Tweet Your Appreciation for Teachers This Week

Posted on May 5, 2013 by renwickme

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week. My school is going to try something new. We will draw students’ names every day this week. When they come down to the office, they will be asked to share what they appreciate about one of their teachers.

Their responses will be shared on our school’s Twitter feed. It is embedded on our school’s homepage for everyone to see. Parents and community members will be encouraged to respond to the students’ comments, as well as share their own positive messages about our teaching staff.

This activity has the potential to be very successful because it is authentic, has a large audience, and the positive affirmations from the students are shared out quickly. The icing on the cake is it involves reading and writing. How are you recognizing teachers this week? Would there be a way to utilize social media to amplify your messages? Please share any ideas you have in the comments.

Connected from the Start: A Necessary Read

Posted on April 14, 2013 by renwickme

A good book encourages thought. A great book will change the way you think.

When Lani Ritter Hall, co-author of The Connected Educator, asked me to review Kathy Cassidy’s new e-Book Connected from the Start, I got a little nervous. Who am I to pass judgment on the work of a highly connected educator like Kathy? Even worse, what if I didn’t like it?

Fortunately, my worries were unfounded. This book is a necessary read for all elementary educators. The only thing she got wrong was which grade levels this book was most appropriate. I can imagine any K-5 teacher could implement the ideas Kathy shares to help their students become more connected online.

Instead of giving you a persuasive essay about why you should buy this book (and you should), I will share two ways Kathy’s work has impacted what I do as an elementary principal and literacy leader.

1. Digital Portfolios

In the beginning of the school year, Dropbox was the tool selected for my teachers to curate student writing. The plan was to share these web-based folders with parents as the year progressed, so everyone could see student growth over time.

One problem was (and still is) that the teachers are doing the work. Although Dropbox is a great tool for online storage of many types of media, we have found it a bit time-consuming for documenting student writing. The teacher has to take a picture, upload it to the student’s file, and organize it chronologically.

After reading Kathy’s book, I realized that a great digital portfolio tool was right in front of me: a blog. She has her students, as young as six years, regularly post online. The students’ content is not only given a broader audience, it solicits comments from other teachers, peers and family members.

This practical application in a primary classroom is powerful. It comes from someone who has been there and done that, and not from an administrator (like myself) or from a technologist that lacks that meaningful and authentic experience.

2. Collaborative Writing

I had been thinking for a while how I might show 4th grade students how to share their writing with an audience beyond our school walls. After reading Kathy’s book, it sparked the idea of using Google apps to make this happen.

We plan to have the students write a narrative based on one of the fourteen scenes from Chris Van Allsburg’s The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. Students can use Google Drive to create these stories, and post them on one Google Site. It would be maintained by educators from both schools, even though we are hundreds of miles apart. Teachers would show students how to comment effectively on another student’s writing. The benefits of these practices are a broader audience and a more authentic purpose to their work.

Lani Ritter Hall stated that “there is not another e-book out there like this”. I couldn’t agree more.

My (Somewhat) Successful Attempt at Disconnecting

Posted on April 11, 2013 by renwickme

During my spring break, I vowed to stay offline for two whole days. 48 hours. No Twitter, blogging, emails, or even web access. My goal was to be in the dark and yet see the light. I had felt lately that my online connections were not as purposeful as they had been in the past. It seemed like I was checking my feeds more often than I was checking in with myself.

My wife and I scheduled a vacation during the break. This was the perfect opportunity to pull the plug. It helped that the vacation site we picked did not allow cell phones in any of the public areas. If I wanted to take full advantage of the amenities, I had no choice but to focus on the face-to-face interactions that maybe I was neglecting beforehand.

Day 1

When we dropped the kids off at my parents, we left without leaving the car seats. Talk about not being present! Fortunately, we were only 30 minutes away from each other. While I waited for my parents, I sneaked a few peeks at my Twitter feed on my smart phone because I wasn’t technically “on vacation”, but quickly caught myself and shut it off. Instead, I listened to an interesting interview on the radio about the paper industry in Wisconsin. It is being directly affected by the digital influx we have all experienced. (“Paper Cuts” is an ongoing investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; I highly recommend you check it out here). Had my eyes been glued to a screen, I probably would have missed this relevant and important conversation with this reporter.

Day 2

I almost felt a sense of freedom. There was more time than I knew what to do with. I had no purpose, other than to have no purpose. The most in-depth conversation my wife and I had was whether an animal we spotted out our window was or was not a muskrat.

The only way we knew how to find the answer was to Google “muskrat” for an image.

Muskrat it was!

Day 3

Although I wasn’t necessarily missing being connected, I was curious about what kind of interactions may be waiting for me online. We checked out and headed for a Starbucks. Once offsite, I felt good about becoming connected again. I discovered several conversations and was tempted to jump in right away. However, I chose to let them sit and not feel rushed to respond immediately. Whatever it was, it could wait.

Besides the brief disconnection, I have made other modifications to be more purposeful in my actions. No longer is an iPhone or iPad also serving as an alarm clock. I went out and bought a real alarm clock. If someone needs to get a hold of me, they can call me on my landline. I am also making a concerted effort to use paper and pencil when taking notes, instead of feeling obligated to tap-tap-tap them into a productivity app. The Moleskine/Evernote Smart Notebook has helped me bridge the print and digital divide.

After the connection hiatus, I have felt more present for my family and for myself. It helped me remember that my purpose for connecting online was to learn and to share, directed by me and not by a notification (I have shut those off, thank you). If you are feeling the same way, I highly recommend taking a break from all things connected and see what you may have been missing.

eReaders and Research

Posted on April 7, 2013 by renwickme

My last post briefly described the process used to deliver eReaders to reluctant readers in my school. Because this just recently happened, it will be a while before I can share any type of data about the results from this project.

In the meantime, there have been a few requests to share some of the research that led to our decision to implement this technology in our book club. You can find all of the sources I referenced at this Diigo link, with what I found important highlighted. I will continue to add to this collection of studies.

For a more concise explanation of the process we used to determine that eReaders might increase student’s reading skills, here are the steps we followed.

Current Reality

Our students were pretty exuberant about being invited to be part of a book club in the beginning of the school year. They had new titles to choose from. They were all of high interest and at their reading level. Two adults were available, not to teach but rather to guide as the students gained confidence in a literate environment. Snacks were provided. They got to listen to a good story read aloud by a teacher every time they met.

As the year pressed on, the reality started to set in that these reluctant readers were coming to book club after their regularly scheduled school day. Attendance started to drop. A lack of engagement showed itself in a variety of ways. It was obvious that enthusiasm was waning. What to do?

“When in Rome…”

When I have talked to these students (mostly boys) outside the context of school, I have found them most enthusiastic when they speak about video games. Whether the subject is Minecraft or Call of Duty, their excitement rises several notches as they discuss strategies and experiences they associate with these forms of media. It is obvious to anyone within 20 feet of these ten and eleven year olds that technology holds their attention like none other.

Somewhat related, I used to share relevant education articles with my staff via Springpad. It is a very useful web tool for curating information. The only problem was, none of my staff were using it. They were all on Pinterest. Now, did I force my teachers to start using Springpad? Of course not! I got myself a Pinterest account and started posting important teaching articles for them to find and read. My purpose for using these technologies was not to simply use them, but to communicate information with others.

eReaders and Research

Reading is all about communicating and understanding. It is the science of making sense of words. There are a lot of conversations out there about the pros and cons of digital texts in schools, and some have been helpful. For example, we chose the Nook Simple Touches because we didn’t want a tablet device or even a backlit eReader to disrupt the sleep patterns of our students late at night. They need the rest.

Yet, another article cites research that there is no discernible affects between eInk and LCD screens. This source contradicts the other. Which research is more reliable?

This leads to two very important points made by Doug Fisher at the Wisconsin State Reading Association Convention this year:

Even if there is a body of research showing one thing, there’s a tendency to look at one article that counters.
What I knew at a prior time may have changed as I learned more (paraphrased).

What this means to me is we need to read each study about reading and technology with a discerning eye. This is why I value the collective knowledge shared by Doug Fisher, along with other education researchers such as Richard Allington, Sheila Valencia, Nell Duke and Peter Johnston. They look at many studies about a topic before making any recommendations. There are pundits and columnists out there who coud learn from this process. For example, there are at least two writers for the magazine Time (Lisa Guersney and Annie Murphy Paul) that tend to represent a research study as truth, instead of what it really is: A lone study.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy reading their columns. They share information that is important for everyone to know. But what separates these two from true disseminators of educational information, such as Kim Marshall of The Marshall Memo, is a) they are not educators, and b) they seem to espouse this information as infallible. For example, Lisa Guernsey defined “e-reading” as three year olds watching eBook apps on an iPad. While I share her concerns, there was no effort to define eReading in the broader sense and clear up misconceptions. The concept of “screen time” is no longer relegated to sitting a toddler down in front of a television. Research out of context is when studies aren’t placed side-by-side with related studies.

For me, I will continue to keep an open mind about how technology can possibly enhance, or harm, literacy skills with students. Of all the studies I have discovered, the one I find most interesting comes from the Pew Research Center. It found that digital reading is on the rise and print reading is down. At the same time, people read more when they read eBooks. Now, there are oodles of research to support how the volume of reading is correlated with an increase in reading habits and abilities (see the researchers I mentioned previously). Like I said in my previous post, words are words. Reading happens in one’s mind, not in the text or in how it is delivered. Both print and digital texts should have a place in schools. This helps me feel confident that the professional decisions made based on what we know at this time along with our assessments of our students’ abilities and interests is in everyone’s best interest.

Bringing the Book Club to the 21st Century: eReaders and Literacy Intervention

Posted on April 4, 2013 by renwickme

An adapted version of this post was published on Ed Tech’s website, found here.

“Hey, Mr. Renwick, when are the iPads coming in?”

“They’re not iPads – they are eReaders. I am not sure.”

two days later

“Hey, Mr. Renwick, when are the iPads coming in?”

“They’re not…nevermind. Soon!”

This is a continuous conversation I have been having with one of my 4th graders. He,
along with nine other 4th and 5th graders, will soon be receiving eReaders. They are
members of our after school book club, which also serves as a reading intervention. Our
goal is simple: Get our most reluctant readers to start reading habitually. We believe that
introducing digital books as part of our available library of texts will further engage our
students in this most critical skill.

Why go digital?

The book club students are not lacking in available books to read. Before it started, one
of our reading teachers purchased many high-interest, easy-to-read texts for the
students from a local book store. In addition, the book club meets in our school library
media center. They are surrounded by stories.

Yet proximity does not necessarily mean all students will read. They have had access to
these books for years. Why haven’t they picked them up yet? After reading the current
research on digital literacy, we felt eReaders can increase levels of engagement with
our reluctant readers in a way that print has not thus far. These students, like many their
age, go home after school and play video games or interact on social media. The
diffference is the chance that they will pull even the most engaging text out of their bag
to read independently is less than likely when compared to their peers. But with an
eReader, even the basic ones we have purchased, the relevancy of reading goes up
for these students. We are speaking their language: Technology.

Two Types of Text: Differentiating Our Instruction

It is not that technology is the end all, be all for our students’ reading diet. We see it
rather as a segue to a more literacy-centric life. Words are words. The whole point of
reading is to be engaged and informed. The actual comprehension, enjoyment and
learning happens inside one’s head, not in the text. Both the print and digital word
provide the same thing – an opportunity to experience someone else’s life, a far away
world, or a different culture than our own. The text, regardless of the format, is the
vehicle that takes us there.

That being said, reading print versus digital text requires a shift in instruction. For
starters, students can see their progress with a print book by simply looking at the
thickness of the remaining pages. We will have to teach them how to assess their
reading volume with the percentage complete data on the bottom of the screen. Second, annotating and highlighting important passages in a digital text only demands a
touch of the screen. With print, a packet of sticky notes plus a pencil would be
necessary to curate text that resonated with the reader. As well, there is a certain
getting used to when reading on an eReader for the ﬁrst time. We are swiping pages
instead of turning them. We can increase the font size if the type is too small on an
eReader. Print books don’t require a charge every month or so. As much as students
enjoy their technology, it comes back to good instruction to show students how to use
it efﬁciently and effectively.

A Balancing Act

Our book club students were allowed to choose the texts to be downloaded on the
eReaders. As we navigated through all the choices, we slowly realized that there
weren’t a lot of nonﬁction books that work with our simple eReaders. That makes sense.
Many newer nonﬁction books have lots of graphics, which lend themselves better to
print at this time. It provides a great point I plan to make with our students: Life long
readers rely on a variety of formats when interacting with texts, both digital and in print.
In the mean time, if an eReader gets a student to pick up a book more often, I say why
not?

If I Post on My Blog and No One Reads It, Did I Really Write It?

Posted on April 3, 2013 by renwickme

My staff and I are having some good conversations about the how and why for becoming more connected online with our families. Questions such as “Why should we?”, “What are the benefits for students?”, and “Is it one more thing added to my plate?” are all items we have tried to address.

More specifically, the biggest question seems to be, “Why should we share student learning online when it seems like no one is reading it?” We don’t lack for data that supports why we should start engaging with our families and community through tools such as social media. Consider the following research cited by Meg Carnes and Kitty Portersfield in their book Why Social Media Matters (Solution Tree, 2012):

75% of parents ages 18-29 use social media.

8% of adults under 30 read a print newspaper.

90% of families with incomes of $30,000 to $49,000 have a cell phone.

This information seems to support our efforts in creating classroom and student blogs, as well as sharing student work via digital portfolios. Yet it still seems like we are sometimes speaking into a vacuum. Families do not comment on our posts. We have had very few (if any) requests from parents to gain access to their child’s gallery of writing housed online.

Moving Forward

Despite these initial concerns, we have already seen benefits to becoming more connected educators. One thing I have stressed with staff is we are trailblazers. Not every school is doing this. Many families are unfamiliar with the tools we are trying with students. I have encouraged teachers to stick with it, because eventually they will come. Even posting their printed classroom newsletters on a classroom blog is a step in the right direction. Right now we save them on an internal drive, but it seems like they would be better placed online so parents can access 24/7. I have modeled this same practice by adding our school’s Twitter and school blog feeds to our district website.

There is also the engagement factor. When teachers have told students that their work will be shared online, their interest and efforts have piqued. All of a sudden, they realized that their potential audience just got a whole lot bigger. This subsequently sets an additional purpose for their learning activities, even if it is nothing more flashy than word work or summarizing a text they just read. Documenting these evidence-based practices over time also shows the students that these daily literacy activities are very important toward becoming better readers and writers. Growth can be seen more easily and authentically when their visual and audible learning products stand side-by-side in curation tools such as Dropbox and Evernote

FInally, there is definitely a need for parent education. It is obvious to me that families have the digital tools. They use smart phones frequently while waiting for their children to be dismissed at the end of the day. With that, we have a technology night planned for parents in the next couple of weeks. My role will be to show everyone how the devices they hold in their hands can access a wealth of information about their kids as well as learning resources in general. All of the tools we are trying out have a mobile application to access them. The idea that a parent can check their child’s grades, attendance and learning progress while waiting in the lobby should be a novel one.

A great resource for digital parent outreach is Joe Mazza (@Joe_Mazza) and the #ptchat he moderates on Twitter. You can check out the multitude of ways his school has connected with families in the latest edition of Principal magazine. In your school, what ways have you become more connected with your families online? Please share in the comments.

Are You Changing, or Are You Growing?

Posted on April 2, 2013 by renwickme

Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.
- John C. Maxwell

Although snow is still on the ground here in Central Wisconsin, I am preparing for the upcoming gardening season. Two new raised beds will be installed. My family and I have selected what vegetables we want to grow this season.

Long before this year, I have kept a compost pile. If you are not familiar with this, it is a container that houses dead leaves, kitchen scraps, and most anything else that was once living and not an animal by-product. When this mixture breaks down into a soil-like material, it can be spread over soil and beds to aid plant growth, water retention in soil, and the overall health of a garden. Some refer to compost as “black gold”, because of all the benefits it provides toward a great harvest.

Now, I could let this pile sit. It would eventually decompose and become compost at some point in time, maybe in a couple of years. However, I can accelerate this process by turning over the dead plant material every now and then. Putting in this extra work in the beginning results in more compost both now and in the future. My efforts will lead to better results at a faster rate compared to doing nothing at all.

I see some parallels between compost and the new ways of learning available today. Tools such as social media, eBooks and digital portfolios are ripe for the taking. They just require a little extra effort in the beginning, plus some reflection as to what outdated practices they will replace. Moreover, I believe these new tools differ than other shifts in learning in the past. Being more connected will most likely not be an initiative that comes to us top down. It needs to start from the ground up, in classrooms willing to start accelerating the learning process and innovate. The students are asking for it, in their lack of engagement if not in their words. Many of them may already be using these tools on their own time and can teach us how to use them. That is okay. Maybe even better.

So, we can sit back and allow these personalized, self-directed tools for learning to eventually come to us. Maybe we can try one out next year when we are more comfortable. Our students’ audience for writing will continue to be only us, and maybe the parents. Sharing students’ learning will happen on special days a couple times a year. The purpose for our students’ work will be to get that grade above passing. Or…we can turn over our instruction and start to accelerate our own process for learning. We can be learners alongside our students, growing as a connected community whose diversity of resources knows no limits. Students will ask you what you all did while they were absent, because they don’t want to miss anything.

If you were a student in your classroom right now, would you want to wait until next year to become more connected, or even one more day?

“Preparing for Our Changing Future”

Posted on March 20, 2013 by renwickme

So, I come home after showing teachers how to use Google Reader for subscribing to blogs and online news, and find out it is being retired this summer. My initial reaction was, “What?!?” I felt I had just wasted my colleagues’ time by exploring a tool that no longer would be usable.

Being the eternal optimist, I sent out this tweet:

Here were the responses I got back from my personal learning network:

I really appreciated their advice. It helped me remember a couple of key elements when learning anything new:

Understand Concepts, Not Just Tools

Prior to me sharing how Google Reader works, the participants for my course “Becoming a Connected Educator” and I have discussed why we should use online networks for learning and teaching. For example, we explored the Connected Learning Communities framework by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Lani Ritter Hall. This is from their book The Connected Educator. It nicely describes how professional learning communities, personal learning networks, and communities of practice can work in concert to help us reach our potential as learners. Once we have that foundation, we are more resilient to the ever changing technology landscape, as well as flexible enough to pick up the new tools and drop the ones that aren’t working.

Have an Open Mind

I try to model how to use a few technology tools at each session while teaching the major concepts for the course. It’s embedded in my instruction so teachers can see them in practice. I also repeatedly make the point that teachers need to be selective about what Web 2.0 tools they want to use in their classroom and/or for their own learning.

To help ourselves focus, we used “Reflection Circles”. I discovered this graphic organizer at a Department of Public Instruction training in 2006. The participants wrote a quick reflection about each tool shared so far during the course.

Know Where You Are Going

It is also important that there is a clear direction as to why and how we should become more connected. I created this template to help everyone prepare to embed technology into their instruction:

To make this point in a different way, I shared my school’s vision:

We are a community of engaged learners,
focused on academic and social growth,
preparing for our changing world.

That last line means a lot to me right now. When we meet again next week, I will stress the same thing. How does what happened with Google Reader apply to us as educators? Can we become irrelevant? How quickly could this transition take place? I feel confident that being a mindful and connected learner is the best way for all educators to remain relevant, as well as to provide authentic and engaging learning activities for our students.

How Should Social Media Etiquette Be Taught in Schools?

Posted on March 7, 2013 by renwickme

An adapted version of this post can also be found at Ed Tech Magazine’s website here.

Before we ask how, I think we should be addressed why social media etiquette should be taught in schools. (I am answering this question through the lens of literacy, which encompasses all K-12 content areas.)

First of all, even though students may appear to be comfortable using technology, it should be not be assumed that they already know how to use it appropriately. In a 2012 article by Baiyun Chen and Thomas Bryer from the University of Central Florida, they found that many students are not using social media for learning purposes. At the same time, the majority of young people are connected with others online. With this in mind, teaching students how to appropriately use social media is a school’s responsibility, to help ensure they are safe online as well as leveraging its potential for learning.

Second, social media can provide two things that are critical for student engagement in a literate environment: audience and purpose. Audience refers to those who will see what students create and share. With the possibilities social media provides, no longer are students writing for their teacher or peers alone. For example, they can post a project on a classroom blog or on Edmodo, a safe social media site for classrooms. Students, family members and teachers across the globe can now view their work and even comment on it. This type of feedback is valuable for student growth. It also teaches students the importance of revision and being appropriate when posting online.

Purpose is the reason students are doing the work. Social media can help facilitate their own growth and as well as their audience’s learning when the purpose is to teach others. Before sharing occurs, essential questions should first be considered before students post their thoughts and work online. Is my project original and creative? What will my audience gain from what I am presenting? Will it make a positive impact on my community? The world? Can others add to what I shared and collaborate with me, potentially making it better?

Once the why has been established and engagement is built with students, teaching the how should be much easier. What educators bring to the table are a strong understanding of pedagogy – the art, science, or profession of teaching (Merriam-Webster). The instructional framework my school subscribes to is the Optimal Learning Model, sometimes referred to as the gradual release of responsibility.

Adapted by Regie Routman from Teaching Essentials: Expecting the Most and Getting the Best from Every Learner, K-8 (Heinemann, 2008)

In this framework, the teacher first models the concept or skill to be learned. Will Richardson and Rob Mancabelli value this framework within the context of social media, stating in their book Personal Learning Networks (Solution Tree, 2011) that “the ability to model your own learning networks in front of your students might be your most important pedagogy of all” (12). To start, the teacher and students could share one thing they learned that day on a classroom Twitter account or Facebook page. They could also explore other classrooms’ blogs to read how students at their age level write online. Once a level of comfort navigating online has been established, the teacher can do an interactive writing activity on a classroom blog. Interactive writing is an example of shared demonstration, when the students and teacher share the responsibility for the work.

This concept that “we do it” is critical when trying to build student confidence in order for them to eventually learn independently. When the teacher believes the students are ready to work on their own, he or she can set up blogs for each one of them. I recommend KidBlog as a great place to start. As the website describes, it is a safe and simple blog for students. They can now be encouraged to write for their own purposes, while consistently being reminded that their potential audience is anyone in the world.

At this point, the sky is the limit. Students can curate digital portfolios that show their own learning growth over time. They could also collaborate with students in other communities on school projects and facilitate conversations with their audience in the comments. And I am only referring to blogs. Skype, wikis, and podcasts are just a few of the many other available social media tools students can utilize for learning. What is important is the teacher is there as a guide, helping his or her students create a safe and positive digital footprint while immersed in authentic, purposeful learning for the world to see.

Evernote Smart Notebook – Is it Worth it?

Posted on February 23, 2013 by renwickme

I just received my Evernote Smart Notebook from Moleskine. I have been wanting to try this paper/digital tool for a while. The Evernote technology is able to “read” your handwriting and make it searchable within your notes. As a principal, I could document meeting notes electronically and not having to lug around technology all the time. Students could also potentially use these notebooks to curate their writing and create digital portfolios.

I tried it out by copying down some information from Richard Allington’s book What Really Matters in Response to Intervention. I took a picture with my iPad, then searched for the word “lesson” within that new note. Here was the result:

Pretty cool, right? My handwriting is not the best, yet Evernote still managed to capture the appropriate word.

When I showed my notebook to my office assistant, she asked if Evernote could read handwriting in any Moleskine notebook. To find out, I used my read aloud Moleskine notebook containing notes on different books I like to share with students. Picture taken and new note created, I searched for “audio”.

As you can see, it does work.

This bears the question: Is the Evernote Smart Notebook worth it?

I would say yes. You need Evernote Premium to be able to search within images and PDFs. Three months of the Premium subscription comes with a Smart Notebook ($30). In addition, these specialized notebooks have different stickers you can put on a note (see second image). Each sticker can be customized to digitally associate with an Evernote notebook and tags within your account. These stickers could be a real time saver.

Even though a regular Moleskine notebook is half the price ($15), the Evernote Premium is nice in that you get a lot more storage – 1 GB a month instead of 60 MB. It’s a nice way to try out Premium and the sticker technology. However, if you already subscribe to Evernote Premium ($45/year) and don’t mind taking a few extra steps to organize your handwriting, the technology appears to scan either type of page.

Have you tried the Evernote Smart Notebook? What has been your experience? Please share in the comments.

Reading By Example

Rethinking the Role of the Literacy Leader

Category Archives: Technology