Personal Learning So Far at ADE Summer Institute

How does a newbie to this type of institute sum up what I have learned over the last 2 days... there is so much to say. I guess I will go with a list:

• "Quiet is a hot commodity" and basically unnecessary. When people are talking they are personalizing what they are learning, and they are learning from each other.
• Volume is a word that describes the ADE institute. Everything and everyone seems to be on high, and that is a good thing. The music is loud, the conversations all taking place in one room are loud, the hotel is bustling with people until all hours of the morning, and it is loud, in different parts. Never thought I would say that LOUD is a really great thing. It just goes to show you how much passion there is among these people.
  
• The 3-minute presentation about journalism was my moment. I came here expecting that at some point I would have my ah-ha, this is why I was destined to come here... and this was my first major moment... with many more that followed.
• The idea of taking things right back to my classroom is always really important for me, so I am finding myself asking questions and trying to soak up every new idea and keep track of all of them, but the ideas come so hard and fast is impossible to remember them all. I need a few minutes to just "brain vomit" everything I can rmeember that I didn't have time to write down... like now.
• The difference between personalized learning and individualized learning is larger than what I thought.
• I feel like I can know change my Language Arts classroom to be more personalized. I can still reach the standards without boring the kids who have already become proficient at different times.
• Challenge Based Learning is complex, it is hard, it is frustrating to wrap my mind around, and it probably the best concept I have heard of, and definitely the most worthy of my hard work in the future.
• The personal branding by far is the most valuable. (See my wordle of this process above.) It is applicable for me as well as my students as they are finishing high school it is critical that they develop their own "brand" and that their online presence is positive and helpful for their future.
• I have learned, through viral video, what I should be making sure my daughters understand and know that they can't believe what the media and the beauty industry is telling them. They have to have self-confidence and know that only real people will give them real evaluations of them as people.
• I loved the story spines and the improv excercises which will be very valuable in my classroom, in my creative writing courses, and just for fun!
  

“A Dream Ride on Dumbo”

So as I am boarding the plane I overhear this conversation:

“Girls, you have to turn your cell phones off.”
“Why? What if someone needs me?” (Reminder it is 4:24 a.m.)
“They will make you turn them off on the plane.”
“Why, do they really think the plane will go down if I text too much?”
“Don’t argue, just turn them off and hand them to me.”
“Fine… when can I have it back?”
“When we land.”
“Where are you going to put it?”
“Right here in my bag.”
“Don’t put it in that one, what if you lose it?”
“I am not going to lose my purse, it has all our money it.”
“Yeah, but you leave your purse laying around all the time and I wouldn’t want anyone to get into my messages.”
“All the money for our entire vacation is in this purse, I am pretty sure I won’t lose it… besides, you didn’t even bring an extra pair of underwear on the plane with you. You must not be too worried about the airline losing your luggage.”
“I can always get new underwear when we land, I can’t live without my phone that long.”

Says it all doesn’t it?
But the best line of the day so far, a couple of small children are flying to meet Mickey Mouse, and as we hit turbulence, the passengers let out a sigh of frustration and relief when it stopped. An enthusiastic young girls says, “this must be what it’s like flying on Dumbo, now I am ready to go!”

So as I am heading for the Apple Distinguished Educators Institute in Orlando, have two thoughts on my mind. I am ready to learn more about technology, and I have a feeling that it might involve phones and/or iTouches. Secondly I am ready to take a dream ride on Dumbo. It might be a little shaky, it might be a little unexpected, but I am sure that it will be animated and exciting. I don’t really know what I am getting myself into, but it going to fun!

Packing for the Opportunity of a Lifetime!

So as I am posting this message, I am sitting and trying to figure out what it is that I am forgetting to pack in my suitcase to go to Florida for the Apple Distinguished Educators Institute at Full Sail University. I have ben waiting since February 20th for this time to come and now I am suddenly nervous. I know that this is an honor to be chosen as an ADE, and I know that I will love every minute of the institute, and I will learn a ton while I am gone, but the fear of the unknown and the lack of control over what I will be doing for 6 days is making me a bit anxious. (I know, I know... control freak!) Check back over the next few days, I am hoping to post fairly regularly for my children to see what I have been up to. The posts will be mostly notes, but at least it will be something!

Obstacles to overcome at this point in the trip:

• leaving my three kids and husband home for 8 days alone
• remembering to bring everything before I am 100 miles from home on the way to the airport
• getting everything packed into one carryon and one suitcase
• hoping my husband doesn't relapse from a hospitalization while I am gone
• getting my voice back from a bout with bronchitis (brought on by husband's illness - we'll blame it on him!)

A Balance Teenager

Recently I discovered something a lot of you may already know, but I found http://www.plinky.com. The part I enjoy the most is the weekly digest of writing prompts. I actually receive an email message so I can peruse them and use what I want. As I am using this Plinky site over the summer, in a test and trial manner, I am thinking I would rather check it every day for my creative writing class. In fact, I can use it as a journal starter for some units with my other English classes. There are other wonderful links beyond these prompts and it might be great for my students to use them. One of my favorite links this week was, “If you could do it again, what group from high school would you hang out with more? Why would you pick this group, knowing what you know now? Jocks, math nerds, band geeks, drama kids, popular crowd, stoners, other” I found myself thinking about this a lot over the past few days. My brother is having his 25th reunion this weekend, which means a lot of our old friends will be in town. I envy the fact that he will get to see them. He doesn’t think that his friends will attend, because they didn’t at the 20th. Because my brother was only 3 years older than me, we kind of ran with the same crowd. I dated one of his best friends for a while, we went to the same parties, the same school, hung out with a lot of the same people, and they were all older than me. So they don’t come to my reunion. (Thank goodness for facebook or I wouldn’t get to talk to them at all!)

I can’t exactly say that I fit into any one of those listed groups. I definitely wasn’t athletic. I wasn’t good at math, I can’t carry a tune or play an instrument. I had a crush on a drama kid who later became our prom king and who attended our reunion and hasn’t changed a bit! (Hi Rich!) I didn’t run with the popular crowd, and I wasn’t a stoner. So what was I? I wasn’t popular and I hope I wasn’t too much of a outsider. I wasn’t a loner and I had a really great group of friends that I ran around with. I had a boyfriend, but nothing serious. I had a job as a waitress (which I loved and would go back to doing again in a pinch) and a group of friends there, but again I wasn’t obsessed with my job either. I don’t ever wish I could go back to high school and do it again, because childhood is something you survive, and adulthood is so much better. So what was I? Balanced? Normal? I guess there isn’t a label, but I can say that I was happy, as healthy a teenager can be, and I was enthusiastic about life. What more could I ask for?

I wonder if my own students feel this way about their current expedition through high school. I wonder if they are happy with who they are and who they are hanging out with. I wonder if they wish they were in a different group. I wonder if they will look back at their high school years as if they were the best years of their life, or if they will think of them fondly and realize there is so much more to life out there beyond their small town and beyond their teenage years. I am hoping this is a launching ground, but the landing spot for most of them.

Dallas, Blogs and Laundry

Just recently my 11-year-old daughter figured out my secret guilty pleasure, watching Dallas on DVD, and reading blogs while doing laundry. It’s an interesting mix, watching a show that relies on the fact that things will change every week and we will watch, believe, and invest our time in the characters and the situations. They are glamorous, beautiful, and fun, but we only get out of it what we put into it, and make connections to our lives. It is entertainment and that is why I enjoy it. I can escape from the sometimes mundane, real world for a little while and simply enjoy. (Not that this is an advertisement for the show Dallas, because it was cheesy, over-teased, not based in reality, and shoulder-padded, but that is the definition of entertainment isn’t it?)

Wait for it, here’s the connection to technology….Some blogs are the same way. In fact most web 2.0 sites are like just like this. They are just for entertainment. I find myself completely enjoying the process of discovering new web 2.0 applications, games, social networking sites, and other great “stuff” on the internet. I love to play with them, and if truth be told, I probably have a free account for most of them while I was test driving them to see how they worked. However, they are like Dallas. A lot of them are just fads, they look good for the first few times you watch, but then they turn out like most other episodes/sites. They won’t be around in a few years, or they will be a paid service and you lose your stuff. They have a lot of flashy things in them, they look good, but they aren’t really that useful for the actual classroom. We get caught up in them, and before we realize it we are wasting a lot of valuable time trying to find the usefulness in them.

So my advice, like “old J.R.” used to say when trying out a new plan, “this is only the first of many steps to my plan, darling, wait and see, wait and see.”

Now do you see why I love to read blogs and watch Dallas while doing laundry? It gives me great ideas like this! However, my internet is down and I am crippled, so I will have to post this later, after the next episode, the next blog reading, and the load of socks to match. If the Internet doesn’t come back up soon, how am I going to get my laundry done?

Survival or Savior

“Feed the rabbits and starve the turtles.”
“Survival of the fittest.”
“Only the strong survive.”
“That is why there is a slow lane, so you can get out of the way.”
“Change in inevitable, embrace it.”

I have been collecting these phrases, but until now I was not sure why. When I began collecting these thoughts, I wanted to tie them to the early technology integrators; to the teachers who “got it” and were ready to run and to work hard. As I reread these in my notes, several weeks or months later than when I originally wrote them down, I see something more disturbing. While these statements can be motivating, they tend to lean toward the negative. I personally would never starve a turtle on purpose. I would definitely feed the rabbit and send him on his quick way, and I would keep offering food to the turtle and hope that it gives them the motivation to win the “slow and steady” race to the same finish line.

I struggle with idea of the fittest. I can’t seem to attach this to teachers, or students, who are not the fittest. Should we be trying to make everyone as fit as they can possibly be? Shouldn’t we be helping everyone survive in a technology rich world. Not all people are techie, but all people can use technology. That is why they have friends who are bit geeky, like me, to help them learn to survive. We can’t leave them on their own…

The statement about strength also bothers me because I know I am not strong in all areas. I have my own personal strengths of interpersonal relations, text-based learning, and visual learning. I also realize that I am not mathematical, and logical. I am not music, but I love music. I am definitely not naturalistic – my daughter says I am scared of nature. I enjoy the intrapersonal side of myself – which is where a lot of my blog entries comes from. I am not that bodily/kinesthetic, I am actually quite clumsy, but I try! I need the rest of you who are strong in my weak areas to help keep me going. And some of you may need my strengths… we have to work together.

As for the “slow lane” this is a farce. Some of my best teachers and integrators move a bit slower than I do and slower than some of the more tech saavy teachers, but they still get the same results. Maybe if some of us slowed down to see what we were passing by, we might learn something. Heck, we might even want to borrow something that they are doing…

Yes, change IS inevitable. Yes, we all need to embrace it. But we all need to come to that change with a positive attitude, and work hard at whatever pace suits us. Try to not to see negative, and strive toward positive changes, one step, or one hurdle, or one leap, or one race at a time.

The Age of Composition

As an English teacher I have been waiting years for this to happen. I have been waiting for the day when I could say that being able to write is critical to every day living, and I think that day has come!

We are living in the age of composition. “We now have formal and informal texts. We are losing our hierarchy of teacher to student, it has moved to peer to peer. Print media which eventually gets published, we see drafts, we have added images and visuals, we have access to vast resources, our lives are interwoven by text: email, instant messaging, chatting, texting from cell phones, updating your facebook status, etc. We have now moved into a world of peer review – and possibly peer copyright infringment. (Sorry to whomever first asked the question in the first sentence, I am not sure where I heard it, or read it, or if I just asked the question myself – which I doubt.) Writing to build the larger conversation. People are not reading your credentials on your blog, or looking up your educational history for your youtube posting, or asking for your diploma in a chatroom. People just want to know your thoughts and opinions and to talk about important subjects. (http://weblogg-ed.com/2009/writing-to-build-the-larger-conversation/)”

As an English teacher (7 years teaching middle school and 8 years at the high school level) I have tried to tell my students that everyone needs to be able to write. You have to be able to write informally for letters, correspondence, notes to family, request for vacation leave from your boss, invitations to friends, and so much more. You have to be able to write formally for business letters, presentations, and updates. You can’t go through your life without being able to write. In the early years of my teaching career I can remember hearing things like “I’m never going to be a writer,” or “I can have a secretary for that.” But in the age of instant messaging, which lead to phone text messaging, which corresponds with MySpace and Facebook, and schools which have laptop initiatives, the kids are writing more. Do they realize it? Maybe not. So I asked.

My students don’t realize how much they write everyday. I wish I could put a pedometer for writing on them so they could keep track of how many words they type every day. Now some may disagree, but LOL is a word if you can read it and know what it means. It might not be proper grammar, and it might not be formal, but it is written communication. When I tell students that we are beginning a writing unit, I hate the grumble of disappointment and I hate that they think writing is work when they do it so often. So my first writing assignment is to send me a text message. (Our school has rules about not using cell phones in school, so the kids send me a quick email using text language.) My first job – I have to admit – is to figure out what those messages say. I am getting better at it since I now have a biological son who texts me all the time. When I respond, I write in abbreviations back… and I explain that is what my generation used to shorten language. Then I try to explain that my mother knows this foreign language that only her generation can understand – and its called shorthand…

So after this first short lesson, I ask them questions via a discussion board, that are about less formal topics and let them respond without grading for grammar or punctuation. And I let them respond to each other. They tend to still put in texting language, but it cuts down considerably. I try to respond in their same writing style, even though it is hard for me. Heck, sometimes I still want to put five spaces in front of beginning of the next paragraph instead of using the tab key. Eventually I ask them a little more serious of a question, and I ask them to write for me without any abbreviations or text language, still not grading for grammar or punctuation. This slows them down, but they can still say what they want. When I respond to them, I try to use the most formal writing style possible, as a model.

In the next phase, I give them a short written assignment, and ask them to use “regular” writing style and answer within a short amount of time. Usually this is a complex question, with several facets of information to include so they are challenged by the time frame, and not so focused on the conventions. At the end of all this, it is easy to go back and look at each form of writing and see that they are using basically the same amount of time to write. We discuss how each of these “looks.” What formats do you use each type of writing? Is writing in complete sentences and complete ideas before you click the send button so hard? Do you actually get a chance to share your intelligence beyond saying “k” and “where are you?” Later we go on to read interesting blogs, wikis, emails, listservs, web sites, etc. We talk about their writing skills, their credibility, and presentation. Eventually we get around the conversation that centers on the revelation that, “I want you to help me improve my writing. My grammar isn’t good enough for my ideas.”