1:1: How To Use Our Time

Two things have been on my mind lately: how incorporating devices into my classroom will affect the the way that my students and I learn together; and how to navigate some of the pitfalls that inevitably come with this environment.  The former fills me with excitement and hope.  The latter makes me anxious and uncertain, especially as I think about my goal of going paperless.

Here's my concern: I plan on making a good deal of what we read available as Google Docs, like excerpts from Emerson's "Self-Reliance."  If we are going to talk about these in class and I want them to take some notes on what he says, their Chromebooks will have to be open.  Once those Chromebooks are open, however, the internet with its multitude of choices and distractions, is a click away.  Of course, I understand that distractions have always abounded, even when students sat with hard copies in front of them. Just because they have a book or packet on their desks did not guarantee their attention, let alone thinking.  But the access to the internet represents a different kind of temptation.

So what can I do?  Here's a few possibilities:

Talk honestly with the kids about an online routine centered on mindfulness and responsibility.
Absolutely I plan on doing this and on describing my own efforts at using digital tools in useful ways. I've reflected on my routine on a Google doc here, which I will share.  When I've talked to students about a establishing a routine, they have responded positively. Still, they tend to see the choice to pay attention or not, whether online or off, as a personal one the student makes, over which the teacher has little control. Typically they are quick to point out that the student must deal with the consequences of deciding to not pay attention.  But their is a resigned tone to these conversations regarding how much a teacher can affect students' choices.  So I think I will need a something more proactive on my part.

One option would be to only allow a certain number of computers to be open at a time.  I've used this to varying to degrees of success.  On the positive side, it does make them aware of how they use their devices and instills a sense of shared responsibility.  The drawback, however, is that a student might want to access an article to contribute to the conversation, but be unable to because of a glut of users. Perhaps a way around this would be to have a revolving supervisory position responsible for noting which students wish to use devices to access articles and notes and can keep track of people's time spent online.  This would not be an "enforcement" position because I would not want students to feel that they need to police their peers.  Instead, the role could function almost like front of the house staff at a restaurant, noting reservations and moving people along.  Another problem might be that the person in this role would not be able to pay as much attention to the discussion or could miss some important points because the micromanagement of the class would probably demand quite a bit of attention.  Allowing people to share notes or ideas at the end of class could also help allay some students fears that they might have missed something due to not taking notes.

Another idea relates to 20% time.  Like many other educators, I find these methods very attractive for bringing genuine, self-directed learning into the classroom.  Thinking about how to integrate it, I am reminded of Stefan Sagmeister's Ted talk, "The Power of Time Off."  In the midst of explaining why he closes his design firm and embraces semi-annual sabbaticals, Sagmeister showed this graphic:

His point is that by the time we are done learning and working, we have little time and energy left to pursue our passions.  Instead of this common way of breaking up the stages of one's life, he proposes that we take this approach:

Sagmeister argues that we should break up the chunk of time typically saved for the end of one's life and integrate it throughout our most productive years.  He believes that this keeps one enthusiastic, engaged, and creative.  

Taking this as a cue, I wonder how students would respond to knowing that in each class period they would have a certain amount of free time to play on the Chromebook.  And by free time, I mean free time. They could use it to check in with  friends, explore some personally relevant idea or question, hit a website or two that they like, maybe even play a quick game: it would be their time.  The hope is that if they know they will have time for themselves, this could sharpen their focus and motivation during the time that I want them engaged on the curriculum.  When I think about how I work, I know there are times when I need short mental respites in between more intensive rounds of reading, writing, and thinking.  So instead of leaving these breaks for the end of class, they can look forward to them periodically during class.

Quite possibly I am delusional to think that providing this independent time will dissuade them from surfing when they should be otherwise engaged.  Then again, a conversation regarding all of these possibilities is worth having with the students.  Perhaps they have some suggestions that I have not considered.  That would be the best potentiality, for it would give us all a stake in negotiating how to make the classroom function as the powerful learning space I hope it can be.

The Inquiry Approach: A First Attempt, Part 1

At my school, one of the responsibilities of teaching 11th grade American Lit is guiding the students through a research project.  "Guiding" probably is not the best word choice. How about "dragging." Why must they be dragged?  I'm sure part of it is the name and all its unpleasant connotations: THE RESEARCH PROJECT.  It sounds taxing, uniform, and out of touch.  Most students figure that this project will entail weeks of researching a topic which they had little choice in deciding and it will inevitably lead to a long paper that they will not read ever again.  It is a bit ironic that research should be seen this way.  After all, research it is something that everybody does everyday and, for the most part, on personal devices that fit in one's pocket.  Of course the difference is that this "everyday" research revolves around questions and topics that are personally relevant and meaningful.  Whether the research is regarding something insignificant, like the various places to get a good taco, something of critical importance, like the procedure for dealing with cancer that a loved one has been diagnosed with, or somewhere in between, this activity is self-directed and genuine.  Thus, most students would not label it research it all.  It's simply learning.  After years of struggling to foster this same attitude for the "research project," I decided last year to drastically change the framework.

My first decision: let the students choose any question as the basis for the project.  Next: actually make it evolve into a project, not just a paper.  With that, the "A Question That Matters" inquiry project was borne.

1. Blog Post: A Question That Matters.  Without being told that it would lead into the research, I asked students to add a post to their blogs in which they discussed a question that was meaningful for them. It did not have to concern English or school in general.  
2. Blog Post: Answering the Question in The Extreme Negative.  Borrowing an idea from Hillary Bullock, a colleague, I had students take their questions, which were pretty open-ended and dealt with topics like "success" and "regret" and had them create an answer that articulate an extreme point of view. For example, if the question was "how do I know when I have achieved success?" the student would answer by saying the ways he knows he will not be successful.  It was meant to be a way to start narrowing the question and focusing on possible answers.
3. Blog Post: Read an article. Two fantastic librarians found an article to accompany all 40+ questions.  Students read their designated article and wrote a blog post on what the article said about the question: perspectives, other questions, important sounding names, organizations, studies that are mentioned.  I also asked students to consider if they needed to refine (or even change their question).  At this point, they knew this was a part of a larger research project.
4. Introduce Evernote.  I decided to show them Evernote and "encouraged" them to use this tool to collect and reflect on their research.  Part of this was to give them one online location where they could house everything (and that they can access across devices) and to introduce them to a tool that might be beneficial in creating an digital routine for their academics.
5. Research.  They needed to find 5+ sources that provided different perspectives on their question.
6. Write a short paper.  Students wrote either informative or persuasive essays, based on their questions and what they felt they wanted t say.  Instead of this being the endpoint, however, it was only the first part of them demonstrating what they learned.  The More interesting part came next.
7. Create a multi media project. Based on what question students asked and what they discovered, they needed to figure out a way to use digital tools and/or tangible materials to say something about the question.  This is where students really struggled, but also felt challenged in a meaningful way. 

Being Present: Tweeting the Talk

Recently I attended the Leyden 1:1 Symposium.  On two consecutive mornings I was fortunate enough to hear timely, thought-provoking keynotes: first by Chris Lehmann and then by George Couros. See:

@chrislehmann First Dewey and now Neil Postman: technology is transformative and schools should be so as well. #LHS1to1
— scott glass (@sglass771) August 1, 2013

@gcouros echoing @chrislehmann: schools that don't leverage creative possibilities of tech are irrelevant in Ss lives. #lhs1to1
— scott glass (@sglass771) August 2, 2013

That's right. During these engaging addresses, I was tweeting.  But not only that.  I was also recording ideas and questions in Evernote.  Is all of this really necessary?  Wouldn't it be better to have my device closed and give my uninterrupted attention to the person speaking?

These are questions that I must address because, as my school moves to a 1:1 environment with Chromebooks, the same behavior that I exhibited will be duplicated by my students. And I do not want to feel impulsive in my classroom management decisions, or like a hypocrite.

Some of my "Evernotes" while listening to Chris Lehmann 

I think explaining why Evernote is important is easier than defending my twitter use.  After all, with Evernote I was making sure to document ideas that I wanted to employ in my own classroom and questions I wanted to consider after the presentation.  Most teachers I know encourage and even require note-taking by students during presentations, whether by the teacher or peers.  I think this would fall under the category of "active listening."

So what about twitter?  I tweeted 9 times while listening to Lehmann, 4 of which were retweets. During George Couros's talk the following morning, I tweeted another 9 times, including 3 retweets. When wondering if this is necessary, I know there are people who would answer with an emphatic "No!"

I imagine one criticism running like this: chances are most of the people citing a particular twitter handle (@chrislehmann) and hashtag (#LHS1to1) at a specific time are doing so because they are all participating in a conference, presentation, or workshop together.  Since these people have their twitter streams open, they will be privy to a lot of the same tweets bouncing back and forth, like light off of a mirror.  So how does it benefit somebody in the audience to reread a dozen tweets restating what the speaker just said, only in a more concise (less powerful?) rendition?

Actually, I think there might be something to this.

As I tweeted and read tweets during the presentations, I was struck by the repetitive nature of many of the tweets.  It was also interesting to see the flurry of activity when Lehmann or Couros would say something perfectly packaged for twitter consumption.  Suddenly fingers all around me would be busy.

Perhaps it would be preferable to just listen.

What's more, some people might add, is that part of the reason one tweets is to see how others respond--to see how many times others will retweet and favorite one's work.  In this way, there is a kind of narcissism to tweeting in general, and during a talk in particular.  It's like a bunch of people continuously reminding other audience members that, "yes, this speaker is good, but I'm also here and I'm special, too."  Ok.  So maybe twitter skeptics wouldn't argue this.  (Although I think some would.) But, being relatively new to twitter, I know I have wondered if this drives my tweeting.

So as I offer some reasons for why I added twitter to my listening repertoire, let me start by owning that last reason.  There is a part of me that feels good about others embracing my thoughts about what we are hearing, just as I'm sure others feel good when they see me retweet and favorite their tweets.  Is this a bad thing?  To the degree that it does not become the sole reason for tweeting, I don't really think so.

But the important reasons that I tweet during a presentation, and would like to offer my students the opportunity, are as follows:

1. Working the 140.  Wow it can be exacting, especially when I know I need to save 8-15 of those characters for a handle and hashtag.  But I find the discipline required an invigorating challenge. As teachers, we are all concerned with our students' ability to be concise and clear.  Twitter communication demands these qualities.


2. Making it stick.  As a teacher, I know that one surefire way to understand something is to teach it. No other activity insures that one gets to know a subject inside and out.  While tweeting what somebody else stated is not exactly like teaching it, there is value, nevertheless, in crafting a tweet that captures and articulates an idea.  In those moments when shaping a tweet, I find myself thinking more deeply about the idea and the perfect wording.  Contrary to the criticisms that tweeting reinforces superficiality, it provides me with spurts of hyper-attention and mindfulness, even if these can be brief, which, hopefully, help in the process of moving the information beyond the short-term memory.  And even if the idea does not make it into more stable memory, it has been recorded and can be revisited.


3. Joining the conversation.  Yes, that phrase is probably cliche by now.  Yet, widespread use does not make it untrue.  In the midst of tweeting about Lehmann and Couros's keynotes, I had individuals agreeing with my tweets, refining my tweets, and raising questions and sharing links based on my tweets.  As I stated in #2, tweeting is not mired in superficiality.  But neither does it encourage passivity.  As with Evernote, tweeting requires me to be actively engaged and evaluating what I'm hearing.  Unlike Evernote, however, tweeting also allows good ideas to spread because


4. Tweeting is sharing.  In the hypothetical counter-argument above, I imagined that a talk's physical audience also represented the majority of the people reading the tweets about the talk. Maybe. However, I know from experience that people absent from the Leyden Symposium commented on and retweeted my tweets.  These fellow educators deserve to hear what leaders in the field have to say.  It reminds me of this tweet, from an educator I connected with at the Leyden Symposium

If you have an awesome lesson that no one else knows about, you aren't fulfilling your obligation to education. #lhs1to1 #moedchat
— Bob Dillon (@ideaguy42) August 2, 2013

Given these reasons for why I tweet during presentations, I cannot fathom withholding the experience from my students.  Even if it means there will be times when I or somebody else is speaking, and the class looks like this: