Inspired and Engaged by Authentic Learning in 2007

With the countdown towards the end of 2007, comes a time of reflection for many. Some include those reflections in their annual holiday greeting cards; others are more private. Time Magazine reflects on the year in many ways including announcing its Person of the Year. This announcement started me reflecting on the folks that have influenced my life (personal and professional). One remarkable educator came to mind as someone who inspired me and many young minds during 2007—Nilah Cote (a fifth grade teacher at Sheldon Elementary School).

Nilah Cote could easily be counting down the days ‘til retirement… but instead she is counting the days until a new projector comes into her classroom. “I don’t have much time you know”.. she reminds her Tech Director that she is retiring in a few months. Nilah is frantically trying to squeeze in all the teaching and learning she can in her last days as a public school educator. With 38 years in the classroom, Nilah has not grown tired of looking for opportunities to engage kids in authentic learning.

Early this spring, Nilah asked me for help picking out tools she would need to podcast with her students. She had never tried podcasting, but had a vision of students interviewing community members about the impact of the 88 acres of forest that surrounds their school and community and believed that her students could become stewards of their forest.

The unit (Stewards of the Sheldon Community Forest) started with 45 seconds of silence, when long-time journalist, Nat Worman, explained to a group of fifth graders that ‘listening’ was the key to a good interview. Prepared with the tools and skills needed to conduct a good interview, the students traveled to different parts of the forest to learn from their community. “This is like an adventure..” they noticed and dubbed themselves the Woodland Investigators. These fifth grade students are learning that editing an interview also requires lots of listening as they use the free program, Audacity, to prepare their interviews for publication. And when the first student to publish her interview using the free service PodcastPeople shared her first podcast, the quiet resumed. You could have heard a pin drop, when the sound of the interview echoed in the room and pride beamed across her face.

Authentic learning brings joy, excitement, successes, and sometimes frustrating setbacks – as when the shared folder containing all their interviews disappeared from the network. But knowing that a real audience awaits their product, students are busy remixing the audio files (which thankfully still existed on their voice recorders). Ms. Cote has never let mishaps discourage her from being a pioneering educator who desires to truly engage students in real learning. Even though my retirement is a long ways away, I so hope that I will be like Nilah Cote days before my retirement as an educator.

I can’t wait to hear more interviews from her students, and read the forest management plan her students are working on using a class wiki. To hear Nilah tell her story of the Stewards of the Sheldon Community Forest project, listen to this short interview conducted using Gabcast – another free tool that allows you to create podcast from phone interviews.

Why not use the comment section of this post to share (or tribute) someone in your educational network as a powerful influence to students or fellow educators during 2007. The editors of Time are quick to point out that their pick for Person of the Year is not a contest, it is not an endorsement; nor is it necessarily an award –it does, however, identify someone has had a strong influence on the world around them. Surely many educators come to mind. Why not tribute them here.. don’t forget to include links (if appropriate).

That's Mathematics

Part of any good teacher's strategy is motivating students by helping them understand the relevance of what they are learning. While legendary math professor and entertainer, Tom Lehrer could count on his musical talent to describe the value of mathematics, most of us have to come up with more varied engagement strategies. Part of the power of Web 2.0 applications is their ability to engage a participatory audience, thus why not capitalize on elements that make sites like YouTube popular amongst digital natives to increase participation in your classroom.

Creating a video podcast for math class can help your students correct misconceptions, learn the language of math, and clarify thinking about mathematical concepts. To see the refinement in thinking that occurred while these 6th grade students created a series of Math Strategies Podcast, their teacher examined the revision history of the scripts they edited on Google Docs. It was amazing how much ‘self learning’ occurred when students reviewed each newly produced version of their podcast episodes and self-corrected their scripts. The quality of the written process outlined in the final revisions of the scripts was many times higher than if the students had been asked to simply write out their math problem solving strategy. Although these students created each episodes using the “record” feature of a Smartboard, you can also use a variety of Screen Capture software such as the free version of Camstudio. A tablet PC or graphic tablet can also be used to capture inkstrokes making thinking visible. Some document cameras have video capture features, and there’s nothing wrong with using traditional video cameras, digital cameras, or even cell phones to create a video podcast of your mathematic strategies.

These video podcasts were created by St. Albans City School middle school teachers to help parents support their children's homework time by explaining the hows and whys of new math strategies. Uploading them to sites like YouTube, BlipTV, or Google Video allows you to hyperlink to your math podcast or even embed one directly into your own blog, wiki, or website. For those looking for a more controlled environment, consider TeacherTube or New Vista as an option for viewing and uploading video podcast. Even if you’re not ready to jump into producing your own math podcast a simple search for “math” on any of these sites will yield a wealth of videos ranging from academic tutorials to entertaining mathematics comedy to engage your students. (Warning: not all materials in these sites is suitable for educational use requiring some advanced planning on developing strategies that align with your school culture and acceptable use policies)

Best of 2006: The Read/Write Web in Education

It's the winter break for many educators (at least in North America). Email has slowed to a trickle and most educational blogs are not being updated. During this time of reflection and rejuvenation we'll be celebrating the new year (along with the rest of the world). We at the ITM have discussed posting several "best of 2006" (or "predictions for 2007") posts to mark the occasion. For my part, I've identified five trends in the educational use of the read/write web that I've felt had a significant impact on my work - and ultimately, the work of teachers and students. In each case I discuss a free (and teacher-friendly) service.

For the sake of brevity, I've posted my predictions separately.

1. Educational Blogging at Edublogs.org (and learnerblogs.org): Though blogs and educational blogging have been around for several years, and though James Farmer's Edublogs.org was created in 2005, the impact of these tools grew a great deal in 2006. In February, I switched from using Blogger to using Edublogs when leading blogging workshops for teachers. In addition to being able to post text and pictures (and being able to receive comments), teachers could now post Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF files, too. There were no random links to embarrassing or inappropriate blogs, and teachers could set up various levels of permissions for comments and for participants in team blogs. To boot, the tools were free and open source. Also, in June 2006, ITM blogger (and open source advocate) Steve Hargadon created supportblogging.com, which quickly became a valuable resource for teachers interested in these ideas. Read my predictions for 2007.

2. Educational Podcasting at podomatic.com: Podcasting began in 2004, and in 2005 my colleagues and I began leading workshops in which we helped teachers jump through many technical hoops in order to "easily" post a podcast. Podomatic was founded in 2005, but it wasn't until 2006 that we started using the service to help teachers and students. Now, teachers can create a new podcast episode by simply uploading an audio file that they've created using a free program such as Audacity. Or, for even greater simplicity, they can record directly into Podomatic over the web. The hosting of the audio files is free and the system takes care of most of the back end technical issues, creating a blog-like website complete with comments. Read my predictions for 2007.

3. Educational Wikis at Wikispaces.com: Though wikis have been around even longer than blogs, they are arguably behind blogs in educational adoption. But, in January 2006, Wikispaces.com started offering free (and add free) Wikis to teachers. Ten thousand wikis later, the company was so impressed by the work teachers and students were doing on their free wikis that they launched a campaign to give away 100,000 wikis to teachers. Today they are nearing the 20,000 mark. These wikis not only allow teachers to create collaboratively edited online resources, but also to post images and files as well. (I've written about educational use of wikis on the ITM before.) Read my predictions for 2007.

4. Google in Education: When we look back on 2006, this may very well be the biggest impact. This is the year Google began working in the k12 arena (an effort now headed up by Cristin Frodella). They launched the Google for Educators site, and played an critical role in the launch of this blog, the Infinite Thinking Machine. Google also released several new products that benefit educators who use the read/write web... particularly the easy to use RSS aggregator, Google Reader (for keeping up to date on news, blogs, and other "feeds") and the web-based word processor Google Docs (for creating, sharing, and collaboratively editing documents online). Though they existed prior to 2006, free desktop applications such as Picasa and Google Earth have been heavily used in education this year as well. (Of course, the newly updated Blogger is also still used by many educators.) Read my predictions for 2007.

5. The Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006 (DOPA): This may be the biggest change that didn't happen in 2006. Call it the biggest disaster averted (at least in the United States). Introduced in May 2006, the bill proposed to protect students from online predators by limiting their access to "social networking websites," which could have potentially limited student access to a wide range of websites, including everything I've mentioned above. In July, the house of representatives passed the bill by an amazing 410 to 15, and it seemed as if the Senate would quickly follow suit, thus placing an additional burden on many schools receiving federal funding - and placing a significant obstacle in the path of enterprising teachers using these tools with their students. Happily, organizations such as SaveYourSpace.org rose to the occasion and opposed the bill, which has languished in the Senate since before their August recess. Read my predictions for 2007.

Please feel free to discuss these read/write web trends (and predictions), and to leave ones of your own, in the comments. I look forward to reading your reactions.

PS: The image above was taken by Alan Levine and generously shared under the Creative Commons Attribution license on his Flickr account. Read his prediction about Creative Commons licensing in the comments for this post.