Year: 2010

13 miles tomorrow

October 17 I’ll be running the Toronto Marathon.

It’ll be my eighth marathon.

When I turned 21, I decided to run my first marathon. The whole idea was that the only milestone of being 21 years old shouldn’t be the right to legally drink.

From there, somehow, the goal became running 10 marathons in 10 years.

Sure, people run a marathon a month or 50 marathons in 50 days…


…but I’m a mere mortal.

I’m training for #8.

Being in South Africa and training for a marathon whilst working with teachers in schools and planning workshops and all the other life detritus makes scheduling a little weird.

Last year, I felt wonky about running at night.

This year, I know my surroundings. I know what’s what.

In this, our third home of the trip, I’ve marked an out-and-back course that’s 4 miles, round trip.

Tomorrow, I’ve a 13-mile long run.

That’s 3 out and backs with a mile somewhere at the end for good measure.

Should be interesting.

I’ve been averaging 25-30 miles/week the last few weeks.

The other piece of this training puzzle that’s been a tough navigation has been diet.

Vegetarian distance running is one thing when I’m in the familiar confines of my own city and have total control over my diet.

I learned last year that “vegetarian” here oftentimes translates to “only chicken and fish.”

I’m turning to No Meat Athlete and The Runner’s Kitchen for my inspiration to keep my hopes high.

Sure, they lose me when they start talking brand names that aren’t on the shelves here, but talking protein content of everyday foods is crazy helpful, not to mention the recipes.

13 miles tomorrow

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Let ’em admire the shiny

Due to illness, we’re down a team member today. Our partner NGO, Edunova, is also down a team member. Both of the missing team members were responsible for the same session today. As such, a little schedule shuffling was necessary this morning.

The results are to the teachers’ benefit. We’ve inserted a joint session.

For the first half, the teachers are getting a basic overview of how to use Smart Boards. Many of them have them in their classrooms or schools, but they sit dormant because teachers don’t know how to use them or are frightened of them.

They sit like white elephants in the schools, representative of thousands of rand that could have funded a laptop and projector or some other more varied ICTs.

Seems educational technology companies don’t have the best interest of schools and their learners at heart.

The second half of the new session is a Part II of yesterday’s multimedia session. Khanyiso and I drafted a project for the teachers in about 15 minutes.

Using their cell phones and Windows Movie Maker, they’re to create a 1-3 minute video answering the question, “What does it mean to be a teacher?”

We spent all of our 45 minutes on explaining the project, oggling the gadgets and storyboarding.

I’m not worried we didn’t get to the videos.

We’ve built about an hour into the day today for the teachers to play.

Many of them are planning on creating their movies.

The best part for me was watching them realize they had video capabilities on their phones and then take meaningless videos of their colleagues for 30 seconds simply because they could.

They were waking up to the power of the tools they carry in their pocket everyday.

Also, we didn’t re-direct them. We didn’t demand their attention or that they get back on task. I knew they’d get there.

For the moment, the tools were shiny.

When my first iPhone arrives, I imagine I won’t be making too many calls. I’ll just be admiring the shiny.

After about 5 minutes, all of the groups, each and every teacher, was working diligently to create a storyboard to tell the world what it means to be a teacher.

When we were wrapping up, we discussed the benefits of what they’d been doing:

  • Incorporating many subject areas.
  • Most of the work could be done in the classroom with minimal need to wrestle for a chance at the computer labs.
  • The gadgets were shiny and new, but the task won out.
  • One hundred percent of them were engaged.
  • They cared about what they were creating.

The plan is to post the finished products up on youtube and then share them here.

Most importantly, they’ll have seen what can happen once you get past admiring the shiny.

Teachers aren’t the worst audience

Khanyiso, Mlungisi and I were in charge of leading the session on multimedia in the classroom Wednesday. It was the afternoon and the usual grumblings about too much theory and not enough practice had begun in a small contingent of teachers.

They were ready for some hands on.

To get us started, I pulled up Schooltube and Teachertube to grab a few examples. The first was not so academic. The second, though, led to some interesting conversation about how the use of multimedia ICTs could be of use in the classroom.

The teachers could see how learners would be required to incorporate learning across multiple areas of study to create a short video on a given topic.

We’d talked about this in the theory portion of the week when discussing the importance of collaboration.

The teachers could tell how creating multimedia products would require learners to do new things using new tools.

We’d talked about the Literacy, Adaptive and Transformative levels of ICT integration earlier in the week, so they were able to point it out and use the language.

The teachers discussed what it would take to locate the information the learners had used in the sample video.

We’d talked about information literacy and search strategies earlier. A trend was forming.

If I’d been a different kind of fellow, I would have noted how all the theory was necessary to name the practice and discuss it using common language. If I’d been a real jerk, I would have pointed out how important the part they were complaining about was proving to be during the part they’d been clamoring for.

I’m neither of those types.

Instead, I said things like, “If you remember what Chris said about refining search terms in his session earlier…” or “What’s the difference between the transformative learning in this example versus the adaptive learning Cyndy talked about Tuesday?”

Teachers, it’s been said until it needs not be said anymore, are the worst audience. I don’t know how much I agree with that.

Teachers are learners. We make assumptions they’re inherently more willing to listen to someone else drone on and on than children. They’re not.

They’re learners.

Yes, the stages of development are different, but they still have learning styles, they still need to move, they still need to be engaged. And, learning, oftentimes, is a difficult and uncomfortable process for them.

I love it.

Would you marry the Internet again?

When I’m playing “What if?” and I come up with this scenario, I imagine someone tripping over a chord and the entire country making that cartoony power-down sound.

As you’ve likely heard, the Internet’s broken on the west side of Africa. Something called SEACOM went down and that was that.

It’s not quite what you’d like to have happen when you’re on Day 1 of a week of workshops about technology in education. If you’re minutes away from leading a session signing 25 teachers up for their first-ever e-mail accounts, it’s certainly not the news you’d like to get.

We’re not even going to consider the implications if the country in which you happen to be staying is hosting one of the most highly watched sporting events in the world.

Anyway, someone tripped over a cord up north and brrroooooooooo. 🙁

The session I was supposed to lead at the end of the day became the second session of the day – sans my google docs-stored notes.

You roll with it.

I gave the scenario a few posts ago of tech leaders from around a state showing up to a conference and losing connectivity.

Now, imagine a few countries lost that connectivity. Imagine the Eastern Seaboard of the United States broke their connection. Chaos, right?

Here, we’re moving on and teaching Photo Story 3 and discussing how to get communities surrounding schools with computer labs to take ownership of those resources.

Seriously.

The Internet’s broken and no one has set fire to a single car. I want to run into the computer lab and scream, “Don’t you understand what’s happening?! Don’t you get there’s no way to talk about it on Facebook?!”

Yes, I’m convinced the connectedness and access the Internet affords will exponentially provide South Africa educational opportunities educators and learners have no access to now. I have no doubts.

I wouldn’t be spending more than a month here if I weren’t certain.

Access will make things better.

I wonder, though, if access will become the dependence seen across the U.S.

If we had the Internet to do over again, would we?

The energy is genetic

Standing in line Thursday for lunch, one of the e-Personnel turned to me and questioned, “Zac, when will you be giving a workshop on how to have your energy?”

I get a little excited.

The energy of learning is infectious. Feeling, seeing and hearing ideas whip around in discussion or writing or pictures or music or any other mode can make me a bit manic.

That said, I didn’t have an answer for her.

As we were standing to say our formal goodbyes as a team, Friday, I referenced her question.

“I’m not sure how to teach people to be energetic,” I said, “I think it’s genetic.”

My people are kitchen dancers. I remember the radio pumped up when I was a little kid and my mom and I dancing through dinner prep. I’ll argue lasagna tastes better if you’ve got a little wiggle in your booty whilst you’re layering on the pasta.

Now, my classroom’s my test kitchen.

It’s not uncommon for me to stand on a chair to get noticed above the self-orchestrated din. I’ll dance badly when the spirit moves me. Why not sing once in a while?

I do these things when I’m working with learners young and old alike. Silly is good. Silly makes the tough stuff easier. If we’ve laughed together, we’re bonded for when the problems arise.

Getting that message across when people are teaching for their lives – when they’re scared of mistakes and terrified of looking like they don’t know what they’re doing – can prove incredibly difficult.

I’m talking about the e-Personnel we were working with as well as much too many educators in other settings around the world.

When everything’s buttoned down and deviation from the plan is frowned upon, kitchen dancing seems an impossible answer.

The energy comes from having faith in my ability to try again and do it better.

That’s a privilege.

Working with people who are hanging on every cent they can get to improve learning for their children forces the question of whether I’d have the energy were I in their place.

I’d like to think so.

I’d like to think the love of learning, of ideas, would transcend.

The Problem Statement

As I work through my online master’s program, I’ll be posting my assignments here. Seems wrong to leave them locked in a walled garden.

The first official assignment outside of the make-up of the missed chat was to submit my proposed problem statement for the project I’ll be working on for the duration of the class. The assignment was described as such:

This week you will need to create a 1 sentence problem statement. Keep it simple. 
Something you can complete within the 4 weeks of implementation. The sentence must 
be in this format. 

My Problem is that __% of my ____grade students _________________.

You will be working on this particular problem for this entire course.  Please submit the 
problem statement to the Assignment Drop Box for approval.

AND…

PLANNING THE INQUIRY ASSIGNMENT ONE Notes: -Your One Sentence Problem Statement must be approved by the AS. This is a crucial step to ensure that the rest of your assignment is on track. You cannot proceed until this statement has been approved. Examples of One Sentence Problem Statements: -My problem is that 25% of my 8th grade students score below 75% on weekly math tests. -My problem is that 35% of my 9th grade students are not comprehending my science lectures. -My problem is that 40% of my 3rd grade inclusion class students cannot maintain focus for 15 minutes to complete independent written work. -My problem is that 55% of the elementary special education students on my caseload are not socially or academically successful in their regular education setting

I went back and forth over whether or not I’d write a problem statement that applies to the work I’m doing here in South Africa. Because we’re completing the course during the summer, we’re to design lesson plans as if we were really trying to change the problem rather than actually attempting to  change a real problem.

In the end, I went with a problem that exists within our workshops here, but framed it within the context of a G11 classroom to avoid any confusion with my instructor.

The problem statement turned out as such:

My problem is that 40% of my eleventh grade students do not participate in whole-class discussion.

Thoughts?

My First Assignment

As I work through my online master’s program, I’ll be posting my assignments here. Seems wrong to leave them locked in a walled garden.

My first assignment was participating in an online chat. When South African wifi and WebCT’s hate of all my browsers combined, I missed it. Below is my alternative assignment. What do you think?

Chat # 1 Synopsis

Date and Time: June 30, 2010, 6:00 pm EST

Name: Zac Chase

Course: EDUC 610

1. Discuss the importance of cooperative learning and the benefits that it has over lecturing

Cooperative learning puts more of the oneness for the processing of the learning on the learners in the classroom than traditional lecture. Properly infused, it also builds in time for checking for understanding and creates a natural push toward application rather than focusing on memorization and recitation. Again, these are qualities of cooperative learning when it is properly applied. Without attention to individual accountability or positive interdependence, the learning becomes group work and learners are allowed to slink into the background or take control of the work. Teacher facilitation is key in this respect. It shouldn’t be confused with turning over “control” of the classroom to the learners entirely.

2. Discuss the different strategies [you use] in your classroom using multiple intelligences, graphic organizers and reflective journals.

I try to have my learners moving frequently throughout the class period. In talking with occupational therapists, I know my learners’ brains benefit from changes of state every 15 minutes or so throughout the class. This is one of the places where I infuse cooperative learning and check for understanding. Granted, some classes are devoid of these 15-minute check-ins when lessons require more endurance or focused time in one state. As far as multiple intelligences, I don’t adhere to draconian measures prohibiting learners’ use of iPods or other MP3 players when reading or writing in the classroom. We’re learning that music of different tempos and rhythms reacts differently with different learners’ brains. If this can help any learner in my charge gain clearer access to reading, writing and thinking, I’m not about to stand in the way. Working in a project-based school, I attempt to design projects that give learners choice in their products whilst still adhering to the learning objectives of the unit and working toward understanding in relation to the units’ essential questions. Sometimes, this can mean students creating works of music, annotating video, creating performance pieces, writing essays or any other myriad of outputs. Along the way, quizzes and other assignments scaffold development of traditional skills. For the overall assessment, though, I ask the learners to produce from their preferred intelligences so I can better access their learning of the key concepts and understandings.

In the realm of graphic organizers and reflective journals, I use both quite frequently. Oftentimes, journaling will be the first component of the class. For prompts, I offer choice again. Learners may respond to a photo related to the day’s lesson, a quotation also related or they may free write. Whenever possible, I attempt to keep the free write option in the journaling assignment. As it’s the first assignment of the period, I want learners to have a time to process whatever issues they may be bringing with them from earlier in the day. Oftentimes, it allows them greater access to learning later in class and creates a safe space within their days.

3. Discuss the importance of active learning in the classroom.

I feel like this was touched on nicely in our online readings, but I’ll offer up my own thoughts here. Active learning, if structured properly can bring a level of equity to a classroom that would likely not otherwise be created. When working with learners of different backgrounds (which I would argue includes all learners), active learning can work against socially-established systems of privilege and work to allow discussions on a smaller scale that can both work against socially-constructed barriers as well as allow a processing and production of learning outcomes that would be left by the wayside in a classroom run strictly through lecture.

4. Discuss the importance of social development.

Learner engagement with the curriculum and the teacher requires engagement from the community within the classroom, including a social component among peers. Learners lacking in social development will become unable to focus due to their lack of connection to the classroom itself.

Social development in the classroom is dependent upon learners feeling safe. They must be able to relate their peers, and therefore must be presented with opportunities to do so. Anything from interest-based inquiries or self-selecting group projects can help to grow a learner’s social confidence, and connection to the classroom.

Many learners, however, will reject this kind of specifically social constructions within the classroom. Learners that feel as though these are contrived events may require a less “risky” environment within which to feel socially accepted. This is the perfect avenue for an online discussion or chat with other learners within which the more shy learners can engage and feel confident in their contributions. By creating an online profile, they are able to self-identify their interests and locate other learners in the classroom to collaborate with.

The teacher is responsible for facilitating social growth within each learner. While she may want to focus solely on the curriculum or on setting academic expectations for her classroom, social development is a major part of creating a functional environment within which learning occurs.

The teacher cannot simply call on the learners that she relates to, nor can she only promote the learners who need the most help into positions of least risk.

The role of the teacher is to find a balance for all learner-to-learner interaction in terms of all learners’ needs for socialization and growth in team collaboration. Just as a teacher would create mixed-ability groups for project-based learning, she must also create mixed-sociability groups in every learning situation. The simple act of asking a questions and soliciting responses is a social act. Maintaining a healthy back and forth between those in positions of comfort with their peers and those who are more apprehensive will lead the classroom to be a safe, and hopefully, appropriately social learning environment.

5. Discuss your current method of Classroom Management, how you came about using these methods…. then discuss [whether] “change” [is] difficult or easy for you

and why.

My current method of classroom management is based largely on the work of Hal Urban. A proactive approach, it focuses on community building and positive interaction with learners. From the beginning of the year, learners know to expect “high-grade compliments” from me randomly near the beginning of the class period. High-grade compliments entail three components 1) Close proximity, 2) Eye contact, 3) Thought. They focus on the aspects of learners that might otherwise go unnoticed by teachers and other adults in their life. Keeping the selection random also pushes me to sit in front of the most challenging learners in my classroom and really reflect on the best parts of those children. It requires me to see the good on a regular basis.

As for the daily operations in my class, I regularly incorporate cooperative learning strategies to keep learners engaged, operate in an online environment and am available regularly on Facebook and instant message. I’m fairly certain these external modes of communication and collaboration go the extra mile toward showing my learners I care about them and thereby help give them permission to care about our classroom community.

As for my willingness to change, I’m all for it. The caveat to that statement is so long as it is thoughtful, reflective change. My principle is fond of evoking the Law of Unintended Consequences and asking, “What is the worst consequence of our best idea?” So long as change comes with this contemplation, I’m receptive. Change for the sake of trying something new or because it’s popular can often be dangerous.

6. Questions regarding assignment # 1.

I’ve already posted this on the forum, but I’m wondering if our first discussion post must be only the problem statement or if we should also include an explanation to meet the stated 250-word requirement.

Computer said no

Part of getting on the ground here is encountering new surprises. It’s part of what I love/hate.

The Eastern Cape project has offered a special challenge.

I must first state I’ve had only basic formal moodle training. Everything else has been figuring it out as I go. The fact that it’s an integral part of daily life at SLA definitely gives me a leg up on many others, but I’m no moodle maven. (I don’t even own the scarves, robes and crystals I’d imagine such a maven would possess.)

When Charles, our main liaison with the Eastern Cape Department of Education, asked for training integrating the Learning Objects different e-Personnel and teachers have built into moodle, it fell to me.

Super.

I’m up to a challenge.

The idea is to create intranets within the schools in the province with computer labs, install moodle and have the LO accessible to all teachers within the school.

Some initial roadblocks: the intranets don’t exist, a plan for moodle installation hasn’t happened yet, there may be others.

Still, I sat in the dining hall yesterday working with the sample LO Charles had given me.

I wanted to claw out my eyes.

Here’s what I learned:

The objects were created in a free Microsoft software called Learning Content Development System. They pull in video and graphics and text. They create interactive guided lessons. They export into SCORM. They don’t play nicely with moodle. (That last one was a bit of a bugger.)

Awesome.

I spent hours trying to figure things out.

My favorite piece of research brought this reply from a MSFT Moderator on the forums:

Hi Takabanda,

LCDS is designed to create content that can be hosted in the SharePoint Learning Kit (SLK).

In addition, we continue to test the content in other Learning Management Systems. We’ve heard varying reports about issues with Moodle and we do not have steps to resolve the issues some course authors are encountering with Moodle at this point.

Unfortunately, we don’t have specific steps to for Moodle.

Thanks,

Stephanie

I had some bad news for Charles.

I sent this tweet out:

Minutes later, I got this response:

@Microsoft_Cares attempted to help, as did @mwacker, and I’m grateful for it. Still, in the end, it was for naught.

I handed the issue over to my teammate, Chris, in whose wheelhouse this problem more naturally lives.

Nada.

While I’ll leave Matthew Arvin out of it, Microsoft should still look over their shoulder when in allies.

Districts here don’t have budget for SharePoint Learning Kit. More to the point, there’s no budget for the upkeep nor bandwidth for the updates. Offering the first part for free and the second for pay is a bit of a bait-and-switch.

The flipside of that is the need for a clear ICT plan and research of the tools chosen for implementation. I certainly realize that. I’ve pointed it out as well.

I can’t help but have a bitter taste in my mouth thinking this is another example of corporations eyeing districts hurriedly moving to “catch up” with other districts/countries as profits over people and ignoring the global implications of leading them to waste the limited funds they possess.

Yes, buyer beware.

It’s reciprocal.

Seller, operate in good faith.

Find the Hard Pack

We’ve been starting each day of the Eastern Cape project with a period of reflection. It’s been my task to orchestrate these moments of reflection.

Wednesday, I told a story.

Mid-October, I’ll be running my 8th marathon.

Because of this, I need to keep training whilst I’m on the ground over here. As many of the locales where we’ll be working aren’t necessarily safe for a lone foreigner out on a run, I’ve been taking advantage of each location I can.

The venue here on South Africa’s “Wild Coast” is safe(-ish).

Wednesday, I set out before the sunrise to run along the beach.

Whereas Gonubie was a little resort town situated right on the beach, here, we’re much more middle of nowhere. The beach is expansive and I had it to myself.

Living in Florida taught me about running on the beach – you stay close to the water on the hard-pack sand. Otherwise, you’re running in mush.

The first mile-and-half of my 6-miler was great. Still dark, light breeze, waves crashing.

Then, I lost the hard pack.

It was mush.

It was whatever the morning equivalent of twilight is and I was running in mush.

I pushed through.

“I’m a marathoner. A little soft sand won’t get me down.”

It didn’t end.

I’d stop and rest and run again and stop and rest and run again. No end.

I was fatigued.

I turned around half a mile short of my set halfway point.

Beaten.

As I took another walking break, I spotted the two people I’d passed about a quarter of a mile before turning around.

This was their beach.

They’d left a path.

I started to run again – in their tracks – ignoring my own footprints.

This was their beach.

The way back was easier than the way out.

I was following those who knew the path and I was pretty certain were so used to walking it they thought nothing of it.

Pace-wise, my time was horrible.

As far as all the other reasons long-distance runners do what they do, it was superb.

This is the story I told the e-Personnel Wednesday before a day-long workshop where we asked them to create lesson plans in which they incorporated Information Communication Technologies to serve as examples for the thousands of teachers they work with. They’d never done what they’ve been asking their teachers to do for two years now.

It was arduous and confusing and jargon-splitting, but it was so good.

If we’re going to ask others to go there, we must first go there ourselves.

It’s up to us to find the hard pack.

Not the same

The Gist:

  • The issues are not the same.
  • We’re not all in this together.
  • Thinking it’s the same is wrong.
  • Have different conversations.

The Whole Story:

Tuesday, we ended Day 2 with an Elluminate session connecting the e-Personnel here in Eastern Cape with folks back in the States attending ISTE.

Thanks to Steve Hargadon for hooking us with the Elluminate connection. And thanks to Monika Hardy for joining in and talking about the work she’s doing with classrooms around the world.

It was quite the day.

Just before we were ready to reconvene following lunch, we lost connectivity. Here’s what’s funny, connectivity wasn’t an issue for the first few sessions. We were talking about backward design and working with adult learners and workshop design components. Computers were necessary, but not Internet.

After lunch, Google Docs was on the docket. (Geez, I’m witty.)

Then…it wasn’t.

As near as we can figure, some moderate winds in the area blew a telecom cable loose down the road. Telecommunications from here to Port Elizabeth were down.

There’s a dangerous trap to being here. Similarities can seduce. In an attempt to connect to the environment, to seem a part of rather than apart from, my mind went to “We have so much in common.”

That is the visible.

The invisible is not the same.

During the Elluminate session, a guest said, “I have a feeling we’re not so different.”

We may not be, but our situations are.

Picture a training for all the district technology coordinators for your state. Now, picture the Internet going down due to moderate winds.

What’s the reaction?

Would they sit as though nothing had happened?

We’re talking district-level folks as well as the heads of technology integration for the state.

My guess would be a series of hardy “harumphs.”

Here, there was no surprise.

Not the same.

What if your state was pushing to get every school connected to the Internet? What if several districts said no because they didn’t have electricity and then argued further that they didn’t want to get a generator to power connectivity because they knew the reliability of the generator would likely play havoc with or destroy the equipment if they had it?

Is that happening where you are?

This is me out on a limb saying, likely no.

What’s more, the local press would probably be on the story in hours.

Not the same.

What if the telecom provider your district contracted with honored the legally-required 50 percent e-rate for connectivity, but treated your school as a third-class consumer, arguing that the American satellite they contracted with to get their connectivity didn’t give them a 50 percent reduction for their account? And, no one did anything.

Again, the press, the parents, the district, all stakeholders would be on the line looking for answers.

Here, scenarios 1 and 2 above are such a part of life that snubbery by an international corporation seems par for the course.

Not the same.

I’ve more time to think on this over the next few weeks.

For those of you at ISTE this week, look at your programs. Where are the sessions about building connectivity across the world?

Where are the conversations about the importance of everyone’s voice?

Are we doing so greatly if we’re leaving so many behind?

Does having a “connected” classroom in North America matter when only 25.6 percent of the world’s population has access to the Internet?

When we talk of having our students collaborate with students around the world, do we celebrate the success AND tell the story of the road their partner countries had to walk to find access?

If information is currency and the haves and the have nots are finding themselves more and more separated, we’re fooling ourselves if we think it won’t lead to great troubles down the road.

What are you doing?