Change On the Horizon

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I use Bloglines as my RSS feeder and I have become convinced how valuable such an aggregator can be (for some reason, I wasn’t always that convinced of its value and thought it more a nuisance that I would have to work hard at, but that is not the case — it works hard for me). The RSS aggregator really allows me to “pull” the things that I am interested in right to me, instead of barreling through the world of links left and right, aimlessly hoping for some semblance of substance. It also leads me to other interesting areas of the wired world, sometimes unexpectedly.
Recently, a feed from Will Richardson’s Weblogged site led to me to a posting by Joyce Valenza, who charts out what the world was like for a librarian in the 1970s, how the world is different now, and what the implications are for all that for the future of education. The chart — entitled How My Life Has Changed/How My Life Will Change — is very interesting and covers a lot of ground. Although it deals with library science, the topics are valuable for any educator.
Here is an interesting observation from Joyce about what students need as researchers and the dangers of access issues:

Need to introduce a fuller information toolkit. Need to promote lesser known or used tools—subscription databases, alternate search tools, ebooks. Potential for an information underclass! Need to help students determine where to start. Need for high quality federated searching to cut through the noise? May need to promote the value of books for some projects.

And this, about the reconfigured use of the library space by teachers and students, seems very insightful, too:

Increasing need for group, creative production space—iMovie, podcasting, blogging. Library as group planning/collaborating space. Library as performance, presentation space. Library as event-central, telecommunications, remote author/expert visit space. Library continues as study/reading/gathering/cultural space.

Peace,
Kevin

Technology as a Tool for Learning

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School is just around the bend and those frantic dreams have already begun for me (and for others, I notice, as I read some other Weblogs of teachers). So this is a perfect time to reflect a bit on last year and think about projects that were successful and projects that need a bit more thinking time. 🙂

For my sixth graders, learning how to use Powerpoint was an eye-opener. I know that PP is so overused in so many different ways, but it still a valuable tool for research dissemination for students. However, I wanted to use PP in another way in the writing classroom — as a template for creating picture books.

So, my sixth graders spent about six weeks (much longer than anticipated) writing stories for a younger audience with a theme of mathematics, and then using Powerpoint to create picture books. No clip art was allowed!

When they were finished, we invited younger grades to tour our classroom and watch the Powerpoint Picture Book Shows and ask questions about the stories, technology and production. I then arranged to have print copies made of the shows for both my students and for our school library. Finally, I uploaded all of the picture books to our Weblog site so that family members could also view the shows.

The results were wonderful — students very engaged in writing, integrating math into writing instruction, and the use of technology in a meaningful way.

You can view the Math Picture Books yourself, if you would like.

If you are a teacher, good luck at the start of the year!

Peace,
Kevin

Mathematical Picture Books

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Last year, my sixth graders used PowerPoint to create picture books with a mathematical theme. They shared their PP shows with younger grades and then we printed them out for both students to take home and to keep in our school library. We also published the books to our Weblog to share with family.
They did an amazing job!

Mr. H’s Class Mr. C’s Class Mrs. R’s Class Mr. M’s Class

Educational Blogging

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I found this wonderful resource that focuses in on the educational aspects of blogging in the classroom and thought I would share it with you. The site is called SupportBlogging (of course) and it is a Wiki site. It provides many resources, best practices and information that seems both practical and thought-provoking.

This is a nice summary of how blogs can be integrated into the classroom:

In a broader and more educational system, blogs are about communicating. You observe your experience, reflect on it, and then write about it. Other people read your reflections, respond from their perspectives by commenting or writing their own blog article. You read their perspectives, often learn something through their eyes, and write some more.
— from Supportblogging

sbsmall.jpg
Peace,
Kevin

dComposition

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A good friend of mine, Paul O., from the National Writing Project has been thinking about the convergence of technology and writing for many years, in a variety of different perspectives — teacher,workshop developer, technology leader.

On his Weblog — called SchoolTube — Paul suggests that we try to find some new words to describe the emergence of technology in the classroom. He doesn’t mean dropping kids off in a computer lab and hoping for the best. What he means, and what I believe in, is the full integration of these new tools into the classroom for students to construct their meaning and understanding and critical thinking skills.

So Paul proposes using a new term to describe this shift: dComposition.

Here is his definition:

I’ve been trying to get a new term into the popular lexicon: dComposing. This in place of terms like digital literacy or media literacy. dComposing, as I see it, would incorporate the different forms that we now use to create compositions mediated by digital technology. I believe dComposing avoids the legacy definitions of digital literacy and media literacy, which have sometimes defined them narrowly. dComposing is not solely about the mechanics of the technology (digital literacy in its narrowly defined sense), nor solely about the understanding of the media through which it is emerging (media literacy in its narrowly defined sense), but rather focuses on the notion that writing and reading and how we create composition — literacy itself, in other words — is changing.
— from SchoolTube.

Peace,
Kevin

Playin’ with Flickr

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I’ve been checking out some of the strange and neat things you can do with Flickr lately, just to experiment. A good site for Flickr Toys is here, if you are interested. Much of it is free.
I used some band photos as my experiment. Here is a roadside advertisement for The Sofa Kings.

sofa kings roadside

And here I added some captions to what John and Duke are really thinking.

a2

Peace,
Kevin

Poetry e-Journal

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A few months ago, I was helping some teachers at the Western Massachusetts Writing Project consider ways to use technology for classroom publications. We talked about Wikis, Weblogs and other possibilities, and I showed them how you could use Microsoft Word to create a Web document that could then be uploaded to a server.

My example was some poetry that I wrote and put together with a brief table of contents to show how hyperlinks could connect various pages together.

My e-Poetry Journal is here.

One of the poems in the e-Journal is called “Passion Release” and I wrote for a friend who played guitar in one of my bands but was asked to leave. Not for any personality reasons, but for difficulties with schedules and Life in general. It was a difficult decision for all of us because he is a wonderful person and a fantastic musician and I wrote this poem and sent it off to him.

microphone Listen to me read Passion Release microphone

Peace,
Kevin

Writing Project – Newspaper Partnership

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One of the more exciting ventures that I oversaw last year as a leader with the Western Massachusetts Writing Project was a new partnership with our area’s largest newspaper, The Springfield Republican. Inspired by a similar effort at the Vermont Writing Project, the monthly publication seeks to highlight teachers in our WMWP network and the writing that is being done by their students. Among other things, this newspaper connection helps with continuity of the site by keeping our network connected. It also helps get the word out about the National Writing Project.
The basic format is:

  • Short teacher introduction into the writing topic
  • Samples of student writing
  • Resources for other teachers
  • Connections to our Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks

You can view PDF versions of some of the features at the newspaper’s online site.

This year, we have some topics in mind, including:

  • Family Writing Nights
  • Writing in the English Language Learners classroom
  • Connecting Writing and Math
  • Classroom Publications

Peace
Kevin

Dogtrax Podcast: The Note Who Got Lost

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This is a new direction for me — creating podcasts that will center on some of my own music and compositions. I am experimenting with OurMedia as the site for hosting the audio files and I finally worked out most of the kinks of the system.
This first edition features the musical play The Note Who Got Lost in the Masterpiece production. The play was produced this summer by Multi-Arts of Amherst and the young performers did a magnificent job. (You can also read my reflection of the experience of watching my play on stage from an earlier post).

microphone Listen to the Dogtrax Podcast: The Note Who Got Lost in the Masterpiece.

Thanks for listening.
Kevin

Musical Metaphor

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Last night, my wife and I went to see the band Los Lobos in concert at a small outdoor arena in our town of Northampton, Massachusetts. They were energetic, playful and brimming with great musical ideas.

What struck me is this — The opening band was The Mammals and they pulled up a few band members from another band called The Ducks on the stage to join them for a few songs (and playfully referred to themselves as The Platypus — get it? Duck-billed mammals?). Then, when Los Lobos hit the stage, they pulled up the violin player from The Mammals for the opening song. And this is common for many bands to do — grab an up and coming musician and give them the experience of a larger stage.

So, I was thinking, that as Susan B. and I work on our NWP Monograph Project about the site structure of the Western Massachusetts Writing Project, one theme that keeps coming up is how one program leader will ask someone new to partner with them on a project, and then pass the baton to the new person, who them repeats the process. Just like Los Lobos and The Mammals did on stage last night.

The power of that system is that it works like an expert-apprentice relationship and creates strong bonds for someone new to experiment in a safe environment. Kind of cool to think of WMWP along the same lines as Los Lobos.

Rock on!
Kevin