The Five Phases of Flattening a Classroom

Please take a moment to read this excellent blog posting by Ryan Bretag. Here is a teaser...

"...this article isn't another push for organizations to embrace a collaborative learning culture. It is a push for teachers to stop waiting for the organization and become a collaborative professional learner by changing fundamental behaviors inhibiting this and embracing action items that will allow it to happen."

Off you go, then. Don't come back here until you've read the post!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading his blog post and commented on it at that site. I am including my comment below, as well. It's in green.

I thought about our Fremd house as I read the post. I am seeing a good amount of collaboration among teachers at Fremd and I like to think our continued use of technology is partly to thank. For example, teachers ask teachers how to do this and that with the new tablet PCs and it is my hope that these conversations continue and include more talk and walk about best practices in their teaching. They are replacing old practices with better ones in the hopes that students learn better. Way to go, I say!

The key to this is managing your time by collaborating with others in your personal teaching network so that your teaching bag is full of tools for all kinds of learners. You won't have to worry about having enough time to collaborate becuase collaboration is part of what you do everyday. All of us took time in the past to learn how to be the teacher who continually looks at our own teaching and student learning with a critical eye toward continued improvement. I am so proud of so many teachers at Fremd who practice their teaching and student learning this way. Collaboration has become a way of life and survival for them as it was for me when I was in the classroom. As Ryan states, 'What if your students told you they did not have time to learn your subject?'

My comment to Ryan's post....
Closing the door to learning is key for me. This is what I encounter most often from teachers. The reason? Time. But this is 'false' time. Many teachers continually think teaching 21st Century skills are just something else to add to their already full plate instead of realizing that collaboration with colleagues will always keep that plate fairly clean! [This may seem like a confusing statement but it is very clear once you move this way!]

Second, the notion that a teacher is an independent contractor who can, and often will, do what they darn well please in 'their' classroom regardless of school/district goals is a very real attitude. Professional Learning Communities force teachers to expose themselves, as you say, and for many, this is frightening. Yet, this is what we expect students to do on a daily basis in a collaborative classroom.

Alfie Kohn, 'What to Look for in a Classroom,' (1998), mentions cooperative learning can be threatening because

1. it reduces control and predictability,
2. it demands attention to social goals,
3. it challenges our commitment to individualism, and
4. it challenges our commitment to the value of competition.

The same things could also be said about teacher collaboration and personal professional development. There is comfort in familiarity and teaching the same way year after year is easy. Teachers have to be reminded to 'see' students. What works for this student may not work for the next. What are your options? Collaborate with colleagues (near and far!) for they may have some thoughts worth thinking about and implementing. Explore Web 2.0 tools and the possiblities they offer for differentiated instruction.

Ask one simple question everyday, "Are the students actually learning anything?" It's not our plates that should be full but our bag of teaching tools that should be overflowing. This comes from "exploring, challenging, refining, and enhancing your professional practice" [everyday].

Forums

While I like the wiki notion, I'm still working on learning more about them. I have blogged with classes and as a daily (or weekly) class update for students, parents, and any helpers to students to access. With my creative writing class, I want something that students will use to interact with one another, free-form. Designing a blog for this was easy, getting students to participate freely and willingly was is more of a struggle. Comments ranged from, "I only do those for class when it's part of my grade, and then only sometimes," to, "Do we have to?"

When my answer to the 'have to' is, "No, you don't HAVE to; I thought it'd be a nice place for claiming victory over wrting struggles or venting through writer's block," I shy away from dictating exact numbers of posts required per student. I realize I can dress up the blog much more to help lure students to it, but I am considering the notion the class overwhelming suggested of a forum. Not only would it perfectly direct my aims to target free conversation on-line about writing, students 'promised' they'd partake. Either way, I would like to try one.

Any thoughts on how to start a forum or what requirements are needed, or limitations, for that matter? Last year I did jump into a on-line forum and found the interaction much different than blogging. It's more like a major party-line, phone conversation than a blog induced stack of letters, notes, and messages; forum felt more phone-like while blog felt more pony express like, in terms of idea and thought exchange. That was just my experience on one forum, though. It's something I'd like to try, if anyone has thoughts on how best to do so....

I have been browsing through Go2web2o.net and found this new search engine called Searchme. It is a visual web browser that lets you look at large pictures of the actual website before you actually visit the website. It also has a wonderful feature that will help you narrow your search if your intital entry is too broad.

This search engine is currently in beta testing mode and you do have to be invited to partcipate in the testing, but that is a simple click to request. Below is a video from the website. Check it out!

SharePoint Showcase

Has anyone used an online software called SharePoint Showcase?

At the ICE conference I went to a one-day workshop on using this software which is an "one-stop" shop for all your online portal needs (content management, discussion boards, wikis, calendar book, etc.). The instructors indicated that free version with not all the features as I just mentioned is offered in a wws 3.0 version. This is a Microsoft Windows driven software package. I have provided a link that outlines all the features of this software. Quite powerful. I am not sure of the site-license cost. Bob Small indicated that the district is looking into creating something internally and that it is one to two years out in the strategic planning agenda.

http://www.sharepointshowcase.com/default.aspx

Let us know if you have used this software and its pros and cons.

Happy Teching!!! - Tony Miller