Month: December 2008

NMSA08, PodcastBy Troy Patterson, ,

Podcast 57: Arne Duncan Doughnuts in the Teacher’s Lounge!

Items, Events, Calendar, Eclectic Stuff (truc et chose)

  1. Arne Duncan of the Chicago Public Schools will become the next Secretary of Education.  (Sources:  Education.com, Wikipedia, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Washington Post, Time, U.S. Department of Education, MSNBC, World Magazine )
    • Arne Duncan & Arne’s Older Brother?  Maybe not …
    • Has made teachers reapply for their positions.
    • Advocates school of choice and charter academies.  (Started 75 new charter schools in Chicago.)
    • Has replaced faculties in wholesale moves.
    • Advocates the incorporation of technology in education.
    • Has not taught in the classroom.
    • Appointed to the CEO position by the mayor of Chicago.
    • Has a degree in Sociology.
    • High-stakes testing will likely continue.
    • Supports performance pay.
    • Secretary Spellings supports the selection of Arne Duncan.
    • Ideas considered for Chicago Public Schools:  an all-gay high school, pay students for grades, and boarding schools.
    • Advocates longer school days.
  2. Alightlearning is looking for votes and support for a software venture that will incorporate technology and education.  They are competing for a $10,000 grant to start-up their venture.  Generalized information is available on the website.
  3. Jim Politis of the National Substitute Teacher Alliance passes along his Holiday greetings.
  4. NMSA ’09 Invitation Video
  5. Michigan Association of Middle School Educators Annual Conference March 12 & 13 at White Pine Middle School in Saginaw Township.
  6. Ohio Middle School Association‘s Annual Conference will be February 19-20 in Sandusky, OH.
  7. Shawn got a Kindle.  Did Troy get a Kindle?  (Thanks Teresa!)
  8. MIT Vocab Contest!:  Have your students produce a video defining standard SAT vocabulary words.  For every 5 videos uploaded one iTunes download will be awarded up to 1000 downloads per the event in total.  In other words, get ‘am in early and often if you’re looking for the iTunes motivator.  Only 1000 available for the entire WORLD!  Oh, and check out the website.
  9. Stupid Spam that got stuck in the filter:  “Hello! All would like to congratulate on coming Christmas!”  Thanks buddy …  from Russia.  We worked hard at it this year.  Spammer of the Week:  maf-ioz.ru (Address has been slightly altered.)

Features:

149 Parenting School-Wise Tips by Carol A. Josel

  • Catagories:  Motivation, Goal-Setting, Organization, Reading, Writing, Revising and Editing, Spelling, Homework, Memory Techniques, Note-Taking, Studying, Test Prep, and Test-Taking.
  • #1  “Remember that motivation is as important as ability.  Keep the focus on motivation.  Without hard work, talent is of little service.”
  • #19 “Station sticky-note reminders on bathroom mirrors, doors, and other easy-to-see places.  Goals require a due date.  Well placed reminders help the process.”
  • #37 “Establish a ‘Drop Spot’ for gathering all school materials at day’s end.  A bedtime reading book and the lunch that’s waiting in the refrigerator are the exceptions.  This way everything is hassle-free and ready to go in the morning.”
  • #67 “Advise keen attention to the ending.  It is as important, if not more so, than the lead.  It must satisfy or it will leave the reader disappointed with the whole piece.”
  • #88 “Provide after-school ‘down time.’  A dose of physical activity and a nutritious snack, such as peanut-butter smeared apples, provide the energy needed for the upcoming homework/study session.”
  • Newsletter Sample (one of my favorite parts & not necessarily for the students):  A Gavi-Good Recipe
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Chicken Pot Pie

    Ingredients:
    2 chicken breasts,a store-bought roaster, or package of pre-cooked chicken
    one package of frozen peas and carrots, thawed
    one 10-oz can of cream of chicken soup
    one store-bought pie crust, such as the Wholly Wholesome brand
    Steps to Take:
    1. If not using pre-cooked or roaster chicken, cook chicken breasts in pot of boiling water for 5 to 10 minutes.
    2. Chop chicken into cubes.
    3. Mix chicken with thawed peas and carrots.
    4. Stir in can of cream of chicken soup.
    5. Place mixture in Pam-sprayed pie plate.
    6. Top with pie crust.
    7. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes or until crust is golden.

News:
All’s Fair in Middle School Scramble:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/26/education/26fifth.html?_r=1
In the quest to find the perfect middle school for her 10-year-old daughter, Aimée Margolis has zig-zagged across Manhattan for 11 school visits, grilled pre-teenagers at a school fair on music classes and the preferred attire at dances, and compiled a dog-eared folder full of notes.
Then there is the bathroom test. Ms. Margolis casually slipped away for what appeared to be a quick pit stop. She carefully occupied a stall, waited for a cluster of students to walk in, and listened.
Unlike another school, whose impressive tour was undercut by a dismal bathroom test in which Ms. Margolis heard students poking fun at teachers, making grammatical mistakes and using “trash mouth,” Clinton’s bathroom-goers revealed themselves to be articulate, friendly nonswearers who at least momentarily refrained from gossip.
Too much testing cuts into learning

THE GOAL of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 was to make schools more accountable to their neediest students and to the public. Students must demonstrate competence by passing an English and math test, the MCAS, in order to graduate from high school. But now, passing merely two tests is no longer enough, and an ever-increasing number of tests and retesting opportunities has been imposed upon school systems. Consequently, testing has transformed urban schools into testing and test preparation centers.
The Department of Education requires high schools to schedule 28 days of testing, amounting to 15 percent of the 180-day school year.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/12/25/too_much_testing_cuts_into_learning/

Storybooks On Paper Better For Children Than Reading Fiction On Computer Screen, According to Expert
Clicking and scrolling interrupt our attentional focus. Turning and touching the pages instead of clicking on the screen influence our ability for experience and attention. The physical manipulations we have to do with a computer, not related to the reading itself, disturb our mental appreciation, says associate professor Anne Mangen at the Center for Reading Research at the University of Stavanger in Norway. She has investigated the pros and cons of new reading devices.
Mangen maintains that reading on a screen generates a new form of mental orientation. The reader loses both the completeness and constituent parts of the physical appearance of the reading material. The physical substance of a book offers tranquility. The text does not move on the page like it does on a screen.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081219073049.htm

Website Of The Week:
BrainyFlix:

We’re trying to help kids prepare for the SAT by offering fun and free videos about SAT vocabulary, made by YOU!

We’re offering $600 in prize money to the video that receives the most number of votes. $200 of the payout will go to the maker(s) of the video and $400 to the class or school club of his/her choice.

And to make this viral, we’ll give out 1 free iTunes download for every 5 videos you submit or referrals you provide.*

Contest begins January 1, 2009. Sign up to be notified when the contest starts.

http://www.brainyflix.com/

NMSA ’08

Formative Assessment: What is It And How Can It Improve Student Learning?

Handouts will be available on NMSA web site. (Presenter didn’t prepare for this, “I can’t think of everything”.)

Overview:
Knowledge base for formative assessment.
The Big Picture
The Process of Formative Assessment

The Big Idea: Use of evidence of learning to adapt instruction to meet student needs.

Resources:
How People Learn (NRC, 2000)
Knowing what Students Know, (NRC, 2001)

Laurie Sheppard is the guru on this stuff.
Congnitive & Constructivist Learning Theories:

Metacognition is important in formative assessment.

Reformed Vision of Curriculum:
All students can learn
Challenging Subject matter at HOT & problem solving.
Equal opportunity for diverse learners

Classroom Assessment
Challenging tasks
Learning Processes as well as learning outcomes

Shout Outs:

  • Thanks Teresa for the Kindle on FaceBook!  Troy needs one!
  • Michael Cohen, thanks for finding us on FaceBook!
MSM, NMSA08, PodcastBy Troy Patterson

Podcast #56 Teaching the Middle School Brain, Facebook issues, and Disrupting Class!

Special Notice: Due to web server space limitations, we will be removing some early shows. If you’d like to hear a show that is unavailable, please email us!

Items & Events

  1. The Michigan Association of Middle School Educators (MAMSE) Annual Conference will be held in Saginaw Township on March 12 & 13 at White Pine Middle School.
  2. The Ohio Middle School Association’s Annual Conference will be held at Kalahari February 19-20.
  3. The National Middle School Association’s Annual Conference will be November 5-7 in Indianapolis, IN.  The theme will center around globalization and service learning.
  4. The Middle Level Essentials Conference will be held at the Red Rocks in Nevada April 23-34.  Tell your high school colleagues about the special “conference in a conference” on ninth grade teams.
  5. A link to Will Ricardson’s featured presentation at NMSA ’08.
  6. The LEAGUE’s Knight Scholarship Competition:
    The KNIGHT scholarship is a national scholarship competition where 3 students will receive $5,000 each for their writings or reflections on civic experiences in one of three categories: Persuasive Essay (building awareness and inviting action for change in your school, community or the world), Personal Narrative (experiences with service and volunteerism), or News Story (creating newspaper articles that reports acts of service and volunteerism by young people). The scholarship is open to high school seniors from all over the country, even students who are not part of a LEAGUE classroom can apply! The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (http://www.knightfoundation.org) promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 U.S. communities. Since 1954, the foundation has given more than $300 million in journalism grants. Applications will be posted at www.theleague.org beginning January 5th.  Students must submit their applications before the March 6th deadline. For more details about The LEAGUE and the KNIGHT scholarship please visit www.theleague.org.
  7. ACT has a new report on The Forgotten Middle .  You can read the report as a PDF file directly from the NMSA website.
  8. See the folks who attended NMSA08 this year and left a message on the virtual wall at SchoolTube! Videos are posted for you to either relive the experience or get a taste of the convention from the folks who attended.
  9. Recommended website:  Carol Josel was a presenter at this year’s NMSA Annual Conference.  She has a website with wonderful tips for both parents and teachers that draw from her years of teaching experience.  Sign up for her newsletter and get a newsletter bonus feature:  a new receipe from a featured nutritionist!  Do check out her compilation of free articles on her website.
  10. Catch Dr. Debbie Silver at the following locations in January:  Anderson, MO Teacher’s Conference January 5, 2009; California League of High Schools, Monterry, CA January 16; and other Teacher In-Services in a district near you!
  11. Do some Christmas Break PD!  Check out the Second Life Education screen casts here.
  12. Job Opportunity!  The New England League of Middle Schools is looking for a “visionary leader” to guide them into the coming years.  The position of Executive Director is open and persons interested should submit a resume, letter of intent, three letters of recommendation, salary requirements to Mr. Paul Freeman of the East Lyme Public Schools.

Book Update! – Disrupting Class Latest reading update from Troy.

Space Concern: Due to web site space issues, we will be removing some of the early shows.

News!
Student Sues High School over Facebook Suspension:
A former Florida high school student who was disciplined for “cyberbullying” a teacher on Facebook is suing the school principal on allegations of violating her free speech rights.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/12/us-student-inte.html

Sending Racy photos via phone common amongst Teenagers:
Sending or posting nude or semi-nude cell phone pictures starts at a young age and becomes even more frequent as teens become young adults, according to a new survey that suggests the racy-photo problem might be bigger than many adults realize.
“Teenagers are early adopters of technology–from the latest social-networking sites to the hottest new cell phones,” said Susan Schulz, special projects editor for Hearst Magazines (which publishes Cosmo Girl). “While this tech savvy can be seen as positive, our study reveals there’s also a negative side. Teenagers should be aware of the real consequences of this type of behavior, and we need to provide them with guidance and encourage them to make smarter choices.”
The survey also indicated that 15 percent of teens who have sent sexually suggestive content such as text messages, eMail, photographs, or videos say they have done so with someone they know only online.

To help warn teens and young adults of the dangers associated with sending or posting sexually suggestive material online, the National Campaign has published a list of 10 suggestions.

For parents, the initiative recommends:

1. Talking to kids about what they are doing in cyberspace.
2. Knowing who kids are communicating with.
3. Considering limitations on electronic communication.
4. Being aware of what teens are posting publicly.
5. Setting expectations.

For teens:

1. Don’t assume anything you send or post is going to remain private.
2. There is no changing your mind in cyberspace–anything you send or post will never truly go away.
3. Don’t give in to the pressure to do something that makes you uncomfortable, even in cyberspace.
4. Consider the recipient’s reaction.
5. Nothing is truly anonymous.

Shout outs!:

  1. Mary Henton:  Thanks for the inclusion on the Conference Connections page of NMSA ’09!
  2. Todd Williamson:  Congrats on the new kid and future middle schooler!
  3. Santa Claus:  a new mic for Troy, Apple stock for us both, Kindles for Jack, Troy, & Shawn, and server space.

Teaching the Middle School Brain (Stop by the booth for a handout on the session.)
1.  Principles of Brain Friendly teaching.
2.  Align instruction with how brain best learns through structures.
3.  Silly sports & Goofy games that align with brain friendly instruction.
4.  Deepen our understanding of our 3 pound miracle.
The quiet signal:
1.  Raise your hand.
2.  Full focus attention on Dr. Kagan
What the brain attends to the more the brain retains.
3.  Signal others.
Good brain instruction involves structured interaction and a high level of engagement.
Structure:  Take off, Touch Down
If it’s true, stand up.  If the second statement is true move again.
Why is it brain friendly?
It increases blood and glucose and oxygen in the brain to stand up and sit down a couple of time.
The brain consumes 20% of all the glucose in the body.  It is only 2% of the body’s weight.
Put your two fists together.  That’s the size of your brain.  Disappointed?
Brain dendrites fire 200 times per second.
100 billion neurons.
Standing up and sitting down puts more glucose and oxygen in the brain.
Better nourishment:  Frequent muscle movements are important.
Book:  Spark by John J Ratey, MD.
Evidence for more phys. ed. in  the schools to grow better brains.
Aerobic movement is required.
Brain attends to Novelty.
Stand up, Hand up, Pair up
RallyRobin
Why is RallyRobin more brain friendly?
Frequently stop and have students process information.
Why frequently process?
1.  More energy for new learning.
Inhibiting impulses takes a ton of energy.
2.  Clarify and refine thinking.
Became aware of what you know and what you don’t know.
3.  Store in long-term memory.
4.  Clear working memory.
It’s what we can hold in our heads at one time.
Not usually more than ten things.
Number 11 replaces one of the original 10.
5.  Engage multiple intelligences and multiple memory systems.
Episodic memory is the most engaging of the memory systems.
The brian processes in episodes, something that takes place at a location, has a beginning and an end and a location.
More brains active
More brain parts active
Social Interaction
Episodic memory
Team Interview
Teambuilding
Favorite snacks
anything fun will serve as a teambuilder
Ways to spend $1000.
Fun things to do after schooll
Movies you have liked.
Describe a sceene from a movie you enjoy.
See the Personal Questions page he has prepared.  (Sells?)
Favorites
Academic content
Science:  View on cloning; inert elements
Math:  Geometry Proof; prime numbers
Language arts:  Verbs; metaphors
Social Studies:  Causes of event; consequences of an event.
How will I use?
Interview each other (gambit chips?) and create a 5 paragraph essay based on the information they’ve gleaned from their partners and incorporate transtitions between paragraphs.  3 main paragraphs are based on each of the 3 people interviewed.
What happened in the brain?
The amygdalae
There are 2.
Left processes tone of voice
Right processes faces.
Both sides are threat sensors
When do they fire most?
Stranger
Other race
Fearful face
Angry face > Happy face
out-group > in-group
Linked to all major parts of the brain.
Prefrontal Cortex
Decision making
Emotional Control
Attention, thinking, working memory
The Amygdala can shut this down.
The Amygdalae explain
Impared learning (high stress destroys brain nerves).
Silly Sports
Hagoo:  Inuit game.
If they can make the other person smile, they cross over the line and join their team.  Teams are in two lines.
No touching, can say anything they like.
Great picture of a “teenage brain”
What is white matter?
Myelination of neurons helps them fire 200 times faster.
The teenage brain is not completely myelinated.
Independent Memory systems
There is not one thing called memory!
Memory Test
1 Night
2  tired
3  wake
4  dream
5  sleep  (not on list!)
6  bed
7  rest
8
9 (
10  (slumber)
Memory pinciple:  Memory is not a place it is a process!
SPEWS & Structures (matrix made by Kagan)

MSM, NMSA08, PodcastBy Troy Patterson

Podcast #55 Disrupting, NMSA 08, This Changes Everything!

Items & Events

  1. The Michigan Association of Middle School Educators (MAMSE) Annual Conference will be held in Saginaw Township on March 12 & 13 at White Pine Middle School.
  2. The Ohio Middle School Association’s Annual Conference will be held at Kalahari February 19-20.
  3. The National Middle School Association’s Annual Conference will be November 5-7 in Indianapolis, IN.  The theme will center around globalization and service learning.
  4. The Middle Level Essentials Conference will be held at the Red Rocks in Nevada April 23-34.  Tell your high school colleagues about the special “conference in a conference” on ninth grade teams.
  5. A link to Will Ricardson’s featured presentation at NMSA ’08.
  6. The LEAGUE’s Knight Scholarship Competition:
    The KNIGHT scholarship is a national scholarship competition where 3 students will receive $5,000 each for their writings or reflections on civic experiences in one of three categories: Persuasive Essay (building awareness and inviting action for change in your school, community or the world), Personal Narrative (experiences with service and volunteerism), or News Story (creating newspaper articles that reports acts of service and volunteerism by young people). The scholarship is open to high school seniors from all over the country, even students who are not part of a LEAGUE classroom can apply! The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (http://www.knightfoundation.org) promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 U.S. communities. Since 1954, the foundation has given more than $300 million in journalism grants. Applications will be posted at www.theleague.org beginning January 5th.  Students must submit their applications before the March 6th deadline. For more details about The LEAGUE and the KNIGHT scholarship please visit www.theleague.org.
  7. Virtual Pioneers invite you to their website:  www.virtualpioneeers.ning.com.  VP conducts virtual social studies trips in Second Life.
  8. See the folks who attended NMSA08 this year and left a message on the virtual wall at SchoolTube! Videos are posted for you to either relive the experience or get a taste of the convention from the folks who attended.
  9. Recommended website: http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/ Thanks to Teresa for the recommendation on the website!
  10. New report posted on NMSA’s website:  Middle Level is the Turning Point for College and Career Readiness.

Book Update! – Disrupting Class

Algebra on YouTube:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j27byHk1EAb3KhBo1ePXyg0h7rogD950NKS80
YouTube is perhaps best known for its cavalcade of homemade performances and TV clips, but many people like Nissim are turning to it for free tutoring in math, science and other complicated subjects.
Nissim typically scours the video-sharing Web site for clips of bands and comedy skits. But this time she wasn’t there to procrastinate on her homework. It turned out YouTube was also full of math videos. After watching a couple, the psychology major says, she finally understood trig equations and how to make graphs.  (Khan clip)

Session I:  A Web of Connections:  Why the Read/Write Web Changes Everything (601)

Blogs Wikis, and Podcasts:  Book related to this session.  Will Richardson
http://willrichardson.wikispaces.com for the notes to this session and the links.
Provide feed back at the discussion space of the wiki.
Begin with stories about kids to contextualize.
1.  Laura Stockman (Buffalo, NY)
25 Days to Make a Difference is her blog.
This turned into 10 months of making a difference.
All the conversations are monitored by Mom and Mom makes the posts.
This site is blocked at her school.
2.  Sara’s Story
She texts over 600 messages a day.
The point:  She has a learning network that is local.  That is if we use the technology to make it learning.
Schools response
We don’t let them blog.
We don’t let them text.
We don’t let them use the technology that they are already are using.
The web is now a Read/Write Web technology today.
The Big Shift is coming in access to this technology and how it is being used to engage students, either for good or evil.
Book:  Here Comes Everybody: How Digital Networks Transform Our Ability to Gather and Cooperate by Sharkey
The Techtonic Shift:  This changes the game, think Printing Press and its impact on Western Civ.
We cannot escape this group forming ability provided by the Web.
Will Richardson is an upset pubic school parent because his children are not being prepared for their future.
8,000 affinity groups within the Obama campaign which in essence is the platform of the campaign.
This gives the members power of choice within the groups and in the campaign and as a result empowerment.  (Local control)
Kansas State Rep running for office:
Kid put up a post about needing a “group” and got an average of $8.19 per donation and a total of $90,000 for his campaign.
Newspapers aren’t going to survive in the current business model.
Christian Science Monitor is going web based totally.
surfthechannel (The TV guide to illegal content on the net.)
Can go to see all the tv channels of the world.
Pick your tv show and you can watch.
Based in Sweden.  Different Laws Apply!
Amazon.com
Businesses are about groups with common interests.
People read the posts about the product to make a decision on purchase.
Book:  Wikinomics (The more you share, the more you get)
Facebook
“For Mike” A social spot to grieve for a fallen friend.
Kids are going home to unfiltered worlds.  Ironically we’re doing harm by not giving them the opportunity to fail.
Learning is changing.
His blog (as example).
Clustr-Web Traffic tracker
Each dot becomes someone in his group and someone he can learn from.
www.fanfiction.net  Write a new chapter to the book that you really like.
Twilight.  Harry Potter
Kids are going to be Googled during their lifetimes.
We need to teach them the best way to do this without exposing them to the damaging things of social networking.
Social networking is not inherently a bad thing.
Richardson wants his kids found on the net as a networking tool.
We’ve been Datelined to death on the dangers of the internet.
Clarence Fisher and his blog.
Teaches his kids how to blog and as a result increases their learning opportunities.
Learning is changing.
Text 46645 to text google to find the answer to a question.
Why are we asking kids to memorize information when they could use a device to find it more rapidly.
Joke:  Give an open phone test!
Content is not scarce, it is ubiquitous.
MIT has every course online for you to take.  (MITopencourseware)
Teach content evaluation skills and then turn them on to other content sources to learn and bring to the classroom.
Content is not static anymore.
Wikipedia.
Considers this the most important website on the the net at this time.
Content has been proven to be current, accurate, and dynamic.
Textbooks are not dynamic enough.
We need to teach in hypertext environments.
FLYP media.com  www.flypmedia.com
Making our classrooms with “thin” walls.
Learning is a everywhere experience.
Yugma- tool for ?
Flat Classrooms project.
Teachers are everywhere, we need to help our students find them and identify.
Key advantage:  Create a web page or blog and kids will use the experience to learn from their productions.
Willow Web  (Radio WillowWeb)
Kids become invested in the learning.  They do real work for real audiences and create real learning in the process.
Its not enough to just do a paper on it.
Challenge:  What’s stopping you from doing this stuff in your own personal learning environments?
Think about this as building networks and not just a transfer of what we did on paper to now doing it on the web.
How are you going to build your Map?

advisory, PodcastBy Shawn McGirr,

Advisory Research & Support

Looking for a reason to keep Advisory around?  Check out the dissertation and its findings here with the abstract listed below.  You can also find this on the NASSP’s podcast in iTunes.
Abstract:  “This study examines the characteristics of advisors and advisory programs that foster student connectedness and the ways in which students and their advisors perceive the impact of advisory programs on academic achievement. Student connectedness, a concept that refers to a school culture in which students have meaningful relationships with adults within the school, are engaged in the school, and feel a sense of belonging to the school, correlates directly with low instances of student dropout and high academic achievement.  While improving school connectedness is critical at all educational levels, it is particularly urgent in middle school because the roots of alienation take hold during young adolescence.  The sample was comprised of 501 students and 31 advisors in three California middle schools.  I used student and teacher questionnaires to identify advisories producing high levels of student connectedness, and then used student focus groups, teacher interviews, and advisory observations to further analyze my quantitative findings. My findings show that both students and advisors report that advisories improve students’ academic performance. In the nine strongest advisories, the perception that the advisory improves students’ academic performance is significantly stronger than in the other 22 advisories in the sample. The nine advisories with the highest connectedness scores engender students’ and teachers’ positive associations with the advisory program, address topical community issues, and foster open communication amongst all members of the advisory.  The common characteristics of these nine advisors is that they all know and care about their students as individuals, monitor their academic progress, and help them to solve academic and social problems. Comparing the advisory programs at the three sites indicates the importance of the developmental stage, structure, and role of the advisory program in determining school connectedness.”

UncategorizedBy Shawn McGirr

It’s coming.

It’s rumored that Walmart will begin selling iPhones at the rumored price of $99.00.  One of my students today caught me after school and asked me what they were getting for Christmas.  (It should be noted that I am Santa’s stunt double.)  Thinking that I was reaching beyond the pale, I guessed he was getting an iPhone.  The look of surprise quickly replaced with a look that the air had been let out of his sails told me I had hit the nail on the head more precisely than I ever could have imagined.  Before I could recover, he mumbled something about my being right and gave me that “how in the world did he know” look as he moved into the crowds headed for the busses.

The bigger stunner for me is what am I going to do with a kid who can surf the web without district restrictions, pretty much at will?  Change or die?  Ok, maybe a little hyperbole …

NMSA08, Podcast, TechBy Troy Patterson, ,

MSM #54 Families and Media Ecology, What is the Future of Education? NMSA Wrap Up continued.

Items & Events

  1. The Michigan Association of Middle School Educators (MAMSE) Annual Conference will be held in Saginaw Township on March 12 & 13 at White Pine Middle School.
  2. The Ohio Middle School Association’s Annual Conference will be held at Kalahari February 19-20.
  3. The National Middle School Association’s Annual Conference will be November 5-7 in Indianapolis, IN.  The theme will center around globalization and service learning.
  4. The Middle Level Essentials Conference will be held at the Red Rocks in Nevada April 23-34.  Tell your high school colleagues about the special “conference in a conference” on ninth grade teams.
  5. The MacArthur Foundation is spending $50 million dollars on a 5 year study seeking to understand digital life and youth.  Three years of the study are reported out in Living and Learning with New Media:  Summary of the Findings from the Digital Youth Project.  Read about the study here in the New York Times article.  We might pull this for discussion in a future podcast.
  6. A link to Will Ricardson’s featured presentation at NMSA ’08.
  7. The LEAGUE’s Knight Scholarship Competition:
    The KNIGHT scholarship is a national scholarship competition where 3 students will receive $5,000 each for their writings or reflections on civic experiences in one of three categories: Persuasive Essay (building awareness and inviting action for change in your school, community or the world), Personal Narrative (experiences with service and volunteerism), or News Story (creating newspaper articles that reports acts of service and volunteerism by young people). The scholarship is open to high school seniors from all over the country, even students who are not part of a LEAGUE classroom can apply!

    The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (http://www.knightfoundation.org) promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 U.S. communities. Since 1954, the foundation has given more than $300 million in journalism grants. Applications will be posted at www.theleague.org beginning January 5th.  Students must submit their applications before the March 6th deadline. For more details about The LEAGUE and the KNIGHT scholarship please visit www.theleague.org.

  8. Virtual Pioneers invite you to their website:  www.virtualpioneeers.ning.com.  VP conducts virtual social studies trips in Second Life.
  9. See the folks who attended NMSA08 this year and left a message on the virtual wall at SchoolTube! Videos are posted for you to either relive the experience or get a taste of the convention from the folks who attended.
  10. Congratulations to Lorri MacDonald who was honored by the State of Michigan as the Michigan Virtual University Teacher of the Year! MacDonald (PR Newswire) Dr. MacDonald talked about the future of learning in virtual spaces at this year’s Michigan Virtual University symposium.

Top Ten Signs You are Addicted to the Internet

  1. You find yourself typing “com” after every period when using a word processor.com.
  2. And even your night dreams are in HTML.
  3. All you daydreaming is preoccupied with getting a faster connection to the net: 28.8… ISDN… cable modem… T1… T3…
  4. You spend half of the plane trip with your laptop on your lap… and your child in the overhead compartment.
  5. You finally do take that vacation, but only after buying a cellular-modem and a laptop.
  6. You refuse to go to a vacation spot with no electricity and no phone lines.
  7. You find yourself brainstorming for new subjects to search.
  8. Your eyeglasses have a web site burned in on them.
  9. Your bookmark takes 15 minutes to scroll from top to bottom.
  10. You kiss your girlfriend’s/boyfriend’s home page.

Scientists: Is technology rewiring our brains?
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=56280
What does a teenage brain on Google look like? Do all those hours spent online rewire the circuitry? Could these kids even relate better to emoticons than to real people?

Shawn has an Announcement.  It’s official!  I’m a Friend of Jack!  (FOJ)

Is Second Life in decline?  Forbes thinks so.  Reuters pulls their full time reporter from Second Life.

Heather A Horst:  Families and Media Ecology
The MacArthur Foundation sponsored a study which we talked a little about in last week’s podcast.  The link is in the Items & Events section if you would like to read the entire document (pdf).  Part of the entire report is a section written primarily by Heather A. Horst covering the adoption of media by families.  Several case studies are cited and worth the read as examples of the class distinctions and their differences in approach to adoption of new media.  Key points worth mentioning from the study:

  • “… a large share of young people’s engagements with new media-using social network sites, instant messaging, and gaming-occur in the context of home and family life.”
  • Computers, video cameras, related software and associated training are considered an investment in their child’s future.
  • New media is leveraged for good behavior.
  • Parents are a little nervous about this whole thing while learning to embrace it with their kids.
  • “We begin by concentrating upon the spatial and domestic arrangements that shape new media use in the home, such as the placement of computers. We then turn to the creation of routines and other forms of temporality, including the amount of time and textures of kids’ media usage. In the final section, our analysis centers upon parents and kids’ rules and the creation, bending, and breaking of rules. We conclude by considering how parents and young people transform, negotiate, and create a sense of family identity through new media.”
  • Parenting in the New Media Ecology
    • Along with broader social changes comes the uncertainty of a parents role and parenting since the 1960’s.
    • Parents feel aware and accountable to society at large for their parenting decisions:  “reflexive parenting.”
      • Working class parents:
        • believe in informal play in and around the house.
        • use a laissez-faire approach to parenting.
        • believe that kids will grow and develop naturally as they navigate the world.
        • value respect for authority and prefer to give children the autonomy to navigate their own relationships with peers.
      • Middle class parents:
        • believe that it is their responsibility to develop their children through outside school activities (sports, music, etc.).
        • cultivate activities and interests in their children.
        • organize their student’s daily schedule and get involved in the inner workings of their activities at school or other school type settings.
        • advocate for their students in institutionalized settings.
    • These attitudes towards parent reflect what kind of media is selected for their students in the home.  (Externalizing those previous values).
  • Crafting Media Spaces at Home
    • Public Spaces:
      • Creates a sense of ownership and inherent control over all media devices.
      • Creating Media Rooms within the house as shared media controlled spaces.
        • Wealthy families created entirely new spaces for computers.
        • Other socioeconomic groups “multi-tasked” space for new media to coexist with existing purposes (e.g. the computer is in the kitchen because that’s where the kids do homework while parents make dinner.)
    • Private Spaces:
      • Creates that sense of anxiety in parents’ mind akin to the Dateline reports.
      • Students realize that their bedrooms become partial public space if media are accessible in their rooms (both tv and computers).
  • Mobility and Other Media Spaces
    • Students will explore other media experencies, even ones their parents don’t allow at home, when they visit their friends’ homes.  They “work the rules” in each place to experience media.
  • Making, Taking, and Sharing Media Time
    • Families that structured their media time viewed it as a bonding and relaxing time together.
    • Some families come together to produce their own media as a form of bonding and staying involved with their kids.
      • Transmission of values
      • Gives the kids ownership and some control over their role within the family.
  • Routines & Rhythms
    • Parents use of controls on the computer help kids develop media habits.
      • In single parent homes where there is access at both homes, the parents negotiate a schedule together so the rules are the same in both locations.
      • In nuclear and extended families, it falls to the mother to be the upholder of morality and new media standards.
  • Growing up
    • Parents change and adapt the rules as the student grows chronologically.
    • Cell phones tend to be given at middle school levels and represent a type of freedom.  Its also an easy way to restrict and rein in when students cross the line.
  • Making, Breaking, and Bending the Rules (examples:  AskMeanMom, Cell Phones for Kids?, Mayor Blumberg!, cell phone contracts)
    • Rules end up as intentions and actual practice turns into a negotiation.
  • Plans, Minutes, and Cards
    • What consequences are established for going beyond the boundaries set by parents?
    • Students that have to purchase their own phones and plans tend to be more discerning about their usage.
    • Some parents feel it improves communication with their student if they learn how to text on a phone.
  • Going Online:  Bandwidth, Passwords, and Privacy
    • In lower income families, internet usage is a matter of having the equipment and what level of bandwidth the family can afford in the home.
      • Not part of the study directly:  Thinking about the intense preoccupation with the social domain as transescents, can you imagine the frustration created by a slow connection to a social active student?
    • Some parents restrict it all together based on negative reports on internet usage and social networking.
      • Some parents take the modem with them if they leave their student at home alone for a period of time during the day.
      • Some parents restrict it to the single use it was intended:  homework or schoolwork.
    • While parents control access, students are largely responsible for structuring their online worlds.
      • Redefining privacy:  Parental viewing of a Xanga or MySpace is considered by teens as an invasion of privacy, yet the rest of the world can see it.
        • Think the “Diary” experience:  should parents pick the lock and read the precious pages?
  • Conclusion:  ” …the need to balance independence and dependence, parents’ values and beliefs, and parenting style shapes participation.”
  • Observation:  Perhaps we as educators should be designing experiences like open houses for parents as a way for them to gain experience using the net and social networking.

Session #4
2191 Web 2.0 Is the Future of Education
Steve Haradon
(You can also catch his presentation on SlideShare).

Information is changing:
Who produces it
What it costs to produce
How it is filtered
How it is distributed
How we find it
How it finds us
How we manage it
How we evaluate it

What is Web 1.0? Traditional
reading
receiving
Content is

Web 2.0
Contributing
Collaborating
Creating

No only ha

The Go-Giver (book) and a blog.
The printing press broke more industries than it fixed.
Christian Science Monitor no longer prints a paper copy- web only.

Trend #2 – A tidal wave of information.

The answer to Content overload is to create more content. Analogy of a cocktail party. You don’t try to talk to everyone, or worry about every conversation, but to be a good participant.

Trend #3 – Culture of Openness

Clay Shirkey – Here Comes Everybody.

MITOPENCOURSEWARE

Craig’s list only charges for job listings. Everything else is free to attract interest. The cost of everything else is so low that it works to get them the job listings market.

Trend #4 – Participation

Changing how we do things:
ProAm
ProSumer

Trend #5 – Long Tail (Chris Anderson’s Theory)

Trend #6 –  An Explosion of Innovation
Pro/Am Culture
ProSumer Culture

Trend #7 – Age of the Collaborator
Historical periods favor specific traits.
Picture of Microsoft founders from 1978 – would you invest?
Is the age of the resume over? IS it being replaced by your online presence?
The wisdom of the group trumps the expert.

Trend #8 – The world is flat and getting flatter.
Trend 9 – Web is becoming a conversation

First came blogs…
Then came Wikis…
a web page with an edit button.
Level 1 – Publishing

Trend 10- Social Networking
Read /Write
No talent needed. No skill set needed.

Classroom 2.0 Social Network. Classroom20.com
the aggregation of web tools for Building Content.

Analogy of building materials. You could use the building materials to build a casino or a school. It is the use of the tools not the tools themselves.

Learning Tools:
Profile Page =Personal Portfolio
Forum= Announcements, Assignments, And Asynchronous discussions.
Photo/Video = Content repository
Directory = Learning network
Groups= Learning Teams
IM/Chat = Personalized Attention

We face becoming irrelevant.
Intellectual Isolationism
RIAA & Music = Schools & Learning? (will be become like the RIAA and be in the way).

We must harness the built in capabilities of web 2.0.

email Steve for slides.

Medline Plus- learning surgery online.
GlobalLearner – tutors

Wikipedia – allows for the dissemination of information that previously wouldn’t have previously been available.