Musings 365

Teaching Students to 'Do' History

2010-05-12T21:38:00.000-04:00

The Gist

I took a leave of absence this year to be home with my son.
I am returning to the classroom next year, & will soon find out where and what my teaching assignment will be.
Just finished reading James W. Loewen's Teaching What Really Happened
This combination of events has me reflecting on my teaching.

The Whole Story

I just finished reading James Loewen's new book, and it couldn't have come at a better time for me. I have spent a lot of time this past year thinking about education, educational philosophy, and my own classroom practices. Certainly, one of the benefits of having been home and not consumed by what can become a daily grind of lesson plans and grading.

I won't go into everything that has been bouncing around in my brain in terms of teaching, but one thing that came up in the book is the idea of introducing students to the idea of Historiography. I was never formally introduced to the term until grad school, although I think that I had some sense of the idea in undergrad. I think however that students need to understand, especially in history, that when they read a textbook, they are reading an author's (or state school board & textbook company cabal) version and interpretation of history. In fact, I wrote about this a while back in my post "Textbook Culture wars & Historiography" related to the Texas School Board's new curriculum.

I am excited to teach my kids historiography next year, and get them looking critically at the textbook(s), and if the old textbooks I had been collecting did not get disposed of in my absence, we will have a look and see if different publishers treat topics differently. I'll have to try and dig up some oldies but goodies over the summer.

Sustainable Energy at School

2010-02-21T12:49:00.003-05:00

The Gist:

@SteveKatz & @TeachPaperless have issued a challenge to fellow educators to go 'Paperless' this Earth Day
This has caused me to reflect on my own teaching practice & abuse of paper
Serendipitously, this article about my school district came through my Google alerts this morning

The Whole Story:

There has been quite a bit of chatter on Twitter over the past week about trying to go 'paperless' for this coming Earth Day. The result was a blog post and challenge to commit to give it a go. I know there are some of you out there who are practically 'paperless' everyday of the year, but I admittedly am not one of them. I am the child of two pack-rats, one of which was a librarian. The Nature or Nurture debate is irrelevant; Paper ... its feel, its smell, its heft ... I love it.

My love not withstanding, I realize I use too much paper in the classroom, and much of it just ends up in the recycling bin at the end of the unit, term, semester, year, ad infinitum. So while I am currently not in the classroom (parental leave ... one of the greatest decisions I ever made), I am committing to reforming my future self of this bad habit. We are not a 1:1 school, so I think entirely paperless may be beyond my abilities, but the wheels in my mind are spinning with possibilities, and I can hardly wait until June when I will know what I will be teaching so the planning can start in earnest.

To my surprise while clearing out my inbox this morning, I came across the following article courtesy of Google Alerts about my school district. I am excited & proud to say that I am a part of the Wayne Westland School Community. What a great opportunity for the students of our district to move away from the automotive heritage of the community and get authentic experience with alternative energy systems.

More excitingly, I think that this could be the catalyst for even greater things from our district. Lets return to the lighthouse district we once were for the state. Lets take this project and expand it out. Lets become a model of energy efficiency, lets focus not only on the big ticket high glamor shiny parts, but also on the waste in our day to day practice. Turn off the copier, save the paper, and let the kids create learning.

Textbook Culture Wars & Historiography

2010-02-16T20:58:00.000-05:00

This past Sunday the NYT Magazine had a great piece titled "How Christian Were the Founders?" If you are a social studies teacher or historian I strongly recommend finding the time to read it.

Essentially it is about America's culture wars. The Texas School Board of Education is currently in the process of reviewing the state's social studies curriculum. This is always a contentious issue, but made more dramatic by the disproportionate power Texas wields in determining textbook content given they have a state wide adoption, and the fact that there is a faction of the board whose publicly stated goals are to increase the conservative and Christian presence in America's textbooks.

This brings me to the real purpose of the post, in the wake of the controversy in Texas & the recent death of Howard Zinn (whose NPR obit caused some controversy of its own), is anyone using these events to teach historiography to their History students? It seems like these two events would be a great jumping off point to discuss the writing of history, the biases of authorship, issues of power and control of information, etc. Obviously, these events concern U.S. History, but I think they could also be used to open the discussion in a World History class.

Has me bummed about not being in the classroom this year. I hope someone will be inspired and let me know how it goes.

Sick of Being Sick: a reflection on unintended consequences

2010-02-15T22:57:00.000-05:00

Been sick for the better part of two weeks now. Head is a foggy cloud. Congestion and faucet nose rounding out the symptoms. The joys of being home with my 16 month 'petri dish of love', who shares everything with me. Even this.

Now that the cotton has cleared out of my brain, and the synapses are firing again, it is time to get back to this business of writing.

Being sick has me reflecting on my policies for students. Kids get sick. We all get sick. It can take a while to get ourselves back in the game. Maybe it is time to rethink the amount of time students have to make up work from being out. Maybe two days for every one missed is not enough, especially given that despite how important we all feel our class is, it is not the only one. To often being out can kill their grades.

In fact perhaps it is time for me to rethink my whole grading policy (yes I listened to the Alfie Kohn broadcast earlier today). If the work I am expecting my students to do is authentic and valuable (which I will admit it isn't always ... there has been some busy work in there in the past), and the goal is for them to learn certain skills, then maybe it is just more important that they be able to demonstrate that skill to me and less important when.

Now all I have to do is kick this cold, and convince all my colleagues and common assessment pacing chart friends in administration. Over and out.

Turf Wars ... GBuzz, Threadsy, FB, et al.

2010-02-10T13:12:00.000-05:00

The Gist:

Google Buzz showed up yesterday
I got an invite for Threadsy yesterday
FB is apparently rolling out fully functional email

The Whole Story:

It seems as though Google, Threadsy, and FB are attempting to create a sort of 'one stop shopping' experience in order to solidify, create, or expand their place in the cloud.

For those who haven't checked them out yet, here is my take on them after playing with them briefly last night and this morning.

Threadsy is a web based application allows you to look at all of your email accounts, FB, & Twitter in one place ... like a TweetDeck, but with added component of email. It is nice to be able to see everything in one place, and the advantage that it has over Buzz for these three applications is that you can post back to each platform. Good aggregater, but doesn't seem to really be bringing anything really new to the table.

Google's Buzz shows up within Gmail, and allows you a FB like status update box for posting thoughts, pictures, videos, links, etc. The main feature is for those using many social media platforms. Buzz can be linked to show your Blogger, Picasa, Google Reader, YouTube, Twitter, and Flickr updates (probably many more too). Once you have seen the update in Buzz you can 'Comment, Like, or Email'. For the comment feature, a thread shows up like it would in FB. Not sure of the advantages over twitter, other then for the threaded aspect of comments. For now it appears that is is only a one way street, in that it will pull things in, but things posted in Buzz won't appear on those linked applications. One observation is that like Twitter & unlike FB, it appears to me that anyone can follow your Buzz, w/o you having to approve them. Makes me wonder about its application for education / use with kids. Is this something that we want? @tieandjeans got me thinking about the popularity of FB with teens partly being due to its perceived exclusivity. Will the open nature of this prevent teens from using it, will the openness cause it (& Gmail) to be blocked by schools?

Which brings us to the rumor (?) of FB's planned introduction of a full featured email client. If this is true, and comes about perhaps this will be where teens stay, and Google's suite will be for adults / educators.

So it appears they are each moving into each others turf (as I am sure are many others I am ignorant of), lets just hope that in the long run this competition makes things better for us the users.

What do you think? Comments? Ideas? Errors?

The Devil in in the Details? Discovery over Textbooks in IPS

2010-02-09T14:35:00.000-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

Have been meaning to write about this for about a week now, but had a class Friday & then promptly spent the week getting sick from my 15 month petri-dish of love.

The Gist:

Indianapolis Public Schools is going to replace textbooks with digital content in 12 schools
The digital content will be provided by Discovery Education
Discovery Education's 'curriculum alignment team' decided which materials best matched the districts curriculum

The Whole Story:

So this story, Indianapolis Public Schools Replace Textbooks with Digital Content,

appeared in The Journal back in mid January. When I read the articles title, I thought "Cool, here is a large public school district who gets it and is going to try something really 'radical'." After reading the whole story though, it seems like they are missing a big chance.

While Discovery does produces some great content and does some great things for educators, I fear that this is really not the change to student driven inquiry based learning (with computers as a resource) that I was hoping it would be. Unless there is the right kind of staff buy in and professional development, this experiment will end up being school as usual, with the only difference being that the content will come from Discovery's vast content instead of the static textbook company.

I hope that some forward thinking educators in the district will take advantage of the new hardware that they get out of the deal to really push their students into web2.0 instruction, despite what the "curriculum team" at Discovery has prepared for them.

I would love to get some other views on this. Any IPS teachers have opinions?

Will My Students Read Me?

2010-02-04T23:22:00.000-05:00

The Gist:

I just started blogging
Pew Internet and American Life Project says teens don't do blogs
Should I refocus my efforts on Twitter and the Social Networking that is yet to come

The Whole Story:

Since it appears that teens really aren't that into blogs, nor my other preferred application Twitter, am I doing the wrong thing as an educator? After thinking about this for a day, I think it comes down to audience and purpose. Reflecting on why I started the blog I realize it is ok if today's students aren't blogging. That was never the purpose for this. My decision to start blogging again is about practicing writing, because I don't do it enough and am getting rusty. Secondly, this blog is a way to force me to take the time to acknowledge, reflect, and examine my thoughts and the world.

As for Twitter, as of now that is where I am most attempting and finding success at building a PLN, as limited as mine currently may be.

I do wonder though about the push for student and class blogs in an attempt to improve student writers through having an authentic audience. I haven't done it, and I know it works for many of today's educators, but perhaps with the preference for todays teens and young adults for Social Networking sites we should be pushing for more IT openness on that front.

Would that be a more authentic writing experience for them? Would the very nature of teachers using it drive teens away? Do we prefer blogs because Social Networks are either too open, or safe but too closed?

Should we be teaching them Social Networking 'skills'? Should they be teaching us? Even if they write in other areas, should teachers be teaching to write using blogs because they will be the 'respected' source in the future?

I guess we will find out.

Are We Headed For Technology Islands?

2010-02-03T23:27:00.001-05:00

The Gist:

iPad & iPhone are closed platforms
Google is reportedly working on an 'App Store'
There is a move towards more privacy on the web

The Whole Story:
Wow. Lots of technology stuff running through the brain today, but this posting on CNNMoney "End of Web as we know it, thanks to iPad and others" got me thinking about the web. I am convinced the web and both its 1.0 and 2.0 uses are critical to the education of todays learners. It is increasing where the information is, it is where the conversations are, it where the skills needed are being honed, and technology will be what drive the growth of the economy.

So it scares me that this article could be true. If we continue to head down this more segregated and closed road, will students get the same interactions, will they be qualified across all platforms, will there be stratification and segregation based on the device you choose or can afford to own? Will we lose innovation because the tinkering and conversations never happen?

To modify Reagan's famous quote, "Tear down these walls!" Make the web, devices to access it, and applications for those devices open to all. Then we just have to solve the Digital Divide, and get Universal High Speed Internet Access for All, but for that see the conversation that has already been sparked by TeachPaperless and Preservative Woman

ON A SIDE NOTE: might the new web platform HTML 5 that is coming down the line, and supposedly will be able to do animation, be the reason the iPad doesn't support flash? Sounds like Apple is just looking farther ahead. Decision makes more sense now to me.

Districts and Feedback

2010-02-02T23:09:00.000-05:00

Everybody knows times are tough here in Michigan. Unemployment remains at a worst in the nation high, and even the winter pick me up, Detroit's beloved Red Wings, are stuck in the doldrums. Schools across the state, like many across the nation, are struggling to do more with less in a very uncertain funding situation as the State Legislature gets down to the business of trying to balance its budget.

As a result, both the district where I live and the district where I teach are in the process of 'right sizing'. And while the process has been very contentious in the district where I teach (article), I am just now hearing about the plans for the district where I live.

I am both excited and upset at the same time. I listen to WEMU (a great local NPR station), Jazz and true local reporting, I have heard nothing. No billboards, no flyers, no mass mailings. In the districts defense our child is not yet of school age, so perhaps something was given to students to bring home. Unlikely, but possible. And so I am upset with what so far seems like a less then stellar job getting the word out that the district is soliciting input for ways to steer us through these times.

So how did I hear about the changes? Through an email from a community group directing me to the districts website. Where listed under the heading 'Take the YPS survey to provide valuable feedback' is a zoomerang survey, which is very well thought out. Some general questions regarding stakeholders preferences in a variety of areas, and two possible school realignment plans under consideration. I am glad the district is seeking feedback, and using technology to help the community have a voice, BUT you have to reach out to the community for that to work.

School closings and changes are never easy. Many people have a lot invested. I have seen what happens when the public feels like they had no say in the process. So, kudos to Ypsilanti Public Schools for using the web to create a survey. I am excited you found a great inexpensive way to get some feedback, but remember there is a digital divide in this community and the feedback you get will only be as good as community who actually participates.

That being said ... I think the proposals and the eventual realignment will bring some truly exciting possibilities if done right. Please do.

and so it begins

2010-02-01T23:46:00.000-05:00

After years of being a lurker, consuming content on the web but very rarely contributing, I have finally decided to take the next step.

I love the idea of what education can be with technology, and am continually impressed with what I hear and see others doing with their students. And while I have gotten positive reviews from administration for my use of technology in the classroom, I have always felt a bit of a fraud. My use of technology, has been just that my use of technology. I realize that things have to change. Technology in the classroom today is more then my posting assignments and notes on the web, my students need to be involved. They need to be learning to navigate, investigate, & create.

So while home on leave, I am finally taking the challenge thrown down by TeachPaperless back in Sept. 2009 "Why Teacher's Should Blog".

I will become a producer of content on the web, I will participate in the conversations and truly build a PLN, I will make the classroom I return to 2.0