Musings on an Autumn Day

Welcome to Fall! Or Autumn! Or Harvest! Or whatever we choose to call it.  With so many names, how could it not be your favorite time of the year?

My lovely wife, bless her heart, tells me that I am not the most positive person at times...I like to say I am "particular", but po-tay-toes/po-tah-toes.

Oddly enough, Autumn is the time of year to which I actually look forward and I thought I would share some of that joy.


Harvest

Robert Frost has always been one of my favorite poets (along with Whitman, Browning and William Carlos Williams).  He speaks to the seasons like no other writer:

GATHERING LEAVES

 

Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons
I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.
But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.
I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?
Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.
Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who's to say where
The harvest shall stop?

Every school year starts the same...we try to put together all the good ideas, memories, things that didn't work so well last year, new initiatives...all the "leaves"...into a our practices for this year.  This summer seemed particularly overwhelming.  Frost's poem really reflects the whimsical, unending, hysteria of organizing our professional lives as educators..."the mountains I raise/elude my embrace."

Every Leaf is Gold

Jim Bishop speaks to our "leaf piles" much better:

“Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons.”  

Look back over your spring and summer in which I know all of you worked...at school, at home, at conferences and workshops...you have collected more gold, more value than you may yet realize.   These nuggets of wisdom, knowledge or skills pay dividends in the months to come.   

Now that we are one month in to the year, the kids have settled down and we are starting to "hunker" down to the long road ahead, please don't forget the importance of our fall harvest:

“Love the trees until their leaves fall off, then encourage them to try again next year.”  

Finally, I think this piece of Autumnal wisdom might be the most important for working with kids in schools, sports or at home.

Un-Google Tip of the Week

A Google Form is an incredibly powerful tool for collecting and organizing data.  Through the simple act of creating an online form, you can gather data into a spreadsheet, then apply formulas and other data analysis tools to process and manipulate your results.  Great uses of Google forms include:

• Surveys
• Entry/Exit tickets
• Quizzes or "refreshers"
• Planning and event scheduling
• Homework guided study
• Others?

There are so many ideas currently floating out there, other educators and tech sites have begun compiling lists.  I would certainly hate to steal their thunder or re-invent the wheel.

HOWEVER...

Google Forms do not include the option for attaching or uploading a file as part of a response.  Why would I want to do this?

Imagine for a minute, you have a beautifully crafted test in which you want to collect an essay or a sample of student writing.  With Google Forms, the student essay will be forced into one cell on a spreadsheet sans formatting, nuances of the English language, rhythm and meter.   Probably not the best option.

I found another online form maker (you mean...it's not Google?) called JotForm.  JotForm is amazingly easy to use and customize your forms with more options than Google Forms and a clean, professional look.  The free account allows for 10MB of collected data or 100 user responses.  It uses similar types of questions as Google forms (text, checkbox, etc...)

The cool things about JotForm, however, are the upgraded survey tools (slider bar, spinner, thumbs up/down, grading form), captcha/password and other security measures and the ability to upload files as part of the survey.  The uploaded files can be synced to your dropbox account for easy access from any device and to maximize your storage space.  Pretty slick really.

Why would I want to do this:

• Collecting writing samples are part of an example...remember the old "blue books" from college?
• Collecting writing samples for scholarships...the form will collect the major data and the file upload collects the writing sample.  From Dropbox, you can share the samples with other scholarship reviewers.
• Homework assignments with multiple types of question formats.
• Others?

JotForms are able to be embedded on Google Sites and most other types of websites as well.  I am currently in the review stage for JotForm...I'll let you know how it goes...positive so far.

I always try to remember the motto:  "One device (or website), multiple uses."

Crowd-sourcing Your Classroom (Google Tip #3)

"Crowd-sourcing" as it is becoming defined is really a means to increase interactivity and participation by all participants.  It is the idea that the "crowd" (i.e. audience, students, etc...) have meaningful contributions to add to the discussion while the discussion is going on.

At conferences I have been attending lately, Twitter has been the back channel of choice for making comments, asking questions, or sharing information.  Normally, adding the hashtag (#wemta2012, for example) for the event aggregates all the relevant comments.  

For your classroom, however, where Twitter is generally not available to students, I highly recommend trying Google Moderator.

President Obama used Moderator for Open Questions and Answers

As an instructor, you set up a series of questions from the general to the specific and your students are able to make comments and ask questions in real-time...even during class-time.  The normal question I get from teachers is "Isn't this distracting?"  

Well...no.

What do you do when you get lost during a lesson, miss a key piece of information...You ask your neighbor.  This is more distracting because it involves more than just you, as well as drawing the ire of the presenter or teacher.  With the opportunity to "post" your question to Moderator DURING the lesson, it allows other students or the instructor to go over the question immediately without disturbance.

The other awesome benefit of Moderator is that it allows participants to "vote" on other people's questions. Unlike Survivor, the most voted-for questions go to the top (American Idol, right?).  This helps prioritize Q&A sessions, information that needs to be reviewed or concepts misunderstood.

Possible Uses:

• Back channel during instructional times/lectures
• Questions for clarification after reading, either in class or at home.  Literature circles, whole-class readings, readings for further information...this is an excellent chance for students to post follow-up details and questions as well as prioritize.
• Use a Flipped Classroom model and have students generate questions from their reading/instructional lessons (e.g. Khan videos, etc...).  This will drive your agenda for the following day.
• So many others...

Here is a sample to check out PLUS the responses.

Google Moderator is also iPad friendly...as are all Google Products.

The Coffee Klatsch or How to Feed My Addictions

Everyone who knows me will understand it when I say I am addicted to two things...reading and coffee.

Coffee

I view my Starbuck Decaf Grande Americano as the saving grace of my morning.  (Yes, decaf as part of my Detox-GetIntoShape-GetALife endeavors)  To say "addiction" is a bit of an understatement, but let me  rationalize for a minute.  The morning coffee represents so much more than just a hot, "makes-me-feel-lovely" beverage to get the day going.

The true benefit is the Coffee Klatsch experience.  What is a better time of the day to have a conversation with a colleague/peer than over a coffee?

I am a big believer in "destress" time, or designated time to reconnect and enjoy each other's company as well as discuss "work" in more informal settings.  This same holds true for students.

I even have a list of conversation starters for these informal times:

1. The classic...How was your weekend?
2. The roller coaster...How bout them Packers?
3. The literary...Did you read (insert title)?  [Word of warning...Fifty Shades of Grey]
4. The most important...How much do you love your library media specialist?
5. The brown-noser...What are we getting the principal for Bosses Day?  OR,  Isn't Mr. Pendleton your favorite teacher?

Reading

I certainly don't want to seem to be complaining overly, but we (myself included) consistently complain about students (or my own children) not reading enough.  But the real question for me as I travel from district to district and talk with parents is do we really encourage reading and allow enough time in our busy schedules for leisure reading as an activity?  Do we allow enough informal time during the school day to read for enjoyment?

I am more guilty than most.  Of my four boys, only the youngest reads enough and only because he hangs out with Grandma in the morning.  Our nights are filled with football and basketball practices, our weekends with football games and basketball tournaments.  I can foresee, and know through experience, that students hit middle school and fostering reading becomes even more challenging.

Here's my suggestion...Let's turn our school libraries into coffee houses, combining two of the greatest leisure activities.  Funny thing is there are schools actually doing just that.  I do have my reasons other than great coffee, however:

• Time to reconnect...either with a book or with friends in a safe environment.  School doesn't need to be a cinder-block wall classroom painted mint green.
• It's all about the atmosphere.  Create an atmosphere and an "experience" and people will want to come back.
• The library will function as more than just a place to hold books or research.  Offer live music, poetry readings or performance art and see how popular the library will become.
• Information is not confined in books like it used to be.  Libraries have much less need for physical materials and much more need for free wireless, access to ebooks and online services.  We can do this.
• The library as the hub of the school...make it interesting!

I have seen far too many "dead" libraries in my travels recently.  My profession is changing, education is changing, technology is changing...libraries (and how we as media specialists and teachers) MUST change.

Google Wassailing (Tip of the Week)

I received a text from a friend the other day...or rather my wife received a text and I read it on her iphone (avoid giving your unlock code to nosy spouses)...that Shopko had Christmas trees up already.  I can only assume the texter meant the artificial ones inside the store.

I did the classic double take.  Christmas trees?  (add classic texter language here)

Gets me in the mood for wassailing, however.  Wassailing is an age old custom of caroling.  One of the first uses for wassailing was called apple wassailing, or singing to your apple trees so they would grow more fruit...talking to your plants.  I thought I would Google wassail for you in this post...sing to Google to make your knowledge grow. 

Tip of the Week


One of my favorite Google tools is the calendar...as you can tell from my last tip.  If you create an event on one of your calendars using the "Edit Event" entry method.

On the right side of the screen, there is

Add: Guests

You can enter email address of anyone you would like to invite to your event/meeting.  They will receive a notification in their inbox and be able to reply Yes/No/Maybe.  When you click on the event on your calendar, you will be able to view the attendees (yes, no, or maybe).

This is an easy and efficient way to organize events and meetings (e.g. IEPs, staff meetings, etc...) without sending the traditional all-school email or paper notice (did I just say "paper"?).

Google Tip of the Week

This year, I am starting a new section of the blog with a Google tip for this week.  Some are old hat, but favorites, some are efficient time-savers, and some are just plain cool.  Today's is a bit of all three.

Adding Weather to your Google calendar:

1. Open your calendar and click on "Settings"...if you are unfamiliar with settings, it is the "cog" on the right side of the screen.
2. This will take you to the general calendar settings.
3. Scroll down and enter your location in the appropriate box.
4. Select Fahrenheit next to "Show Weather Based On My Location"
5. Click Save at the bottom.

The weather icon will appear above your agenda for the day.  Click on it to get more information or click on your city to get the entire Google Weather package!

After a long hiatus...

I have to apologize for the long blogging "hiatus".  Having spent the last month pouring over common core standards, ITLS standards, professional development workshops, I was overloaded with information and ideas.  

Which brings me to my point today.  I was recently working with a group of children (not students since school was not in session!) looking for information on a variety of topics online.  They used high quality keywords to get some excellent search results using Google.  As I scanned the first several results pages I thought the results were excellent...

Unfortunately the kids didn't.  I am sure you know why.

My epiphany that day, which I should have had earlier in my career, is that the same problem exists today that existed when computers/Internet first became fashionable in schools--our new generation of "Digital Natives" as Marc Prensky calls them, can use the tools to find and display information, but still have trouble evaluating the information.  Compounded with information OVERLOAD, this is a serious problem.

Our children and students are digital natives without question.  They can pick up and use virtually any device intuitively, figure out how apps work and even WHY and WHEN to use certain apps, work collaboratively with their peers in ways that I could not have even imagined when I was in school (Google docs, Skype, etc...), and present/demonstrate their skills using such a variety of technology tools (think iMovie).  But as "digital immigrants" (Prensky again), we have a distinct advantage garnered from the days of having to use actual books for research, having to go to multiple libraries to find these books, and having to scan or read the acquired books--we can decipher important from non-essential information.

Now I am not calling for a return to book research...those of you who know me well would LOL if I said that.  What I am calling for is a more dedicated effort, across the scope of our school, to provide more opportunities for problem-solving and inquiry-based approaches to teaching and learning in which the teacher is facilitator and "guidance" counselor and in which the "problems" take time to evaluate and solve.

This is THE 21st Century skill.