ISTE 2015: Global Education Day Resource Jam

The last weekend of June 2015 was fantastic.  Among other things, it included a Sunday meetup at ISTE 2015 in Philadelphia, PA (by the way, one of my favorite spots, the Reading Terminal Market, is located across the street from the convention center). This was my first ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) conference, and I am hooked.  The multi day event showcases the newest, nest, and innovations in education technology.  Global educators are, quite often, success users of technology in the classroom.  So this marriage of Ed Tech and Global Ed makes perfect sense.  Check it out:

 

Now, back to Sunday, June 28th.  The meetup I attended was a three hour event called Global Education Day.  The amazing Lucy Gray, and incredible Steve Hargadon, in cooperation with VIF International Education, organized and sponsored the meetup which turned out to be a global education jam session!

Gray and Hargadon are the creators of one of my favorite annual events – the Global Education Conference  a free week-long online event bringing together educators and innovators from around the world. The sixth annual  is Monday, November 16 through Thursday, November 19, 2015.  The entire conference is virtuaGEC2015l and will take place online in webinar format. Sessions are held around the clock to accommodate participant time zones.  You can search and view archived recordings of past sessions.  I hope you attend, and present, in November. The call for proposals is now open.

The community of  participants were a dynamic collection of educators. You can see who attended here.

In addition to outstanding networking, the event generated was a wishlist of resources and opportunities for global educators and their students.    Speaking of wishlists… how about  Pearl Jam in Argentina 2013:

Ok, back to the conference.  Below you can find a number of the resources that were shared at the Global Ed Day Meet-up. To do so, participants used three formats (below) and you can view the tweets that day at : #globaled15

  • Round table discussion
  • Ignite Talks
  • Cool Tool Duels (my personal favorite format!)

So, what are you going to adopt for next year?  Explore them all, share them with your colleagues and network, and most importantly implement them with your students next school year.  Have fun exploring the resources. Your students will benefit from your decision adding a global dimension to their education.

Cool Tool Duels This activity focused on participants showing one tool or web site to the audience that could be used to promote global collaboration. I did #3, Face to Faith. Time limit is only 2 minutes per person. I loved this strategy and  is something I will be using at my future department chair meetings. 3-2-1… Go

1. Commit2Act: http://commit2act.tigweb.org 

2. Nepris: http://www.nepris.com 

3. Face to Faith: https://www.facetofaithonline.org/ 

4.EQ projects throughout the world: www.eq.org

5. 100 Word Challenge: www.100wc.net

6. EQ projects throughout the world: www.eq.org

7.Global Story Map: http://www.digitalpromiseglobal.org/map/

8. The Wonderment: http://www.thewonderment.com

9.Ayiti Games: https://ayiti.globalkids.org/game/ 

10: International Days: http://days.tigweb.org 

 

I have also listed some of the other resources from the day presented in round tables or the ignite talks:

1. Educating for Global Competence:  https://asiasociety.org/files/book-globalcompetence.pdf

2. Mystery Skypehttps://education.skype.com/mysteryskype 

3. Global Citizenship: http://digcitlicense.weebly.com/ 

4.The Encyclopedia of Life: http://eol.org/ 

5. VIF International Education: http://www.vifprogram.com/

6. IREX – Teachers for Global Classrooms: https://www.irex.org/projects/tgc

7. The Longview Foundation: http://longviewfdn.org/

 

Lastly, his graphic was used during the event.  I believe that all of the resources shared here move teaching and leaarning to the High Agency side of education.

2013-01-02_1744

So, what’s next? Well, plan ahead… I already have. Spread the word and see you there!

  • ISTE 2016      Denver, Co., June 26-29, 2016
  • ISTE 2017      San Antonio, Texas, June 26-29, 2017

Read This and Write That: 6 Tools that Engage and Build Your Students’ Literacy

What are you currently reading? I am in the middle of Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His GunGary Marx’s 21 Trends for the 21st Century and whatever I find interesting on Flipboard.  It was on that wonderful app where I came across an article sharing these quotes about the wonder and power of books and reading in general:

“Books are like mirrors: if a fool looks in, you cannot expect a genius to look out.”     -J.K. Rowling

“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.”     -Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Great books help you understand, and they help you feel understood.”                         -John Green

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”                                                                -Frederick Douglass

Our students’ literacy levels, that is the ability  to be read, write, and communicate both verbally and with a range of media, directly impacts their capacity  to think critically.  Let’s define that ubiquitous 21st century educational objective, critical thinking, using this visual.

That is a great list that leads to central questions about education. What are your favorite skills on the list?  Are your students developing them? Do you explicitly let students know that they are developing those skills?

I argue that being explicit is a key step in teaching and learning. For one thing, it helps students answer the question “why?”  But the type of experiences we provide students with to both develop and and demonstrate their literacy skills is significant.

For some c0ntext, take a look at this history of reading…hmmm over 2 million views. Well done.

Consider adding these electronic literacy  tools  to your repertoire. Try them out, or at least one, this year. They can add an additional way to engage your students, and ultimately develop their critical thinking skills.

  1. Newsela provides articles to students at 5 varying levels of difficulty but with the same content.  Super easy to use and has collaborative and annotation features.  As their website says: Newsela is an innovative way to build reading comprehension with nonfiction that’s always relevant: daily news. It’s easy and amazing.
  2. Wordle is a fun tool that visually displays words of a selected text in varying sizes by their frequency.  You can ask students to predict what the piece is about, or ask them to define/use the most common words in the piece, or have them create a wordle to analyze their own writing.  See the example below.  What text do you think it is?Uncharter
  3. Genius is an online tool that breaks down line by line annotations edited by anyone in the world. Luckily, Genius has a specific education feature that can be explored here in a controlled area/class: If you are an educator interested in using Genius in your classroom, check out our Teacher’s Guide. To learn more about Education Genius and to activate your Genius “Educator” account contact education@genius.com. I have used this with students to collaborate on a document.  For example, here is the link to Frederick Douglass’s speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July”  http://genius.com/Frederick-douglass-what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july-annotated
  4. Sentence Starters are powerful tools that demystify writing and helps students get over writers block and frustration.  The website I suggested is from Auckland, NZ. But there are an abundance of these online to select from.  If you are a Pinterest fan you can find multiple boards there too.
  5. Thinklink allows you and students to create interactive visuals.  In a recent blog, the website Ed technology has expanded on the tool’s educational potential:  “The images you create can come alive by adding to them text, video, music, and links. ThingLink has also recently rolled out a new feature, which is still in beta, that allows you to add interactive pinmarks to YouTube videos. These pin marks can be links to other videos or websites. The ability to enrich images with different media content makes ThingLink an ideal tool to incorporate in your instruction. There are a variety of ways you can use ThingLink with your students and the visual below provides 27 examples of activities that students can do using this platform.”
  6. Word Walls are an effective tool to enhance literacy. They should be part of every… that’s right I said it… EVERY classroom.  If time is an issue, have students make them. If space is an issue, consider restructuring your room space.  Teachers can also call these “Concept Walls”  and use them for larger ideas for a unit or course.  But these must be referenced and used by students in order to make them effective.  If you aren’t using a word/concept wall, why aren’t you?

Finally, I love this list by Kathy Schrock which qualifies/categorizes literacy according to content and skill areas that each possess their own nuances, jargon, and skills.  The one to add, possibly, is cultural literacy… but that may be folded under the global literacy domain.

Oh ,by the way, the wordle I used was from the preamble to the UN Charter. Spread the news and enjoy!

Globalizing the US History Survey: Free, Self-Paced, Online, Collaborative, Professional Development Modules

I am extremely happy to announce the launch of the project Globalizing US History Survey: Free, Self-Paced, Online, Collaborative, Professional Development Modules 

We feel this project is ideal for the demands of the AP US History Course, IB History of Americas, the Common Core, and any US History course state standards.  Teachers, curriculum specialists, scholars, and anyone interested in this topic are welcome to engage with this project.

For a general overview, checkout this screencast about the project! 

If you can’t wait and want to get right in here is the project link:

 

We just want to repeat… this project is a 100% free professional development opportunity that utilizes social media, self-pacing, and professional collaboration.

Background

The concept was part of my graduate work at Northeastern University during my MA in History in 2011.  Subsequently. the project was funded by the Longview Imagegenerosity of the Longview Foundation and was created in partnership with the NCHE. A major inspiration for my thinking was the 2000 La Pierta Report. The report welcomed the 21st century with a challenge to US history educators everywhere.  I encourage you to read the entire piece. I have placed some main vision excerpts below:

“National history remains important, and will of course continue to be so in the future. But the national history we are describing resituates the nation as one of many scales, foci, and themes of historical analysis. Our students and public audiences will gain a heightened sense of nation-making…

BannerGlobal2By looking beyond the official borders of the United States and back again, students, we anticipate, will better understand the emergence of the United States in the world and the significance of its direct power and presence. We expect them to understand the controversial power and presence of the United States as a symbol beyond our borders. We hope students will gain a historical comprehension of the difference between being a peripheral colony and a powerful nation, and they will be introduced to some of the large historical processes, not all contained within the nation, that might explain such a shift in the geography of global power…

We believe that there is a general societal need for such enlarged historical understanding of the United States. We hope that the history curriculum at all levels, not only in colleges and universities but also in the K-12 levels will address itself to these issues… It is essential that college and university departments–which carry the responsibility for training historians who will teach at the K-12 levels–begin this work of integration…

The United States history survey course is properly a focal point for the creation of an internationalized American history. If in the survey course one embraces the simple advice to follow the people, the money, the knowledges, and the things, one would quite easily–on the basis of pure empiricism–find oneself internationalizing the study of American history.”

The Project

Recent trends have called for the “globalizing” of American education through 21st Century teaching and learning and the Common Core State Standards. These educational demands coincide with efforts in the history profession to internationalize the United States history survey course. Combined, these two paradigm shifts have generated demand to construct and teach histories that are rigorous and relevant in preparation for college and career readiness. Globalizing history education, therefore, involves an “opening” of students’ conceptions of the past through expanded content, broader methodology, and units of analysis that go beyond the nation. Preparing history teachers to do this is integral to the longevity and success of global education. This project addresses gaps in thought leadership and the scarcity of professional development programs dedicated to globalizing the U.S. history survey.Globe

At the core of this project are five modules participants engage with at their own pace. The predicted time to complete each module is 6 hours. The five project modules, listed below, span the 20th century

 Each module has a similar structure and features. In addition to selected primary and secondary sources/media,  five scholars created presentations unique to this project.

  • Gregg Brazinsky – George Washington University
  • Joseph R. Golowka –  Binghamton University
  • Greg Adler – Eastside Union High School District
  • Eric D. Pullin –  Carthage College
  • P. Masila Mutisya – North Carolina Central University

Also, Dr. Peter Stearns was generous enough to lend his support of the project. He notes “”A more global framework creates new perspectives, and some fresh challenges, making American history a livelier experience and, of course, linking it to other history courses in a less fragmented way. Ultimately, I would suggest, a global approach to American history lets us deal with three key, and difficult, questions – important ones, but tough ones as well.” See his full recording here.

In addition, each module had multiple  teacher reviewers give feedback on the functionality,aesthetic, structure, clarity, utility, and resources of the modules.  Their insight was invaluable.

A View of Professional Development for Educators

This style of PD challenges the utility of the large conference.  These tend to be a one size fits all approach which ignores the personalization we celebrate in contemporary education with our students.  Often, these presentations demand little to nothing form participants. Yet, you still get credit hours/points for just being there.  This is hardly a 21st century approach for our profession.

This project celebrates teacher creativity, agency, leadership, and content expertise . It requires participants to generate resources and contribute content knowledge for the network to use. Upon completion of a module, participants will receive a PD certificate emailed from the NCHE to add to your professional file.

Spread the Word

Access to the project and  the 5 PD modules is through Blackboard Coursesites a free LMS.  It utilizes a self-enrolling policy, so sign right up.

Please spread the word by sharing the link below with your colleagues and network.  Enjoy and we look forward to your insights and feedback!

 

 

 

 

Content, Context, and Global Education: New World History Resources for High School Teachers

Contemporary educational paradigms, impacted by concepts of and outcomes from globalization, have inspired schools to establish their vision of the “global” typically housed in schools’ and districts’ mission statements.   Interpretations of global education vary in name, including, but not limited to qualifiers such as “citizenship”, “competency”, “awareness”, and “literacy.”  Of course, regardless of the wording,  how students are provided global  educational experiences  will be based on the commitment of the school community to the global turn.  At the low end is unsupported lip service to globalization in schooling.  On the flip side is a dedication to support integrated change within the system. This is no small feat consoderign that the structure is typically rigid and often restricted by expected outcomes which don’t complement the aspirations of global education.

Schools, however, are not destined to “go global” on their own. Multiple conferences and institutions promote ways of incorporating global perspectives in education. Explore the collection of instituions below  to get an idea of how global education can be brought to your school and what avenues would be the best method of implementation.

  •  World Savvy:  In a world that is more interconnected and interdependent than ever before, the challenges and opportunities we face are becoming increasingly global in scope, and it is critical that our schools and educators teach for global competence, so all students can be prepared with the knowledge, skills and dispositions for success in the 21st century.
  • The Asia Society: The globalization of business, the advances in technology, and the acceleration of migration increasingly require the ability to work on a global scale. As a result of this new connectivity, our high school graduates will need to be far more knowledgeable about world regions and global issues, and able to communicate across cultures and languages
  • IIE: Peace and prosperity around the world depend on increasing the capacity of people to think and work on a global and intercultural basis. Take our quiz, see where you stand as a global citizen, and open your mind to the world.
  • Primary Source: Primary Source offers a rich variety of professional development programs for K-12 educators. With the aim of connecting teachers to people and cultures around the world, we provide learning opportunities in the content areas of Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and the United States.
  • P21: Learning from and working collaboratively with individuals representing diverse cultures, religions and lifestyles in a spirit of mutual respect and open dialogue in personal, work and community contexts.
  • IREX:  The Teachers for Global Classrooms (TGC) Program provides a year-long professional development opportunity for middle and high school teachers from the United States to participate in a program aimed at globalizing teaching and learning in their classrooms.

The Content/Curriculum Option

One belief the organizations listed above have in common concerns the use of content and curriclum standards to implement global education trends.  In History education, this often refers to the rethinking of the “nation” as the dominant unit of analysis or way to engage the past (a previous blog also addressed this idea).

For the example, in this the TED talk presented by Farleigh Dickinson professor Jason Scorza, the concept of the American Dream is internationalized, trans-nationalized, and even (wait for it) humanized. In essence, global perspectives on history content challenges that there is any such thing as a purely national event in the past.  Instead, the past is full of networks and systems that are not magicall limited by the borders of the nation-state.

Dr. Scorza’s flexible context, and varying thematic and perspective lenses problematizes the concept of the American Dream.  Also, did you note his two claims about how to define global education? Confronting the binary he establishes ultimately helps clarify an organization’s views and subsequent expectations for administrators, teachers, and students. However, it is his rendering of the past as a non-national place that ultimately provides a fruitful inroad to teaching the past from a global perspective.

Recently the College Board embraced this methodology  in their revision of the heralded AP US History course.  A new theme “US in the World” requires teachers to engage in historical renderings beyond the comfortable national narrative previously endorsed. Well done College Board. Here is what they say:

Learning Objectives by Theme:  America in the World (WOR) In this theme, students should focus on the global context in which the United States originated and developed as well as the influence of the United States on world affairs. Students should examine how various world actors (such as people, states, organizations, and companies) have competed for the territory and resources of the North American continent, influencing the development of both American and world societies and economies. Students should also investigate how American foreign policies and military actions have affected the rest of the world as well as social issues within the United States itself.

Ok, that looks good.  The teachers have been challenged. So where does that leave us?  The good news is there are robust content options and resources, especially in the field of World Hisotry that can be used to globalize the US History Survey.  The four I have listed below provide a raneg of resources, lesson, links etc that can be adapted and easily implemented to your US, Regional, and World History courses.  Take a look at what they offer and enjoy!
  • The Global Campaign For Education, US Chapter:   The Coalition promotes access to education as a basic human right and mobilizes the public to create political will in the U.S. and internationally to improve education for the world’s poorest children. GlobalCampaignEducation  They utilize this global competency matrix for their curriculum and resources, Lesson For All.  The Lesson for All curriculum for high school has a series of 9 lessons for History/Geography, Economics, and Government/Civics.    The resources provide relevant, problem based lessons which seek to develop students’ critical thinking and application of knowledge.  Together they establish a forum to synthesize pedagogical best practices, instructional design, global perspectives, and social studies content.  Overall,  the modules seek to empower students by having them contextualize their educational realities,  construct meaning about their learning experiences in the past and present, and envision a pathway for their future.
  •  Our Shared Past in the Mediterranean:  The Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University is pleased to announce the release of Our Shared Past in the Mediterranean: A World History Curriculum Project for Educators. The work provides oursharedpasteducators with a set of interdisciplinary lesson materials featuring the geography and history of the Mediterranean in the context of world history from ancient times to the present. The Our Shared Past in the Mediterranean curriculum is free under Creative Commons License and available online.  The resources are currently being piloted by teachers and received great feedback from World Historian Patrick Manning, Andrew Mellon Professor of World History at the University of Pittsburgh, found the project helpful to the world history teaching profession, writing:
     “The modules and the process of preparing them are exemplary in gathering a wide range of educational materials on the Mediterranean over a long period of time, in world-historical context…It is a really rich collection of materials, showing the degree to which historical scholarship has advanced on many aspects of Mediterranean history, and giving teachers and students a feast of possibilities in linking the many types of information into a comprehensive picture of the unfolding of life in this region.
  •  The Alliance for Learning in World History:   The Alliance is a collaboration of educators and history scholars organized to advance the teaching and learning of world history in classroomshands—in the U.S. and in every part of the world. The Alliance is anchored at the University of Pittsburgh, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and the California State University, Long Beach (CSULB).In curriculum, the Alliance seeks to replace outdated existing courses – treating  world history as a sequence of isolated civilizations – with curricula that address the global and interactive development of human society, relying on the latest historical research. In professional development, the Alliance encourages comprehensive programs for in-service teachers that bring them to a high level in working with historical thinking skills and in becoming familiar with world-historical content and debates. In educational research, the Alliance supports critical study of every
    aspect of the learning process: student learning, learning by teachers, and teacher preparation.

 

  • Global Issues: Connecting content to the present is an effective way to make studying the past relevant and encourgaes students to construct meaning about what they stglobal issuesudy. This website presents numerous global issues, aiming to show how they are inter-related. The topics are common global ones; the environment, nuclear profliferation, poverty, human rights…  In addition to the blogs unique articles, it provides a robust set of links and features news articles from arond the world.

Classroom Design + Best Instructional Practices = A Buffet of Learning Experiences

Best practices in education can be ephemeral or dismissed as old practices in new clothing (titles, jargon, rationale).  Hkindergartneowever, I believe it is important to develop, and periodically reflect upon, one’s own educational philosophy and repertoire.  To this end, I consider the values of student options and choice, content variety, skill development, and frequent  student- teacher interaction to be valuable qualities in secondary social studies and history  classrooms.  To find the best instructional practice which synthesizes these educational aspects is not difficult. In fact, all we have to do is look in our past – to kindergarten.

Well, maybe not everything was learned, and certainly not just in kindergarten. The point is  that the instructional practices  on the  “Buffet of Learning Experiences” menu (Station/Rotation and Learning Zones) are staples in elementary schools, common in middle schools and (unfortunately) endangered/extinct in high schools.  The typical responses when asked about there absence in high schools have claimed teacher control issues, preparing students for college teaching, and lack of space. What’s more, when I see these approaches used in high school, the classes are marked by a dynamism and engagement which are indicative of great teaching and learning.  Just take a look at what can be learned at a buffet!

 

The two models described below require an intentional and dedicated level of planning, flexibility, and knowledge of content.  Moreover, teachers have to be willing to decenter themselves a bit. Total control and the idea that they are the center of all content knowledge is anti-thetical to these practices.  Teachers  are still “in control” of the class, but not the lecture, power point “you need to know this from me” control. Using  Station/Rotation and Learning Zones elevates the role of the teacher to instructional designer, learning facilitator, and content resource.  Lastly, it is important to note that these instructional practices should be done frequently and not treated as rare events or the alternative.  Station/Rotation and Learning Zones builds a  learning culture that celebrates student accountability, investigation, collaboration,. communication, creativity, and critical thinking (sound familiar?). These are all great things in education.

Eat up and come back for more!

 

Station/Rotation Models

This style of learning is so much fun.  Students would enter our classroom and rarely would they see the same setup two days in a row.  Chairs and desks were reconfigured for the class.  Students became familiar with the settings and help me transform our room from a Pink Floyd dystopian nightmare…

floyd

…to an active learning environment.

Checkout the two models below.  What would you change?  How many stations would you have? How big are the groups?

station rotation model 2.gif

 

 

 

station rotation model 1

A major question asks “what to do at each station?”  Below is a suggested list with short descriptions for each:

  • žTextbook Use Area – Students read, review or engage with sections of the textbook.
  • žWriting/Editing Area- Students write, self -edit, peer edit, practice a writing skill.
  • žComputer Area – Especially good if you have limited computers. Explore a website, research etc.
  • žPrimary Source Area- Analyze, discuss, do a DBQ, create a DBQ,
  • žVisual Area- Focus on cartoons, maps, infographics, charts etc
  • Media Area- Listen to a podcast, Ted Video, PPT etc
  • žDiscussion Area- a mini deliberation about a topic.  Students summarize main points
  • žTeacher Feedback Area-  Feedback on projects, grades, National History Day work etc.
  • žTeacher Instruction Area- A mini-lecture or clarification of unit, chapter content
  • žStudent Reflection Area- Metacognition exercises, Apply to the present, what did I learn comments
  • žQuestion Generating Area- Students come up with inquiries and practice how to dissect an issue with questions
  • Other –Sky is the limit… have fun inventing some

Needless to say, keep in mind that directions at each area should be clear and doable in the time allotted.  Teacher’s need not have their own station and can be on call as needed.  Lastly, be sure to identify the outcome of each station – this is the accountability part!

Learning Zones

This approach turns your class into a learning  lab.  Like above,  each zone’s experiences need to be clearly described. The main difference is that their is no set rotation.  Students move freely.  This can cause congestion.  But you can create a max time in a zone or a capacity number.  You can also say that students need to visit 4 of the 5 zones giving them an option. I suggest trying this for a week or two straight or for a full unit morphing your classroom into …

Thinking Zones

For more information on the Zone approach checkout: Bray and McClaskey “Six Steps to Personalize Learning” Learning and Leading. ISTE. May 2013 Issue. Their website is located here.

 

Consider reconfiguring the zones in the model above as activity stations from the list above and you have created a whole new buffet menu!

 

Classroom Layout

What is your classroom like? Is it inspiring? Welcoming? Do you display student work and opportunities? Does it show expectations and goals?

These three articles below discuss the claim:  “The layout of your classroom can have a serious impact on the way you teach and the way your students learn.”

 

Keys to Good Classroom Arrangement​

  • Avoid unnecessary congestion in high-traffic areas.
  • Consider potential distractions: windows, doors, etc.
  • Always have a clear view of students.
  • Verify that all students can see you, instructional displays (e.g., chalkboard) and daily assignments (weekly, if possible). Use walls and bulletin boards to display rules, procedures, assigned duties, a calendar, schedule, student work and extra-credit activities.
  • Place learning areas so students can move from one to another with little or no disruption. Leave walking space around students’ desks.
  • Avoid placing learning centers and work areas in “blind corners.”
  • Place storage space and necessary materials so they are easily accessible.
  • Arrange students’ desks in rows facing instructional areas until you’ve learned their names, work habits and personal traits.
  • Check all electrical equipment to be sure it works and learn how to use the equipment before using it in class.

Things to Consider

1. Where will your desk be?

2. How many student classroom desks do you need?

3. What classroom seating arrangement of the desks will you use; for example, groups,rows, U shapes, rows but in groups,etc?

4. Will you have any classroom computers? Where will you put the classroom computer tables?

5. Will you have a carpeted area, away from the students’ desks, where you can all come together for classroom meetings,etc.?

6. What other additional classroom furniture such as filing cabinets, bookshelves,working tables will there be?

7. How many classroom bulletin boards will you have?

8. What other classroom display ideas are swimming around in your head?

 

Tools that let you design your classroom (These are really fun)

Identifying the “Why” in Education -10 Theories For Educators to Know, Apply, and Share

Throughout this past school, the concept of “starting with the “Why” has consistently appeared in various settings.  The mantra is emphasized in meetings,  promoted by AVID leadership in our county,  referenced at the NCSS meeting in Seattle, and is a guiding principle around professional development.  At the orientation meeting for judges at the the National History Day tournament, an explanation of “Why” was used identifying  our TheGoldenCirclecollective enjoyment of history and support for students’ engaging with the past. I researched the concept and its “Golden Circle” approach to leadership.  Applying this to education is, I argue, is essential to the professionalism and artistry of our field.  We should all be able to answer the “Why” for our personal practices, content area, school mission, and national purpose… and provide that answer to our students and their parents.

Now that summer is upon us, it is a perfect time to reflect on the Why.
The Golden Circle

Beginning as a student in anthropology, Simon Sinek turned his fascination with people into a career of convincing people to do what inspires them. His earliest work was in advertising, moving on to start Sinek Partners in 2002, but he suddenly lost his passion despite earning solid income. Through his struggle to rediscover his excitement about life and work, he made some profound realizations and began his helping his friends and their friends to find their “why” — at first charging just $100, person by person. Never planning to write a book, he penned Start With Why simply as a way to distribute his message

 

The 10 theories below are obviously not a comprehensive list.  They represent what happens to be synthesizing in my current experiences, reading, and discussions with colleagues and my PLN.  They help me answer the Why which in turn guide the How and What of history and social studies education. What theories would you add to the list?  What do you think of these?  Enjoy!

 

  1. Carol DweckMind Set :
    Mindset is a simple idea discovered by world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck in decades of research on achievement and mindsetsuccess—a simple idea that makes all the difference.In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success—without effort. They’re wrong.In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment. Virtually all great people have had these qualities.Teaching a growth mindset creates motivation and productivity in the worlds of business, education, and sports. It enhances relationships.

Test your Mindset here!

 

2. Daniel GolemanEmotional Intelligence:   The phrase, or its casual shorthand EQ, argues that IQ, or conventional intelligence, is too narrow; that there are wider areas of Emotional Intelligence that dictate and EQ at workenable how successful we are. Success requires more than IQ (Intelligence Quotient), which has tended to be the traditional measure of intelligence, ignoring essential behavioural and character elements. We’ve all met people who are academically brilliant and yet are socially and inter-personally inept. And we know that despite possessing a high IQ rating, success does not automatically follow.

“Most gratifying for me has been how ardently the concept has been embraced by educators, in the form of programs in “social and emotional learning or SEL. Back in 1995 I was able to find only a handful of such programs teaching emotional intelligence skills to children. Now, a decade later, tens of thousands of schools worldwide offer children SEL. In the United States many districts and even entire states currently make SEL curriculum requirement, mandating that just as students must attain a certain level of competence in math and language, so too should they master these essential skills for living.”


3. Sugata Mitra – Minimally Invasive Education:  MIE is a pedagogic method that uses the learning environment to generate an adequate level of motivation to induce learning in groups of children, with minimal, or no, intervention by a teacher.  Mitra suggests this approach develops “functional literacy” in students and demands reflection on how time and money  is being spent in education: “If computer literacy is defined as turning a computer on and off and doing the basic functions, then this method allows that kind of computer literacy to be achieved with no formal instruction. Therefore any formal instruction for that kind of education is a waste of time and money. You can use that time and money to have a teacher teach something else that children cannot learn on their own.” 

Minimally Invasive Education in school asserts there are many ways to study and learn. It argues that learning is a process you do, not a process that is done to you. Another advantage is that MIE ensures that children themselves take ownership of the Learning Station by forming self-organized groups who learn on their own. Finally an unsupervised setting ensures that the entire process of learning is learner-centric and is driven by a child’s natural curiosity.

Mitra has recently announced the Self Organized Learning Environment (SOLE).  SOLE is a place where children can work in groups, access the internet and other software, follow up on a class activity or project or take them where their interests lead them.  Download the toolkit and try it out.


4. Phil SchlectlyEngagement Theory:  Schlectly focuses attention on student motivation and the strategies needed to increase the engagementprospect that schools and teachers will be positioned to increase the presence of engaging tasks and activities in the routine life of the school. The Theory of Engagement proceeds from a number of assumptions. The most critical ones focus on the way school tasks and activities are designed and student decisions regarding the personal consequences of doing the task assigned or participating in the activity.  The use of technology, although commonly supposed, is not a requirement for Schlectly’s theory. In fact,  the technology – engagement relationship has spawned its own body of research and literature. In turn, the theory looks at the effectiveness of teachers leading students through discussions and action planning.  Letting students take control of their learning, and use the school as a network, would definitely be a step in a different direction.  Schlectly also mentions “that relationships, and the work assigned directly impacts student’s performance.”

 

5. Paulo FreireCritical Pedagogy: Critical Pedagogy is a domain of education and research that studies the social, cultural, political, economic, and cognitive dynamics of teaching and learning. Critical Pedagogy emphasizes the impact of power relationships in the educational process. Emerging in the late 1960s with the work of Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, Critical Pedagogy has evolved as a cross-disciplinary field. “Critical Pedagogy would never find it sufficient to reform the habits of thought of thinkers, however effectively, without challenging and transforming the institutions, ideologies, and relations that engender distorted, oppressed thinking in the first place — not as an Freireadditional act beyond the pedagogical one, but as an inseparable part of it. The method of Critical Pedagogy for Freire involves, to use his phrase, “reading the world” as well as “reading the word” (Freire & Macedo 1987). Part of developing a critical consciousness, as noted above, is critiquing the social relations, social institutions, and social traditions that create and maintain conditions of oppression. For Freire, the teaching of literacy is a primary form of cultural action, and as action it must “relate speaking the word to transforming reality”(Freire 1970a, 4).

 

 

 

6. George SiemensConnectivismAt the core, connectivism is a form of experiential learning which prioritizes the set of connections formed by actions and experience over the idea that knowledge is propositional. It shares with some other theories a core proposition, that knowledge is not acquired, as though it were a thing. Knowledge is, on this theory, literally the set of connections formed by actions and experience.  One aspect of connectivism is its central metaphor of a network with nodes and connections.In this metaphor, a node is anything that can be connected to another node such as an organization, information, data, feelings and images. Connectivism sees learning as the process of creating connections and elaborating a network. Not all connections are of equal strength.

The starting point of connectivism is the individual. Personal knowledge is comprised of a network, which feeds into organizations and institutions, which in turn feed back into the network, and then continue to provide learning to individual. This cycle of knowledge development (personal to network to organization) allows learners to remain current in their field through the connections they have formed.

7. Lev VykotskySocial Constructivis Theory:  Vykotsky, when juxtaposed to Piaget, emphasized the social interactions between students and teachers.  In short positive relationships are significant to learning.

His Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) are two of Vykotsky’s major legacies found in contemporary education. ZPD addresses the difference between what a child can achieve independently and what a child can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner. Vykotsky sees the area in the ZPD as where the most sensitive instruction or guidance should be given – allowing the child to develop skills they will then use on their own – developing higher mental functions.

Vygotsky believed during the learning process children first learn by imitating adults. In the beginning, children are unable to complete a particular task without assistance. Over time, this child may be able to complete more complex tasks with adult assistance because the ZPD of a child isn’t stagnant, it continuously changes as he or she conquers increasingly difficult work over time. Focusing more on education, ZPD can be useful to educators because it should remind them how students can be expanded to reach goals with or without adult direction and support. This is often referred to as “Scaffolding.”

The MKO strongly relates to ZPD: “it refers to someone who has a better understanding or a higher ability level than the learner, with respect to a particular task, process, or concept.

Although the implication is that the MKO is a teacher or an older adult, this is not necessarily the case.  Many times, a child’s peers or an adult’s children may be the individuals with more knowledge or experience. In fact, the MKO need not be a person at all (website, video).   The key to MKOs is that they must have (or be programmed with) more knowledge about the topic being learned than the learner does.”


8. Gary Marx16 Trends: Sixteen Trends … Their Profound Impact on Our Future, and Future Focused Leadership … Preparing Schools, Students, and Communities for Tomorrow’s Realities, lays out evidence for major trends and then speculates on their profound implications for society at large and education systems, such as schools and colleges, in particular.  He adds, “We have a distinct choice–we can simply defend what we have…or we can create what we need to get our students, our schools, and our communities ready for a fast-changing world.”

His new book will build upon his 16 trends.  Marx states “The next generation in the trends series focuses on political, economic, social, technological, demographic, and environmental trends. Among more than 20 societal forces that will get special attention in the upcoming book are identity and privacy, sustainability, scarcity vs. abundance, and energy. They are in addition to dramatic developments in aging, diversity, the flow of generations, technology, interdependence, and the environment, to name a few. Massive trends that impact the whole of society provide an outstanding launch pad for active learning, project-based education, real-world education, teaching thinking and reasoning/problem solving skills, and learning through inquiry. Students are drawn to using futures tools, such as trend analysis, issue analysis, and gap analysis because each one comes with an invitation to consider implications for shaping their own futures. The new book will be published by Education Week Press.

16Marx

9. Howard Gardner –  Multiple Intelligences:  Arguably the most influential educational movement of recent educational practice, MI has had to contend against rampant misconcpetions and faculty application of Gardner’s theory.  I have come across this numerous times in my career. So, please, be on guard when practioners reference Gardner. Gardner defined the first seven intelligences in Frames of Mind in 1983.  He added two more, Naturalist and Existentialist,  in Intelligence Reframed in 1999.  “Based on his study of many people from many different walks of life in everyday circumstances and professions, Gardner developed the theory of multiple intelligences. Gardner’s MI Theory challenged traditional beliefs in the fields of education and cognitive science.  According to a traditional definition, intelligence is a uniform cognitive capacity people are born with.  This capacity can be easily measured by short-answer tests.  According to Gardner, intelligence is:

  • The ability to create an effective product or offer a service that is valued in a culture9_MI
  • A set of skills that make it possible for a person to solve problems in life
  • The potential for finding or creating solutions for problems, which involves gathering new knowledge

In addition, Gardner claims that:

  • All human beings possess all intelligences in varying amounts
  • Each person has a different intellectual composition
  • We can improve education by addressing the multiple intelligences of our students
  • These intelligences are located in different areas of the brain and can either work independently or together
  • These intelligences may define the human species
  • Multiple intelligences can be nurtured and strengthened, or ignored and weakened
  • Each individual has nine intelligences (and maybe more to be discovered)

 

 

10. Benjamin Bloom/Lorin Anderson – Revised Taxonomy:  “In 1956, Benjamin Bloom headed a group of educational psychologists who developed a classification of levels of intellectual behavior important in learning. During the 1990’s a new group of cognitive psychologists, lead by Lorin Andersonblooms_gears_ipad_720x952-2cpl0pd1 (a former student of Bloom), updated the taxonomy to reflect relevance to 21st century work. The change from nouns to verbs associated with each level is significant.”   It is important to know that the list of action words that are typically associated with each level does not guarantee that students are engaged at that level.  Specific expectations and follow up questioning is essential to the process.  For example, asking students to “Compare and Contrast two images”  does not automatically place student thought at the “Analysis” level.  More is needed from the teacher.  For example “Compare and Contrast two images.  Explain your 3-4 findings that address the economic and social contexts of both images. Which do you find more appealing and why?”

Debate about the need to master a lower level of the taxonomy prior to advancing to the next one is prevalent.   Can student’s engage with a higher level first or is the lowest level the entry point for Bloom?  My belief is yes students can be engaged at higher levels first. In fact the “hierarchy” dimension of Bloom has been challenged and conceived as a fluid network of thought and action.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Publish and Prosper: Infographics, The Networked Classroom and Student Generated Knowledge in the Public Sphere

Greetings.  April proved to be a busy (good busy) month. I apologize for the delay in this post.

I delivered my presentation “Publish and Prosper: Tips on Promoting Student Generated Knowledge in the Public Sphere” on March 27th  during the inaugural  School Leadership Summit.  The mission of the conference was “to kick off an event that would perpetuate and would be a place for broader conversation amongst school leaders and the ed tech / blogger / social media crowd.” Stay on the lookout for future online conferences.

This post expands upon my conference presentation. A special thanks to my session moderator Jason Borgen, program director at the Santa Cruz County Office of Education. Check out these links.

So… on to this week’s post.

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Infographic: An umbrella term for illustrations and charts that instruct people, which otherwise would be difficult or impossible with only text. Infographics are used worldwide in every discipline from road maps and street signs to the many technical drawings in this encyclopedia.”  -PC Magazine

 

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a collaboratively  generated, student infographic is priceless.  Infographics, at their best, are research based student products synthesizing text, design and visuals– typically specialized maps, charts, themes, graphs, and illustrations – in one creative and specially designed media.  At their worst,  infographics are glorified collages or posters. What distinguishe(and  elevates) an infographic beyond these static items is technology’s impact on design, crowd sourcing, and the abiltiy to edit and update information. What’s more, their educational appeal has grown with the advent of “media literacy” and “information literacy” as 21st century skills related to college and career readiness and the adoption of the Common Core State Standards.

  • They convey a lot of information using specific  language selection.
  • Useable with low language levels.
  • Visual and mathematical / statistical aspects can help to convey meaning.
  • They are much easier to read then dense text on a computer screen.
  • They lend themselves to be used across disciplines.
  • You can find infographics quickly and easily on almost any topic.
  • They develop multiple literacies and intelligences in students.
  • You can help students to become more critical of information sources.

I am arguing that infographics should be promoted as student generated media/knowledge that add to existing discussions,  can be effectively shared and modified, help achieve the demands of 21st century education, and promotes a culture of connectivism (see below).  When combined, these represent the culture of a “Networked Classroom.”

Two Infographics about infographics

  1)         From EVR: Informed Ingenuity   

 

2) From Huffington Post

 

Infographic Resources: Deciding which inforgraphic tool to use in your classroom is based (in my experience) on personal preference and school approval around privacy issues (do students have to register) and technology specs.  There are advantages to having students in a district use multiple, common (2-3) formats.  Here is a selection of infographic tools inspierd by the Daily Tekk’s 100 list.

  1.  Visual.ly: Visually is a one-stop shop for the creation of data visualizations and infographics
  2. Infogr.am: Create infographics in just a few minutes. No design skills needed.
  3. Easel.ly: Create and share visual ideas online.
  4. Piktochart: Our Mission is to simplify information and make it exciting
  5. Tagxedo: Turns words — famous speeches, news articles, slogans and themes, even your love letters — into a visually stunning word cloud.
  6. iCharts: Create great-looking charts in minutes with interactive and easy-to-share data.

These are a great start. But if you want to see some dynamic  samples on infographics done professionally, as well as links to more information on infographics, try these:

  • NY Times:  Focus on social studies and history infographics
  • Daily Infographic Every day we feature the best information design and data visualization from the internet.
  • Cool Infographic: highlights some of the best examples of data visualizations and infographics found in magazines, newspapers and on the Internet.
  • Information is Beautiful… see the TED video below. This collection is incredible!
  • Infographic a day: What is new is that infographics’ volume, frequency, and the richness of the media.

 

Infographics require students to access, arrange, evaluate, and create information.

What is Meant by the Public Sphere in Education?

The networked classroom encourages a culture of investigation, knowledge creation, connectivism, trust, and personalized learning.  Teachers utilize their Personal Learning Network (PLN) and students can identify and tap into their own Student Learning Networks (SLN). Notice in the video below the comment that “His teacher rarely lectures. “I recognize there is use for lecture and that there are degrees of lecture substance and purpose.  However, it is clear that the style argued against is the “drill and kill” teacher centered, sage-on-stage style which some teachers erroneously claim will be the only style used in higher education.

Once your students are collaborating with peers beyond your classroom, teachers can empower their 21stcentury classroom by placing student work in

Who is your students’ audience? Where do they get feedback?

the public sphere.What is meant by the “public sphere.”  Simply put, the public sphere is anything beyond the teacher’s eyes only.  The idea of students writing a paper for a teacher’s eyes only is an anachronism. Placing student in the public sphere is easy to do with social media. One suggestion is to do this in a secure course in your school’s LMS. Moreover, students accept greater responsibility and are more invested in their work. Consider the list below a continuum moving from “narrow” to “broad” public spheres. Next to each dimension are a few suggested ways student work can interact beyond teacher-eyes-only models.

a) …classroom:  gallery walks, class discussion of student work.

b) …department:  peer editing from other sections, presenting to other classes, discipline website highlighting student work

c) …school: display tables at lunch, displays in hallways, newspapers, library archives,  part of parent nights

d) … community: student work in civic buildings, displays, local newspapers,

e) … nation: engage in projects like National History Day, collaborate with schools, and colleges, engage in contests

f) … international: establish sister schools, link with non-profits, video conferencing

g)… cyber space: present at online conferences, post work on websites, establish a learnist board, comment on blogs, utilize web 2.0 tools.

Who is calling for students to generate knowledge and publish it for public consumption? In NEW DIRECTIONS IN SOCIAL EDUCATION RESEARCH: The Influence of Technology and Globalization on the Lives of Students  it is argued  that “As pressures mount for society to equip today’s youth with both the global and digital understandings necessary to confront the challenges of the 21st century, a more thorough analysis must be undertaken to examine the role of technology on student learning (Peters, 2009).”  Likewise, “youth are active participants, producers, and distributors of new media. The digital production of youth includes over 38% of designing personal websites, 23% constructing online videos and slideshows, and 8%launching digital causes campaigns….The internet has allowed youth new opportunities in fostering global awareness of civic, humanitarian, political, economic, and environmental causes (Maguth p.3).

The arrow chart (above) frames the public sphere in spatial terms. An0ther model (below) emphasizes the level of student engagement and teacher management.  The best approach to teaching and learning will draw from both spatial dimensions and personal interaction.

 

Student work in the public sphere  can manifest in a variety of forms. Overall, this is a very exciting part of contemporary education that should be part of any collaborative classroom in the 21st century. The infographic is part of this educational model.

 

Rubrics:

The popularity of Infographics have spurred a variety of rubrics for teachers to utilize.  My favorite are here:

If you find one that you think is just as good or better, let me know.

Synthesis – Connectivism and Media Literacy

At least two epistemologies drive networked classrooms to use  infographics as the format for student generated knowledge to be shared in the public sphere.  These two ideas, Connectivism and Media Literacy,join with other learning theories (constructivism, behaviorism) and competencies (college, career, civic etc.) in the world if contemporary teaching and learning.  Both are described below.

Live long. Publish and Prosper.

According to professor  George Siemens, “connectivism is driven by the understanding that decisions are based on rapidly altering foundations. New information is continually being acquired and the ability to draw distinctions between important and unimportant information is vital. Also critical is the ability to recognize when new information alters the landscape based on decisions made yesterday” (Siemens, 2005).

 

Center for Media Literacy: Media Literacy is a 21st century approach to education. It provides a framework to access, analyze, evaluate, create and participate with messages (information) in a variety of forms — from print to video to the Internet. Media literacy builds an understanding of the role of media in society as well as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens of a democracy.

 

 

 

 

The Connected Educator’s Full House: 8 “Ace” Resources

As legend and history relates, the “Dead Man’s Hand”, 2 pairs – Aces and Eights, was Wild Bill Hickok’s final deal.  He was killed at the poker table in Deadwood in the Dakota Territory at the Nuttal & Mann’s Saloon in 1876.  His murderer, Jack McCall shot him through the head from behind.  Despite some “authoritative” claims to what the fifth card was in Hickok’s star crossed hand, it remains a mystery. One poker website notes:

 “The transcript of McCall’s trial, for having shot Hickok, has a witness claiming that the fifth card was the jack of diamonds. The card used in the

Hickok’s final hand. How will educator’s play their hand?

 

re-creation of the shooting in Deadwood, as well as the card supposedly suggested by other eyewitnesses is the nine of diamonds.” And finally, the Deadwood museum uses a five of diamonds that is on display in Deadwood. “I suppose nobody will ever know, considering the town of Deadwood, and alot of its records, burnt to the ground in 1879”

I like to imagine, at least for this blog post, that the mystery card was actually an Ace or an 8.  Bill’s hand would have been better, at least.

 

So, what hand has been dealt to contemporary educators?  In March, the Huffington Post reported  their findings from a teacher satisfaction survey.  The findings are not optimistic; and maybe not too surprising.  “As school districts continued to cut budgets, increase class sizes, and implement teacher performance evaluations, teachers’ job satisfaction plummeted in 2012, reaching an all-time low…Teachers’ job satisfaction has declined 23 percentage points in the five years since 2008, according to the long-running survey of educators and principals. Only 39 percent of teachers reported they were very satisfied, the least since 1987, the survey showed. The percentage of teachers who said they were very satisfied dropped five percentage points in 2012.”

No quick fixes here. However,  I have found that there are benefits when educators are networked.  I believe it increases morale, innovation, collaboration, inspiration, and general support.  Overall, a sense of professionalism increases.  I have created two categories network benefits below.  Have fun exploring them, getting involved, sharing and using them.

I wonder if any cards were wild in Wild Bill’s last hand.  Regardless, all of the resources below have wild benefits for you and your students. No bluff. Your deal!

 

 

4 Ace Online Professional Development/Networking Opportunities

 

1- The Connected Educator Month Archives:  Funded by the US Department of Education.  The Connected Educator Month 2012 Archives have been officially released, with nearly one hundred recordings, transcripts, and other professional development resources to date from CEM 2012, searchable by format, audience, and topic.  http://bit.ly/cemarchives  Be sure to check out the session “Professional Learning and the Learning Profession” which addresses such questions like

  • What and where are the best (social) opportunities for educators to work on and learn for their practice in the coming year?
  • What steps should every educator consider taking to become more connected, and what are the key resources that can help?
  • In what kinds of learning do teachers (and other educators) need to be engaged in the 21st century, and how will technology help?
  • What are the key methodological and content trends in the classroom (e.g., flipped classrooms, core standards) with which technology (in general) and communities or networks (specifically) can impact and help?

 

 

 

2- The School Leadership Summit: Thursday, March 28th, is the inaugural, online, and free School Leadership Summit.   http://www.SchoolLeadershipSummit.com

It is a unique chance to participate in a virtual and collaborative global conversation on school leadership with presentations by practitioners.  Conference strands are aligned to the internationally-recognized ISTE National Education Technology Standards for Administrators and include the leadership topics of: Vision in a Changing World, Teaching and Learning in a Changing World, Professional Learning in a Changing World, Data-driven Reform in a Changing World, and Ethical and Responsible Use in a Changing World.  TICAL (the Technology Information Center for Administrative Leadership) is the founding partner of the conference.

 The Summit is held online using Blackboard Collaborate and open to anyone to attend.  The conference schedule is kept current at  http://admin20.org/page/schedule and during the conference will be viewable by specific world time zones. Visit my session at 7:00 pm.
3 –ASCD Webinars:  ASCD’s free webinar series brings experts in the field of education to a computer near you. Their webinars address timely and relevant topics like the Common Core State Standards, 21st century learning strategies, and closing the achievement gap.  Bonus hand, they archive each webinar, so you will never have to miss your deal.  Also, ASCD takes suggestions. Be sure to fill out their request feature.
4- The Educators PLN: This is a ning site dedicated to the support of a Personal Learning Network for Educators. Resources, blogs, other websites, discussion forums and more make this a hyper active community. Browse the “Leader Board” to get an idea of who is doing what and who is most active. So, sign up, create your profile page and let the networking begin.

4 Ace Online/Classroom Resources:

1-Show World: The website creates a map morph based on the criteria you select. All you do is select a subject from the top menu and watch the countries on the map change their size. Instead of land mass, the size of each country will represent the data for that subject –both its share of the total and absolute value. The main topics “People, Planet, Politics, Business, and Living” have a multitude of sub categories to choose from. Also, the site allows you to explore data for the World, the US, and Japan.  Data sources are cited, there are zoom options, a table that ranks the category leader and much more. The search for the  screen shot is based on the number of McDonald’s restaurants in the world.  Eat up…

 

2- Fareed Zakaria’s Global Public Square: The Global Public Square is where you can make sense of the world every day with insights and explanations from CNN’s Fareed Zakaria leading journalists at TIME and CNN, and other international thinkers.Record his show and watch a segment in class. Features include

 

3- TED Ed: TED-Ed is a website for teachers and learners. Lessons worth sharing allows you use, tweak, or completely redo any lesson featured on TED-Ed, or create lessons from scratch.  You can also get involved or recommend someone: “The most meaningful TED-Ed videos are collaborations between the TED-Ed team and at least one of the following: a curious learner, an exceptional educator, or a talented visualization artist. If you are one of these types of people, or if you know someone who is, please help guide our effort to create a library of lessons worth sharing…”  Check this out!

 

4- Open Culture: Formed in 2006, Open Culture brings together high-quality cultural & educational media for the worldwide lifelong learning community. Web 2.0 has given us great amounts of intelligent audio and video. It’s all free. It’s all enriching. But it’s also scattered across the web, and not easy to find. Our whole mission is to centralize this content, curate it, and give you access to this high quality content whenever and wherever you want it. Free audio books, free online courses, free movies, free language lessons, free ebooks and other enriching content — it’s all there!  I just watched Waiting for Godot.

 

Publish and Prosper: Tips on Promoting Student Generated Knowledge in the Public Sphere

In Kurt Vonnegut’s 1997 novel Timequake, there is an exchange about the “innocent question: ‘Art or not?'”.  Here is what Vonnegut comes up with.

RIP 1922-2007: With the publication of his novel Timequake in 1997, Vonnegut announced his retirement from writing fiction. He continued to write for the magazine In These Times, where he was a senior editor.

Listen: “Contemplating a purported work of art is a social activity (emphasis added)… People capable of liking some paintings or prints or whatever can rarely do so without knowing something about the artist. Again the situation is social rather than scientific… If you are unwilling (or in education, unable [my addition]) to claim credit for your pictures…there goes the ball game.”

The social action Vonnegut stresses at the close of the 2oth century, has become a pillar of 21st century education manifestos and best practices.  The “social activity” mentioned above, transferred to contemporary education instruction, manifests in the call for students to generate knowledge through a variety of production styles which are then placed in the public sphere. Simply put, the traditional practice of  students writing a paper for one set of eyes (the teacher’s) to see, digest, comment and evaluate is an anachronism.  Continued practice of this type of assessment is a remnant of the sage on the stage model of education. It is indeed time to reinvent the wheel.

So, who is calling for students to generate knowledge and publish it for public consumption.  First, let’s explore some perspectives from  the recent publication NEW DIRECTIONS IN SOCIAL EDUCATION RESEARCH: The Influence of Technology and Globalization on the Lives of Students edited by Dr. Brad Maguth  “As pressures mount for society to equip today’s youth with both the global and digital understandings necessary to confront the challenges of the 21st century, a more thorough analysis must be undertaken to examine the role of technology on student learning (Peters, 2009).”  Likewise, “youth are active participants, producers, and distributors of new media. The digital production of youth includes over 38% of designing personal websites, 23% constructing online videos and slideshows, and 8%launching digital causes campaigns….The internet has allowed youth new opportunities in fostering global awareness of civic, humanitarian, political, economic, and environmental causes (Maguth p.3)

Student generated knowledge is a powerful educational experience.  These clips are a tribute the unleashed potential of celebrating student interests and sharing work in the public sphere.

1) “Child prodigy Adora Svitak says the world needs “childish” thinking: bold ideas, wild creativity and especially optimism. Kids’ big dreams deserve high expectations, she says, starting with grownups’ willingness to learn from children as much as to teach.”

2) Nikhil Goyal is a student at Syosset High School in New York, United States. He wrote a book: All Hands on Deck: Why America Needs a Learning Revolution to be published in September 2012. Goyal writes for the Huffington Post, guest blogs for the New York Times, and contributes to NBC Education Nation.  “Students are left out of the debate, even thought we have the most important opinions.  Instead of schools cherishing students’ passions and interests, they destroy them. Let’s raise kids to dream big and think different. America will need to re-kindle the innovative spirit that has propelled in the past. It’s a do or die moment. Bring on the learning revolution!”


These messages and practices are supported by present, influential movements in 21st century education. Consider the following frameworks and strategies for the future of education practice. How close do your schools and classrooms meet these goals and aspirations for our students and educators?

A) Vision for the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Inquiry in Social Studies State Standards:  Dimension 4  highlights the ways students use to present their ideas (e.g., essays, debates, video productions), the venues in which they present their ideas (e.g., classrooms, school gatherings, public meetings), and the ways in which they work (e.g., individually, small groups, whole class).
Readiness for college, career, and civic life is as much about the experiences students have as it is about learning any particular set of content, concepts, or skills. Thus the learning environments that teachers create are critical to student success. Students will flourish to the extent that their independent and collaborative efforts are guided, supported, and honored.

B) Succeeding Globally Through. International Education and Engagement. U.S. Department of Education. International Strategy. 2012–16 “The Global Competence Task Force … defined globally competent individuals as those who use their knowledge and skills to investigate the world beyond their immediate environment, recognize their own and others’ perspectives, communicate their ideas effectively with diverse audiences, and translate their ideas into appropriate actions.

C) Common Core State Standards:  “Although information is provided in both arguments and explanations, the two types of writing have different aims.
Arguments seek to make people believe that something is true or to persuade people to change their beliefs or behavior. Explanations, on the other hand, start with the assumption of truthfulness and answer questions about why or how. Their aim is to make the reader understand rather than to persuade him or her to accept a certain point of view. In short, arguments are used for persuasion and explanations for clarification.

I guess another question to ask is to what extent do these statements actually carry weight in state standards and testing and school cultures.  Are these ideas valued? Buy whom?

Well, I still believe that the most important factor in educational experiences is the classroom teacher.  If you are still doing the one way practice of student –> teacher publishing, fear not.  Below are some tips on student products. But first, what is meant but he “public sphere.”  Simply put, the public sphere is anything beyond the teacher’s eyes only.  Consider the list below a continuum moving from narrow to broad spheres of public. Next to each dimension I included a few suggested ways  student work can interact beyond teacher eyes only models. Of course the list is not complete but hopefully gets the idea juices flowing.

The Public…

a) …classroom:  gallery walks,  class discussion of student work.

b) …department:  peer editing from other sections, presenting to other classes, discipline website highlighting student work

c) …school: display tables at lunch, displays in hallways, newspapers, library archives,  part of parent nights

d) … community: student work in civic buildings, displays, local newspapers,

e) … nation: engage in projects like National History Day, collaborate with schools, and colleges, engage in contests

f) … international: establish sister schools, link with non-profits, video conferencing

g)… cyber space: present at online conferences, post work on websites, establish a learnist board, comment on blogs, utilize web 2.0 tools

 

But what to publish?  Well, the sky is the limit here. One suggestion is to do this in a secure course in your school’s LMS. Here are some concrete (not a total) list of suggestions.

Publish what?

*Writing (all types)      *Visuals/mind-maps        * Blogs/Wikis         *Infographics

*Presentation                  *Video/Audio/Media posts       *Comments to an established webpages

Overall, this is a very exciting part of education that need not be done always, but should be part of any model classroom.  Agreed?

and so it goes…

Seattle to St. Thomas: 5 Reflections from the U.S. Empire

This past week I traveled to two parts of the US empire.  People, American citizens especially, still resist and wrestle with this concept.  High school history courses, promoting the narrative that the US flirted with imperialism during the Spanish-American War but then quickly abandoned the idea,

What does the French soldier mean when he says America fights for the biggest “nothing” in history?

don’t help.  I find it amazing that this narrative persists as the dominant one despite the scholarship that has discredited the national myth.  For me, the first book that really drove the idea of American empire home was Niall Ferguson’s 2004 Colossus.  Ferguson points out “Many Americans doubtless play Age of Empires…But remarkably few Americans -or, for that matter American soldiers – would be willing to admit that their government is currently playing the game for real. This book argues not merely that the United States is an empire, but that it has always been an empire.”

Six years later, the 2010, 500 page plus tour de force Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference  by Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, compares the development of two mighty land based empires the USA and Russia.  In essence, anything beyond the boundaries set by the treaty of Paris in 1783, were imperialistic gains via war, treaty, and treasure. “Within the extension of continental empire to the west, the Euro-American “pioneers” marched along the road to full political participation and statehood; Indians were on a path to the reservation…”  Native Americans are the conquered peoples of the overland American Empire (Seattle, Washington included). The US Virgin Islands, bought from the Danes in 1917 were part of the overseas island empires (Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Samoa, Guam etc) and are classified by the UN as a Non-Self-Governing Territory, and are currently an organized, unincorporated United States territory. But if you go to the US VI, you realize that trading deeds and making inhabitants citizens (of sorts) doesn’t erode a culture of difference.   The resort staff is almost entirely black. And as I talked to a white immigrant from Ohio on the island, she recognized that she had moved to the US imperial hinterland and lived “where the white people do” on the island.

So, while at a conference in Seattle, former home to the Duwamish and Suquamish, and then on vacation in St. Thomas VI where resort workers uncomfortably wished me a “Happy Thanksgiving”, I reflected on these 5 items related to global, history, education, and teaching. Enjoy.

 

1) 3rd Annual Global Ed Conference:  Wow! Another great conference. For three years Lucy Gray and Steve Hargadon  have co piloted a landmark event. This year’s conference was co-sponsored by iEARN. With an expanding staff, following, presenters, archive, and energy, the conference is part of the present and future of professional development.  Check out the archives over the past three years, there is so much there.  Time and space no longer restrict PD opportunities.  My two presentations are linked below. The first as a presenter and the second as a guest panelist. Get involved!

(a) Navigating a Flat World: Teaching Globalization in Secondary Education:  Recording is found here    This is my 3rd presentation at GEC conferences (See my blog menu for the other two).  How come the most influential concept, process, and phenomenon not explicitly taught in high school? How can we claim to have a 21st century education without it being part of school curricula?

(b) Keynote Speaker Ed Gragert: Conference Wrap Up: Recording is found here  . I presented ideas about the future of professional development (PD) and how it can catch up to how we teach students – Personalized, Teacher Created Knowledge, and Technology Enhanced and Networked PD.It was a great tribute to all those who made the conference possible.

 

2)  93rd NCSS Conference:  The theme of the 2012 conference, held in Seattle WA, was “Opening Windows to the World.” The event offered 3 days programing and presentations across the social studies educational landscape.  Everyone knew, however, that the main event was the unveiling of the NCSS social studies framework.  That event, however was pushed back until the next conference in St. Louis.  In the interim, a panel outlined what had been done, what future work can be expected,  fielded questions from the audience, and shared the Vision for the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Inquiry in Social Studies State Standards .  This document “provides guidance for states to use in enhancing their standards for rigor in civics, economics, geography, and history in K-12 schools. The C3 Framework, currently under development, will ultimately focus on the disciplinary and multidisciplinary concepts and practices that make up the process of investigation, analysis, and explanation which will be informative to states interested in upgrading their social studies standards. The forthcoming framework, to be released in 2013, will be a significant resource for all states to consider in their local processes for upgrading state social studies standards, rather than set standards for states to adopt.”   Take a look, start the discussion, and post your comments.  For example… where does sociology, psychology, philosophy, and anthropology fit?  Is civics a discipline?

3) Online Facebook Debate: Anyone can engage Harvard Historian and Department Chair David Armitage in an online Facebook debate! Sponsored by the journal Itineario, Armitage’s opening statement addresses the question “Are we all global historians now?”  Part of Armitage’s response is “But in one strong sense we could say that we all have to be global historians now. By that I mean, if you are not doing . . . this formulation will get me into trouble, but let me nevertheless put it in these strong terms: if you are not doing an explicitly transnational, international or global project, you now have to explain why you are not… The hegemony of national historiography is over.”   Join the conversation and comment on Facebook here. Armitage’s full interview is here.

4) Contributors Wanted: American Imperialism and Expansion: ABC-CLIO Press is publishing Imperialism and Expansionism in American
History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia, an ambitious, 880,000-word, 4-volume project that will serve as ABC-CLIOs lead American history title for 2014. Each of the 4 volumes will include an historical overview, chronology, thematically organized A-Z entries, primary sources, glossary, and bibliography. For topics pertaining to the 18th and 19th centuries, including expansion within the continental U.S.: David Bernstein:
David@davidbernstein.net.    For topics pertaining to the 20th century: Chris Magoc:  cmagoc@mercyhurst.edu   I have signed up for three so far – “Isolationism”, “GI Joe (yes the toy)”, and “Top Gun (film)”.


5) Online Education & Best Practices What makes an online class a successful experience for students and teachers.  One answer is the same one we can yse for a F2F classroom… good  teaching.  Effective online educators are made not born. Regardless of the platform you use or the subject you teach, these 20+ characteristics should be core beliefs and practices for online education shared by teachers and students.  Sponsored by edudemic, the list will reinforce some strategies, remind you of ones forgotten, and reveal new pedagogy to consider.  My favorite is number 2 “Online should never mean easy, for teachers or students“… which is yours?