// Langwitches Blog

We are trying to teach our students 21st Century skills and  prepare them for a world with job descriptions “we can’t even imagine yet”. You have heard this over and over again.

How come we continue to support our teachers in their own learning (through Professional Development) with the same tools and skills than educators from the 60s, 70s , 80s or 90s? We can’t just throw up a PowerPoint presentation or a SmartBoard in front of the room and call that PD of the 21 Century.

How can we expect them to upgrade their teaching if we don’t allow them to experience their own learning through a 21st Century lens?

If we, like Sir Ken Robinson call for a Learning Revolution, then this MUST include a learning revolution for teachers as well.

The way teachers learn,  directly impacts the way they teach their students.

Practice what we preach

As Professional Development providers, we must practice with our students (in this case the teachers are our students) what we preach. We need to find ways to upgrade our presentations (see my Presentation21 Make-Over) and workshops and provide our “teachers” with:

• authentic ways to try out tools
• experience collaborative & connected learning
• reflect on their learning process and how it could relate to their teaching

In order to do just that, I was able to arrange an opportunity for our faculty to be part of a Skype call with Heidi Hayes Jacobs, author of “Curriculum21- Education for a Changing World (ASCD, 2010). The book was the assigned summer reading title at our school. Questions related to different chapters were posted over the summer on our School PD Ning for guidance and encourage discussion.

Heidi Hayes Jacobs

During pre-planning week, teachers had a chance to discuss the book and its application in our school further. The following day we were thrilled to be able to have Heidi Hayes Jacobs “with us” virtually.

Introducing our School

Asking Questions

A few teachers had specific questions from the book or how the concept of Curriculum21, assessment and upgrade applied to our school or their subject area.

Collaboratively writing on Google Doc

In order to model the use of collaboration tool, we set up a shared Google Doc to collaborate with. Different teachers were assigned  to be the scribes in order to take notes for one of three columns:

1. Essential Education
2. Application for our school
3. Web resources and links

Editing Notes on Google Docs

The resulting word document with notes and resource links was now available for all the faculty to review in their own time.

Curriculum21- Skype with Heidi Hayes Jacobs

The following video clip (19 minutes) is a synopsis of our conversation.

Curriculum21- Professional Development with Heidi Hayes Jacobs from langwitches on Vimeo.

Being able to…

• bring in a subject area expert (virtually)
• model a communication tool such as Skype (including the hick-ups of a dropped call)
• collaboratively write notes
• document with images and video the connection
• share publicly the documentation to allow review and encourage reflection

… is modeling the kind of skills and learning  during Professional Development that we would like the teachers to take back to their classrooms and “translate” into their own teaching.

What are some examples you can share about practicing/modeling what you preach during Professional Development for your teachers?

With the wonderful small, but high quality, Flip Video cameras (and similar brands), it has become affordable (around US$ 150) to bring video production into the classroom.

"Flip it" Open and plug into USB Port

The camera is light, handy AND sturdy that even a Kindergartener can use it to show the world their perspective.

Videographer Job

A great way of making students part of a learning community, giving them ownership, creating and providing digital output to share “the inside of the classroom” with the world is by giving kids regular jobs, such as being the “official” videographer.

Documenting Classroom Learning

We have started handing the Flip camera increasingly over to the students, making it a specific classroom job to record Skype calls, record content tutorials or film a skit, presentation or story. After the footage was recorded, I usually took the raw material and started to edit, upload and share a final movie. Although I enjoy editing and creating these final movies, it takes a LOOOOOONG time.

Alan November’s question “Do you want your students to work more than you do?” rings in my ear. We need to start handing over the film editing job to our students.

Not only do we want them taking more ownership and learning the tech skills of editing, in addition to summarizing and reviewing content.

I recently edited an hour Skype recording between our faculty and Heidi Hayes Jacobs down to under 20 minutes. The experience, although it took me many hours to complete, contributed in many ways to a deeper learning than simply having “attended” and participated in the live conference call. I reviewed, summarized, decided which parts to cut, and which parts would be included in the final clip. Why not give students the same opportunity of creating learning?

Mathew Needleman, in the  a K12 Online 2008 Presentation Film School for Video Podcasters, also points out other benefits of involving students in movie production

• including decision making skills about shots and composition
• making our students aware how others are using them to make a point.

He talks about kids having to learn to understand the media messages that are being thrown at them.  Critical thinking evolves out of figuring out why other have chosen to use certain shots and compositions to make their point and why.

Here are a few tips & tricks for your students as they take over being the film directors in your classroom:

1. Hold the camera with two hands to keep it steady
   1. You might want to lean against a wall, desk or chair
   2. Slow paning (movement or rotation of the camera)
2. Wait a few seconds after pressing the “record” button to start speaking.
3. The microphone is on the camera.
   1. Stay close to the source of the sound.
   2. Be conscious of the noise going on in the background.
4. Take short clips
   1. Avoid running the camera for several minutes at a time.
   2. Try to have “logical” breaks between clips: a new question, new topic
5. Take both close ups as well as “panorama” shots.
   1. Move in and out to achieve close ups and far away shots.
   2. Try not to use the zoom, it makes the footage look fuzzy.
6. Don’t film against a sunny window
7. Know what is in your background
   1. Make sure there are no other groups of students shooting in your background
   2. Don’t film a distracting background
8. Don’t include students who do not have media release permission.
9. Don’t identify students by filming something with their first and last name on it.

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  ut reading and writing, like all technologies, are dynamic. In ancient times, authors often dictated their books. Dictation sounded like an uninterrupted series of letters, so scribes wrote down the letters in one long continuous string, justastheyoccurinspeech. Text was written without spaces between words until the 11th century. This continuous script made books hard to read, so only a few people were accomplished at reading them aloud to others.
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I have had the pleasure of working with the Kauai Pacific School and Martin J. Gottlieb Day School faculty this past month in getting started with classroom blogs. The familiarity of reading and writing in a blog platform varies tremendously. I found it very helpful to start out with a brief overview of the architecture and vocabulary of a blog.

Establishing common vocabulary

As I am continuing to support individual teachers and administrators in getting started with creating and maintaining their classroom or their own professional blog, it was time to create a comprehensive How-To-Guide.

You can directly download the entire How-To-Guide- Getting to Know Your Blog here as a .pdf file.

A Step by Step Guide on how to:

• login to your Dashboard
• add a post
• add a page
• edit a post or a page
• add and organize links
• add and arrange widgets on your sidebar
• insert images

on your WordPress platform based blog.

Difference between POSTS & PAGES
(from WordPress Support)

Posts

Pages

Login to your Dashboard

After you click “login” on your blog (usually the link is located on the bottom of your SideBar,

you will be directed to the following screen. Enter your Username and Password given to you by your administrator/ webmaster. In my current school, it is customary to have “firstname.lastname” as the username. This may be different in other schools.

The Dashboard

Once logged in, you will be taken automatically to your Dashboard.
This is where you will make any changes to your blog.

All About Posts

Take a look at the left sidebar of your Dashboard for “Posts”. Click on the upside down triangle next to “Posts” in order to see more options.

All About Pages

Take a look at the left sidebar of your Dashboard for “Pages”. Click on the upside down triangle next to “Pages” in order to see more options.

4 Steps to Writing a POST

4 Steps to Writing a PAGE

Editing a Post or Page

If you are in need of editing an already published post/page or a draft post/page, in the sidebar of you dashboard, click “Posts” or “Pages”.

Add and Organize Links

Take a look at the left sidebar of your Dashboard for “Links”. Click on the upside down triangle next to “Links” in order to see more options.

4 Steps to Adding a Link

Add and Arrange Widgets in your SideBar.

Each widget represents a different TITLE in Your SideBar.

Inserting an Image

In order to insert an image into a blog post or page, add or edit a post (or page). Make sure you insert your cursor at the point in your post (or page) you want the image to appear.

The image will be uploaded to the Media Library of your blog. Make sure that the image is not too large. It is a good idea to resize larger images (that came directly from your digital camera) BEFORE you upload them to your blog.

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What does it mean to be literate? I am asking myself this question more frequently lately.

Does being literate mean the same for this class?

School Class in 1912- Image licensed under Creative Commons by HistoricBeaverton

Image by Historic Beverton

than for this class?

Graduating Class 1986

or this class?

Class of 2022 ~ Image licensed under Creative Commons by Melanie Holtsman

image by holtsman

The official definition from the dictionary defines “to be literate” as:

able to read and write

There is change in the air though.

Being able to read and write seems to remain as the same definition. What is changing, at a rapid speed though, is the medium we are reading in and writing with.

No longer is reading a handwritten letter or note, a printed sheet of paper, a poster, a telephone book, a newspaper, a magazine or a book the only medium of communicating information. Since having access to the Internet has become mainstream over 10 years ago, being able to find and read a website has expanded the notion of what it means to be “able to read”. New forms of media are being developed and are allowing us to take information in , to be able to “read” in new shapes and forms. With the beginning of web 2.0, the shift from simply consuming (reading) information/content to having the ability of producing (writing) information and content has now expanded the notion of writing as well.

The options, that are available to us humans, to communicate in another form, other than speaking verbally to someone face to face, has exponentially grown in the last 5 years. Being able to expand the reach of our communication has opened up opportunities that have not existed before in history.

So, what does that mean for the initial question of this blog post:

What does it mean to be literate?

I have written often on this blog,  how I see the concept of “Literacy” changing & expanding. I am reminded of the Norwegian video clip about the Medieval Help Desk, when one monk explains to another how to use, this new way of reading text, called a book. The monk had tremendous difficulty in grasping the concept of the book, compared to the scrolls he was used to until then.

What if that monk would have thrown the towel in and refused to become comfortable with the new form of reading and writing? Would he still be considered literate in an era where information and learning is mostly transmitted in a form of a book? What about his job, as a scribe of the church, to write on the scrolls? Would it soon become irrelevant?

As I have been busy in the last few months with workshops about “Blogging with Students“, I am realizing that we can’t just assume that every teacher is web “literate”. Before we start talking about how blogging can support 21st Century skills for your students, we need to step back and make sure that the teachers are literate (enough) to be able to read and write through this medium called a blog!

We need to start out by establishing a common vocabulary base and understanding how printed material differs from digital content. I ask teachers to start reading, reading, reading other blogs before attempting to blog with their own students. Basics, such as knowing how to search for blogs, recognize blog structures, searching within blogs, and experiencing the “mechanics” of how a blog platform operates are important “pre-reading and pre-writing” skills.

Establishing common vocabulary

In addition to establishing common vocabulary, we also need to start a conversation about the importance to go beyond the traditional teaching of the traditional communication methods of reading and writing  (through books and with paper) that still dominates in most of our schools. Otherwise our teachers and students will be like the monk in the movie clip above…being left “illiterate”.

I would like to recommend the following book by Alan November titled Web Literacy for Educators. It is a wonderful resource in the process of  becoming web literate. It goes beyond the basics and talks about being able to “read” and “write” as a researcher, understanding the grammar and being able to decode the structure of the web towards pushing us to being critical thinkers in a an online digital world.

by Alan November

Below you will find my notes as I was reading Alan’s book, taken with iThoughsHD Mindmapping app.

Click to see larger version

A new school year has started for us here in the Northern Hemisphere. We are off to a fantastic start. I am working with our 5th grade teacher and class on their Christopher Columbus Social Studies unit.

Cristobal Colon

We are looking to involve students in researching the historic figure from different perspectives in order to put together a more accurate view of the “hero-fied” persona he has been portrayed as in many textbooks in the USA.

To this end, we would like to skype with “experts” from different countries and backgrounds who could tell us a little bit about what their perception of Christopher Columbus is. What have they been taught in school or at the university about the “Discoverer of the Americas”? Do you celebrate “Columbus Day” , “Dia de la Raza” or “Dia de la Hispanidad” in October? What does your textbook say?

We would be interested in skyping with educators at the elementary school, middle school, high school or university level as well as entire school classes to put together different perspectives.

If you have a different perspective, please contribute to our learning. Leave a comment here on this post, contact me via the form or Tweet me to let me know you would be interested in participating.

The actual Skype call should not last longer than 5 minutes and we would send you specific questions ahead of time.

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