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Awakening Possibilities
For the second year in a row, MANACE, the Manitoba Association of Computing Educators is sponsoring a bloggercon of sorts the night before the Special Area Group conferences.
This year's theme, Awakening Possibilities is challenging us in five minutes to make a difference.
Presenters from across the province and around the globe. 5 minutes only.
Last year's gathering was a great success with about fifty people attending to spend some time together. It doesn't matter if you're a blogger or not, as long as you are an educator interested in using technology in your learning and with your students, this is the evening for you.
Who: You of course...
Where: Room P107 Red River College Princess Street Campus
When: Thursday, November 27th 7 - 9 PM
Why: hear some great people from around globe talk about technology in only 5 minutes, have a chance to talk with some geeky educators just like you...... and.... oh yeah..... there will be a bar too.
How: It's all free. Just email Andy McKiel at andy@mckiel.ca to let him know you're coming.
Sunday morning. Up at just after 5 AM, not able to sleep. But of course I open up my laptop and find people all over the world that are talking. Spreading out their ideas or sharing something, anything new.
This week I learned in a very concrete way that all of these people - you people - are real. Over the last several years I've been fortunate to meet many people in my network, forming some deep friendships. But this week I've also learned the kindness and compassion of people.
Last Saturday we found out that Barbara Barreda had lost her home in the fires raging through Los Angeles. Jen Wagner and I decided to call for donations for her since she had nothing; only what was thrown in her car. We posted on our blogs and emailed a few people. By the end of the first day we had several hundred dollars, within twenty four hours this number was almost two thousand dollars. And now, a week later, we were able to send Barbara a cheque for $3 784. While a few people gave fairly significant amounts, many of these donations came in the $20 - $40 range. But we had over 100 people donate and of course, every little bit helps and adds up.
This is just one of those things that would not have been possible before the internet. There is no way that we could have worked together to collect money like this to help someone. I think it shows that we are a network, but we are also a caring community that can pull together when we need to.
Below is the list of people who have donated money. Several people have also requested to remian anonymous and their contributions are no less valuable. We want to thank everyone for their money, their time, their thoughts and prayers; these count too. And of course, donations are still being accepted. If you did not have an opportunity to give and still want to, please do so and we will pass all of the donations along.
In the end, all I can say is simply: thank you.
Adina Sullivan
Alan Lutz
Alex Ragone
Alice Barr
Anita Brady
Ann Oro
Anne Truger
Annelise Woitulewicz
Arvind Grover
Beth Adamczyk
Bob Cotter
Brenda Muench
Carla Beard
Charles Roy
Cheryl Capozzoli
Chris Walsh
Christine Hellyer
Christopher Bradley
Christopher Harris
Christopher Keogh
Christopher Lehmann
Clarence Fisher
Colin Becker
Cynthia Marston
Dane Conrad
Dean Shareski
Debra Cotter
Dennis Grice
Diamond M Engineering, LLC
Diana Kenney
Dori Friedman
Elizabeth Bleich Davis
Elizabeth Holmes
Elizabeth Still
Fran Ruth
Grundy Benjamin
Henry Thiele
Janice Stearns
Janna Chiang
Jason Wright
jean woodward
Jedidiah Tate
Jeffrey Utecht
Jeremy Stiffler
Jill Berkowicz
John Batey
John Toomey
Joquetta Johnson
Joyce Valenza
Judith Wolf
Karen Henke
Karen Richardson
Karl Fisch
Kathleen Klingensmith
Kathleen McNamara
Kathy Shields
Kelley Connolly
Kern Kelley
Kevin Honeycutt
Kevin Willson
Kim Breuninger
Kristen Vassos
Lee Kolbert
Linda Davenport
Lisa Durff
Lucy Gray
Marc Helfand
Margarita Vidal Hammer
Marian Thacher
Mary Linn
Colleen King
Matthew Stark
Misty O'Connor
MKAT Enterprises
Nanci B Greene
Patricia Rosen
Patrick Higgins, Jr
Paul Wood
Paula Galland
Peggy George
Penny Lindballe
R Hurley
Richard Barth
Samantha Morra
Sammy Beam
Shannon McNeice
Sharon Betts
Sharon Peters
Sharon Elin
Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
Sinclair Mackenzie
Stephen Taffee
Steve Hargadon
Susan Sedro
Susan Young
Theodore Shatagin
Theresa Zanatta
Thomas Welch
Virginia Paisie
Jennifer Wagner
Bruce Crabtree
Vincent Vrotny
Clarence Fisher's class
Michelle Krill
Glenn R Moses
Ann Oro
Chris Harbeck
John Evans
Classroom Passion
The problem with innovation is that once it is out of the box it often can't be controlled. Instead it takes us into places that we never would have imagined.
This can be scary but my question is: should we be worried about this? Should we be concerned?
Can we control passion?
Passion drives us into new places. Passion helps us overcome obstacles and take chances. But educational systems hate passion for that very reason. We still want to think that we can control learning, mandate it and lock it down into a bunch of required outcomes. We're up at the front of the classroom giving what we think is an amazing powerpoint presentation on the history of the Roman empire meanwhile the kids are looking at the slides you have made and spending their time thinking about colour schemes and designs.
We need to learn these things:
1.) Kids will learn things they are interested in and passionate about. Grammar worksheets they'll forget at home for weeks. Projects they are interested in they will work on for 12 hours a day.
2.) Classrooms need to shift to become places of guidance, network construction and ethics and far less about required content, testing and exams.
3.) Passion drives creativity. Creativity = a very good thing in our changing society.
4.) Passions can be local or global. Both are possible, valuable, useful and relevant in an interconnected society.
5.) Why do we worry about these things? What are we scared of? Are we afraid that kids will learn things that are inappropriate or will become experts in things that we aren't?
I don't mean this in a negative pandering sort of way but in the best way possible.
Marketing can be a dirty word, bringing in visions of reams of wasted junk mail, spam email by the dozens and phone calls just as you are sitting down to a family meal.
But it doesn't need to be.
Think of companies that you enjoy doing business with.
They know enough about you to respect your needs and wants. They can actually recommend things that you might like based on your history with them. They are helpful and there when you need them. They back up a product with service and stay out of the way when you don't need them. They don't always need to be in your face, scared that you might go away and never return. Confident companies know that if they are doing a good enough job creating a product or a service that is high quality and useful, you will come back. So I wonder about this question:
Is teaching marketing to kids?
Are we sitting down with the students in our classrooms and asking them about their needs and wants? Are we in a relationship with our students where they feel free enough to suggest ideas and new directions? Are our classrooms open to them in these ways? Do we pay attention to them enough to know how to customize and personalize their experience in the classroom? Do we know when to get out of their way and let them use the things we've taught them?
If not, we might just be spamming kids with useless information and messages. I know what happens to all of the spam that ends up in my inbox:
Covering a lot of ground, this review includes such topics as:
- Online harassment and cyberbullying
- Exposure to problematic content (pornography and hate sites for example)
- Risk Factors
As with other links like this that I've posted in the past, I have not had time to read and digest the entire document yet, but I thought publishing the link now was more important.
This looks like it covers a lot of ground and is an important piece of work giving us real facts, figures and trends that we can work with in our schools and classrooms.
For example:
- "A sizeable minority (roughly 10 - 16%) of American youth makes connections online that lead to
in-person meetings (Berrier, 2007; Wolak, Mitchell, & Finkelhor, 2006; Berson & Berson, 2005;
Pierce, 2006; Pierce, 2007a), but the majority of these encounters are between minors and are not
sexual in nature." (page 14)
- "Online harassment and offline bullying affect slightly differently aged populations.
Reports of online harassment differ slightly from reports of offline bullying declining during
middle and high school. The Bureau of Justice Statistics shows a steep decline in offline bullying
from 7th to 12th grades (Devoe et al., 2005), while online harassment tends to peak later, in 8th
grade, and declines only slightly (Smith et al., 2008; Wolak, Mitchell, & Finkelhor, 2006). "
- "Youth are most often involved with bullying other youth online. Between 11 – 33% of
minors admit to harassing others online (Kowalski & Limber, 2007; McQuade & Sampat, 2008;
National Children's Charity, 2005; Patchin & Hinduja, 2006; Wolak, Mitchell, & Finkelhor,
2006). Consistent with offline bullying, online harassers are typically the same age as their
victims (Kowalski & Limber, 2007; Slonje & Smith, 2008; Wolak, Mitchell, & Finkelhor, 2006;
Wolak et al., 2007a) and half of victims reported that cyberbullies were in their same grade
(Stys, 2004)." (page 24)
Literally losing everything she owns except for what she could put in her car before a lightening fast evacuation, Barbara needs our help. A call was put on Saturday for donations for Barbara to get her through the next few weeks and then the holiday season. We have seen a great response so far with (as of this morning at 8:30 CST) 73 people going through paypal to leave a donation for Barbara. This is great news and we will make all of the names public of people who gave (respecting those of course who have asked to remain anonymous) by the end of this week. We will at that time also have an overall dollar amount we can share with you.
If you have already given to this cause; a sincere and complete thank you. Barbara has a very soft spot in my heart and deserves our generousity.
If you have not yet taken the time to give, please do so and know that all of this money is being given to help one of our own voices back to her feet.
If you need any further information, please get in touch with me (glassbeed@gmail.com) or Jen Wagner.
Please feel free to re - publish this post far and wide to get the word out as we can.
Barbara's Fund
We've all been following the wild fires in LA on the news and on the web. We've watched stunned as hundreds of homes have been destroyed.
But this post is about only one of those homes. Barbara Barreda, the principal of St. Elisabeth's school, ed - tech blogger and one of the leaders of the thinwalls collaboration has lost her home. Given only a short time to evacuate, Barbara was able to grab only a few of her possessions and flee during the night of November 15th.
Please help.
We have set up a paypal account where every single penny will be given straight to Barbara to meet her expenses. Currently she is staying with a friend but literally has the clothes on her back and the few items she could throw into her car.
As a community many of us have been very fortunate in our lives and in the contact that we have with each other. I'm asking members of the ed - tech community, who have learned so much from each other to please give a donation. Every few dollars will help her through this incredibly difficult time so close to Thanksgiving and Christmas.
If you have any questions or concerns, please get in touch with myself or Jen Wagner.
The kids in my class are writing a social studies test, but not in the usual way.
I've asked them to do something different: actually write their test. They have been responsible for coming up with all of the questions. A little experiment that I'm happy to say, is turning out quite well.
We're reaching the end of our first social studies unit (is there some way we can make that go away?) and I thought it was time for an experiment. I told the kids they were going to make up the test, that this was their responsibility. They were amazed and a few of them even laughed about the easy questions they were going to design. So we talked about what we had done so far in class. We brianstormed up a monster list. Next we came up with a list of all of the different possible things that can be on a test: long answer questions, maps, true and false questions, etc. etc.
The I set them to work with a few stipulations brought into the process:
1.) Each small group of kids was responsible for making up seven different questions in at least five different styles (t/f etc)
2.) The questions could not be too hard or too easy, the purpose of the assessment was to fairly assess what they had completed and learned so far.
3.) They were also told that each group that ultimately had a question(s) chosen to be on the test were going to receive an extra 3% on their test grade. (A little motivation for designing high quality questions)
The energy was amazing as groups scanned their notes and their laptops. They pounded through old assignments and looked up information online to make sure they had things well done so that their questions would be chosen. After this task, the next one was to have kids begin to choose the questions that would actually be on the test. We spent some time with all of the questions, the kids having time to write their thoughts and suggestions out, voting for those questions they thought were fair, relevant and focused.
Gathering all of this data, I made the final copy of the test. I added the students' names beside their questions so that everyone could see who designed what questions. I added a mapping question to it and then I photocopied it and gave it to them yesterday; on Thursday. The test is on Monday.
They have the full and final copy. They know exactly what's going to be on it because of course they made it up. It is fair. It is challenging for grade seven and eight students. It touches on most of the concepts we have worked with so far this term.
For a town of about 1 000 people, our small school ( this year about 155 K - 12) is growing. The largest zinc find in Canada in the last ten years has been found about 12 kms. outside of town. Economics be - damned, one large mining project is slowly working its way to life. We've been told that the population of our entire community may as much as triple! This doesn't happen overnight, (actually it might take 3 - 4 years to get a large project like this running), but it is a slow and steady build up as new staff move into town to take on different phases of the project.
One thing that is interesting is the fact that many of these new people moving into Snow Lake are from South Africa. Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting, the major employer in our community has begun recruiting trades people (electricians, mechanics, etc.) from there. This is causing some interesting things to happen. In the past year, our small little school, where everyone knows everyone else, with many of these kids growing up together has had a mini influx of about 15 kids from the other side of the globe. My own grade seven / eight classroom has had three new students arrive in the past three weeks and I am still expecting one more.
Welcome to reality.
Many of these students of course speak English as a second language and are now struggling through our descent in winter. Suddenly entirely new dynamics we've never enountered before have begun to emerge and an entirely new skill set is needed by our staff as we attempt to meet these kids, welcoming them to our school and our country. They bring a new perspective, much broader and different from many of the kids in our small town. They are are a welcome addition and a challenge to have. An interesting "problem" for a small school to struggle with as we find ourselves in the middle of an unexepctedly international situation.
