PE

Here is a short video of our 7th and 8th graders in their PE class using bows. Thank you to the Emmet County Conservationists and our instructor Mrs. Kinnander for helping make this event possible.

Technology in Plain English

After attending the Scott McLeod training sessions for administrators I reflected back and looked through my notes. Some of the best explanations of the new technologies out there today were video clips that were done in plain English. I have decided to attach these video clips for anyone to take a look at. They do a great job of explaining what the technology is and why you would use it.

Blogs in Plain English:

RSS Feed in Plain English

Twitter in Plain English

Online Photo Share in Plain English

Wikis in Plain English

Blocking Websites...

Are we as a school district actually preparing our students to effectively perform in the digital age? I had posted a poll in the past asking what websites we currently block and would it be academically beneficial to students and staff members if they were not blocked. I ran into that same question/issue today. I spoke with a staff member who had pulled a video clip off of youtube. They lost the video clip and they were running into the issue of how to quickly gain access to this site for the class to watch the video clip on their own. Should we be blocking these sorts of sights or should we be teaching our students how to filter through the site and be responsible when viewing the content?

Interesting blog:

From the head of Zeus

Most schools currently expect students to somehow (maybe magically?) be responsible, successful digital citizens upon graduation from high school - able to navigate all of the intricacies of a digital, global world - despite having little to no opportunity to learn or meaningfully practice what that means during their 12+ years of schooling.

Continuing my analogy from my previous post, we have to stop pretending that students are like Athena, able to burst forth fully-formed from the head of Zeus (or the cocoon of schools), ready to successfully function in a complex adult world without prior practice or experience.

Dress Code Discussions...

We here at the Armstrong-Ringsted High School have been having discussions in regards to our dress code. These sorts of issues arise every year when the beautiful springtime sun is upon us. From the length of shorts and skirts to muscle shirts and cut offs. I am sure other students and school staff around Iowa are having the some of the same discussions as our school. I had some quality discussions yesterday with some of our students in regards to the dress code. They talked to me about out dress code being outdated and that it should be changed. The message I am trying to get out to the students is, get the student council involved. It is my opinion that this group of elected students are the "change agents" in a school building. I am very open to new ideas and possible changes in the future, if we can come to an agreement.

In my opinion this is a teachable moment in regards to how we get the change we feel we want or need. For instance, if I as a citizen of Iowa want something (law) to be changed I contact my representative to make my opinion known. This is how our society is currently set up to make substantial changes. Who are the student council representatives some may ask?

Traci, Travis H, Taylor G, Katelyn, Dylan L, Whittney, Kyle, Megan, Emily, David L, Drew, Evan, Colton, & Clyve.

Articulating our Learning

Do we have the knowledge to work with blogs and gadgets in an effective and efficient manner? Interesting article...

Articulating our learning

March 28th, 2010 · No Comments · Research, Student projects, Web 2.0

The last two weeks I’ve worked with about 18 sophomore pre-AP classes who are in the midst of research papers on electronic privacy and intellectual freedom. After conversations with the teachers, I developed a lesson to involve the students in website evaluation–because particularly with this topic, I knew they’d be running across many points of view and many blogs.

The Assignment

Inspired to make the lesson less teacher-driven, I pulled together a set of technology related links(including a link to Steve Dembo’s blog), had students self form groups, and then each group had a short time to evaluate their site and share their evaluation with the class. We then spun out our own understanding of ways to evaluate sites.

Much too often, we assume students have digital skills that they lack. Even knowing that, however, I was quite surprised at the problems our students encountered on websites. Confronted with so many styles and types of sites (as I knew they would run across on this topic), they seemed somewhat befuddled about identifying the different types of sources they encountered.

It was both an interesting lesson for me in what our supposed “digital” students “need to know” about working with websites, and how they process information when viewing a site.

Areas of Difficulty

One of the most interesting aspects of working with them on this was that noticing how students approached sites. When confronted with blogs, particularly, they seemed befuddled by how to handle the mixture of fact/opinion and they had trouble wading through some of the gadgets and advertising on sites that many of us who blog are quite accustomed to. They had trouble tuning out the “noise” so to speak.

They had trouble figuring how how to determine authority of the blogger, as well. Some students were fairly savvy about cross referencing when they ran across hoax sites, but it didn’t occur to any of them to do that to identify a bloggers’ expertise. We also discussed the concept of ‘expert opinion’ versus ‘opinion’, as students’ inclination was to “toss out” anything involving opinions.

They were pretty dismissive about blogs as legitimate sources for information for research, interestingly, so we spent time talking about the role of blogs as “lead ins” to other sources and the power of following links.

Another area where students had difficulty was in dealing with websites for organizations/foundations. If the “mission” wasn’t clear, students accepted them as websites at face value but weren’t quite sure what they were dealing with. (Only one class suggested using the domain .org to identify the type of site.)

Even when they discovered a site’s “about” page, many of the students still had trouble sorting out what the mission of the foundation was. This seems a particularly critical ability for students to have as they navigate through their future–with so many think tanks and advocacy groups that students don’t know, it seems very critical to help them be more savvy about identifying them as such so they can be more aware of bias.

Findings

Things the students were fairly proficient at? They were fairly good at identifying bias in general. They were good at identifying opinions. They were good at spotting ‘flimsy’ or informal poll sites. They were extremely critical of spelling/grammar and “teenspeak” on sites in terms of using them for research. And they were pretty proficient at identifying the hoax site as well. (as Tapscott notes in Grown Up Digital, they did seem to be more “skeptical” consumers in some respects).

As a blogger,this lesson made it clear to me that as bloggers we could do a good deal to make our sites clear and user friendly. (Same for our library websites). I presume that teachers new to reading blogs run into the same sorts of problems I was seeing in students, who weren’t dealing well with clutter or multiple focii (think Boing Boing).

It also became clear to me that we need to do a better job teaching students to use the “about” features on websites. Though students were clearly reluctant to spend a lot of time evaluating sites(as one student boldly pointed out), knowing how to access the “about” information is a quick way to check a website and get a sense of credibility, and it’s a simple thing to teach students to do.

This lesson also worked well because students were already engaged in a research process, so it was in context with what they were already doing.

And it provided an excellent segue into talking about databases and how because of the consistency of database formats, they may be somewhat easier to evaluate and use.

Obviously students (or any of us) aren’t going to spend that much time evaluating each website we use. But when we help students articulate and verbalize their thinking processes, it raises their awareness. And it was a valuable experience for their teachers and I to see their strengths and weaknesses so we can better scaffold them as they move through the rest of their research.

And I don’t mean this in a ‘hokey-I’m a librarian’ way, but too often educators do make assumptions about students’ digital generation skills on the web that just aren’t an accurate reflection of what they know. We have to remember that whether students are dealing with printed texts or websites, they have the same needs for scaffolding.

Flickr photo credit : flickr users “coccu” and “xurble”

Jobs of the Future...

I recently attended a workshop about technology and how we are using it (or not using it) in the classrooms in our schools. To open the session the instructor asked us if we were preparing our students for the jobs of the future. I thought to myself...What are the jobs of the future? Luckily the instructors were prepared to answer that question. Below is a link to the page which lists and describes the "jobs of the future". Take a look

http://fastfuture.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/future_jobs_sheet.pdf

"No Zeros" Policy

I received this e-mail from our Middle School Social Studies / Science Instructor Mrs. Blom. It is an interesting read. Lets you know where some of the education around the area is headed... Thoughts??

It's been a policy in most schools for decades: If you don't turn in your homework, you get a zero for the assignment. But that policy has changed at a number of schools across the metro. Omaha Public Schools is the latest district to make the change to a "no zero" policy.
The OPS policy went into effect at the beginning of the school year. If a student attempts an assignment but fails, the worst grade that student could get is a 65 percent. If a student doesn't attempt the assignment, instead of a zero, they get a 50 percent.

Sally Hansen is an elementary curriculum consultant for Omaha Public Schools. "If a child is already struggling, and I give that child two or three zeros for not completing work, they're going to give up. Because it will take almost all year to bring that grade up. And we do not want anyone to feel like a failure and give up already in elementary school." http://www.wowt.com/news/headlines/86029717.html#

Critics of "no zeros" policies say it doesn't hold students accountable. They also say it could lead to them being less responsible as adults.

But Hansen disagrees.

"There are still a lot of consequences," Hansen says. "It is not a free pass for a child, believe me. That teacher is on them to get that work completed. And the child knows what's expected to get the grades that they need to get.

"The research did show that if a child is given a chance to bring those grades up by not having a zero, and being able to bring a grade up from a 50 or from a 65, they are more likely to be engaged in learning. They are more likely to turn around their learning skills and the work that they do complete. And they are more likely to stay in school."

The Omaha Education Association, the local teacher's union, did not offer a position on the policy when contacted Tuesday. But they are planning to meet tomorrow to discuss the issue.

OPS has also launched a new district-wide computer system that gives parents access to their student's grades through the internet. For more information about the new system contact your local school office.