Thoughts Matter More than Topics

I have to say I've been really enjoying blogging for the past few weeks.  As a student, I've experienced the freedom of thought without restriction of topic.  As a teacher, I've realized that giving students more freedom actually pushes them beyond my and their own expectations.

But still...a teacher cannot simply say, go write!  Learners need some form of guidelines to begin their work.  I found good advise in Blogging in the 21st-Century Classroom.  Educator Michelle Lampinen posts her own blogging assignment guidelines which were so helpful for me. She wanted to make sure her assignment addressed the following: 

• Address multiple Common Core standards
• Hold students accountable while minimizing stress
• Be structured enough to provide clarity while giving freedom to experiment
• Be varied enough to keep students engaged
• Get students to write for multiple purposes.

Lampinen then reflects on her and her student's experience with the blogs.  It is an insightful article worth reading and duplicating its example in your own classroom. 

A comment in response to the article written by Brian Sztabnik drew my attention as well.  He writes about his own students' use of blogs, "They begin to realize that their thoughts -- not a prescribed topic's narrow confines -- are what matter. I can't begin to tell you what this does for a student's voice and intellectual confidence!"

And instilling that confidence should really be the ultimate goal of any educator.

Race in the Classroom

My good friend introduced me to Teaching Tolerance founded in 1991, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center.  It "is dedicated to reducing prejudice, improving intergroup relations and supporting equitable school experiences for our nation's children."  The organization "provides free educational materials to teachers and other school practitioners in the U.S. and Canada."

In light of the most recent racial tensions brought on by the Michael Brown & Eric Garner cases, it was refreshing to read an open and honest educator's self assessment of the topic of race in her own classroom written by Kathleen Melville.  In Talking With Students About Ferguson and Racism  Melville writes: 

It’s clear to me that my students have learned about race and racism in school. The primary lessons they have learned are that racism is over (with the exception of a few racist individuals) and that it’s impolite to call attention to race, especially at school. How did my students learn these lessons?

They learned from textbooks that treat racial justice as an inevitable result, a goal attained. They learned from media that skirt discussions of race and reinforce the idea that talking about racism only makes it worse. They learned from white teachers who, intentionally or not, communicated their own preference to avoid the issue.

 She concludes by asking educators to step up their role in promoting social justice and writes,

We need administrators who encourage teachers and students to work for social justice. And most of all, we need diverse networks of colleagues who support this work, people who share honest conversations, who help us to see our own blinders and who challenge us to think critically about race and pedagogy.

Two more good reads about race in schools are When Educators Understand Race and Racism as well as Defensive About Diversity Trainings.

Hello, Is Anybody Out There?

This class, along with the textbook, promises exciting opportunity for social learning through 'connective writing' - the sharing of ideas via blog posts and the conversational potential via reader comments.

Even a list like 100+ examples of use of social media for learning is full of teacher 'oh , ah' excitement over their own classroom uses of social media.

But am I really connecting with my fellow classmates? Yes & no.  I diligently read through my classmates' blog posts and comment on the ones which I feel I have a comment on.  I hope they appreciate my comments.

But is anyone finding my blog and commenting?   The answer is no, not enough! I have twelve posts thus far (not including this one) but only have comments on 3 of them.  That's only 25% of my posts.  Are the other posts being read?  Enjoyed?  Learned from?  I have no idea...not even one comment from the instructor...hmm...

Some may argue, as expressed in Reflections on Being a Blogger, that blogging is more of a self reflection, a way to be honest and expressive with your own thoughts.  But I still argue that receiving comments further clarify those personal reflections and help the writer re-examine what he/she has written.

As we wrap up with week six of the course and having received very little comment on my blog posts, I wonder how to better utilize blogs in my own classrooms so my students can truly benefit from social and connective writing?

Block Scheduling a Good Thing

I've always found it frustrating for myself as a teacher to run from one class to the other, get students settled down, take attendance, address or defer any hanging questions like "I wasn't here yesterday, did I miss something important?", getting the class rolling, only to be sidetracked with "I don't get it!" or "What page are we on?" 

It doesn't matter if you are a master teacher or a novice one, you will be faced with distractions that take away from your very precious little time as it is. I've long time been a supporter of block scheduling in schools.  I feel this gives both the students and the teachers enough time to settle into their work, have enough time to address/overcome questions above, have time to connect with students with "how was your weekend?", and finally feel enough comfort and continuity to finally focus on the content. 

Now with the implementation of common core across the US, teachers are asking for longer class times to accommodate the new subject standards while criticizing the 40 minute periods as insufficient for group work asked of common core.  Are American class periods too short for Common Core? gives some great examples of successful block scheduling being used in the classrooms.

Research Spotlight on Block Scheduling gives the pros & cons of block scheduling as well as links to additional research on the topic.

I've always appreciated the 3 hour work cycle proposed by Maria Montessori.  It advocates for extended periods of time so students don't lose their flow.  Within that time, "students are able to
freely choose work during this cycle and are able to develop better concentration skills and focus through this undisturbed work time...and allows the student the opportunity to engage in a work more thoroughly."  Students who complete this 3 hour cycle feel a "sense of accomplishment followed by
　
calm composure, along with the desire to do more work" (Schmidt).

Furthermore, Montessori writes in The Advanced Montessori Method "frequent change of work causes greater fatigue than continuous work of one kind, and that a sudden interruption is more fatiguing than persistence.”  In Montessori, The Science Behind the Genius, Dr. Angline Lillard writes, "“If we choose when to take breaks, then breaks work for us, but if the timing is externally imposed, breaks can be disruptive to concentration.”

 

 
　
 

Wikipedia: Unfair Bad Rap

Wikipedia is often banned on school and college campuses as an unreliable source of information.  The problem isn't so much that it is unreliable, but rather the problem is that Wikipedia is ever changing and therefore cannot really be cited!

Credible Source of Information

Data shows that, on average, Wikipedia entries had similar validity & error percentages as did more traditional encyclopedia such as Britannica.  This is actually a commendable statistic given that Britannica hires professional editors while Wikipedia are unpaid professional enthusiasts on given topic.

Addressing issues of accuracy and neutrality and with concerns about quality of content, Larry Sanger, Wikipdia cofounder, started "Citizendium" to "improve on the Wikipedia model by adding 'gentle expert oversight' and requiring contributors to use their real names."  Some university professors are even assigning their students Wikipedia editing projects as both a learning tool for the students and a public service to free online content.  "Some learning theorists contend that content creation and analysis is a necessary component of learning. Wikipedia can encourage students to analyze what they read, ask questions, and engage in reflective, creative learning.  Furthermore, some articles prone to high vandalism are protected and you can be assured that their content will remain credible.

Problem with Citation

Citation problem:  "Although Wikipedia's ability to evolve as information changes is beneficial on one level, it also means that even if an article is deemed reliable, citing it a source is problematic because it could change at any time." This can be problematic because a key principle of citation is that your reader can access the original content which you are referencing.  If Wikipedia is ever changing, a reader may or may not find the source information that you mentioned.  Although an issue, I don't feel this is enough of a case to not use Wikipedia.

With over 4 million web pages written in the English language and consistently ranked in top 10 most visited websites worldwide, educators cannot ignore the ease of accessibility, use, and influence of Wikipedia.  Harvard College  Writing Program even mentions Wikipedia as a 'low bets' resource but discourages students from using it for scholarly research.  Educators will be well advised to teach their students how to use Wikipedia only as a starting point in research but students must also dig deeper and read the original source materials.  Here are two good videos explaining this concept.*

*This paragraph, written by me, has previously appeared in class wiki assignment.
  




   




   

Sifting Through Internet Content

I am still trying to put together a lesson plan teaching students how to sift through vast internet content, assess authenticity of content, reliability of author, bias in writing, relevance and context of content. 

I ran into this interesting article as an example of the potential junk/jokes out there.  "Get Me Off Your Fucking Mailing List" is an actual science paper accepted by a journal.  This 'scholarly' paper contains the words "Get Me Off Your Fucking Mailing List"  repeated over and over again to fill 10 pages!  Appropriate with scholarly paper, it also includes a flow chart & scatter plot chart.  It is also in publishing format with an abstract, summary, and reference section.

The paper was written and submitted by Stanford Computer Science Associate Professor David Mazieres and Eddie Kohler, Associate Professor at Harvard Computer Science.  It was submitted to a bogus, profit-making online journal that accepted it on the spot and even gave it an 'excellent' rating.  The paper was submitted as a joke to test the reliability of predatory journal named above.

Internet content ranges the gamut of potential junk like to one above to 2nd graders creating class Prezi or glogster posters and everything in between.

It is an understatement to say it is daunting to sift through internet content.   I have a lot of work to do on this lesson plan.  Wish me luck!

Wandering off on the Internet

I am putting together a lesson plan on how to sift through the vast amount of content that is out there on the web.  This has been a daunting task for me to say the least.

I stumbled upon internet live stats that gives you live statistics on everything that is online.  At the time of writing this blog, there are:

• 3.1 billion internet users in the world
• 1.1 billion total number of websites
• 200 billion emails sent (today)
• 3.7 billion google searches (today)
• 7.4 billion Videos played (today)
• 1.3 billion active Facebook users

But my data above is very boring and static.  You have to view the live tab.  You can see the counter increase at great speed.  You get the idea...it counts everything that is happening on the internet, right now, live, in real time...did I say right now?  You have to check it out. 

There is also a '1 second' tab on the website which lists things like (at the time of writing this blog):

• 8,073 tweets posted (in one second!)
• 1499 instagram photos uploaded (in one second!)
• 1600 tumblr posts (in one second!)
• 1594 Skype calls (in one second!)
• 24,463 GB of web traffic (in one second!)
• 46,430 Google Searches (in one second!)

In the 'watch' tab, you can see the information listed above but represented visually.  It also lists interesting facts such as number of devices sold, number of websites hacked, electricity used, CO2 emissions caused by internet usage, and others.

And finally, there is a 'trends & more' tab that has interesting information such as internet users by country, google search market share, and others.

Why do I mention all this?  Because it is so easy to get lost in this big world wide web.  And with the staggering numbers above, we now know why! 

ps- I still haven't started my lesson plan on how to sift through the internet...I wandered off onto one of the 1.1 BILLION webpages.

Visual Images in English Class

I was recently introduced to the idea of using visual images as sources of content analysis and explicative writing in English class.  Commenting on the book titled Reading Images, the New Learning website writes,

Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen argue for the centrality of visual images in the grammar of communication, which in many social contexts tends to favor ‘verbal’ expression....To sum up: the opposition to the emergence of a new visual literacy is not based on an opposition to the visual media as such, but on an opposition to the visual media in situations where they form an alternative to writing and can therefore be seen as a potential threat to the present dominance of verbal literacy among elite groups.

To combat this "dominance of verbal literacy among elite groups", why not combine both visual and verbal literacy in our English writing class.  I had never before thought of visual images as 'content' to be examined, deconstructed, explicated, and general sources of discussion points.  The J. Paul Getty Museum lists description, reflection, and formal analysis as steps to understanding photography.  Surely, these are the same skills we use to understand written content.  It also changes things up a bit when we use the same thinking faculties but apply them to different medium. 

Image Detective is a nice interactive website to help students start asking questions related to the images they see.  J. Paul Getty Museum Lesson Plans are a good starting point and are linked directly to state and national curriculum standards. Using Photos With English-Language Learners has lots of ideas on how to incorporate photos into lesson plans.  For older students, Duke University has published Visual Rhetoric/Visual Literacy:  Writing About Photography. 

And finally, An Introduction to the Grammar of Visual Design is a well written teacher resource on the importance of teaching visual literacy.
 

These Kids Aced my Test!

A recent onslaught of protests against standardized testing by high school seniors in Colorado got me really excited.  I can also imagine the pride of their teachers, administrators and of course their parents. 

Irrespective of biology or economics - subjects on the standardized test in question - these kids have proven proficient in how the real world works.  They showed us that they can excel in the shenanigans of life.  And that is a much more accurate indicator of current academic achievement and predictor of future success - more so than any standardized test data can ever show.

Their opting out and protest is a perfect example of context based Project Based Learning.  They researched their legal rights, understood federal mandated testing vs. Colorado testing, rallied the support of the community,  exhibited organizational and communication skills, and much more.  But most importantly, they exhibited maturity and civility in intellectual discourse.

This short video explains student reservations with the standardized test.

My hat is off to these kids. I congratulate the entire school district and community for producing well rounded independent thinkers.  That's a good education right there.  I am humbled.


Further Reading:

Most Boulder Valley high-school seniors opt out of statewide tests in protest:  November 13, 2014

State Tests Meet Student Resistance:  November 10, 2014

Colorado Alert: CMAS for Seniors Opt Out/Refusal:  October 11, 2014

Test Opposition Surges Across the Nation:  March 2013








https://www.facebook.com/pages/Colorado-Parents-Opt-Out-of-State-Tests/517015661652082

Online Education

I am so overwhelmed this week.  My head is a jumble of thoughts and assignments and deadlines.  All interconnected, but the lines still need to be drawn out more clearly.  We start by asking what is the future of online education and whether schools should be required to offer online Education?

I personally attest to the positive impact online education has had on me.  I'm currently working toward an online Master degree with Central Michigan University - from my home location in southern California - at whatever time I can squeeze in between my responsibilities as a mom to three wonderful but extremely busy kids.  I'm loving the convenience of my schedule/studies and the anticipated completion - without compromising my family life.

I'm also concurrently enrolled in a MOOC with Professor Denise Comer from Duke University English Composition:  Achieving Expertise.  I'm using this class as a professional development course for myself as it covers the same topics that I teach.  Our textbook says we cannot be good writers if we are not good readers.  I don't think we can be good teachers if we are not good students either.  I'm studying with an exceptional instructor - who has more subject matter expertise and more teaching experience than I do.

I find the course content appealing and the writing prompts exceptionally clever.  When I signed up for the MOOC I knew I was not going to be able to finish the coursework, I was only interested in reading/viewing the instructional materials.  So far, I've learned a lot from Professor Denise and I'm enjoying and benefitting from the class.

The downside to MOOCs?  I found a nice reply from a past participant of the same course John Warner:  I'm Failing my MOOC.   He too is an instructor of English and enrolled in the class as a professional development course.  But he feel ill!  And although he agrees the content was at par if not superior to traditional classes, he writes "Without sufficient incentive to catch up in my MOOC, one hiccup was enough to put me off track."  He goes on to write, "At the same time, for me, it reinforces that the content by itself is a very limited part of what matters in terms of teaching and learning. This feeling is perhaps biased by my discipline (writing/literature) and relatively small courses (20 students max), but as good as Prof. Comer’s content is, and as engaging and nice as she appears to be on screen, she and I don’t have a relationship, and when it comes to learning, relationships matter."

Relationship or not...the fact that free, accessible, high quality content is out there for anyone's taking is - in my mind - true democratization of education.  Bring your own incentive!

 

Blogging Anxiety

In a previous class we were asked to create a blog and post our assignments to it.  That 'blog' served as an online reservoir of assignments completed outside of the blog.   It was not blogging.  But nonetheless, my work was online and it didn't bother me much.

For this class, we were again asked to create our own blog and actually do some blogging; and I was comfortable with the first two posts from last week.

But something happened this week.  Something dawned on me!

A blog post  is so completely public...transparent, searchable, permanent. A reflection of my authority -- or utter lack thereof. 

Yes, we read this in Will Richardson's book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. - but reading it is different than experiencing it. 

I'm fairly confident in my work, but when I'm not - I remind myself that its just a single assignment in my expanding portfolio - that the instructor will surely understand its shortcomings, award me a grade, and we all move-on - burying the assignment somewhere not to be touched again.

But its not like that anymore.  Its not only the instructor reading it...its not just an assignment...it is on the WIDE WORLD WEB. Others are free to read - to comment - to criticism - to refute - to reference!

"My God, where did you read all that nonsense?"

"Oh, it was on Heba's blog." 

Yes, of course, the potential to engage with a broader audience is a powerful characteristic of a blog. The learning element of a conversation....the back and forth synthesis of ideas and thoughts. 

But still, I am the main voice.  I am the one on stage, under the spotlight; and there is no after show celebration (a grade posted and an assignment checked off as complete).  Because the show doesn't really end, it is still online and the audience can applaud or boo at anytime.

I'm much more aware of what I think and write and who or what I link to.  Those English composition courses stressing critical reading and analysis - finding credible sources - synthesizing of information.  Its not lip service anymore...it is real and required and reflects on me personally, academically and professionally.

And what of it at the end?  This long post and anguishing thoughts over a mere twenty-two page views as of November 5th!  Not twenty-two hundred.  Not twenty-two thousand.  And certainly not 2.2 million.  Twenty-two page views, that's it!? 

Oh well, a girl can dream of stardom and popularity... yes, even some criticism, why not?  “The trouble with most of us is that we'd rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.”  Norman Vincent Peale, Minister & Author of The Power of Positive Thinking.

I end with this image recently posted on author Elizabeth Gilbert's facebook page.

For now...this post is good enough.  And I'm happy with that.

Feedly Screen Shot

I don't have a Twitter Account (GASP)

I don't have a twitter account.  And I don't feel like I need one.  It is such a time waster; full of non-sense, irrelevant, self-absorbed and random information. I don't really care whether my neighbor is having coffee with our another neighbor at my favorite coffee spot and I wasn't invited.   I don't have time for any of that.  I don't need big companies or political campaigns to bombard me with their messages or try to sell me a great deal only available for the next 3 second.  I may be called a geek and don't really follow celebrities, musicians, fashion models, or whatever and whoever else may post on twitter.

That was all before I read The Construction of a Twitter Aesthetic.  Eric Jarosinski, professor at U Penn, started to tweet out of boredom and built a twitter persona that was "extremely liberating".  It brought back his passion for more literary works of Frankfurt school philosophers, namely their aphorisms.  He has been approached by German book publishers, opinion pages, and cultural magazines.

That's more like the twitter I would want to join.  One that is "a viable platform for metacognition, forcing users to be brief and to the point - an important skill in thinking clearly and communicating effectively."

 

Writing: a Skill for All Fields

I love to write.  No wait, I hate to write.  No, I do love it....ugh, what am I trying to say?

Writing is frustrating, and cumbersome.  Yet liberating and encouraging.  Writing helps you organize your thoughts but not before you actually think you've lost your mind.  It helps you communicate effectively but not before you think you are a nut case.  It is gut wrenching when you hit the publish button.  And reassuring when you get that first comment back.

I emphasis with my students that writing is for everyone and is an essential skill required in many areas of life. But how can they believe me?  They are taking college freshman English because it is a requirement to graduate. 

I often begin class by showing them this writing process animation video.  It emphasizes that writing is a skill, not an inherent ability, that can be improved.  The video also highlights that writing is needed in everyday life and in many fields.

I was excited when I recently read STEM and Writing: A Super Combination, an interview with Dr. Spyridon Michalakis, Physicist from Caltech.  Michalakis says, "As a quantum physicist, maintaining the public's interest while discussing quantum mechanics requires the use of every genre of writing I can think of."..."Writing affords me an exquisite freedom in both style and subject matter."  Wow, writing is needed outside of English Composition class?  Now that's a thought for my students!

Oh, how I love for my students to hear this from someone else.  I'm not torturing them!  I'm helping them succeed in their chosen field. 

And check this out...From Blog to Book Deal: How 6 Authors Did It.  6 examples of online work successfully turned into a book;  one short blog at a time.

Welcome to my NEW CMU EDU 653 Blog site...the following are links to my EDU 653 accounts.


Wiki:  http://hebamorsicmu.wikispaces.com/

Delicious:  https://delicious.com/hebamorsi