Face Time

What I am about to say hear is not anything new. It is not anything even remotely new. It is just me working through my own thoughts. A process of reflection if you will. I have been thinking about this post for a while now. I guess it's finally time.

Betcha thought this was going to be something controversial, something interesting. You were wrong. Anyway, I am a teacher that uses technology as much as possible. I get excited about new ideas. I try to bring technology into the classroom in order to make education relevant for our students. I feel that our schools are drastically out of date. They are physically and technologically out of date. Students are connected in ways that we are not. Technology is part of their lives. Or is it?

How many times have I just assumed that students are doing something (e.g. texting, facebooking, etc..)? A lot. How many times have I been wrong? A lot. Oh, don't get me wrong, they are doing these things....but maybe not to the extent that I think they are.

Last year we had a baseball game at school. Students from varying grades participated. I hit a couple home runs but that is beside the point. During that time I did not see one student with a cell phone. We were having fun. We were connecting in a personal way. I thought to myself: "self, maybe you focus on technology too much. Maybe you need to focus more on personal connectedness as well". I could have had students answer an academic question before receiving their pitch. I could have done all sorts of stuff. It was something cool and fun, and it was without the use of technology. Sometimes I forget this side of education.

This summer I was with my wife at the West Edmonton Mall. I saw a lot of young people texting while walking. They weren't even paying attention to the friends they were with. Suprisingly, I also saw a lot of dads texting while dining with their families. Two different generations, both missing out on the world around them because of their cell phones. I stereotyped, both groups were connected - one to a huge network of friends, the other to a network of work and respnosibility. In either case they were missing out on the personal relationships right in front of their face. Sometimes I forget this side of education.

This is a common argument against technology. Students spend too much time on devices and not enough "face to face" time. This was a concern at the beginning of this year when my new school rethought our cell phone policy. It was, previously, no cell phones in the school. It is now, no cell phones during class time. I argued for this. This is how our young people function and connect. I do not fully understand it. I fear that "face" time is being lost. I do not text a lot. I do not need to know what my friends are doing throughout the day. However, this is a reality for my students. Why keep them from it? Shouldn't we try to find an educational avenue here? After all, it is what our students are familiar with. Our students are functioning in ways that we do not fully understand. We are not being relevant to their realities. We need to rethink our system and ourselves. We need to ask ourselves questions and reflect. Maybe technological devices are replacing face time. Maybe there is more to this than just negative connotations. I never forget this side of education.

A Day at the Rink

There is something I have been wondering for some time now.  It is something that I have tried writing about, have had conversations about, and still cannot come to a conclusion.  Everytime I have had a conversation or tried writing about this topic, I could not seem to figure out what I was trying to say.  I guess it's more of a questions - are we really the experts?

What I mean is, are we the educational experts?  Many would argue yes.  We have been trained in the fine art of education.  And our level of expertise varies widely.  We arguably reference ourselves as somewhat of experts.  We throw out names like cabers at the Highland Games.  Everyone knows who the big names are, and what they are doing in terms of education.  

But like I have asked before: where are the students?  Could they be the potential "experts" that we seem to be searching for?  I am not sure if our students know what they want, or need to learn.  I am not sure if they have any answers for best teaching practices or innovative education.  I am not sure if they would be able to help guide education in a much needed new direction.  But then again, I am not sure that anyone has ever asked them.  Sure, we've had brief conversations with them and maybe even included them in a conference or two - but have we really asked them?  Have we asked them on a continual basis?  Have we asked that them to help guide us?  Have we asked them to be educational consultants?  

We could argue that they, unlike us, have not been trained in the fine art of education.  But I think that that might be the beauty of it.  They have not been trained to educate.  We look for ways to teach, they look for ways to learn.  They are the ones who want and need something out of the system.  They are the ones who stand to gain, or lose, from ideas.  Why shouldn't at least some of those ideas be their own?

Don't get me wrong...I love the way that educators are sharing.  And to the extent that we are sharing.  But sometimes I question the dynamics.  Are we sharing what we are doing to pursue higher levels of learning?  Or are we doing it to advance our own names?  I often hear "you should see what this teacher is doing with his/her students!"  And yeah, I usually get excited...but is this the right way to approach it?  Why do we just assume that it is the educator who is doing the amazing thing(s)?  Aren't his/her students doing amazing things as well?  And why do I never, or seldom, hear about the students that are initiating the amazing thing - why is it always the educators?  I had this conversation with Gary Ball today.  He perhaps put into words (better than I could) what I was getting at: "Oh God!  We are hockey parents!."  Do we ever push our students to pursue things they are not interested in?  Sure, but we are getting better.  If a player excels on the ice, does the parent accept (partial) credit?  Do we accept credit for our student's success?

I started questioning our edblogosphere - most of what I read or hear refers to the amazing things teachers are doing with their students, and not vice versa.  Then I came across a blog post by Eldon Germann.  In it he referred to a previous blog post by Alec Couros.  It talked about an unfortunate incident he ran into with sharing photos on Flickr.  There were many comments left and one in particular caught my attention.  Aaron Dewald wrote: "I was in a discussion with my dad about this. He’s 54, I’m 29. He finds it amazing that I’m willing to put pictures of me, my family, friends etc… wonders what the world is coming to. I do it because that’s how I grew up. I do it because I like to connect and share."  It made me wonder once again - are we really the experts?  Our students are growing up in times that we, try as we might, do not understand.  Some of us are on the cusp of these times (regardless of age).  But our realities are different from that of our students.  No matter how hard we try, we may not be equipped to be "experts" of those realities.  Perhaps we need more student experts.  And perhaps we need to listen to them...closely.

And then I finished reading Eldon's blog.  He had shared Alec Couros' topic with his Grade 10 class.  But, rather than share we he had done with his students, he shared what his students had done.  He featured their blog responses on his blog.  It was suddenly no longer about what he had done with his students, but simply what his students had done.  It was no longer about the hockey parents, but the players.  After all, it wouldn't be much of a game without any players.  

NOT Acceptable Use

In my last post I questioned our approach (as educators) to what we believe to be acceptable use (in terms of technology).  Basically, I am not quite sure that we are "on the same page" as our students - that we are missing amazing educational opportunities.  I used an example in which a teacher asked a student in my class to get off youtube.  That teacher was Gary Ball.  Now Gary and I have a great relationship and the example I used was meant to probe into deeper issues.  I used this example because Gary has a firm grasp of technological use and is really an innovative and progressive thinker in terms of technology.  I knew that Gary and I could talk about what happened and use it to benefit future education of our students.  This is one answer - to have collaborative relationships with your colleagues so that you can figure out best educational practice.  Anyway, here is a snippet of Gary's response.

I don't really like the idea of letting every teacher make their own decisions on THIS PARTICULAR ISSUE. The problem is that one classroom has the potential to affect the entire network. One classroom all on Facebook has less of an effect on all of us. We need to be consistent on an issue like this.

Anyways - I think that the discussion needs to continue. The real answer is more bandwidth - but until then we have to find some way to cope with our students educational needs and the limitations of our system.

I found this interesting - one because I didn't expect this to be Gary's response, and two - because what he says has some interesting implications.  Gary's argument is realistic.  He disagrees with leaving it up to individual teacher's discretion for one reason and one reason only - the "limitations of our system".  What we do online drastically affects other classrooms online.  This is because of bandwidth.  If a teacher is giving "free time" on the internet everyday, although that is an issue administration would deal with, it affects everyone.  I talked to Gary and had him clarify his reasoning.  Sadly what he says is true - we need to "find some way to cope with our students educational needs and the limitations of our system".  Now, we both disagree with this, but it is our reality.  What we would argue is that the limitations of our system are also limiting our students educational opportunities.  We need to change this and NOT be okay with it.  I have heard that more bandwidth is high on the agenda for the upcoming year.  Thankfully we are part of a progressive educational division that is in tune with the future of education.  

Some Questions

What if...
our curriculums are wrong?
our concept of traditional skills, standards and content are wrong?
what I learned about teaching English in university only 4 years ago has drastically changed?
kids can communicate just as clearly through shorthand text messages as I can in a formal essay?
we refuse to acknowledge any of this as plausible?

What if...
we are too self-centered and egotistical to think that things can change drastically in a short amount of time?
we are too ignorant to realize the entire planet is shifting and education is stuck in neutral?
we are too stuck in a model of what we think content areas should look like and include to be advocates for elaborate change?
I don't know how to keep up?

What if...
we think that kids should be learning what we learned?
we compare ourselves to our students?
we compare students from last year to students today?
we are stuck in a bog hole of stale ideas but view ourselves as fresh?

How do we.....
give students appropriate skills?
come to the realization that although we are the experts...we know very little?
we keep up with change? (and don't say some things never change?)

A few days ago Dan Meyer wrote a blog titled "In Defense of Digital Media". He said that although "[his] preference is also for the real thing over a digital simulation of the real thing" sometimes "digital media is preferable to the real thing". One example:

The real thing is too mathematically noisy for classroom use. Jason prefers a real demonstration of projectile motion using bottle rockets to my use of online simulators but that introduces acceleration and wind resistance— mathematical noise — into the system. Let's not romanticize the real or the digital. They are both deficient. They both require a cost-benefit analysis.

This got me thinking - how much of what we do is romanticized. Yes, we would love students to experience certain opportunities in the flesh...but how much of that is actually a benefit to student learning? But then I thought - we are educating students for a future that we know very little about. What are the most important skills for them to gain? Isn't mathematical noise a good thing (I am not a Math teacher)? Don't we want our students to be problem solvers in a real world context...shouldn't they be creative and face a variety of situations in order to prepare them for life outside the closed model system?

And then I thought - are we a closed model system that tries to avoid "educational" noise?

Sleeping on the couch?

I've noticed that as I get more and more involved in collaborative communities I have more and more meaningful conversations.  Well whoop de doo and la de da!  But just hold on a second, they are more than just conversations - they are enthusiasm generators and shift initiators...meaning that they get me excited about learning and teaching, and force me to think about myself - what I believe, if I am being effective, etc...  This last part is HUGE!  If we do not evaluate ourselves, constantly questions ourselves, and have dialogue with ourselves, and othters...how are we going to improve?  And if you, as a teacher, don't think you need to improve allow me to let you in on a little secret...you're wrong.  

Of course we need to improve!  We're part of a system that strives for constant improvement.  This is what we pride ourselves on.  It's how we measure student success...and our own.  Anyways, nothing new...same old song and dance just sung from a different mouth and danced with a new pair of shoes.  What I do want to talk more about, and explore, is learning.  I've dropped the "I need to be perfectly prepared for every class" mentality and adopted the "where are the teachable moments" philosophy.  Let me explain.  Yes, I need to be prepared for class.  But I also need to be prepared to change and adapt.  Real learning takes place on the fly, in real time.  This is something I am coming to understand.  So, someone shows me something cool they are using in class (e.g. getting their students to blog), cool - looks good, I want to do that.  Now I have two options.  Old Nickell would go home and test the idea out, try to figure it out and set up expectations for how it should be used in class.  New Nickell goes straight to his class and has his students start blogging while he refills his coffee cup...just kidding, but seriously.  Okay, what I have started doing is I go straight to my class and share my enthusiasm with my students.  I show them blogger and all the cool things people are doing with it.  We talk about how we could use it in class, what skills it could build, what they would like to do with it...and then we do it.  This collaborative culture that we talk of...it's not just between teachers...but teachers and students.  And students provide an interesting perspective...they let you know what they would like to learn.  Anyways, learn and then do...or learning by doing...quite a concept.

Now I had planned to blog about something else.  I had planned to share a conversation that I had with my wife just a couple days ago.  She is an elementary teacher.  People sometimes say "that is great, but how do you ever escape work?"  Truthfully, why would we want to.  Learning is our passion.  So, back to our conversation.  We were talking about PLC's.  I told her that our staff had just started using exit questions in our staff meetings.  We had to create a question we had about PLC's and then research it, come back to the next meeting and talk about what we had found, and then revamp our question or create a new one - depending where our research had taken us.  Great idea...gives people the chance to do some learning on purpose (courtesy of Gary Ball).  Not only that, but we can answer a heck of a lot more questions as a group.  Now, I am not sure if people saw it as an opportunity to learn and share, or simply a homework assignment that needed doing.  Hopefully the first, why wouldn't you want to help create a collaborative environment?  

Anyway, as we were talking my wife raised an interesting point.  She said that it is sometimes more difficult (e.g. time consuming) for elementary teachers to research or discuss such issues. Let me explain, one: because I am not being clear and two: because I don't want to sleep on the couch tomorrow night.  Some of the conversations we have as teachers (e.g. how to create a collaborative culture, shifting our ways of thinking about education , etc..) are easily transferable into a high school classroom.  I can discuss these topics with students, and the difference between my classes and an elementary classroom is that we can have an in-depth conversation.  Such discussions are also right up my alley in terms of my teaching assignment (ELA and Social Studies).  Translation, it is not more work to engage in such topics...it is my work.  Now take an elementary teacher.  They spend most of their day reading literature designed for young people.  They deal with issues and topics in relation to little people.  We deal with issues and topics in relation to adults (we have many adult students at our school) or young adults.  I think you see where I'm going with this.

So this is what I was going to blog about.  This was going to be my topic of discussion.  But then...I came home...and my wife showed me what she was doing with class blogmeister, and a site called buildyourwildself.com.  And I got excited.  I said, cool, I want to do that...how can I use that in my class.  And guess what...tomorrow...well, you know the rest.  Then I showed her what one of our elementary teachers had done with class blogmeister (she came back super excited from a conference on Friday and boom,, she's doing it...yay her - learn and do!)  Then I showed her what I was doing with my classes and blogger.  Then we had fun looking on the internet at other cool programs.  Our discussion eventually lead to talking about autism, and FAS, and learning patterns.  The point - we had an in-depth conversation about learning...and it was a conversation that was directly related to our classes - even though she teaches elementary and I teach high school.  All we really need to do is find ways to connect and discuss topics in meaningful ways.  After all, we are all learners - and learning is a universal topic.