Flexibility

As I set up my Apple TV at home over spring break and used it to integrate a ton of different things, like any good teacher, I thought about the ton of different ways I could use it in the classroom.  There are a lot of good articles out there about "untethered teaching", using ipads wirelessly to replace smartboards, so I am definitely not original in my thinking.

When I started at my current school 5 years ago, we had a couple of computer labs, but they were mostly used for recovery credit and things like that, which were definitely needed as we had a grad rate around 43% that year.  For my part, I had my notes on transparencies that I put on an overhead projector.  I was okay with that since I'd worked at a small private school that wasn't on the cutting edge of technology.  I had done the blogging, bulletin boards, help students through IM for a few years before that, but I was ok with leaving it behind, after all, most of my students at my new school didn't have the same tech at home that my private school kiddos did.

In my second year, we had a smart board for the science department and since no one else was really using it, I appropriated it and began to use mostly power point to replace my old notes.  Yes, I could have done that with just a projector which I would have been fine with.

Year 3 rolled around and we got a massive technology grant at our school, and began to add what will eventually be something like 8-9 computer labs in our school.  Every single classroom got a SmartBoard and projector and some cursory training.  I kind of liked the Smart Notebook software so I spent that year of 4 preps turning all of my notes into Notebook presentations.  I loved the ability to play videos, etc easily without a TV in my room.  The system was spottily used though...most of us did not (and still don't) have the speakers  hooked up.  Most of the teacher computers are about 7-8 years old and thus are slow to be as generous as possible.  I would guess that for most teachers, the actual "Smart" parts of smartboards don't get used a whole lot (recording, clickers, etc).

But here's the deal.... we spent who knows how much implementing this system, with very little teacher input, though we were excited to get the chance to do it.  But we're locked in now to some degree.  Now that it is apparent that you could replace the $3k or so for each smartboard with an ipad, an apple tv and a projector and be able to move it wherever you want for around $1k-$1.5k max, it seems like a bad investment.  Soon at least a 5th of our school might be getting ipads for the students (hopefully for teachers too).

Of course we are totally not prepared for it either...we have an ipad lab this year, but most don't know what to do with it.

My point behind this long ramble is that school systems seriously lack any sort of flexibility, spend hundreds of thousands on teh new hawtness and then lock everyone into using it to justify their expense.  I have a way to make it a little cheaper and more flexible:

Ask teachers what they individually want/need in their room.  Provide funding for that instead of ridiculous amounts of money thrown into a school or system wide solution that will be passed by and outdated in 5 years (at best).  Teachers would have to be reasonable and work within the confines of that system, but I bet it would save in a lot of ways.  There could still be some school wide things, but if a teacher says that 6 ipads or chromebooks would make all the difference, that is probably a cheaper solution in the long run.  If they need an airport to allow kids access to the wireless in their room on their own devices, let it roll.

And what matters more to me is that it is a more flexible and probably pedagogically sound solution in the long run.  We want to teach students about the eduspeak term "21st century" skills and then stuff them into a computer lab that hasn't changed its basic setup since I learned basic in 1984 or so on TRS-80s.

I'll admit, I know that there are tech issues and perhaps more soul crushing, legal issues that interfere with all of this.  I'm going to state something that is going to make me a jerk and unpopular...I don't really care.  I want to educate my students, I want my urban students to be on an equal technological footing with their more affluent peers on the other side of the county.  I can't do that if I have to submit a form in triplicate to install an app that would take me 20 seconds to download.  I'm all for protecting the kids from things they shouldn't be doing.  I'm about as conservative as a public school teacher gets, I don't want the kids viewing pron or any of the other dangerous stuff that's out there any more than anyone else.

The problem is that the legal part of all this is decades behind the technology, as 19th century copyright law in the 21st century illustrates.  The kids I have now can't wait 10 years for us to figure it out.

Trust your teachers, make the system flexible, fear graduating uneducated and unprepared students more than lawsuits.

/rant

First time presenting

Been about a week and half since I last posted, due to a number of factors such as illness etc.  I didn't get around to talking about it last week, but I got to do my first flipclass presentation last Thursday.  I felt like it went pretty well considering that I was sick and that a lot of our folks don't show up for much PD at this time of the year because they already have their hours in.

When I knew I was sick the night before I debated what to do about the presentation and even considered "flipping" it by making a video and trying to skype in for questions.  But since I knew skyping takes an act of congress at our school, I just came in anyway.

I did eventually decide to make a video because a lot of folks that wanted to come couldn't make it.  I'm a little unsatisfied with the video, as I often am when they are done, but also just too tired to spend another hour or two working on it.  Hopefully it will at least spark some thought for some of our teachers.  We have a good bunch who are usually willing to step out and try some new things, at least on a limited basis, so I'm hopeful that this will assist some.

Oh, and I forgot to comment on this in the video I think, but it's not about the videos...=P

I also apologize for my still messed up voice.

Class Size

Today was a Monday, that's for sure.

Actually, my first block class went pretty well...took a SBG assessment, did pretty well, those that were ready and took it, the rest will take tomorrow, briefly reviewed the video stuff on orbital notation, that seemed to go well also, kids working at different paces, the way I want it to go.

My AP is not being flipped...so I won't mention them other than the, wow, if I was this unfocused in school in my AP classes, I am soooo sorry.

But my last class....oh...my last class.  This class is Honors Chem I and they are a bunch of pretty good kids.  One of the things that happens a lot in my school though is that a lot of our honors kids have some good brains but aren't very used to using them.  Since they can coast by in most of their classes, they aren't used to having to really apply themselves, and just like when I start up running again after a 5 year hiatus, it takes time to stretch out those muscles.  That is killer hard, both for them to learn and for me to be patient with.

What makes it a little more challenging for me is that I have a larger than normal class for our school.  One way that we are blessed is that overall our class sizes are pretty small, especially in the lower two grades. I generally have around 25 or so students on my roster in a normal class.  In this one though I have 30, and one  constant that I've always noticed is that all of my honors kids have tended to be a bit more chatty than others. Couple that with the newness to them of flip and of SBG, they are struggling and I am struggling with their struggles....

S:  "Mr. A, I didn't watch the video last night, can you come show me how to do this?"

Me: "Ok, did you read over the note packet?"

S: "No"

Me: "your partner seems to know what's up, did you ask them?"

S:  "They don't want to help..."

S2 (the partner): "I tried...she doesn't want me to help"

And so on...I want to help, that's what I do, what I'm there for, what makes having a real teacher different than just watching videos and such.  But wow...meet me a third of the way.  When your honors kids don't want to plug into an equation with n trickeration, that's frustrating...for both of us.

I was tempted on the way home to just scrap flip for this class, stick with SBG and switch back to my normal DI lecturing, at least for a week.  But then I thought, if I really believe in the flip, which I do, why would I switch to what I feel is an inferior pedagogical model?  To prove a point?  We already know that they hate lecture in general....

Part of the problem of course is that I feel I've been falling a little apart in my planning, so the ones that really want to zoom ahead, I'm not fully prepared for.  So I spent extra time this weekend in between starcraft viewing to really flesh out more fully this weeks plans.

And then on the way home I get an email that says my team will be out of the building all day Friday for the hot new model of thinking we are doing next year.

Must...stay....optimistic...

Okay, I can do it...

Anyone out there with ideas on how to make flip flow smoother sometimes, send my way, I'm going to try out some new stuff, but always love to hear what others are doing!

Affirmation and Questioning Oneself

So we're a third of the way through the semester.  I had my last evaluation of the year last week and while I'm never one to worry a ton about them, this time was a little different.  This was my first real, fully flipped classroom evaluation.  I had two evals last semester, but I was in that weird in the middle part where I was making the videos and wasn't fully flipped yet.

I actually didn't think the evaluation went that well, and even after the post, I can think of a thousand things I should have done better.  But you know what, it didn't matter that much because while I was discussing it all with my principal she brought up how the classroom was truly student centered, how they spontaneously helped each other, how they knew what to do and that I barely addressed the class as a whole, instead was working with individuals or small groups.

The response in my head was "Yes! It works...."

I'll be honest, I'm still questioning the flip model a bit in my head each day.  I think that's because it is so much work on me and with sick kids and wife at home, it is hard to focus at night on putting the energy and time required into getting everything done for all of the demos and activities that I want to do.  I'm still not there yet, that's for sure.  I've had particular wonders about my honors class, which is a good class, but I can tell that they would much rather I just stood up there and lectured, gave them work and graded it.  I've done that for a long time and am pretty good at that as far as it goes, it would work.

But "it will work" is not really the mantra of trying to improve my classroom. Lots of things "work" but don't really, or just serve to gloss over a lot of stuff.  As I look back on my career so far, it's not that I think I've been a bad teacher, just that wow...I could have been so much better.

I think that's what I'm looking to pull out of the kids too.  In my Honors class in particular, they can all do the work and get by...school "works" for them in that way.  But I really don't just want them to get by, to just work...I want them to learn, to grow, all of that pollyanna crap that I can barely believe I'm even typing, but that's really what I want.

I was sitting in a room of teachers in a leadership meeting a couple of years ago and we were doing some activity where we were writing down why we were in teaching or something like that.  My answer was that I didn't want to change the world, that I wanted to make a ripple, to have my kids make ripples too.  I got pretty roundly ridiculed for that, probably because I'm a pretty prickly sarcastic dude and they thought I was full of feces.

But it's true....and I think I've been making ripples before, but I feel that the stones I'm throwing in the pond now with the new way of doing things have a lot more heft, and hopefully, create bigger ripples.

So I'll stick with it...I've been pretty adamant about not slipping into my old model from last semester of showing the vodcasts collectively to the class during class time...I'm still sticking to the SBG thing even though I'd really like to shell out some points for other things.  But I think in this discomfort is growth for me and hopefully for the kids as they are uncomfortable at times too, not always knowing the correct answer, but hopefully starting to think a little more.  I'd hate to get to the end of the term and wonder what if I had stuck it out.

And yes, that little boost from administration, just showing that they like what is going on and will be willing to back you when stuff gets nuts, that is needed as well!

Microwave Changes

Something I've found very hard over the past few years in education is the speed at which changes are supposed to take place, speed demanded by administration or ourselves.

  Last school year we had a couple of days of PBL training and were then supposed to incorporate it into our semesters that very term, meaning that a week or two before school, bang, make the switch to a totally new pedagogical technique that will take up somewhere around a sixth to a third of your term. The examples were minimal at best, those of us presenting it were hardly briefed on it before being expected to teach it.  Then those of us who were responsible for teaching it with no prior PD to train us were then expected to show up at department meetings and "check in" on PBL progress.

Last semester when I decided to start flipping my class, I canned most of the first unit before school started.  That was nowhere near enough.  As we reached the 2nd unit, I realized that I just didn't have the time to make the videos far enough ahead to burn the DVDs and such.  That being the case I did a weird deal where I showed the videos in class, like watching myself lecture and explain from outside of myself.  Very odd, and of course it wasn't as effective as I would have hoped.  I beat myself up for it pretty severely.

The issue was that I decided to make a change and put some planning into and expected it to be done and good to go.  I've done sort of the same thing this semester with google docs and SBG.  The problem is that even the best changes in the way we teach take time.  If Sams and Bergmann took a few years to perfect their version of the flip class, why do I think I'm going to be a guru in a semester or two?

One of the things that drives me that way is that you see posts and tweets from people who seem to have made changes and bang, results the next week, scores and learning soaring.  A lot of those same teachers promote their ideas like they are simple changes that can be done by a simple mindshift after reading a post or watching a video.  It does not work that way, any more than teaching in the classroom does.

I'm competitive, which I know is anathema to a lot of the modern education movement, but that's who I am.  I want to be the best, I want to have all of the answers right now.  And when I don't, I'm aggravated and defensive.  Last semester I was asked to present on the flip class idea and I was so upset at where I was with it, I demurred, probably rightfully so.

All of this came to the surface a bit more for me because at the school I'm at, drastic changes happen almost every year.  Just last week we became a magnet and this whole new way of teaching that is supposed to be the new default for every teacher in my school within a school was presented.  I have faith that we'll have some PD on how to do it, but wow...to decide in what seems like a couple of weeks that all of the teachers involved will suddenly adopt a new pedagogical plan seems quick to me.  

Maybe our microwaves need a new button next to the popcorn one called "instant pedagogical change"...

I'm willing to change, I pull new stuff in every year and this year of course I've thrown it all out and started from scratch.  Of course I think I'm a lot more willing to put the time and effort in when it is bottom up, meaning that the ideas are teacher spawned rather than admin spawned.  No doubt I'd feel the other way if the shoe were on the other foot.

A word to all teachers out there trying to change things up, and to admins wanting to make big changes, give yourselves and the teachers time to work it out, don't expect it all to be done and mastered in a semester or a year.  Kids minds don't learn in the microwave model, and neither do educators.

Getting Over It

There are several significant adjustments that I've had to make in my own mindset to do the flipped class.  As I noted early, one of those is having a lot more to do every day.  I can't skate by on my old lecture notes and personality (which my peers will laugh at!).

One of the first things that is tough to deal with is the feeling that I'm not "teaching".  The actual content is delivered via video for the most part, with a few minutes of review at the beginning of each class period (or more as needed).  Students are then engaged in an activity, working on problems in groups, making videos, etc.  While all of this is going on, I'm circulating around the room, helping groups, offering advice as needed, asking questions to see if they really know what it is that they are doing.  Some days it feels like I should be doing more to directly deliver content.

The reality of course is that I'm delivering content in a much more effective way.  One could argue that it is not as efficient because instead of standing in front of 30 students and answering questions, working problems and lecturing, I'm working with small groups of 2-4 students doing some of the same things.  Sometimes I end up working the same problem multiple times.  That makes me want to get up and work it for the whole class, which I do occasionally.  But a lot of times, I just push each group through the problem in their own way.  And that is the thing with the method of me sitting down with them in a small group.  I'm not working the problem...I'm asking pointed questions, and in a very small group they can't really hide in the way that they would in the whole class setting.

You know how it is, you ask the whole class a question while you are explaining a problem and the same 4 kids respond, or they respond corporately and you can't really tell who knows.  There are ways around this, yes, like popsicle sticks and random student methods, but still, you get a couple of responses each time.  With the way I'm doing it now, I am trying my best to stick to my mantra of every student, every day.  I am not at the point of giving individualized problems to work on, but I think I am going to try some of that out later in the semester as it is definitely the best model I think.

The other big issue is that my classroom is often chaotic.  We are now at the point in the year where some of my students are starting to break away from the pack a little bit, working a day or two ahead.  So that means that I might have students watching videos to get ahead, some working on an activity from 2 days before and some working on "that day's" assignment.  I so wish I had the ability to do more lab stuff in class as well, which I'm headed towards once my demo table gets in.  That of course will only add to the chaos.  

I'm ok with the chaos, it is often integral to learning, and certainly necessary to most student centered learning.  But not everyone likes it.  I'm pretty fortunate that I have administrators who are not only comfortable with kids not being in seats, but encouraging of it.  All it takes is one admin change to foil that though.  Also plays havoc with the planning part of our new and complicated evaluation system.

All in all, I'm learning to deal with it, making the adjustment with as much grace as a chubby, bald, middle aged guy can muster.

Tear down this wall

So we received some exciting news this past week at school, which is that my school within a school is going to be one of the few county magnet programs, in our case, for Communications.  A lot of thoughts about that, and about my school in general, but let me focus in on one thing tonight.

Along with becoming a magnet comes some pretty cool news that at some point next year we'll be 1:1 in the School of Communications.  Since I'm flipping, using google forms assessments, having students make videos and tutorials on Explain Everything, etc, that is pretty good news.  In fact, one would think that I would have jumped up at the announcement.  And honestly, I am fairly excited about it.  But I have a bit of trepidation as well.

First off, let me just say that even though I teach in an urban school, we have a ton of technology.  We won a huge grant a couple of years ago, and since then have installed I think somewhere around 6 new computer labs in our school.  Wifi went up in the whole building this year.  Every room has a smartboard and projector.   There is an ipad lab in our media center.

We are truly blessed at our school, and having taught in a school where my computer lab was all of 6 computers, I know what a blessing it is.

However....

• The iPad lab is officially speaking, to be used in the library only.  The thin portable tablets meant to be carried around are in one place, essentially anchored.
• Even though I like to think I'm one of the more tech savvy teachers, I had no working computer outside of my ipad for over a month last semester.  The IT guys had replaced parts in my computer no fewer than 4 times, and yet it would not even run 20 minutes without rebooting itself spontaneously.
• My new computer by the way, won't play video through the projector...which is a bit of a problem since I spent a significant amount of time creating my 60 or so videos last term.
• I said I used my ipad at the end of last term, which I did...with a connector cable that I purchased on my own.
• The iPad lab only recently actually got useful apps on it....6 months or so after we got the devices...and about 2 months before the next iPad iteration comes out.
• At the height of my frustration last term I noted that right across the hall from me was the room that is to be our next computer lab, stacked with Dell boxes for that new computer lab...that have been there for months waiting for furniture.
• Officially, I can't use my personal iPad on the school wireless...which begs the question of what it is actually there for...

I actually have more, but I should sleep at some point.   Let me be perfectly clear, this is not the fault of our Tech coordinator (@techcoor on twitter) who is one of the kindest, most solicitous people on the planet.  And really, it's not even my biggest complaint, because most of that is about me and my tech issues.

So let's get to where the rubber meets the road, the kids...

All social media is blocked...why?  I have 60 videos on youtube, educational videos that are essentially their first go to part of the curriculum.  Oh yeah, put them on the slow frankenstein school website...done...I'm a team player.  Guess what, even though one of the 3 formats I made them in is especially for iOS, they can't be watched at school on the ipads, because the school website converts them to flash... Even youtube/edu is blocked on most of the computers.

So you know what my kids do instead...they pull out their phones and watch them on youtube.  So do I when I need to use something.

I went to a meeting a year ago where the IT department folks and science folks were tauting the benefits of Skype in the classroom, and then proceeded to explain the forms in triplicate and weeks notice we would need to use them...

A few of the teachers use twitter to do connect with students or parents...but of course the only way the kids can access it is on their phones.  They can't use the school computers, which becomes a real problem for those students who don't have internet at home...

We have this crazy new evaluation system in Tennessee this school year, that we actually piloted at our school last year.  I'm ok with it since I'm an arrogant jerk anyway, but a lot of folks are nervous.  One of the biggest focuses is on grouping, creating, thinking in teams, showing knowledge in ways other than tests.  I'm actually down with this, I think it is a good idea.  Teh new hawtness in edubabble is that of 21st Century skills... but what good does that do if the system is walled?

We're in the middle kingdom, trying to peer over the wall into the celestial kingdom.

I understand fully that there are privacy concerns and laws out there that require filters...I just think they are mostly ill-informed and crazy in some ways.

Here's what I want...open it up...trust your teachers to moderate.  Even better, expect your teachers to help teach proper ways to use these things.  Are kids occasionally going to watch something on youtube that they shouldn't?  Absolutely...and when I see that, which I will, because I moderate my room, I'll stop it.  Will fights get arranged through twitter?  Probably...someone could get stabbed with a pencil, do we ban those too? (thanks #pencilchat !)

You want me to have my kids create, innovate, be prepared as much as possible for the 21st century, fine...I'm all for that...I want to be on the bleeding edge of that stuff.  I'm prepared to be the guy taking the hits to pass my knowledge of what doesn't work to others.  I have no problem with stuff going wonky as the students and I figure it out.  

But I can't...we're stuck on the wrong side of the Brandenburg gate, able to see what is over on the other side, but kept back, because the stuff over there is dangerous and we can't be trusted with it...

Tear down this wall...