Three for Thursday 12-18-08

I know it has been a while. I have been working in other research which I will post later. Here are some sites that have caught my attention this week.

Cool Resources for the Periodic Table. Science teachers have always been lucky. Ever since I have been collecting resources from the Internet, they have had wonderful visualizations, virtualizations, animations, etc. This is a collection of cool links of the periodic table, an awesome virtualization in itself. I wish I had these when I was in high school.

NIBIPEDIA This is still in Beta, but this could be promising. They started with mashups from TED, which I enjoy. Soon they will allow users to upload their Nibs. Nibs, by the way, are visual bookmarks on a video timeline.

40 Inspirational Speeches in 2 Minutes. Great for my Leadership class.

The Networked Teacher

NetworkedTeacher
Originally uploaded by courosa

A continuation from the previous post. This is a graphic worth discussing. One item that is missing from both of these graphics is the student, but we obviously will have to assume that is a given.

Typical Teacher Network

TypicalTeacherNetwork
Originally uploaded by courosa

I am experimenting with Flickr's blogging tool. I like this graphic, but compare it to the next post.

The Networked Student

College Prep Continued

In an interesting article "College Stops Giving Students New Email Accounts: Start of a New Trend?" Boston College will now no longer be issuing new accounts stating, "Students have already created digital identities The officials realized that the students already had established digital identities by the time they entered college, so the new email addresses were just not being utilized. The college will offer forwarding services instead."

This may be a new trend, and I am interested in thinking about how high schools can help prepare students for it. Although we too have a difficulty of students to read their school-issued email, I believe that schools need to help them understand digital identities and look at ways to create a their own online dossier, whether it be Facebook, Google accounts, blogs, Twitter, etc. How can they use the web not only for not only connecting now but to also let it grow and develop with them as they grow older?

By the way, is this true?




Also see earlier post on College Prep.

End in Mind

Earlier I had posted a Three for Thursday on College Prep. Last week, we had our first trimester exams. Since I have been teaching at St. Margaret's, we have given our exams in our gym for one week. This arrangement allows every student to take a core subject exam at the same time. Each day students take an exam (for example, English on Monday) in the morning, then lunch, then a guided study period with teachers for the next day (History on Tuesday), and that structure is for five days (English, History, Math, Language, Science). Electives offer their assessments during a class period.

This structure is very efficient. Faculty are available for questions during the exam. All of the 150 students are taking the exam at the same time; moreover, students can focus on one exam at a time. I just have trouble with this model of an efficient machine. Although it may make sense, is it right? Is it best for our students? Is this a healthy preparation for the future? Ever since I came to the school, I just cringed at putting especially our younger students in the gym in a cold environment under the fluorescent lights, distant from the teacher, given strict rules about seating, movement, noise, etc. I was concerned about our 8th and 9th graders, who may be taking their first cumulative exam in this environment. I asked why we did it this way, and the response was that this is what they do in college--we are preparing them for college. Really? First of all, I never had that experience in college. We actually had a greater freedom. We could take the exam on any particular day at a specific morning or afternoon time we wanted during the exam week. We had an honor system and could take it in any classroom. Now I know that is a lot of freedom for high school students, but we do have an honor system and do not give much trust to the students. I also think there is some merit to having student make that choice of when they want to take the exam.

My primary objection to the system is that it limits the assessment. I can be as creative as I want during the term. I can find ways to give authentic assessments, but when it comes time to give them a grade for a final term assessment, I am limited to a test. I am limited to assessing the thinner parts of Dale's Cone with less of an authentic assessment or demonstration of real understanding. I taught 8th grade English when I first arrived and actually circumvented the system and gave more authentic assessment in my classroom. When I had multiple sections of History, I gave into the system, and my assessments became more conservative and, although throrough, were actually less creative.

My question is: Although this is an efficient system, is this the best system? Personally, I am working for student portfolios and better assessments for understanding during and at the end of the term. I believe this discussion of assessments and keeping the end in mind for our curriculum and individual classes is the direction for dialogue about what is best for our future.

Cart Before the Horse Pt. II

This is a continuation of an earlier post. We now have a group of about 20 faculty working on a list of technology skills divided into fundamental, proficient, and distinguished. We attempted this ten years ago, and have a very outdated document. The purpose of this work is for our curriculum guide which outlines not only content in the scope and sequence of different departments but also the progression of skills across the curriculum. The technology is just one set of skills but not to be isolated from other learning. We just felt that this was worth starting with just to begin the long dialogue of moving into the 21st century.

The difficulty I am having right now is where the appropriate focus should be. Right now I am perusing through my notes from writings addressing 21st century skills (most recently, Stephen Downes and Ian Jukes). I just linked to David Warlick's "Big Ideas 4 Eduction." I have linked faculty to NETS for students, AASL, 21st century skills.org, etc. These are good sources, and we know the pedagogy should guide the use of technology, but still at some point we need to look specifically at what skills students should know and then what should teachers know to be able to guide their students. For example, should students know about page layout properties in an office productivity suite like Word, Open Office, Google docs? This is minor, but at what point to we expect students and teachers to know this information. What about understanding tabbed browsing, bookmarking, etc.? I know this type of dialogue drags us away from the larger goals to tech specific "stuff," but I do think we have sit down and discuss the specifics at some point. I have searched online for guidance but without satisfactory results.

I will publish a wiki soon so that our group can collaborate. Here is an older wiki on looking at basic skills for our faculty. I am interested in any feedback or guidance to see if this is a wrong path to take as we think about the future of our students and our institution.