An Open Letter to the Graduating Class of 2020

I normally write a little note to the seniors I've had for 4 years. This year was a little different (that's an understatement), and I decided to extend it to some I hadn't seen in a year or two. I wrote it before the protests started occurring all over the country and world, but I think the point stands that though these graduating seniors are emerging into a world of immeasurable challenges, they have already shown and will continue to show unity and perseverance to overcome them. Congratulations, Class of 2020!

The Emotional Toll

It has been quite a while since I last wrote some words in this space. Many things have happened in that time; the birth of two daughters, living more healthfully, five more years of experience teaching, crossing the paths of hundreds of students. In some ways those years have been a blur, and in others a kind of monotonous progression. I do feel that I have grown as a teacher, but also that the outcome of that progress, whatever that should be, is still quite distant.

It was in my last post that I both congratulated graduating seniors and exhorted "those left behind" to continue the good fight of the day to day mental and physical work of being a student. I still stand by those words, but with another year wrapping up, I thought I'd expound on something that seems to be weighing more and more heavily on me, which is the emotional toll of my job.

Being a teacher is exciting, innovative, challenging, necessary, rewarding, endearing, humbling, and eye opening. It is also exhausting, repetitive, bureaucratic, draining, frustrating, Sisyphean, Herculean, and demanding. This mixture of traits is in constant flux each and every day, and sometimes within the span of minutes. It is present on the good days and bad, the days on and the days off, in the fall, winter, spring, and even summer. But nothing focuses these myriad feelings quite like the last couple weeks of school, when the fruit of one's labor comes to pass.

Sisyphus, Antonio Zanchi, 1660-1665, The Hague

As Charles Dickens famously wrote in his opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...." That time is now, a kind of melancholia-laced cessation. Relief as the roller coaster of the school year comes to a standstill, but an inchoate sense of dread for next year’s unexpected turns. I feel both the over-brimming pride of seeing seniors whom I've taught for four years graduate, and the crushing defeat of students for whom I was never able to find the magic key to unlock their potential. It is a time when end of year surveys make me smile and cry at the same time. If ever there was a definition for bittersweet, this is it.

I'm a person who tends to live in the "what if" and the "if only." The present is never good enough, and the future is always an aspirational goal just on the horizon. The benefit of this outlook is that I am usually improving myself (as a person, as a teacher, as a husband, as a father, and so on), but I can sometimes get caught in the eddies of progress and spin around helplessly as I try to find my footing. The bigger drawback, however, is that I fear I'm imposing an implacable burden on myself that has no immediate (or even eventual) resolution. It is one thing to have manageable, achievable, actionable goals, and quite another to have idealistic expectations that are impossible to actualize.

It is human nature (or at least my nature) to focus on the pitfalls. For each student who didn't achieve what they could have, or should have; for the curriculum I didn't get to; for the teaching strategies I didn't employ well, or at all; for the relationships not kindled and fostered; for the (seeming) exodus of interest in humanities for other subjects; for my inability to capture and maintain interest for my students; for all these things, I ask myself what I could have done if only I'd had the time, energy, motivation, guidance, or wherewithal to get it accomplished.

But I must also force myself to accept with each of those shortcomings (which are so easy to overthink) a kernel of hope and optimism (which is so much more difficult for me). Those silver linings often get obscured by the clouds.

An example of this came recently as I was saying goodbye to one of my classes after finals, wishing them a joyful summer and thanking them for a wonderful year. Some students piped up about their greatest memories of class. I won't say it as touchingly as they did, but they remarked about how I was a kind and understanding person, that I cared about them, and that they really appreciated it. (And I've received notes recently with similar sentiments.)

This blew me away. Not because it isn't true (I do care about my students), but because it was spontaneous, unsolicited, and genuine. Moreover, it's an area of my teaching approach that I tend to perceive as underdeveloped (i.e. I feel I lack affability, display awkward social graces, and that I am unable to personally connect with my students).

For those who don't know me in person, you might expect me to be an articulate, gregarious, people-person. I care deeply about others (both on a personal and sociological level), social justice, and equity, and I think it comes through in my writing. But meet me on the street and you'll see a reserved, introverted, sometimes brooding person. I can sometimes put on a show in class, a teacher-actor performing for my student audience. Yet my natural, unadulterated self flees from social interactions. I'm the kind of guy who never learned how to "do" small talk and usually those kinds of conversations fizzle out like an untended fire. I'm often at a loss for words (ironic, as this post creeps longer and longer), and I have a really hard time showing emotion, at least in my work-life. I'm the wallflower at parties and I feel that students think I'm unapproachable as a teacher.

Futurama Fry, Meme Generator, https://memegenerator.net/instance/14904420/futurama-fry-not-sure-if-im-awkward-because-of-situation-or-situation-is-awkward-because-of-me

What my students said and wrote turned that thinking on its head. I guess that in my focus on negatives, I didn't fully value my positives. I guess that I underestimated my impact on others, or focused too much on a flawed delivery method (i.e. social awkwardness) and not enough on the substance. I guess that being human is complicated.

What is the take-away of these ruminations? What can you and I glean from this? This piece is meant neither as a pity party or a pat on the back. For all those things I could be doing better, I should continue to try to do them better. This isn't an excuse to stop self-reflection or honing one's skills. But I should also appreciate and relish the things that I already do and that have a positive impact on others. I hope that you, dear reader, whether you are a student, a teacher, or just someone looking for advice, can take these same insights with you.

• Be grateful for what you have, even if it doesn't seem like enough. It's something.
• Be kind to others. Why? It makes them feel good, it makes you feel good, and it’s a good thing to do. We need more goodness, for goodness's sake.
• Pour a bunch of salt on your personal pitfalls. A grain won't do. Be self reflective, but only with extreme moderation. Don’t let it overwhelm you.
• Nourish your strengths. They will wilt without care. If you don’t know what your strengths are, listen to others. They’ll tell you.
• Cut yourself some slack. Rome wasn’t built in a day. (Required Latin teacher bromide.)
• Don't judge a person by their cover. It is a poor substitute for understanding what is in a person’s head.

To my students, thank you so much for your kind words and thoughts. I don't think this post really does justice to how much you and your words mean to me. Though it might sound trite or cliché, go thank a teacher that has had an impact on you, because they may not otherwise know. To everyone, as this school year comes to a close, continue to self-reflect and aim for the moon, but don't let the Siren's song of some more perfect future you entice you from the probably flawed, always striving, current you. There is much we have to offer just as we are. Have a wonderful summer.

For Those Who Are Leaving (...And the Ones Left Behind)

To Those Who Are Leaving:

As each school year draws to a close, teachers, students, and parents inevitably begin to reflect on all that has transpired and what the future may bring. I personally find this time bittersweet; some students whom I've known for 3 or 4 years (or longer!) will be leaving, most never to return. A few will undoubtedly come to visit in the next few years, but the relationship will have morphed. It will no longer be a didactic and dialectic conversation, the immediate give and take of brain cells firing in the here and now, but one of nostalgia, of ossified memories and what-ifs.

The sweet part, of course, is watching your seedlings flourish into autonomous agents in the world. I love having the conversations 1, 2, 3 years out, when my former students expound on their newfound passions, relationships, and experiences. They come into their own and usually become the people I knew they could become.

That said, I don't think I could summarize all the advice I have for outgoing seniors. And to be honest, the most important things in life must be experienced to be understood. Only a few are able to neatly bundle up their words and deliver them in a neat package: I suggest you read (or find Youtube clips) of these thought provoking commencement addresses. These are the ideas that should not be saved for an annual ritual, but should be reflected upon regularly.

So, departing students, let me close with some clichés. YOLO and Carpe Diem. This does NOT mean do stupid things to shorten your lifespan; in fact, this is an exhortation to be as Epictetus and not sweat the small stuff while taking control of your own actions. This is an exhortation to live with authenticity as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche would recommend. Do NOT let life pass you by, or you will pass by life. Take the bull by the horns and run.

To Those Left Behind:

We aren't done yet! Get back to work!

Do you wish you could leave? Do you hate coming to school? Have you packed up the cupboards of your mind and your synapses are singing sayonara? Well, my love may be unconditional, but it doesn't mean it isn't taxing for me to put up with you giving up.

Giving up and checking out are cop-outs. It is a way to flee responsibility and hide from that which is difficult. There is no pause button on life; you cannot flee the inevitability of moving out, finding a job, being a citizen of the world. Those things will happen to you whether you want them to or not. So don't flee it. Embrace it.

The more you know, the more power you have. The more power you have, the more you can affect change. If you don't like how school or society works, you have to change it. No one else can because they aren't you and haven't felt it in your exact way. You are the one affected, so you must be the agent of change.

But before I go off into too many platitudes, let's bring it back to the here and now. Why should you finish that homework assigned last night? Why should you do that assignment in class? Here's a secret: it isn't for you to learn that tidbit of information.

The real reason we teachers want you to do work (from the mundane to the transformative) is to empower you to empower yourself. If you can "suffer through it" then you can "rise above it." Life is about outlook. If your approach to adversity is defeat, anger, pity or apathy, then you will be defeated, angry, pitiful, and apathetic your whole life. But if you can do the unsavory tasks (whether homework, scrubbing dishes, or reading through this whole diatribe) without those negative qualities, you may realize that you can handle anything thrown at you, and that makes you powerful. And, because it bears repeating, power gives you the leverage to change the world. You can change those boring, miserable, and unsavory tasks. You can rise above them.

So yes, I know it's nice outside and you want to go to the beach. I know it's so much easier to put in your earbuds and tune out the world. I know it's convenient to write that note to get out early, or come in late. And believe me, we teachers feel that same siren's call sometimes. But together we must power through it. It may be the end of the school year, but that is an arbitrary construct. There will always be something else around the corner. So we should heed Larry's advice.

Let's git r done.

A Valentine's Day Message to my Students

To my students - I love you.

To the loud ones: I love the way you inject humor and feeling into a class. I love the way you aren't afraid to say what's on your mind (though I do sometimes rue when and how you say it.)

To the quiet ones: I love the way you can be tacitly self-confident. I love the way you can draw or write or express your infinite wisdom and smile to yourself as you take in the world. I only wish you could share it more with others.

To the unsure ones: I love the way you puzzle out difficult problems. I love the way you don't give up, even when you feel like a ship lost at sea. I only wish you could take strength in your struggle instead of despair; through adversity come solutions.

To the aloof ones: I wish you understood that I love you. You are not an island, and neither am I. We can solve problems together if you and I put in the time together. It is never too late to change the approach, and it will only work if we have the conversation.

To the "smart" and "dumb" ones: I hate those labels, but I love when you overcome them. If you think you know it all, you haven't tried hard enough. If you think you know nothing, you are taking yourself for granted. Each person has a unique talent, and sometimes it can be hard to understand what that is in yourself. Never stop trying because of a label.

To the leaders: I love the way you motivate and inspire others. I love the way you listen to others' problems and try to find solutions. I only wish that every person could realize there is a little bit of leadership in themselves, too.

To the thinkers: I love the way you take longer to answer a question because you are thinking over all the ramifications and possibilities. I love the way the world is not black and white for you, but a myriad shades of gray. I only wish you could spread your patience to others.

To everyone: I love you because you inspire, create laughter, heartbreak, wisdom, perspective, innovation, and more. You make teaching exciting, challenging, demanding, rewarding, and completely awesome. If you are feeling alone today, don't. I love you.

Thinking about Thinking, or "Why Memorization is not the Boogeyman"

I have been going to a lot of conferences recently. I even wrote about those experiences on another blog to which I contribute, CANEns. The short of it is that I think conferences are valuable not only for the "hardware" (i.e. the tangible materials and resources I can take from it) but also the "software" (i.e. the meaningful conversations that occur and challenge my preconceived notions.)

Discussion surrounding the ideas of SAMR, Blooms, and others started me thinking. The first thought was: Wow, we humans sure like to compartmentalize and categorize the perceptible world. The second was: Hmm, why are so many of these charts hierarchical or linear? I started thinking about how students learn now, how I learned when I was "in school," and how people 100, 200, or 2000 years learned before us. I considered the many "great thinkers" of the history books; Pythagoras, Socrates, Cicero, DesCartes, Ben Franklin (as just a fraction of the tip of the iceberg.) We want our students to be great thinkers. How did they do it?

They didn't have the technology we have. Communication was limited in many cases (especially before the printing press.) Where would Ben Franklin be on the Bloom's chart? What about the SAMR? Did these great thinkers create and produce in their equivalent to school? We know they created because we have their books, essays, and inventions; but did this happen early in their learning or later in life? What did they do in school?

I think there was a lot of memorization. There was translation, and reading. There was a great deal of order, and perhaps teaching via models (i.e. read the works of great authors who have come before and memorize how they wrote. Now practice that model and emulate it.) These practices sound like the bottom parts of the SAMR and Blooms models. They sound so "last century." (Ha, well... they are!) But it makes me wonder.

What is the underlying value of that practice? We use the word "rigor" today to try to explain this phenomenon. Perhaps a better term is perseverance, combined with structure and motivation. A key difference between "then" and "now" is that those who went to school had wealth, or power, or means, and it was optional. They were also guaranteed results from this schooling. Today schooling is more or less mandatory, and there are no guaranteed results (read: jobs.)

Did rote learning create a Ben Franklin? I think it did. But why? And why won't that work today? Is it partly sampling bias (after all, we only know of the successes of history - for every Ben Franklin, how many were failures?) We see students' eyes glaze over when we try to do too much rote memorization. We advocate for more synthesis, more analysis, more creation. And yet, even given these freedoms, sometimes students' eyes glaze over. What gives?

I think it comes back to motivation. If Ben Franklin sat up at night and said to himself, "I want to invent awesome stuff," what was he willing to sacrifice for that goal? Was he inventing stuff when he was 10 or did he resign himself to the fact that he needed to practice and do some rote tasks? Is creation the end of a process or is it immediately available?

If this post seems scattered, it is. I can't really formulate my thoughts around an essential question. But I see that the simple tools of yesteryear, that created great thinkers, are scoffed at and almost vilified today. And I see kids today who have tools that are, in a word, magic, take them for granted and pass them off after 2 minutes. The tools have become disconnected from the learning process.

If memorization is a piece of the puzzle that leads to creation, then it is essential. If it stymies creation, it must be discarded. Perhaps the SAMR and Blooms models are not so black and white; the context of the learning matters more than the mode to get there. Creation without perseverance, gumption, drive, spirit, verve, rigor - or whatever you want to call it - is empty and will fall flat, and any "low level" skills will seem like busywork and void of meaning. Yet if you add that drive back to the equation, then the low level skills are building blocks to creation; indeed, without those building blocks, creation (rich, meaningful, and deep) is not possible.

I think we need to be careful when we look at these charts. Learning is not linear, and it is not easily explained through graphic organizers. In our pursuit of new and better ways to teach, we cannot forget that the low level skills are essential pieces of the puzzle. We should not forgo the nails when we dream of our castles in the sky.

I'm curious about your perspective. Leave comments below or Tweet me @brevkin.

Pondering the Past

I recently completed another Coursera course entitled "Archaeology's Dirty Little Secrets" featuring Sue Alcock and a bevy of her graduate students, production crew, other archaeologists, and many other helpers. It was a wonderful experience because it really showed the potential of MOOCs and showcased how even the humanities can be broken down into manageable units with interactive elements. As I mentioned in an earlier post, a large swath of the MOOC landscape seems to be relegated to the hard sciences, computer programming, and math. My hope is that the dearth of humanities courses on MOOC websites is due to a lack of marketing rather than a fear from humanities instructors that the mission and execution of MOOCs is incompatible with the teaching and learning of said humanities. A well executed humanities MOOC such as ADSL foments the same curiosity, interrogation, discussion, deep thinking, and comparative analysis that any great teacher in a classroom could ever hope to foster.

We talked a lot about context. Context gives meaning to things; a piece of pottery found in isolation means nothing, but with its surroundings it gains new meaning. I think this idea of context is important in our increasingly fragmented and decontextualized world. Standardized tests increasingly demand mastery of diverse scintillae of facts; teachers are increasingly told to teach more with less time, so that a triage of information occurs where only those facts most essential for the test are saved and anything else is left on the cutting floor. Marketers ask us to choose product A or B without explaining why it matters in the first place. All around us, our collective forest is disappearing and, not only do we not see the trees, we only see the single leaf that someone else told us was important.

People tend to look forward for improvement and innovation. Yet this is only half of the work. Without investigating the past, how and why do we improve and innovate? From what insufficient past must we create a more sufficient future? As George Santayana has written:

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Context allows us to progress. It is my hope that, as we push forward into the brave new world of tech integration, streamlined processes, big data, and super-specialized knowledge, we don't lose sight of the arc of history. Though the MOOC I took was essentially a beginner's guide to archaeology, it has reinvigorated in me, and I hope in many others, the larger import of context in our daily lives.

Foreign Language Tools

It has been a while since I last posted, but it has been a hectic month and a half! I've decided to show some tools I've run across that pertain especially well to the foreign language classroom. Some are more suited for a modern language (emphasis on aural/oral communication), but all can be used even in classical languages (and other subjects, for that matter.) I will organize these by skills.

Reading/Writing

Thumbscribes

I have written about this website before. It allows linear contribution to a storyline. A great way to get students collaborating and writing.

ePals

This website allows you to give anonymous, filterable email addresses to your students. You and another teacher can then trade your students' anonymized addresses with each other and participate in a "pen pal" exchange. Finding another teacher is centered around "projects" that are put forth; teachers search for projects and then get in touch with other teachers.

One benefit is that a teacher can enable all emails to be seen by the teacher before the recipient sees it. This is a safe and secure way for students to communicate. The website has an international audience and you may be able to chat with kids from other countries! Followup ideas: Use an LMS (Like Edmodo or Schoology) and Skype to continue and further your discussions with your newfound friends.

Textivate

This is a very easy to use activity/drill creator. You paste some text in the input field, hit the textivate button, and find yourself with a plethora of activities. These range from ordering text segments, to cloze exercises, to matching, and more. The range of possibilities is limitless - from simple vocabulary matching to exploratory story analysis.

Word Clouds

Tagul, Tagxedo, and Wordle all do roughly the same thing. One enters some text, and the websites produce a graphic that shows the most commonly used words in the text. These sites merge language and art in interesting ways, but the primary benefit I see is that they can be used to emphasize key vocabulary for a text. Perhaps you might compare two famous speeches in the target language and see what themes are common or dissimilar.

Listening/Speaking

Student-Centered Audio

Google Voice and Croak.it are two services that allow students to call in and leave a voice message. The teacher can then access these messages. It frees a teacher up from the synchronous limitations of a language lab and makes communication more authentic. These would probably be used primarily for student to teacher interaction, though there may be ways to create student to student interaction (although isn't that what class is for?)

Teacher-Centered Audio

I suppose I mean the idea of "flipping" or curation here. There are various tools that allow you to narrate over a video, powerpoint, or other medium. Some new ones I've found since my curation post include Brainshark, Jing, and Voicethread.

Classical-World Specific

Orbis

This amazing project allows one to imagine and track real-world limitations to travel in the ancient world. It is highly customizable and answers an often overlooked question.

Operation Lapis

Kevin Ballestrini has put in a lot of thought and hours into this novel approach to Latin learning. I can't do him or his project justice in these too-short sentences, but the idea behind the approach is immersive, authentic, and fun. Follow him on Twitter @kballestrini

Tres Columnae

I've never met Justin Schwamm, but his blog is very passionate about teaching. He also has an immersive, authentic take on Latin learning. Follow him on Twitter @trescolumnae

Twitter PLN (Personal Learning Network)

Here is a public Twitter list of people involved with Latin or Classics.

Curation

What is curation? From the Latin word curare - to care for, curation is the role a person takes to lead an audience through an investigation of some kind. The curator at a museum will lead the patrons around the exhibits, explaining the significance of each and illuminating the larger topic therein.

So what does this have to do with the daily grind of teaching? I believe this is the trend, and hopefully future (as a revisit to the past), of education as we know it.

I think many educators would agree that a prime goal we have for our students is for them to take their learning by the horns and acquire a thirst for thirst; we want them to not just recite back facts and figures, but to actively engage in content, discover knowledge on their own, and create new ideas.

We also know that if you open Pandora's box, chaos ensues. We cannot unleash our students on the world sight unseen and expect miracles. If that were the case, teachers wouldn't exist, and people would spontaneously know exactly how, where, and why to understand anything.

This is why curation is the Golden Mean. It allows teachers, who have the content knowledge and experience, to suggest, persuade, influence, explain, and sometimes coerce students towards finding their own way.

Curation is the antithesis to "spoon feeding." It is embodied in quotes like "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" (John F. Kennedy) and "The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled" (Plutarch). It is embodied in the idea of a flipped classroom. It is embodied in the idea of a 1:1 school. It is embodied in MOOCs. It is embodied in the idea that kids do not need their own textbooks; they create their own textbooks.

This trend towards curation, towards ownership of thought and creativity, is not easy. Students who are accustomed to passive learning do not enjoy the recently kindled fires in their minds. But I think this is the way to get our next generation engaged and productive.

Curation is a timeless concept. Socrates was curating his students' thoughts millennia ago; technology just lets you get from 0-60 that much faster. These tools allow a teacher or student to organize media in various ways. This is the heart of curation. In a way it is a rehashing of the art of a research paper; finding sources, but using your own voice and thought process to organize and conceptualize the information. What makes this richer than a research paper is that many media are supported, and the ability to share makes the process more democratic.

Here are a few of the digital tools that can get you and your students on the highway to enlightenment:

Mentormob - Create "playlists" to go through material (videos, links, pictures) in a specific sequence.
Teachem - Similar to Mentormob.
Storify - Collate Twitter chats into archives for later reference.
Scoopit - Organize and catalogue web sources in a curated manner.
Evernote - Can be used similarly to Scoopit.
Sophia - A place to host and share curated videos.
Mobento - A place to find curated videos for autodidactic learning.

PS. If you clicked on any of the links in this post, you participated in an act of curation! Even blogs and  the static websites of 5-10 years ago can serve as vehicles for curation. You do it every day as a teacher, there are just more tools out there now to help you do it.

Formative Assessments

There are several websites out there that let teachers quickly assess student comprehension. Most allow the students to answer questions using any device (smartphone, iPad, computer, etc) and can show graphs of results. Question types often include polls, multiple choice, true/false, and other non-divergent responses. Some of the websites may allow for saving the questions so that you could create a more summative type assessment for students to take.

These websites are great for pinpointing student understanding and allowing the teacher and students to progress at an appropriate rate during a lesson. They replace the "clickers" of interactive whiteboards and update the tried-and-true practice of exit slips, tiny pop quizzes, or other fast assessment tools. It could even replace "Please raise your hand to show you understand" and the chaos that can ensue in a large classroom. Because of the results data, teachers can find common misconceptions and more easily target them.

Listed below are some of the tools I have come across. This is by no means a comprehensive list, nor do I favor one over others (in truth, I haven't had an opportunity to try them all.) Do any of these pop out at you as especially worthwhile?

• Socrative
• Infuse Learning
• Mentimeter
• Top Hat Monocle
• Poll Everywhere
• Metryx [[edit: Added 5:45 ET 1/13/13]]

LMS, SIS, VLE, oh my!

If I thought education had a lot of alphabet soup before, I clearly hadn't delved into the world of LMS (learner management systems), SIS (student information systems), VLE (virtual learning environments), LCMS (learner content management systems), CMS (content management systems), and social learning.

These various terms are like comparing apples to kumquats. They all kinda have to do with each other, but they all focus on different things. The history of each of these acronyms also differs quite a bit; LMS and SIS seem to have been around since the beginning of the internet, and have found happy roots in higher education. On the other hand, social learning seems to be relatively new (perhaps under 5 years).

Instead of trying to explain the intricate commonalities and differences, let me attempt to summarize the purpose of these pieces of software and web-tools in three words: EFFICIENCY. WORKFLOW. COMMUNICATION.

OK, great. That wasn't very elucidating. Let's delve deeper. Various of the aforementioned acronyms accomplish to varying degrees the following:

1. Create a massive database of students with all pertinent information relating to them that can then be shared appropriately with the instructors, administration, students, and parents (i.e. course information, grades, health, attendance, behavior, address, etc)
2. Create/curate/organize and distribute educational information (i.e. documents, videos, web resources) to students for their consumption inside and outside the traditional school environment.
3. Create assessments and activities for students to complete, with which teachers can use the results to tailor their instruction.
4. Communicate easily in synchronous/asynchronous time (i.e. forums, instant messaging, FaceBook-like commenting) between students, teachers, and parents.

In other words, the point is to completely digitize ALL of the paperwork of teaching, systemize all communication, create meaningful assessment data, and generally streamline the learning process. 

In my opinion, the theory is mind-blowing, revolutionary, and the nirvana of people like me (I love efficiency.) In practice, the implementation is a headache, the alphabet soup don't play nicely together, and more energy is expended trying to make it all work than would have been potentially saved.

The problem is that no single acronym does EVERYTHING. I am oversimplifying here, but roughly speaking, each tool focuses on these different aspects. To add to the confusion, some tools can be considered a few of these at once:

LMS does 2, sometimes 3 and 4.

SIS does 1.

VLE does 2 and 3, sometimes 4.

LCMS/CMS does 3.

Social Learning does 2, 3, and 4.

Now, I could also be overlooking some tools, because there have to be about 2 to 3 dozen different implementations of those acronyms. As I said earlier, SIS seems to be relatively mature at about 25 years old, and does what it does very well. Startups in the "Social Learning" arena are much newer, and cover many of the issues above, but you ultimately still need an SIS to keep all the data.

My plea to the designers, code junkies, and educators out there is this: MAKE ONE RING TO RULE THEM ALL! Make it cheap. Make it common sense. Don't reinvent the wheel. Make it open source and let it play nice with others (proprietary stuff is like the kid in the lunchroom who, in an effort to assert her dominance, won't share her homemade brownies, which backfires and repels any potential playmates.) If the majority of our students are using FaceBook, can't we integrate that platform with these educational tools to minimize the number of separate logins and streamline the experience further?

In any event, here are some of the better known examples of the various acronyms. I am not going to categorize them because so many of these tools have various overlapping properties.

• Moodle
• Blackboard
• Desire2Learn
• PowerSchool
• ASPEN
• SchoolTool
• My Big Campus
• Canvas
• Schoology
• Edmodo

My original goal when I set out to write a post about these tools was to compare them. I found, though, that there are too many variables (i.e. between SIS and LMS) to do any sort of real comparison. Also, some of these sites are more user-friendly than others. Some are free, others are not. And none are easy to preview in a few minutes; one must sign up, create classes, and use the systems with their students to actually get a sense of their efficacy.

What I did find, however, were that the last 4 on the list above (all LMS/social networking) function in roughly the same way. They have taken their cue from FaceBook, and use a running comment-like notification system on the main page. All have modules that allow for sharing calendars, files, and assignments. They are also free (for now) and some have apps for iPads or Android. If you are trying to figure out which would be best for you, I'd recommend asking your colleagues. Since they are so similar, the real benefit comes from a community using the same system to create less headache for all parties involved.

Lastly, I'd just like to emphasize that this is just a cursory look at these emerging tools. If you have more to add, or can set me straight in something I said, please leave comments below. Thank you!

 

Twitter Tips

So maybe you have started to use Twitter. You've realized that it is a great tool that can keep you abreast of new developments in your field. But with this new tool comes the headache of organizing, participating, and streamlining your experience. Below are some ways to create a smoother experience.

Organizers/Clients

Tweetdeck and Hootsuite are two of the more popular Twitter clients out there. They add more robust functionality to the standard web based Twitter.com. Both allow people to create "channels" that filter incoming tweets according to hashtags or search parameters. These clients are useful if you follow lots of people and want to organize and filter the content you see.

Within Twitter itself, you can also create Lists. Add different people to your lists, then use the lists to filter only posts from those people. Twitter has many ways to filter down information. Hashtags, Twitter handles, searches, and lists all do the same thing; make the chaos into some order.

Twitter Chats

One of the greatest uses of Twitter is the "chat." Simply put, people come together at a predetermined time and use a predetermined hashtag (#thisisahashtag) in their tweets. By filtering the specific hashtag, you can follow a conversation. Here is a great list of many of the educational hashtags that exist. Often, hashtags devoted purely to chats often have -chat as a suffix (e.g. #edchat, #edchatri, #1to1techat, etc). Also, many chats are discoverable just by watching your Twitter feed for the time and hashtag that will be used (you've been following important people in your field, right?)

You can follow and participate in these chats through the regular Twitter client or the clients mentioned above, but Tweetchat and Twubs are two tools that allow you to focus on one hashtag at a time. They also automatically append the hashtag to your posts, which saves time and can easily be forgotten if you manually append your hashtags.

Automation and Synchronization

If you want to receive or send posts to Twitter via other services (like Facebook, a blog, email, SMS, etc) there are tools for this, too. Facebook and Twitter both have settings that allow you to link the posts, so that you only need to post on one service while the other will copy that message. 

Twitterfeed lets you track an RSS feed to directly post its contents to your Twitter account. You might use this so that every time you update your blog (or website), the updated content automatically posts to your Twitter account.

Grouptweet and twitfwd allow you to manage a few different Twitter accounts and easily send content between the accounts. For example, I have a main Twitter account, but also have created accounts for each of my classes. I can use the tools above to post once on my main account, which will then retweet the content on the appropriate class accounts. This is perhaps unnecessary since I could broadcast all info for all classes from my main account and use hashtags, but I like the ability to keep the content separated. My main account is more for my own professional development, whereas the specific class accounts are for letting students know about HW, assessments, and class info.

Lastly, I need to mention Ifttt (If This, Then That) and Wappwolf. These deserve their own blog posts (perhaps I can follow up over my winter break) because they are very full-featured and there are some steps involved in setting them up correctly. Both services are masters at automation, and can transfer information in many forms (docs, pics, music etc) to many different services (FB, Twitter, Instagram, Dropbox, Google Drive, and many, many more). I have created a workflow where I can send an email with a subject like "#Lat1 Don't forget about the test on Friday" and it will automatically be posted both to my class-specific Twitter account AND to a Facebook Page I set up for the class. 

Twitter Shortcuts

All of the above is well and good, but sometimes simplicity is key. There are some shortcuts you can use within the regular Twitter client. This post from Edudemic has summed it up nicely.

One last caveat. Twitter is a service that is bound to change and improve over time. I don't know how long this post will remain relevant, but one way to stay on the ball may be to follow @Twitter itself.

ThumbScribes

Wow, this is a neat website. It lets strangers collaborate on stories, poems, songs, and other narrative styles. It is like the game where a person writes a sentence on a sheet of paper, then passes it on to someone else, who writes another sentence. Eventually the whole class creates a shared story, with everyone's input. ThumbScribes does this exactly, yet in a digital format. The stories can be made public or kept private.

I can see this as incredibly useful primarily in English and Foreign Language classes. Or it could be used to show understanding of a concept (ex: "Class, write a story tonight for HW about the process of cell division.") Because the collaboration is linear (unlike Google Docs where people can insert text wherever they want), it forces people to build upon what is previously written and fosters creativity and communication.

For your reading pleasure, one of my contributions. (Latine)

Scoop.it and Mobento

Quick post today. The two websites above are aggregators, of sorts.

Scoop.it allows people to curate links to resources they've found online. I've found topics related to Latin, and know there must be others important to educators.

Mobento collects videos from many sources (Youtube, TED talks, etc). What is nice about this is it also scans the audio of the videos for keywords. So when you search, you are getting a more accurate result for the topics you want.

There are more than these two sites, but off the top of my head these are really good.

Backchanneling

Backchanneling (more accurately, "to use a backchannel") is a method for allowing an audience to respond to, comment on, and reply to a presentation, whether live or not. This takes place online through one of several methods and allows the presenter the ability to get instant feedback about their presentation or respond to questions raised.

For example, while a student gives a presentation at the front of the class, his or her peers can use the backchannel to write critiques or ask questions. This information could be projected while the student gives the presentation for immediate feedback, or could be saved for the end as a Q&A session.

Why use this approach instead of just asking questions the old-fashioned way? Here are some benefits I can think of:

1. In presentations with a large audience, everyone can pose a question and time limits are not an issue. The time it takes to field the questions and answer them is lessened because the questions are waiting for the presenter to respond to immediately.
2. Some of the better backchannel clients allow users to up-vote a question that everyone deems relevant. This reduces redundant questions and engages the audience.
3. Shy or introverted people have a voice. Those who might normally be reticent about posing a question or adding a comment may feel less pressure in an online format. Conversely, those who normally steal the show are put on an equal footing with those who never speak up.
4. Comments and questions can be saved for reference later.

Some pitfalls:

1. Every person in the audience needs an internet enabled device (laptop, tablet, phone, etc).
2. Too many comments at once can be overwhelming and confusing for the presenter or the audience.
3. The process can be distracting to users, wherein they are more interested in the novelty of the backchannel rather than the substance of the presentation.
4. The general distractibility of the internet (are students listening or are they playing Fruit Ninja?)

Obviously, the teacher and students must come to a mutual understanding of the purpose of the backchannel and lay out any consequences for misuse.

So, here are some of the ways people can backchannel:

Best (specifically made for backchanneling)

• Google Moderator: Hey, Google makes everything! I just found this today. Haven't even tried it, but it looks like the audience members can up- and down-vote comments.
• Backchan.nl: Very similar to the above. Comments can be rated.
• Todaysmeet: No ability to vote on comments, but it is very fast and simple. Sort of like a private, open Twitter (no need to sign up). Limited to 140 characters per comment. Good for keeping a running conversation going.

Good (not made for backchanneling, but can suffice or offer similar functionality)

• Google Drive (Documents, Presentations, and Spreadsheets): The presenter can display a document or presentation, and the audience can add comments or use the chat function for feedback if they are shared to the document. This isn't the best backchannel method, but it is good in a pinch.
• Twitter: Many educators use this approach. Every audience member will need a Twitter account. The presenter and audience should think of a unique hashtag (e.g. #Lat101Rev) and whenever anyone tweets a relevant comment, they must include the hashtag. Members can then filter tweets by that hashtag to see all the comments. Keep in mind that any followers of any of the participants will see all of their comments, so this isn't good for private or sensitive material. This can be spammy to others who follow you since they will see all your comments.
• Edmodo: This is kind of like Facebook (need I even explain?) but filtered for only student use, and with some nice add-ins for including media and other materials. The audience would need accounts and would need to join the same group. 
• Facebook/Google+: Probably the worst solution to this problem, but nevertheless can get it done. The audience would all have to friend each other (I think? Unless you set up a Page for the topic being discussed, in which case anyone can subscribe and comment.) Google+ might be more fluid, as it is a sort of hybrid of Facebook and Twitter.

I'm sure there are more methods out there, but those are the big ones. The idea of backchanneling is more important than the specific method you use. In fact, you could even go low tech and have the audience use whiteboards to write comments during the presentation.

Please comment if you have an interesting ideas for how to use this method, or if you have any questions.

MOOCs

No, this isn't some new racial epithet, nor is it the plaintive mewling of a speech-impaired cow. Rather, a MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course.

The concept isn't particularly new, but it is starting to approach critical mass. The idea is that people can take courses from the comfort of their homes, completing assignments at their own speed. The creators of these classes, usually tenured professors at various universities throughout the world, are able to reach tens of thousands of people in a single course. And did I mention they are free?

I recently read an interesting article by Clay Shirky in which he compares MOOCs to established universities as MP3s were to the record industry: the open nature, cheap/free cost, and ability to consume only that which is desired (as opposed to buying the "whole package" just for a few choice tidbits) have all created a challenge that the "establishment" must address.

My point here is not to get into a discussion about whether or not higher education is doomed (though that is an intriguing discussion, perhaps saved for another time.) Rather, I'd like to say that I've participated in a MOOC firsthand, and it was pretty cool.

I took a 7 week course that introduced me to computer programming. I learned about the Python language and how the syntax worked. I spent perhaps 1-2 hours a week on watching videos, doing formative quizzes and exercises, and I completed a final exam. 

This particular course was offered through the University of Toronto. I received no credit in the traditional sense, but did receive a "certificate of completion" which is awarded if a student earns at least a 70. The prideful part of me wishes they would also print my final score (98.2 FTW), but this is not the case.

[[** Edit: I'm sitting here writing this and all of a sudden NPR's "Weekend Edition" starts with a piece about MOOCs. 9:30am 11/24/12. Divine providence.

** New Edit: I'm finishing up my piece here at 11:30am 11/25/12 and I run across this article. It seems that this topic is hitting the mainstream news at exactly the same time as I am pondering it.]]

OK, so deeper ramification aside, why should we (specifically middle- or high-school teachers, in particular) care? I see MOOCs as useful in two primary ways.

1. Professional Development: We can expand, review, and deepen our knowledge of our own subjects and interests. They help to keep us engaged in learning. They humble us to remember what it's like to be a student again.
2. Student Enrichment: For the students who absorb everything you say like a sponge and can never have enough, you can steer them to these courses for even more knowledge. A mature high school student could easily handle the workload of these courses if it is a subject that he or she enjoys. 
3. [[Edit: Thanks to my wonderful wife Ilana, a music librarian at Boston Conservatory, for this additional piece of advice. 12:20pm 11/25/12]] Career Exploration: For those students who may be interested in a new or unexplored career path, MOOCs provide a good, low-risk environment for testing the waters.

So I saved all the useful stuff for the end. How do you access these MOOCs? Here are some of the more well known venues:

• Coursera - This is the MOOC I used to take my programming class. It was very straightforward. I think it offers the most diversity in offerings (humanities, sciences, math, computer science, etc).
• Udacity - Both Udacity and edX have more limited options than Coursera. They focus mainly on math, computer science, and "hard sciences" (i.e. physics, chemistry, etc).
• edX - See above.
• Khan Academy - A slightly older MOOC and perhaps most well-known. A man set out to create tutorials for his nephews and ended up creating a giant infrastructure of videos. I think this is more or less arranged as a library of information as opposed to specific courses one may take. Focuses mainly on math, science, and economics, but it is starting to branch out.
• MIT OpenCourseWare - These are videos offered exclusively through MIT. Essentially they have made videos of professors lecturing, and included the notes and some quizzes. Strong focus on math and sciences, though some humanities are also present.

One thing you may notice is that most of these sites heavily lean to math and the sciences. Coursera, and, to a lesser extent, Khan Academy and MIT OCW, have more humanities. I think this may be part of the structure of these classes. Humanities tend to focus on good discussions that take place in a face-to-face context. Though one can certainly blog or interact via message-boards, the immediacy and nuance of a classroom discussion can be lost in the virtual world. That said, I hope these MOOCs branch out some more, because humanities are an important part of a well-rounded education (full disclosure: I am a Latin teacher and think humanities form the foundation from which good technical thinking must emerge.)

That about wraps it up. I will be interested to see how the political and philosophical ramifications unfold concerning this free access to information. But for now, I am content to say that these courses are great resources for the curious and autodidacts of the world. scientia omnia vincit!

Why grade?

As I sat here all day grading tests and making sure all of my students' grades were in order before the grade submission deadline, I couldn't help but ponder the significance of these letters I was attaching to people.

Why do we assign grades? I suppose they are to provide a concise snapshot of a person's understanding at a given point of time. The problem with this is that learning is fluid, and grades are static; it is like trying to take a movie of your life by snapping a photo once a week. It may show some overall trends but the nuances are completely lost.

Another problem that arises is that students seem, on the whole, to have lost sight of the forest for the trees. A grade should be a tool, albeit a poor one, to track progress, but it seems that for so many students it is an end in and of itself. The attainment of the letter matters more than the reason (i.e. understanding and internalization of a concept) for that letter.

I see in education at the moment a couple of strands that attempt to address this issue. On the one hand, there is the idea of "gamification." I won't profess to be an expert on this subject, but at its core, it seems, is the idea that people are naturally imbued with a need to gain status and rank for their achievements. As in a video game, where experience points and medals are awarded as a person progresses through levels and does various tasks, the "gamified" classroom awards experience points and medals for tasks done relating to the subject matter.

The other strand is the idea of standards-based curriculum and the use of rubrics. Students should be able to clearly see expectations and strive to attain them. In fact, these two strands are not dissimilar; each views education as a series of steps, with checks and balances to make sure students don't go too far off course.

But this is my concern; these approaches are still external motivators. The gamified classroom may make the process of learning more enjoyable and engaging, but the student is still striving for those "experience points" and medals. The rubric may clarify the inner working of an assignment, but the student is still thinking "what can I do to get that 3 or 4?" We've swapped out the grades of A, B, and C for new set of codes.

And here is my point. I think true learning is undefinable by its very nature. True learning is internally motivated, born out of intellectual curiosity and a need to know "why?" The true learner doesn't stop to ask what their grade is; the only thing that matters is knowing enough to ask more questions. These are the people that become creators and innovators (take, for example, Bill Gates, who dropped out of college.)

This sort of curiosity can't really be objectified or pinpointed to a rubric. Imagine a rubric strand that asked a teacher to rate a student's inner drive and curiosity. Until we develop the ability to read people's minds, this is untenable.

So I come back to my initial question. Why grade? I would like to hope that it is the view of every educator that they be able to instill that intangible curiosity in all of their students. And, if grades are the only vehicle to even attempt to surmount the insurmountable, I'd rather have a rickety wagon than nothing at all. But I also wish there was a better way to get students to see that its not the grade, stupid, nor even the subject matter, but the thirst for learning.

With that, I leave you with this gem from Ted-Ed:

How to create a group in Aspen

An Aspen "group" is essentially a dedicated webpage or portal for specific people to see. You can create groups for classes you teach, sports that you coach, or clubs that you advise. At the moment the most obvious purpose to create a group would be to allow your different classes to see important information like upcoming assignments, announcements, and the like.

This doesn't really replace a good website through Weebly, Google Sites, or Wikispaces, but it supplements those and allows students to very quickly see some information when they visit their Aspen portals.

Lastly, excuse my pauses, stuttering, "um"ing, and the like, as this is my first foray into the wild world of "vlogging." Please don't hesitate to leave some comments if you need any clarification.

Grade Cam

Grade Cam isn't exactly new to anyone at EGHS, but I thought I'd still write about it for anyone else who might be interested.

Essentially, this service replaces Scantron Sheets to make grading multiple choice questions very fast. Students bubble in sheets that the teacher copies off. When the students are finished, they can show the sheets in front of a webcam or document camera, and the service grades the sheets. It also can produce reports that explain class statistics, which is great for modifying future teaching.

That said, the service isn't exactly looking to the future; in the end, I envision assessments becoming more digital and less objective. Students of the future will need to create authentic products and objective tests will eventually go the way of the Dodo. This service is a stopgap between the ways of the old and new.

Link here.

Ted Ed

Some of you may be familiar with the "Ted Talks" series, which is a collection of talks and presentations from people in various fields. These talks are often very engaging or cutting edge, and often create good places to start discussion.

Ted-Ed is a subset of these talks, and what makes them great is that they've been animated. These are more engaging to students. Further, each of the videos in Ted-Ed contains some good supplementary materials in the forms of post-viewing quizzes and discussion questions. The creators of this website have created a turn-key solution to flipping; if you do not have the time or expertise to create your own videos, you can use the ones on Ted-Ed and you can assess student comprehension via the quizzes and discussion material.

Currently there are a limited amount of videos, and many are not subject-specific, but focus on broader ideas. These are definitely a nice way to access the meta-structures of learning and to open up interdisciplinary discussions.

I highly recommend this site as a supplement or introduction to your own flipping adventures.

Link here.

Edjudo

Just found out about this website. It finds and reviews websites and web tools that pertain to education. Seems very well put together and should be a first stop if you are looking for specific tools or reviews.

Link here.