Eulogizing Bankruptcy and Lessons in Disruption

I went into Borders yesterday and bought a book.

Soon that sentence will no longer be a possibility. As many already know, Borders has lost it's battle with bankruptcy and is moving into full-on liquidation. While others have done a far better job of parsing the days and ways that this came about there remain valid lessons in this case for education and other targets of market disruption.

The Relationship with the Internet

As Slate points out:

Borders famously flubbed its relationship with the Internet. From 2001 until 2008, it outsourced its online sales to Amazon, essentially handing customers over to the bigger, better site during the formative years of e-commerce.

The lesson for education?

Here is an example of outsourcing core competencies. Sites like Kahn Academy and e2020 can be valid supplemental resources for things like blended learning. But that is all that these should be supplemental resources.

Overly scripted or "curriculum in a box" programs like Read 180 can provide structure and a basis for instruction but there is an implicit message being sent to educators: We don't trust you to handle it alone. Such prescriptive programs can lower morale but also affect the sense of community. Make no mistake, I still think that any teacher that feels that they can be replaced by a computer probably should be. But we should take care not to use web-based programs and curriculum in a way that removes learners from the community of education in a school because they will simply seek out another to be a part of instead.

The Future Is Digital and Will Need Curation

NPR comes on strong in it's Monkey See blog with two points.

The first:

There is no other future for reading but a digital one, and getting misty about the decline of tangible books is an exercise in futility. Reading itself has never been more popular, even if formats are in flux.

The second:

Bookstores are very special places, even the behemoths. They provide a space for cultural dilettantism. You can get lost in them for hours, perusing covers and picking up obscure titles. They are dedicated to discovery and are curated by some of the most dedicated retail employees around (even to get hired at a large corporate chain, one is still required to exhibit a sharp passion for reading).

The lesson for education?

Educators have to embrace multiple forms of authorship when it comes to content for their students both in terms of source and creation. Saying that you are a digital educator because you have a PowerPoint or Twitter lesson just isn't going to cut it. This isn't to say that all students need to be educated to be the next Amanda Hocking - but they should be allowed the option to geo that route if their passion dictates it.

The second point brings up the salience of curation. This point concerns me the more I learn about student motivation in the face of increased accountability testing. Right now education's focus is more "what's on the test" than it is "what are my students passionate about learning."

The Take-away

People have written about how much they are going to miss Borders and just as many have written about the mistakes that got Borders to this point. One could say that a series of bad decisions broke the chain. But the real take-away from an educational standpoint is that technology was either dismissed or discounted to Borders' detriment. These are mistakes that education not only cannot afford to make but also possesses the means to surmount. If education embraces technology, and through it change, Borders will be a cautionary tale. If not it will become an outlier.

The Spiral of Up-votes & Learning

Given the rise of websites like Reddit, Stumbleupon, and yes, Google+ this story from Gizmodo bears consideration. The premise:

Flickr user André Rabelo saw when he uploaded this b&w photo to a Flickr pool called DeleteMe!, which votes on whether a photo has any right being amongst the top classes of photography.

However, the joke was on the people commenting on "Rabelo's" photo. The photo was actually one by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Yes, the Henri "father of modern photojournalism" Cartier-Bresson. But the plot thickens:

Over 500 comments have been added to Rabelo’s uploaded photo, and it makes for a hilarious yet thought-provoking read flipping through the pages. The first batch of comments from the DeleteMe! group some 68 months ago look rather foolish in hindsight, but not as foolish (in my eyes) as the bandwagon-jumpers who latched onto the prank once it was revealed, calling it “art” and a “masterpiece.”

This is kind of a case of "Schrödinger's Photograph" - is something quality based on its observable merits? Or should the overall work transcend its constituent parts? Who decides what is "Art" or merely "art?" What about learning?

Given the rise of the aforementioned socially curated news and web content this story could be an outlier. While I love using Google+ and want schools to have the option of adding it to the Google Apps for Education suite, I have to take Rabelo's photo as an admonition.

As an educator, the danger is to be a commenter of either extreme. Yes, there are many that want web 2.0 tools used in education, but when the discussion spirals out of the black & white which side should we be on? The one of process and learning Learning.

photo © 2009 Ariston Collander | more info (via: Wylio)

Embrace Disruption, Embrace Community

There's a great article at Slate right now called "Groundhog Decade" that details how the movie industry is failing to learn from the decade of market disruption that's just occurred. A money quote:

If the studios were smart they'd go to the mat and create a massive one-stop shop for TV and movies, find a price point they can live with and then set programmers loose to make the thing as easy to use and ubiquitous as possible. Instead they've been wasting their time strong-arming the cable companies to help them on a new crusade against illegal downloaders—an unwieldy process that doesn't address the root problem and won't work.

My takeaway is that, like many media outlets the movie industry would be better off if it embraced the disruption as what it is; change. Instead of having articles, posts, and tweets about how to thwart the New York Times pay-wall, what if they went to an National Public Radio model of funding? What would this embracing of disruption look like in education?

We've all heard a lot about how education is going to be disrupted by technology. Most involve someone from outside of the education world invoking specters of fear by citing the rapid change in technology, mentioning flip thinking, and a reference to Khan Academy.

There are those who fear change in any profession. But could with disruption come realignment?

At the end of the school year I often stand outside the school with my fellow teachers to bid farewell to our students. It's a great way to end the year, to bring things to a close. Without fail we often notice that the students that are the most reluctant to leave are the students who like to spend more time in the hallway than class. The students who refer to school as a prison have tears streaming down their faces viewing the prospect of nearly three months of freedom. These students are mourning the impending loss of their friends, their community.

Some of the students that are the most challenging students in schools still see it as their community. Some of the technologies that challenge education use social media; technologies that create and cultivate community.

Where some fear disruption I choose to see an opportunity for realignment.

photo © 2006 Antonio Campos Domínguez | more info (via: Wylio)

Minions in Grad School

This is a great short film by Nyna Wee at Stuttgart Media University. Think of it as the minions from "Despicable Me" grown up and in a grad program at Portal University. Listening to techno. Enjoy (via io9).

Cubism from Nyna Wee on Vimeo.

Golden Ratios of Blended Learning

In planning a blended learning class for the upcoming school year a great deal of thoughts have been ricocheting around my headspace. Thoughts of project-based learning, inquiry in education, PLNs and other assorted acronyms having all had their exits and entrances. But recently there's been an unlikely source cropping up; a cookbook.

One needs only to scroll back throb recent posts To realize that this writer is fond of both food and hastily taken photographs of recent cooking efforts. To that end I've been reading Michael Ruhlman's book Ratio. In particular this quote stands out:

With the advent of the Internet, we have access to an ocean of recipes but relatively less information on food and cooking. Understanding ratios and technique is, for the home cook, a step toward becoming more independent in the kitchen. But ratios are just as important to chefs and other food professionals because they provide a launching point for the development of new dishes.

Technique will ultimately determine the quality of the end result. Ratios are the points from which infinite variations begin.

Isn't this what educators should be striving to do? Shouldn't education be about helping learners find their own ratios of learning and understanding? Far too often it feels as though we are more concerned with having students memorize one recipe and woe to all involved if that memory isn't accurate. I'd rather my students have more time with activities that are reflective of their learning.

In a recent session of #edchat on Twitter the discussion topic was the Flipped Classroom. Some educators expressed concern over what a "flipped" classroom might auger for a brick-and-mortar school. In light of Ruhlman's thoughts I'm going to close by standing by an earlier tweet:

#flipclass will make physical schools irrelevant the same way that personal cooking has made restaurants irrelevant #edchat

It's time to get thinking about what ratios my students will learn and which ones I'll learn from them.

Starting to Flip

So no sooner is the school year over but it's time to begin planning things for the next one. The major challenge and opportunity is to flip my classroom. Next year one of my sections will be an on-going pilot of blending both traditional face-time curriculum and online curriculum. Here is an example of one of the videos I used to explain the concept to parents of prospective students:

My district has other intrepid teachers looking to embark on the path to a blended curriculum. In a workshop today I listened to some wonderful math teachers plan out how they would be engaging their students using this model. My mind kept coming back to Bloom's Taxonomy.

Specifically, the changes that have recently been made to Bloom's come to mind. The top of the pedagogical pyramid of thought used to be "Evaluation" or the judgement of products based on criteria.

Now, however the pyramid of Bloom's has been revised to something more like this:

Which in preparing to "flip" and "blend" my classroom has me thinking of the following questions:

• How can does one account for the "economy of focus" at work in most of today's students in regard to technology?
• How are the economics of technology access going to be addressed?
• How can technology be used to accurately check for understanding during the off-site learning process?
• What role do anticipatory sets and classroom activities take now in this model?

But I did catch two great quotes from the workshop coordinators.

The art of understanding something is different than the science of applying it.

and

Our motto with technology should be 'if you can think it, it's possible.'

I'm working with some good educators and I've got to keep thinking.

photo © 2006 LASZLO ILYES | more info (via: Wylio)

Jumping Back In

A great but chaotic school year is coming to a close for this writer. In the hopes of writing more this summer I'm attempting to switch-up my workflow using Blogsy on my iPad. This, in theory, should allow for more posts and less time spent on learning markdown coding while keeping the focus on transparency and learning. If this works, look for many more posts to follow.

photo © 2008 Sarah Scicluna | more info (via: Wylio)

Take-aways and Poetry

If you're not familiar with the unique music blog La Blogotheque it's worth a look. Often the staging of the performance presents both a unique challenge to the band playing all the while helping to expose some aspect of the song or performers. Bands like Throw Me the Statue perform on the back of a ferryboat or Arcade Fire performs on a double-decker bus. What matters is that the form is mirroring the content. Below is an example from Local Natives and it's got me thinking of how my students could do something like this when reading poetry...

<p>Local Natives | Who Knows Who Cares | A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.</p>

Moodle vs Personal Learning Networks

This is the kind of post that gets a writer in trouble in various educational circles.

"I don't like Moodle."

There, it's out in the open. It's not to say that one can't be successful with it; there's a colleague in my building that lives by it and the achievement scores that result are great. But a thought keeps rattling around in my mind:

Schools are only good at assessing school.

The original speaker of this escapes me, maybe it's Seth Godin or maybe it's Sir Ken Robinson. But that this is in any way true still devastates me. Remnants of this quote popped into my mind when hearing students talk about Moodle. In coversations with students they've indicated to me that discussions and commenting on Moodle can feel "fake" at times.

It's like it's trying to be Facebook for school.

Anyone who's worked with teenagers knows that there is a polygraph-like detection of condescension at any given moment. The student in the quote above was merely pointing out that they felt that Moodle was something from the adult, or school sphere that was trying desperately to mimic something from the real world. You know, the one that occurs outside of school.

Then there came the replies from my high-achieving students. These are students that are amazing; they're one of the best groups in recent memory in my building. They will go on to study in colleges on the coasts and are far more responsible at their age than I was. They struggled to tell me good things about Moodle. Their main complaint however, wasn't in content delivery or discussion. They didn't like how they had to go back through logins to various pages to keep checking for possible changes and assignments. I don't blame them.

Take a look at the myriad of tech-savvy people in business and education out there in the wide web. What are they using? Is it Moodle? No. There will be talk of Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) and Facebook, Twitter, or Google Reader. Now, after discussion with a colleague who's far wiser than I, it's clear that there are benefits and safety provided by Moodle's "walled garden" approach. It's a way of ensuring a controlled interaction environment. Yet it I go back to what my student said. My concern is the paradigm of information delivery.

Go log in to Facebook, Twitter, or your Google Reader account. What greets you? Why information! Every minutia of informational change that has occurred in your network since your last login is brought to your attention. The difference with Moodle is staggering. Students live in a time where there is an economy of focus. If as an educator, I want to connect to my students I have to justify why they should give their focus to interacting with me.

Maybe it's not so much a case of Moodle vs Facebook as it is one of Moodle vs PLNs? I'll have to talk with my students and see.

Sent from my iPad

Think-Aloud, 'Real Blogging' and Storify

In my reading of education blogs I keep coming back to the work of Will Richardson. One thing that has been a persistent mental irritant with no small measure of dissonance for me is Will's thoughts on how much of what bloggers do is, in fact, not really blogging. This list of what does/not constitute blogging resonates-

Posting assignments. (Not blogging)

Journaling, i.e. “This is what I did today.” (Not blogging)

Posting links (Not blogging)

Links with descriptive annotation, i.e. “This site is about…” (Not really blogging either, but getting close depending on the depth of the description.)

Links with analysis that gets into the meaning of the content being linked. (A simple form of blogging.)

Reflective, meta-cognitive writing on practice without links. (Complex writing, but simple blogging, I think. Commenting would probably fall in here somewhere.)

Links with analysis and synthesis that articulates a deeper understanding or relationship to the content being linked and written with potential audience response in mind. (Real blogging)

Extended analysis and synthesis over a longer period of time that builds on previous posts, links and comments. (Complex blogging)

And as my students begin their work reading "The Count of Monte Cristo" Will's list kept nagging at me. Then I thought "isn't a lot 'real blogging' just a Think-Aloud?" So in lieu of the usual pre-reading lists and worksheets my students are going to be blogging. Real blogging - but blogging as a Think-Aloud. 

Given that mimetics is at the heart of learning I thought that I'd try my own Think-Aloud with a recent article. The article is about how Death Valley is experiencing a rare occurrence - an outbreak of wildflowers. 

 

Right away images of the desert spring to mind with the mere mention of the name "Death Valley". The smell of wildflowers, dry winds, kalediscopic colors all flood the senses, but so do other texts. One I can't help but think of is the closing monologue of "25th Hour". While it's an amazing finish to a so-so film the use of the word "desert" always brings this scene to mind: 

From the opening lines of the article 

A rare burst of color is softening the stark landscape of Death Valley, with clusters of purple, pink and white wildflowers dotting the black basalt mountainsides and great swaths of golden blooms bordering the blinding white salt flats on the valley floor.

these connections just come given the idea of flowers springing from land that is otherwise dead. It also recalls T.S. Elliot's Wasteland and the opening stanza

APRIL is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

 

and while this poem connects to the processes at work in the article it also connects to my own experiences with poetry. Elliot's Wasteland was one of the first poems that I read and reread in high school. At the time I couldn't at gunpoint tell you why it was always around me, and even reading an article about wildflowers in Death Valley, the poem still haunts. 

The article isn't without moments of confusion though. In all of the amazing descriptions surrounding this phenomenon and all of the flowers listed, I had no idea what a "chia" was. Contextually, it was obviously a wildflower, but I couldn't even place a color to the flower. 

The other moment that I had trouble comprhending was the bit concerning the pools of water:

The recent storms have turned part of the salt pan around Badwater Basin — normally a brackish puddle a few inches deep — into a reflecting pool about five miles across. Kayakers and windsailers cut across the shallow, lifeless water. Other visitors wade in, only to emerge covered in a salt crust.

This is an engaging description but it's hard to fathom whether this pool became both deeper and wider, it must have to accomodate the windsailers and kayakers, but if it swelled to being miles across it just doesn't read correctly. 

I don't know how often I'll come back to this specific article, perhaps only as metaphor. But images and idea of life and color springing forth from the desert is compelling. Especially when the article closes with something so closely connected to T. S. Elliot 

"This isn't a wasteland," Muick said. "It will start looking empty when the flowers are gone, but there's life there at all times."

 

As a bonus here is my first attempt at using the webtool Storify. It's an interesting service and the features lent themselves well to the requirements of a Think-Aloud. 

 

 

 

 

Reigniting the Muse of Fire

It's been a tough week in my district with tragedy befalling our student body prior to an extended weekend coming up. While the shock is still something being processed, the students have been making good use of writing to work toward a sense of catharsis. Blogging, like writing, often offers the chance for reflection and thought. 

This video of a talk by Sir Ken Robinson is something that has this writer thinking about the future and what needs to be done in education. Sometimes in darkness it's incumbent upon us to ignite something if no other illumination can be found. This video is something that's shining a light for me. It's Sir Ken Robinson being given the RSA Animation treatment. 

Socratic Circles and Backchanneling v.1.0

My classes have gained experience in the use of Socratic Circles this year. The basic formula for that activity is one of the following:

students first read a passage critically and then form two concentric circles. First, the inner circle examines and discusses the text and the second circle comments on the quality of the dialogue. Then, the two circles switch places and roles, and the process is repeated with the new ideas from a new circle. The outer circle is required to remain quiet while the inner circle reacts and dialogues, and conversely, the inner circle must listen quietly to the outer circle’s evaluation of their conversation.

One new feature we are experimenting with is the use of backchanneling. One backchanneling that's been a part of this experimentation is Today's Meet. Today's Meet gives their own basic definition of  backchanneling as:

The backchannel is everything going on in the room that isn't coming from the presenter.

The backchannel is where people ask each other questions, pass notes, get distracted, and give you the most immediate feedback you'll ever get.

The procedure is now altered to one of:

1. Group the class into two circles.
2. The Inner Circle speaks first using Socratic questioning methods.
3. The Outer Circle backchannels using Today's Meet while the Inner Circle discusses.
4. Time is called and the transcript of the backchannel is turned into a word cloud for analysis.
5. The Inner Circle's work is evaluated while new topics are generated from the evaluation and word cloud.
6. The circles switch and the new circles have their respective discussions and backchannel sessions.

So here is an example of Socratic Circles at work with students discussing the first part of "The Odyssey".

 

Here is the transcript of the backchannel from that session. Below is the word cloud generated from the backchannel session:

 

"Telemachia"
Click on the link above to see this word cloud at WordItOut. You may also view it on this website if you enable JavaScript (see your web browser settings).

Word cloud made with WordItOut

Mr. Smith's Class and 21st Century Teaching

Flipping the Paradigm of Homework

Writer Daniel Pink's article for the Telegraph has been making the rounds in various educational circles. In the article Pink first presents what has been the traditional model of education in the U.S. for the better part of the 20th century- 

During class time, the teacher will stand at the front of the room and hold forth on the day’s topic. Then, as the period ends, he or she will give students a clutch of work to do at home. Lectures in the day, homework at night. It was ever thus and ever shall be.

The article goes on to detail what Karl Fisch, a teacher in Denver, Colorado is doing to change this paradigm. 

However, instead of lecturing about polynomials and exponents during class time – and then giving his young charges 30 problems to work on at home – Fisch has flipped the sequence. He’s recorded his lectures on video and uploaded them to YouTube for his 28 students to watch at home. Then, in class, he works with students as they solve problems and experiment with the concepts. 

After reading Pink's article and the thoughts of marketing researchers like Seth Godin it's an idea that has merit. But first I'm going to put the question to my students and to all readers. 

Daniel Pink's full article on "Flip Thinking"

Complete the survey on "Flip Thinking" if you'd like to share your opinion. 

Sharing Reconciliation with the People Formerly Known as the Audience

Lately there have been a few words that have become ubiquitous in media discussions of education. That's right: standards and data are everywhere when education comes up as a topic. Everything in education is either "standards-based" or "data-driven" no matter what the topic is. Whether it's the adoption of a new set of standards or a supposedly well-intended instance of agitation, in education the words 'standards' and 'data' manage to resurface often. But in being given this opportunity to guest blog, the word that haunted the build-up toward approaching the topic of reconciling standards and 21st century learning was not standards but data. In a fit of 21st century research it can be found that data is defined as 

–noun

1.

a pl. of datum.

2.

(used with a plural verb) individual facts, statistics, or items of information: These data represent 

the results of our analyses. Data are entered by terminal for immediate  processing by the computer.

3.

(used with a singular verb) a body of facts; information: Additional data is 

available from the president of the firm.

In all of the angst that surrounds the lemming rush of educational systems surging to become standard-based data-driven entities the definition of data gains new importance.  If data is simply a set of items of information, educators need to keep this fact in mind when the word 'standard' is wielded as a weapon. It is this writer's fervent belief that educators everywhere really are doing good work with students every day. What has been lacking has been a succinct way to communicate this fact. Cynicism aside, testing and the use of data has arisen as a part of the problem that education wants for ways to articulate what it does. In the midst of heated editorial pages and town-hall levy meetings achievement testing has become a baleful blade possessed of precious few handles. But how much do those strident voices demanding accountability even know about what is on those tests? 

The debate surrounding accountability and standards is often presented within a frame of binary solutions when what is truly needed is reconciliation. Wanting more for students is no more wrong than wanting a real assessment of learning. If education is to move forward and repair relationships with all stakeholders it must be with a sense of reconciliation. As Daniel Pink shows us, some surprising things can be learned from data particularly in relation to motivation. 

But if the tests used to derive the data only reward lower-order thinking how can education survive when its very funding is tied to what some consider to be the antithesis of higher-order thinking? The answer lies within the word 'data'. If data is a body of facts, education must use standards as a basis of learning not as a myopic and duplicitous lens. Data is present in everything education does. Data does not stop with a test score. But then how is the picture to be properly painted to all involved? How can accountability, standards, and the need for 21st Century skills be reconciled for all involved? 

The roots of this repair are present within the very 21st Century skills that are required by a shifting modern world. In the book "Cognitive Surplus" author Clay Shirky calls digital media users "the people formerly known as the audience" because 

When you buy a machine that lets you consume digital content, you also buy a machine to produce it. 

The binary distinction of student and teacher loses focus in the context of 21st Century technology and skills. If education is to repair the schism between 21st Century skills and standards-based education it must come through the sharing of data. The items of information for such sharing can come from the activities already going on in classrooms today. Data doesn't have to come from a one-shot testing window; data can come from qualitative learning experiences that still use educational standards. But such sharing will require a change on the part of educators. 

If educators are to reconcile educational standards in the context of a 21st century world, the "four walls syndrome" must cease. The times of saying that "<insert educational initiative name here> is just a fad" and will pass must become the past. No more closing the doors to the world and teaching within one set of four walls. To begin this reconciliation educators don't have to be Scott McLeod, or Shelly Terrell, or Will Richardson. Your school doesn't need to be on a laptop initiative or have a seamless online class management system. Use your cellphone to record a great student discussion, create a Facebook page for a class, have students concoct a Twitter hashtag to conduct larger discussion, or join a PLN yourself. But educators must share what is going on in their classroom with all stakeholders within the community and world around them. Isolation cannot be the default for those that feel educational data selection is subjective. Karl Fisch and others are taking steps to change educational paradigms; all you need to do is start to share the good that you do. Share this reconciliation of education with the people formerly known as the audience. 

Starting an "Odyssey" in the Answer Garden

Today students begin reading "The Odyssey" by Homer. The pre-reading will include reviewing a summary of the text and then researching the names they find to determine if they are indeed deities in the text. After that the deity names need to be entered into the Answer Garden below.

 

 

Which Greek Gods and Goddesses are present in "The Odyssey"?... at AnswerGarden.ch.

Choose to Begin - Student Blogging Pt. 1

In the aim to simultaneously listen to what my students are asking for in writing instruction while allowing student choice, I have decided to move toward the use of student blogging. In earlier classwork students have expressed both an interest in multiple forms of writing and a value of choice, but also a pointed lack of experience in blogging beyond merely reading them. The hope then is to have instruction become paired with choice. In my own process of starting to blog the following Common Craft video provided a 'refresher' on what the basics of blogging are. 

The goal is to have students choose the way that they begin sharing their voice; something that is most likely tragically unique in the educational experience. To paraphrase a favorite poem of mine, I'd like for my students to choose to dare to disturb the universe, to choose to begin finding and sharing their voice. While any of the tutorial links below will provide a serviceable platform, I want them to find one that's more than merely serviceable - I want it to be theirs. And while we will both review the process outlined in Konrad Glogowski's great post on growing your blog, it's my hope that in coming up with their own metaphor they own their process and find voice. 

Some Possible Platforms

Blogger 

WordPress

Tumblr

Posterous

Socratic Circles - First Draft

Here are some of the highlights from my Honors English 9 sections during their first Socratic Circles discussions. The first time out of the gate is always difficult; will anyone speak, will the format seem too strange, etc. That was not the case with these discussions. While there was some ebb and flow it was as promising a beginning as I can think of. There will need to be some remediation on filming and volume levels, but my advice is use some headphones and take in the good work that these students are doing. 

Download now or watch on posterous

SocraticCircle091010.mov (52724 KB)

The Upside-down Syllabus Pt. 2

Yesterday's work was aimed at creating some "free write" beginnings for the class syllabus, but instead resulted in an interesting social experiment on anonymity, human behavior, and Google Docs. Yes, it will be the subject of a future post once the video is edited...

For now the YouTube video below will be the starter text used in conjunction with classwork thus far in the first Socratic Circle Discussion being held Friday. Enjoy.

Student Surveys & the Upside-down Syllabus

Right away it should be known that credit for this post should be attributed to an idea that stems from a post & tweet read from Shelly Blake-Plock over at the excellent Teach Paperless blog. Here is the spark-point:

I'm making it a goal next year to not plan out my courses until I've first met my students. 

How many schools started this year with teachers walking through a syllabus while students feigned interest? More than this writer is comfortable with. So what was to be done? 

Today students reviewed a basic noun/verb/modifier summarization strategy and first applied it in a walkthrough with short, but fine TED talk by Richard St. John. Then came the real juice. For the last day of school all of my Honors English 9 students made short videos giving advice to their 2010-11 counterparts. While watching the video of their predecessors students then applied the aforementioned summarization strategy. After viewing students then entered their work into a combined interest inventory and summary sheet created in Google Docs. 

Tomorrow's work will take the results of this survey into the online tool Wallwisher. But first a bit of visualisation is needed. In a process outlined wonderfully over at Teacher Reboot Camp the results from the survey will become the basis of an interactive cloud via Tagul.

Here's one for the question "What nouns/things stood out to you from the video?"

 

This cloud is for the "Stand-out Verbs" question. 

 

The modifiers - 

 

With an interesting look at social media use to close: