, nothing comes close to truly assessing... well... much of anything concerning the intellect, aptitude, understanding, or creativity of just about any human being.

"Here's a stick..." he said, "Make me believe in something."

Introducing the Middle Ages to Freshmen History Students via Online Gaming

What's loud, crude, bloody, and educational?

Why, I do believe it's the 1066 game from Channel4.

Summing up the three major battles over England in the year 1066, the game lets the player experience warfare from the point-of-view of Viking, Anglo-Saxon, and Norman warriors.

I particularly like the Flash sequences between battles which tell the story of the Viking and Norman invasions in an accessible format easy for students to pick up on.

The battle sequences liberally splatter the blood around, so I'd tend to save this one for the older kids. But for the 'older kids' among us, it sure is fun.

And to extend the logic of medieval warfare beyond the historical battles, the game also allows players to create their own scenarios and play against one another online.

One thing's for certain: it surely did grab the attention of my Freshmen like no textbook description of the battles ever has.

Thanks to Emily, one of my former students (and now a Classics geek in college), for the showing me the game to begin with.

Over 900 Teachers Have Pledged to Go Paperless for Earth Day 2010

A good couple days. We're at the end of the quarter and it's springtime!

So, I'm taking a break from JingCrits for a Paperless Earth Day update. As of 3PM EST, there were 906 teachers worldwide who had taken the pledge to go paperless on Earth Day 2010!

The whole list is available online to view; everything is listed alphabetically by school -- so see how many folks from your school are taking part!

You can make your own pledge to teach paperless on Earth Day by clicking here and filling out the short form.

In addition, TeachPaperless has just started working with the Earth Day 2010 Action Center and, in an upcoming post, I'll have more information about what's going on there. Until then, join the Earth Day community of over 750,000 members and add TeachPaperless to your network!

An Example of Jing Used to Comment on Student Work Online

Have been using Jing for about three weeks now as my primary form of commenting on student work. Here's a recent example that uses Jing's 'pause' ability to quickly jump between the student's work and online sources and resources.
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So far, the reaction to Jing comments has been overwhelmingly in favor. In fact, both students and parents have been pushing me to produce as many JingCrits as my time allows.

Thinking about the future, I want to experiment with using graphics within Jing; and I would love to hear the experience you all have had jinging the net.

Over 800 Teachers Pledge to Go Paperless for Earth Day!

Over 800 teachers from around the world have now signed our pledge to go paperless in their classrooms for Earth Day 2010. Can you commit to going paperless for a day?

Click here to add your name and pledge!

And click here to see everybody who's pledged so far!

Listening to Students

Since the start of this semester, students in my 9th grade West Civ class have been publishing their own blogzine.

The blog is open to the public and the authors and editors take great pride in their work. They've made mistakes along the way and have humbly corrected them, and they've come up against criticism along the way and have admirable engaged with it in debate.

In short: they've learned.

And so have I.

Today, we published a piece by two students. It's a look at how students learn best today and what kind of teaching proved most effective in the past. Mind you, this isn't written by a teacher or an ed school grad. It's just two 15 year-olds thinking about what works for them and taking a look at how folks who were in school in the 60s and 70s had it both differently and similarly. The students talk with a man who in an all-white school in the 1960's encounters his favorite teacher in an African-American woman. They talk to a woman who describes her experience in school and who feels like she missed out on a lot on account of the way the teachers taught. The kids themselves talk about the things that have engaged them; and they candidly describe the sort of teaching that has bored them to death.

It's not a completely polished piece. These kids are busy 9th graders, after all. But it's an honest piece. And it's the kind of piece that we as teachers should be reading closely. There's a lot there between the lines.

Read it for yourself, and please comment. The students would like to listen to what you have to say too.

Skyping History

Today, my 9th grade history class took a digital detour to Scandinavia. A good friend of mine from Stockholm skyped into our class session on Vikings.

American history curricula teach Scandinavian history as if its only contribution to the world was plunder and horned helmets (which of course, as some of my students pointed out yesterday on their West Civ Proj blog, they didn't even wear). So, I wanted to give them a view of what Scandinavian history is really like by having a conversation with someone who actually was born and lives there.

My friend Joel is a world-class musician and he's spent the last few years working on NGO projects using music as a way of empowering kids in the forgotten cities of the world. A native of Sweden, he was a perfect choice for a brief conversation with my kids here in Maryland.

First he pointed out the different ways Scandinavians think about their ancestors. On the one hand, they were admittedly brutal and severe. One the other, however, they were industrious people who wanted to better their lives and who survived much hardship in the face of climates and limited resources few of us could imagine.

Someone asked what Sweden was like today, and Joel described their schools and government as well as the general attitudes of Swedes towards world affairs. And you could see in the faces of some kids a difficulty lining up the modern society he was describing with the limited knowledge they had always carried around about the land of the Vikings.

Each week, I give the students a question to ponder. This week's question is: "Who is Good? Who is Bad?" We collect these questions, along with many others, on our class wiki; and we crowdsource for more via Twitter. These questions -- not the facts from some filtered-down textbook -- form the basis of our class dialog.

The kids are learning history via the questions we ask about it.

And so, after an eight-minute conversation with a stranger a quarter of a world away -- a conversation that threw some theoretical complications into the mix regarding Vikings (Good, Bad, and Otherwise) -- I look forward to seeing how my kids answer the question this week.

And just as an aside, I'm gonna say that I'm just so happy that I'm living in a time where I can bring the world to my kids and bring my kids to the world.

Using Google Wave in the Foreign Language Classroom

I'm not the one who thought to use Wave. That was a student's idea. 

I just came up with the task: for the kids to write their own epic poem in Latin. Google Wave for writing Latin Epics? Of course... I should've thought of that to begin with! 

It's actually a no brainer. (Or that's what I discovered over two days watching the kids work with it in class.)

Basically, creating the poem is a four step process: 

1) Collaborating on the writing of the poem in English. 

2) Editing the English version into a cohesive whole. 

3) Rendering the English into Latin. 

4) Making adjustments to fit the Latin version into epic meter.

We began by chunking up parts of the narrative -- beginning, rising action, climax, etc -- between the students. We were all sitting around a big table with our laptops, so it was easy both to chat between one another f2f and at the same time follow what was happening on the Wave (which I projected on the wall).

I find that this is often the key: hybridizing f2f and online experiences.

The students developed a humorous story about Greek heroes on a quest to save the last ice cream cone. (Okay, so it's no Homer... but it's a start!)

As students wrote their chunks, I flipped through the Wave commenting on each student's work -- it being a Wave, of course, I am able to comment as they are working rather than waiting for them to turn something in. This is a great way both to gauge formative learning as well as nipping problems in the bud before they blossom into full-blown misconceptions -- it's so often those ingrained misconceptions that we spend so much time trying to help kids unlearn.

Once the English versions were rendered and edited into five-line chunks, students began the process of morphing their poem into Latin. We started with the verbs.

As students suggested verbs and verb-forms, I was able to check through quickly and again figure out who needed extra help and who was ready for greater challenges (and as I've found over and over, it's not always the kids at one end of the 'grades' spectrum or the other that needs more of the former or more of the latter). Wave actually lets me gauge each student individually in real-time and cater my teaching to each individual student. 

I'm coming to think of Wave as a 'differentiation and formative assessment' device.

Tomorrow, we'll start on the process of rendering the rest of the Latin and fitting everything into the confines of the old ancient meter. I'll be sure to post my thoughts on the conclusion of the project and hopefully will have a nice bit of Latin Epic to offer you all -- courtesy of the kids -- in two days' time.

Update on the Paperless Earth Day Campaign

Over 700 teachers have signed the pledge to go paperless for Earth Day!

Thank you to so many of the subscribers to this blog as well as all the great educators on Twitter for helping out and spreading the word.

Let's keep this ball rolling! Earth Day is April 22.

Pledge now!

TeachPaperless on Facebook

A reminder to regular readers and an invite to new readers: further the paperless discussion with TeachPaperless on Facebook. A nice place to find other people involved in 21st century education.

Real Teacher Education

After a long day of PD yesterday, I've been thinking about how we see ourselves as educators. Been thinking about what our own education means and how we continue to develop as teachers. Been thinking about real teacher education.

Our PD session ended in a faculty discussion where we debated what the role of lecturing is in the high school classroom. On one side, we had folks who said that kids need to "learn to become engaged in a lecture" because that's the primary form of classroom communication they'd see in college. On the other side were the folks who argued that outside of the college classroom, there wasn't a job on Earth where the primary form of communication is lecturing and therefore we should dispel with it in our classrooms in favor of 'real world' education.

This of course, is a classic argument that's been going on since at least Mr. Dewey's days.

And I think it misses the boat.

Because the argument is structured in such a way to propagate the false dichotomy between 'levels' of learning and experience. I'd argue that rather than gear your instructional strategy towards expectations in educational leveling -- i.e. teaching with different strategies to second graders than to college freshmen based on the 'ideas' of what the expectations of teaching and motivation are -- what we really should be doing is understanding who our students are in a meaningful and compassionate way and, without any preconceptions about what's going to 'work', we should be formulating approaches democratically with the input -- and veto power -- of our students.

The students deserve the veto. It's their education, after all. And if the teaching method you are using isn't working for them -- be it lecture or open learning or project-based or what-have-you -- then they have a right and obligation to petition you to understand what would work for them and you have a professional obligation to try out new strategies.

Hard? Yes.

Professional and necessary? Even more so.

I'm tired of teachers acting like their 'tried-and-true' method is the only way. I was tired of it as a student and I'm tired of it as a teacher. It's arrogant and it stinks of the fear of losing the comfort of the 'normal'.

Nothing about your students is 'normal'.

I realize that I can be a bit militant in the pages of this blog. And I fully realize that I've got an ego and personal arrogance that occasionally makes me look like a jackass. So I'm gonna say right here right now: Don't base your teaching approaches on the arguments that you hear on this blog. Rather, base your teaching approaches on the conversations you have with your students. Find out who they are. Ask them how they learn. Challenge yourself to figure out how to teach them. Each of them.

Because in the end, this isn't about lecturing vs. not lecturing. It's not about preparing kids to be able to handle college. It's not about the authority of one form of instruction over another.

It's about engaging minds and empowering individuals.

That's it. That's the whole point of education.

And you ain't gonna engage the mind of a student by arguing the finer points of pedagogy with your colleagues. You're only going to engage the minds of your students by learning from them how their minds work. You've got to talk to them. You've got to know them. And you have to trust one another.

Real teacher education happens when you leave your ego behind and jump into the learning process as not a 'teacher' or a 'facilitator' but as a fellow human being who has compassion for human beings and who recognizes the real importance of education as the armor of empowerment. Because the 'real world' is an endlessly relative term; and what we really want is not to produce students capable of dealing with one kind of 'real world', but capable of adapting, showing compassion, and helping to empower others in whatever world in which they may find themselves.

Go Paperless

Steve Katz posted a nice summary of where this Paperless Earth Day idea came from on his blog.

Check it out; tell Steve "THANKS!" for instigating this whole thing; and then be sure to join over 650 teachers from around the world in pledging to go paperless for the 40th Earth Day this April 22, 2010.

Remembrance of Things Past: What is the new iPad ad suggesting about Apple's intended audience for the new device?

What is the new iPad ad suggesting about Apple's intended audience for the new device?



First of all, despite the edgy-guitar pop hooks that give the soundtrack to this ad that iPod flavor, the visuals are completely... well... milquetoast. We're in a house decorated by Pottery Barn with a couple of indeterminable age who favor bluejeans and skiing.

The couple are 'readers'... you know, they read 'books' and 'newspapers'; no Boing Boing or Daily Dish in this house, kids. Chatroulette is right out.

Second, they love the travel. They read the 'Escape' section of the Times and have friends who send them pics of trips to Switzerland. We might assume that these folks have made it through the Great Recession alright and are looking for an opportunity to drop some buckage on a hotel with a hot tub and a view.

When it comes to scheduling events, it looks like they have plenty of free time on Wednesdays; perhaps they'll sneak in a few hours to read the Ted Kennedy bio. On second thought, maybe Wednesdays are best spent looking at pictures of the kids and the dog. (Note, ironically, that the interior in this commercial is obviously not the interior of any domicile containing multiple children and a dog.)

Next shot: look! They write emails that look exactly like 'real' letters!

And then, just when I thought I had the market for this device pegged as upper middle class Boomers: they go and throw in that snowboarding article. How edgy! Why, we must actually be looking into the secret life of a Gen Xer with typical 1960's fetishes -- Kennedy, The Doors -- and definitely not folks who'd prefer receiving a letter on 'paper'.

Or are we?

One of the things that's most striking about this ad is the way it blurs together stereotypical Boomer and Gen X interests and tendencies into a composite whole. Notably absent from the video are any of the ways people will actually most often use this device (3rd party apps, 3rd party apps, 3rd party apps) [and I should add 'making stuff', though as of now, there appears to be no simple way ala the typical Macbook avenues to 'make stuff']; instead we're presented with Apple-lite for folks interested in the technology thing, but who have real lives planning ski trips and giving harbor to nostalgia dressed up as hipness.

I'm struck by the images of media that I caught the first time I watched the ad: Star Trek, Steven King, Jim Morrison. There is nothing remotely 21st century about this. The device might be as "magical" as all get-out; but the ad campaign -- and we can assume the intended market's world view -- is entirely based in nostalgia -- and I'd argue -- a certain big-company-fed cynicism towards new media and what's actually happening NOW on the Web.

Crowdsourcing Questions in the Social Studies Classroom

Click here and enter into a wonderful classroom project. @vtdeacon is putting this together as a "Crowdsourcing Questions" project.

Personally, I'm so excited about this sort of thing.

We've had such a good time the last few weeks in my 9th grade West Civ class running our syllabus as a crowdsourced document -- and we'd love you to stop on by after you leave a question or two on @vt's wiki.

Collaboration. It's a beautiful thing.

The Social Alma Mater

Over the past week and a half, I've had several great conversations with former students... especially recent grads. By-and-large these students and I have kept up our friendships via social media.

@schickbob and I were talking about this today and came to the conclusion that -- in a way -- the future of education is bound up in the ways that we relate to our alumni via the social connections of the Net. Because the future of education isn't about the classroom; it's about the world. And your alumni are the bridge between the two.

With that in mind... if any old alums happen to be reading this, do get in touch. We need you now more than ever.

Nearly 600 Teachers Have Taken the Paperless Earth Day Pledge

Click here to see the current list (organized alphabetically by school name).

And click here to pledge.

From the Archives

Especially for new readers, here's a list of the eleven most read articles on TeachPaperless (as of, well, today).

Sort of a miniature 'TeachPaperless Reader'.

Enjoy.

1. Response to Questions About Education and Obsolescence

It's not really a matter of whether teachers will become obsolete; it's a matter of whether the institutions that currently support learning will become obsolete.

And they will.

2. On Paper, Candles, and Rituals

There are times when we need to feel that pencil sketch across the pad.

3. 21 Things That Will Become Obsolete in Education by 2020

The 21st century is customizable. In ten years, the teacher who hasn't yet figured out how to use tech to personalize learning will be the teacher out of a job. Differentiation won't make you 'distinguished'; it'll just be a natural part of your work.

4. What are we preparing them for?

I'm obliged to recognize that I'm of a generation caught in the transition between two ages.

5. Go Paperless for Earth Day!

Source reduction is the best form of conservation.

6. Why Teachers Should Blog

I blog and what I blog -- and how that message is received by others -- tells me what I think.

And it tells me how I think. To blog is to teach yourself what you think.

7. Thinking About 'Technique' and 'Innovation'

Clairvoyance.

8. Thoughts on History and the "Important Questions"

Many of us in education -- myself included -- tend to be pragmatists; we work with what we've got, and for the most part theory and history are often a diversion rather than a primary function within our practice. We talk about practice and policy in the story of "now" and we work scrappily to make things happen in the "now". And that's fine. But it leaves me personally feeling that the work of education all too often is forced to exist within the confines of politics and finances rather than in the sphere of the re-enchantment of the spirit where it belongs.

9. Tech Engaged by Default?

And the more I think about it, the more I think that the majority of folks left on the fence about the role of tech in the 21st century are going to simply fall into the 'user' catagory by default as society changes around them.

10. Using Authentic Gaming to Engage Kids in Authentic Learning

Gaming itself is a form of 'text'. And, especially in terms of fantasy MMOGs, games are complex narratives. Well, if you've got a kid who won't read a book, but who maintains a high-level character on a complicated MMOG, the problem likely isn't that the kid isn't able to understand complex narratives.

There's something deeper going on.

11. Yes, Internet Access is a Civil Right

we are presented with the opportunity both to re-train and re-employ citizens and spread access throughout the country by means of a public works program for Internet connectivity and community training in digital literacy.

Using Jing to Assess Online Student Writing

Been experimenting for the last couple days with Jing.

And among several uses I've found for it, by far the most important for me has been as a means of giving in-depth feedback to students on their blogs and in their writings.

I'm not the only teacher who has been frustrated by the limitation -- especially on blogs -- for marking up and commenting on student work. And so I've been looking for an alternative.

I wanted something that was more flexible, more personable, and more similar to a one-to-one conference with a student.

Jing supplies all of that.

Here are two examples of my use of Jing to assist in the assessment of student writing. The students are 9th graders in History class. You'll see that I'm pushing them to think about the sources they use and to think about how they structure an argument.

Example One

Example Two

I know many of you have used Jing for all sorts of purposes and would love it if you would share your most interesting ideas.

In a way, I'm embarrassed that it took me so long to realize that the solution to my problem was sitting there right in front of me for so long. But, such is learning.

500 Teachers Pledge to Go Paperless for Earth Day 2010!

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, over 500 teachers worldwide have pledged to go paperless in their classrooms for the day.

Here's a link to the original call.

Here's the place to pledge.

Here's a spreadsheet of teachers who have pledged.

And here's a handful of posts written by folks taking the paperless challenge:

EdTech Workshop
Web 2.0 for ESL
Just One Teacher
Musings 365
SMS Tigertalk
Getting Comfortable Teaching with Technology
Earthcast 2010

Thanks for all your words and actions.

Teaching with DIY Digital Flashcards

So, I've put together a brief presentation about the digital flashcards I'm using with my West Civ students.

I know that when most people hear the word 'flashcard' they think 'rote memorization'. I think though, that the concept of the flashcard can be turned on its head in the Digital Age.

Check out the presentation and tell me what you think.

A Student Challenge to Go Paperless for Earth Day

Woke up to a pleasant surprise.


Turns out that the Green Team at South Middle School has challenged their entire student body to go paperless for Earth Day!


Would love to hear about other schools taking on the pledge school-wide. As of right now, over 430 teachers from around the world have taken the pledge to go paperless on April 22, 2010, the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. 

You can pledge by clicking here!