Edustange

It is the Victoria Day long weekend. There are still six weeks in our school year. Thirty-four of our forty weeks are done. We are well into the final quarter. There are nine minutes left in the game (not counting commercial breaks). When I think about watching my favourite team play football, I’m reminded that the so much can happen in the last nine minutes. There are still critical plays to be made after the two-minute warning. We’ve called our last time out of the game. I’ve got things to do when we get back on Tuesday.

I had a great Mystery Skype this week. I hope to do more. I want to make a serious effort to shift my student writing to Drive next week. I think the process of giving feedback would improve. I have a number of projects lined up in various subjects and we have a field trip planned to a Brick plant near here. It is going to be exciting.

I’m sure my Saskatchewan fourth graders do not need this level of detail in their Rocks, Minerals, and Erosion science unit. It just bugs me that I don’t remember what all these rocks are. I have three boxes of cool rock and mineral samples and the key has been lost over the years.

I am going to get a colour picture of each missing sample and paste them into the box. Purchasing new kits does not make much sense for elementary science. These kits look pretty old to me. I like checking around the science lab and library for the resources that have fallen out of use. The ActivExpression devices in my classroom are an example of that. We still need a great deal of realia in schools. Digital is at a remove. Let’s face it, if you want to compare rocks, understand their characteristics, then you need to be able to hold it in your hand.

I love our science textbook. It asks me to take the students out to find local rocks. They should note the location and take pictures of the area. What can I say? I took them out to the playground to sort through the gravel. Is cement a rock?

Geology 100 was a long time ago I’m afraid. Our rock samples in the science lab are not in the best shape. I need a geologist from the University of Regina to help sort things out!

In her post May 11th, 2013, Sandra Miller points out research that shows students are not waiting around for educators to provide a new type of environment for their learning. They are creating opportunities for themselves. They use their devices to:

Collaborate with classmates on problem solving
Tap into Facebook for schoolwork help
Text their teachers with questions
Solve real world problems
Find podcasts/videos to learn about something
Access online textbooks
Use mobile apps to self-organize
Access online tutors
Use online writing tools
Take online tests or assessments on their own

http://www.portical.org/blog/say-hello-to-the-free-agent-learner-that-is-a-typical-middle-school-student/2164.htm

Over the last four years my classroom has been open to student devices. I have been teaching fourth to sixth grade. I have witnessed all of the uses Miller listed above, but sadly not with great frequency. Personal devices, principally iPods, are in the children’s hands at a very young age. The message from home and school is emphatic, “These expensive toys should stay home.” I’ve worked to change those views among my colleagues, but I notice phones are still essentially banned on the school yard, hallways, and classrooms. Ironically, they seem ever present in the hands and workflow of the staff.

I perceive myself as organized, however I have modestly told people who praise this trait in me that organization is my only defence against the muddle that is my brain. I am really a dusty closet up there, or perhaps a well used student desk. I would like to think that my mind was like one of my other student’s well organized desks, but it is not. Most everything is in there, only it keeps getting shifted around as my tasks change priority. Too many wonderful ideas have been misplaced. Then too, those little scraps of ideas pile up, sometimes get in the way, and lose their context.

We organize desks frequently in my room. Sometimes that means throwing things out. I get frustrated seeing papers that should be in the binder ditched in the recycling bin. However, that really isn’t the worst thing. I have discarded some fine ideas over the years. I have found they return to me when I need them. People are critical of the contemporary mindset that discounts memory in favour of a seemingly precarious reliance on Google. All memory seems precarious to me after 30 years.

I’ve watched how our iPads are being used around the school by many different grades. I see them being used to create and publish learning, not simply play with drill and practice applications. That is pretty cool. Read this article, it might inspire some ideas.

The Smart Way to Use iPads in the Classroom

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/04/ipads_in_the_classroom_the_right_way_to_use_them_demonstrated_by_a_swiss.html

Sent via Flipboard

Sent from my iPad

I wrote about using the school library more effectively in my class. Today my students partnered to research topics found in the books I found in the library. They began by identifying the subtopics covered in the book, and then used a tick-tack- tow to jot note information on a few of the topics. Finally they used iPads to research more information on the subtopics they selected. I’m still very much influenced by the Saskatchewan curriculum developed in the 1980′s. At that time, summarizing was and in my mind, remains the most important skill to be developed up until grade eight. Old assumptions die hard.

I grabbed some books on short and long term health problems this morning. It has been easy to checking the collection slip this year. The library was not very helpful when my students researched topics on Saskatchewan during the winter. Over the years I found that the school library does have lots of material on many topics that my students are going to work on. When I was the school librarian and I counseled my colleagues to always check the library for sufficient materials before they introduce a topic to research. Inevitably some topics are better supported than others. Legends and myths, for example, the topic I’m working on right now, is not adequately supported.

I need to remember to get into the collection once a week. I also need to remember to build activities that send them there once a week. On line research is important now, but I keep forgetting library skills.

Social networking is a contemporary form of sharing and therefore aught to be considered when my students consume, create, and publish. It makes sense to see learning as connected. Social networks help untether learning from the rather limiting traditional connections of teacher, classroom peer, and (text)book.

People generally absorb a full range of media in an unreflective, impressionistic manner. I certainly watch a movie or surf Facebook without deep reflection, or a persistent critical stance. How exhausting would that be? However, when my students use Edmodo or Posterous (RIP) I do ask them to use it intentionally and reflect critically on the process. Deconstruction can kill the love of learning, but the activity remains central to what I conceive as being educated (as opposed to what you might describe as unreflective training). Our students need to be educated in the use of social networking.

One of the teachers who impresses me is John T. Spencer in Arizona. He got me stuck on the word “nuance” in the past year. His critical thinking on public education certainly demonstrates that. His interests are broad and those of us who follow him even casually recognize his many dimensions. He probably would question this, but I think he is a person in balance. Okay, so maybe he is in a dynamic tension, wobbling around a good deal. That is certainly the way I feel.

When I teach needs and wants, I inevitably make the point that need we always face scarcity. Pick the factor that frustrates, something is lacking. Often it is knowledge, understanding or the ability to apply them effectively. It might be organization, resources, or sufficient numbers to achieve my goal. No shortage of examples of this in my current life, some epic examples from my past. The essential factor that frustrates me is often simply time.

I cherish my partner, family, creativity, ideology, vocation, the list goes on…. These are my passions and I feel somewhat less than Alan if I cannot nurture them. Still, along with those other pesky frustraters, there is that matter of time. Nothing I do gets the time I think it deserves. I can feel inadequate about my commitment and attention to just about anything.

I cannot remember the last time I was bored, and that is a blessing I guess. There is always something I think I should be doing, including abandoning this post to spend an hour meditating as I do Yoga on the floor.

My life is a banquet and I cannot invest too much time in a single course. I am on short order moving purposefully from one task to another. Most of us recognize this and find tranquility in the dynamic tensions around us.

I suppose that is one reason I become impatient with Professional Learning Community models. No matter how earnest we are and thoughtful about their design, they disturb a necessary balance. It feels wrong for me to assign a greater priority to the acquisition of numbers concepts in fourth grade, than literacy, health, aesthetics, culture, science, kinisthetics, or simply socialization. I cannot allow myself to become that narrowly focused in my personal life.

I finished my second term with reports last week I think my fourth graders were amazingly connected to their math and writing. I know we had not connected so well with the rest of their curriculum. That disturbs me.