This I Believe Goes Global: 2010-11 Edition

Once again Maura Moritz's and Anne Smith's classes will be conducting their This I Believe Goes Global project in their ninth grade English classes. You can read in more detail on Anne's blog, but here are the highlight's:

1. Classes from around the world are matched up, write their This I Believe Essays/record the podcasts, upload them to a wiki, and then students peer edit/respond to essays in the paired class. Read much more on Anne's post or visit the wiki to learn more.
   
   
2. If your class(es) are interested in participating, fill out this Google Form. Then we'll get back to you reasonably soon.
   
   
3. If you're interested in participating as an adult and posting your essay/podcast, go to this page and knock yourself out. (Note: concussions are very serious, please don't actually knock yourself out.)

If you have any questions that aren't answered by Anne's post or the wiki, please contact me.

AWNM: Year 3

Once again this year our students in Anne Smith and Maura Moritz's English 9 Honors classes will be reading Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind and discussing it with each other, with many of you, and with Daniel Pink himself (read about previous years' experiences). Students will be holding in-class fishbowl discussions and live blogging chapters four through nine (Design, Story, Sympathy, Empathy and Meaning).

We again have a bunch of folks from our PLN's that will be live blogging with them, and Daniel Pink will be Skyping with them to discuss Chapter 6: Symphony. (Unfortunately due to our schedules not synching very well this year, we'll only get Mr. Pink once this year instead of twice. The good news is that he'll be discussing Symphony this time which is a chapter that we haven't been able to discuss with him before.)

You're welcome to check out the wiki to see when we'll be live blogging, and then tune in to the ustream of the in-class discussion and/or the CoverItLive live blogging on Anne's class blog (periods 2 and 5 on that schedule) or Maura's class blog (periods 3 and 4 on that schedule). We're looking forward to another great learning experience for - and with - our students.

Cory Doctorow Discussion Ustream Archive

Well, the technology worked fairly well for our Skype discussion with Cory Doctorow today. The audio on Skype wasn't perfect, but we could hear fairly well. And it froze up a couple of times for about 10 seconds, but then started transmitting again. We also lost the ustream once, which is why I've embedded two ustream archives below.

Part 1 (about 17 minutes) is the first part (amazingly enough) of our discussion. We actually start about 3 minutes into the recording, as I hit record before we actually got started just to make sure I didn't forget. Then Part 2 is obviously the remaining portion (about 41 minutes). We probably lost about a minute in between those two recordings. Given the audio issues on Skype, it's a little hard to hear on the ustream as well, but I think you can make most of it out.

Overall, I think it was a great experience for our students. Thanks, Cory, for being so willing to give your time and talents to help our students.

Discussing Little Brother with Cory Doctorow

Anne Smith and Maura Moritz's ninth graders are currently finishing up reading Cory Doctorow's Little Brother. Previously they read 1984 and their task is to look at both books and answer the questions:

What have we learned - or what have we not learned - over the past 60 years [from Orwell's time to the present]? What does our future hold for us?

This has been a fascinating unit to observe. Anne and Maura have brought in additional folks to speak to different aspects of each novel. They brought in our Western Civilization teachers to help our students understand what was going on in the 1930's - 1950's that Orwell was reacting to and that influenced 1984.

As they moved on to Little Brother, they invited in different social studies teachers to talk to the students about 9/11 and The Patriot Act. They also invited in myself, Mike Porter (our district's Assistant Director of Instructional Technology), and Ben Horblit (a knowledgeable former student of Anne's who's now a senior) to talk about the technology in Little Brother and its ramifications. Then earlier this week Mike Porter, along with Dan Maas (our district CIO) visited to talk about rights and responsibilities surrounding technology use and school law, which was a very interesting discussion.

Now as they are finishing up Little Brother, the students will have the opportunity to question the author, Cory Doctorow, himself. As you may recall, I blogged last spring that some students who had chosen to read Little Brother on their own contacted him with questions, and that they then ended up with an hour long Skype conversation with Cory. He agreed to Skype again this year, this time with students from all four sections gathered together in our Forum to ask questions and listen.

Cory will be joining us for about an hour again via Skype and, if all the tech goes as planned, you are welcome to watch via ustream. We will be broadcasting from approximately 8:25 - 9:25 am MST (UTC/GMT -7) on Tuesday, February 2nd. Some of the students will also live blog over on Anne's class blog. As always, our focus will be on making the learning happen for our students, so if we have any technical difficulties, the ustream will not be our first priority.

Neither Snow Nor Rain Nor . . . Tonsils

Maura Moritz's daughter just had her tonsils out. Being the good Mom that she is, she's staying home with her until she's feeling better. Being the good teacher that she is, she didn't want her class to lose out on valuable instructional time. They were scheduled to do a fishbowl with live blogging over Fahrenheit 451, so what to do?

Well, it's a fishbowl with live blogging. The first thing she can do is participate in the live blog (period 3, period 4). The second thing she can do is Skype into class so that she can see and hear the in-class fishbowl discussion.





Just one more example of how Skype is becoming more and more valuable in a school setting. Tell me again why Skype is blocked by so many school districts?

Looking for Virtual School Board Members - Are You Interested?

Anne Smith and Maura Moritz are having their ninth graders choose a book, read it, and then discuss it in small groups. That�s not all that different than what has been going on in Language Arts classrooms for quite a while, but they�re extending the idea just a little bit. The students chose books that are somewhat controversial (1984, The Fountainhead, I Robot, Little Brother, Anthem, I Am the Cheese) and have either been challenged or banned by school districts around the country (to be clear, not necessarily our school district). The students will read and discuss the books and then have to prepare a presentation for the school board arguing either in favor of approving the book for use or defending blocking its use. They�ll follow our district�s process for book approvals (pdf). In Anne�s case they are also using a Google Site with integrated Google Groups to help organize their thinking and collaboratively plan their presentations.

When the presentations are ready, the students � for their final exam � will actually make the presentation to selected members of our own school board that we�ve invited to hear the presentations. The school board members will listen to the presentation, ask questions, make them defend their positions, and generally be � well, school board members.

There�s only one problem with this plan. Some of our school board members already have commitments during our final exam times (pesky little things like graduation ceremonies for our sister high schools, for example). Hmm, what to do? I know, invite other folks in to be �school board members.� What other folks, you ask? Well, you, for example. Anyone who�s interested and is available at the times the students will be presenting (more on that in a minute) would serve as a �virtual school board member,� watching and listening to the presentation via ustream (or MeBeam, or Skype, or . . . tool to be determined based on participants) and then providing feedback/asking questions via Skype/MeBeam/whatever (again, tool to be determined based on participants access). (As a side benefit, parents can tune in to watch their student's final exam live.)

Just as regular school board members have not always read the book in question, you do not have to have read the book (although if you have, or if you�re willing to try to read one or more before then, that would be excellent). You would be responsible for generally being prepared to participate as a �serious� school board member (review these two (pdf) documents) to get a feel for our process).

So, if you�re interested in participating, we�d love to have you. You need to send an email to me (karlfisch {at} gmail {dot} com) as soon as possible with the following information: name, location, position, digital footprint information (blog, wiki, twitter, etc.), skype name, and the time(s) you are available (chosen from the list below). Please keep in mind we do have limited spots so � if we happen to get a ton of responses (unlikely this time of year, but you never know) � we may not be able to accept everybody.

Here is the list of times (all times Mountain Daylight Time, UTC/GMT -6) and the books that will be presented during those times (please keep in mind that times are estimates, some groups may go over and some may end early � you�ve done this type of things with students, right?). It would be great if you could sign up for an entire class period, but if you only have time for a partial period, we�ll try to work it out.

Friday, May 15th - Need Participants (last day of classes, 59 minute periods)

Period 2: 8:25-9:24 am
Anthem / I Am the Cheese (approx. 8:25 � 8:45)
I Robot (~8:45 � 9:05)
1984 (~9:05 � 9:24)

Period 3: 9:29-10:30 am
Little Brother (~9:30 � 9:50)
1984 (~ 9:50 � 10:10)
I Robot (~10:10 � 10:30)

Period 4: 10:35- 11:34 am
Little Brother (~10:35 � 10:55)
1984 (~10:55 � 11:15)
I Robot (~11:15 � 11:34)

Period 5: 12:14-1:12 pm
Anthem/ I Am the Cheese (~12:14 � 12:34)
I Robot (~12:34 � 12:53)
Little Brother (~12:53 � 1:12)

Monday, May 18th - Do Not Need Participants, but will ustream 10:35 am � 12:00 pm

Tuesday, May 19th - Do Not Need Participants, but will ustream from 9:00 am � 10:25 am

Wednesday, May 20th - Need Participants (Final Exams, 85 minute exams)

Period 4: 7:25- 8:50 am
1984 (~7:30 � 7:50)
Little Brother (~7:50 � 8:10)
Anthem/I Am the Cheese (~8:10 � 8:30)
I Robot (~8:30 � 8:50)

Period 5: 10:35 am - 12:00 pm
Anthem/I Am the Cheese (~10:40 � 11:00)
Fountainhead (~11:00 � 11:20)
I Robot (~11:20 � 11:40)
1984 (~11:40 � 12:00)

Thanks in advance to those that are willing to participate. Even if you don�t want to formally participate, you�re welcome to watch the ustream if you have time. And, even if we end up with no virtual participants, I still think Anne and Maura have a great activity here.

AWNM Video Conference: Tech Setup, Ustream Archive and Pictures

I just wanted to share the tech setup as well as the Ustream archive and some pictures of our video conference on Friday with Daniel Pink. (You can also view the two archived CoverItLive live blogs on my previous post.)

For those that are interested, here was the tech setup. To Skype (and then eventually MeBeam, more on that in a moment) with Daniel Pink, we had a Dell computer with a logitech webcam and snowball microphone connected to it. This was connected to a projector in our Forum that rear projects onto a large screen (we were in the forum because we had four classes with a total of 110 kids or so) so that all the students could see and hear him. Earlier in the week students had submitted their questions on a blog and then Maura Moritz and Anne Smith selected sixteen of them to be asked today (due to time constraints). Each student would come down to the snowball microphone and ask the question of Mr. Pink, and then ask a follow-up or respond to Mr. Pink's questions if he asked them.

Then over on the side we had an iMac connected to a second snowball microphone and a DV camcorder which we used to Ustream the event. The Ustream audience (folks who read about it on my blog or on twitter, plus we emailed all the parents of the students in the classes) could see the student asking the question, a decent shot of the projected screen with Mr. Pink on it, and then hear both of them pretty well.

Next to that we had two Dell laptops, each one moderating the two CoverItLive blogs we had setup. We had two setup because we had so many students live blogging we felt it would be overwhelming to have them all on one live blog. The ninety or so students that weren't asking the questions had the capability of hopping on the live blog (or they could choose just to listen) - we probably had around 50 to 60 or so laptops spread throughout those 90 students, and the students could hand the laptop to the student sitting next to them if they wanted to comment.

Overall, it went well, although for the first time in two years we had some technical difficulties. We've always used Skype for this and it worked well for a while, but then suddenly dropped the call. We reconnected once for a little while, then it dropped again and then wouldn't connect. After trying for a few minutes, we switched over to MeBeam which thankfully worked for us. MeBeam doesn't have quite the same quality as Skype (a little bit of a delay and the video isn't quite as crisp), but it still worked well.

We really appreciate how flexible Daniel Pink was. When we did this last year, we had talked about using MeBeam as a backup to Skype, but we really hadn't talked about any contingencies this year (my fault). When it became obvious that Skype maybe wasn't going to reconnect, I Skype-chatted to Mr. Pink that we should try switching to MeBeam, and then gave him the URL and the room name. He Skyped back that he would, and by the time I switched over and loaded it up, he was there. We had a brief moment when his audio wasn't on (by default when you enter a MeBeam room your audio is off and it's not completely intuitive where to turn it on), but we told him where to enable his audio and then we were good to go (well, after he put some headphones on as we were getting echo). Now, none of that is rocket science, but in my experience that's more than enough to throw a lot of folks, especially when we hadn't talked about it in advance. So I was very thankful that he handled it with aplomb and didn't get flustered with the tech stuff.

Unfortunately, I'd been sick all week and had to visit the doctor later that day so I didn't get to listen to the students reflect about the experience later that day. From my perspective, I thought it went well, and I thought the students did a nice job of asking thoughtful questions. As one person noted in the Ustream chat, they were polite and respectful but not overly deferential to Daniel Pink. And, as has been the case for the two years we've done this (so four times he's interacted with our students), Daniel Pink has been very generous with his time and tries to thoughtfully address their questions.

Here is the archived Ustream (it starts about 2:45 into the archive, I hit record a little too early because I didn't want to forget!) and some pictures that should give you an idea of what the room looked like.

Join Us for the Daniel Pink Video Conference and Live Blog

Tomorrow (Friday, February 20th) our students will conduct their culminating discussion of Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind. This will begin at about 8:25 am MST and end at around 9:25 am MST. This will be similar to last year, but we've made a few adjustments.

First, since we only have him for one hour this year instead of two, we'll just have selected students ask him their question and then perhaps a follow-up (last year we tried to have a mini-fishbowl discussion as well, but we don't think that will work so well with our limited time).

Second, with that many students in the live blog, it goes a little too fast and furious, so we're going to create two this year. Mrs. Smith's 2nd period and Mrs. Moritz's 3rd period will be on one live blog, and Mrs. Moritz's 4th period and Mrs. Smith's 5th period will be on a second live blog. You can either follow those links or I'll embed both CoverItLive's in this post (not sure how well that will work in practice, so jump to the links if it doesn't work having them both embedded here).

We will also be ustreaming the event - basically you'll hear the questions the students ask and Mr. Pink's responses, and probably see a really badly angled shot of the projected screen with Mr. Pink on Skype and perhaps the students actually asking the questions (it's going to be a tough angle, so we'll see).

You are welcome to observe and/or participate in the CoverItLive blogs if you wish, but with a few caveats. First, this is the students' discussion, so please don't drive the conversation. Second, please make sure you enter your real name in the appropriate spot in CoverItLive so we know who you are. Third, the CoverItLive is a place for discussing A Whole New Mind, if you wish to discuss the pedagogy or the technical aspects of this, please do that with the other adults in the ustream chat.

As always, our priority is to make this work for the students, so if we have technical issues with the ustream or anything else, we will do our best to fix them, but our focus will remain on making this work in the room, anything else is gravy.

Here's the attempt to embed both live blogs in this post.

CoverItLive Smith 2 and Moritz 3

CoverItLive Moritz 4 and Smith 5

Design Discussion with Daniel Pink: Setup, Pictures, Screenshots and Ustreams

In case anyone is interested, I thought I would embed the two Ustream recordings from today, as well as share a few pictures and screenshots. Since someone asked in the Ustream chat, I'll share the setup as well.

• Since Daniel Pink graciously shared two hours with us, we combined four classes down into two. Because that meant we had about 55-60 students each time, we needed a larger area than their usual classroom, so we setup in our library. In the "front" we had a computer running Windows XP and we used Skype to connect with Mr. Pink. That computer was then projected so that all the students could see him, as well as the live blog (although they pretty much read the live blog on their laptop screens). We used a logitech webcam for the video for Skype, and a Blue Snowball microphone (with a USB extension cable to get it into the group of students asking questions) for the audio. We then had logitech speakers to broadcast Mr. Pink's audio out to the room. (We did not have any feedback issues, although we did have him wear headphones on his end to help with that.)
  
  
  
  
• We also ustreamed the event. For the ustream, we used a DV camcorder connected to an iMac (for better video quality than a typical webcam, although I don't know how much difference it really makes) and a second Blue Snowball microphone (again with USB extension cable) for the ustream audio.
  
  
  
  
• We used a laptop to approve the CoverItLive comments, although that could've been done on either of the other computers if we wanted to (we brought in some extra help just in case, so we put them to work!).
  
  
  
• The students who were live blogging were mostly using our Dell laptop computers running Windows XP, connecting wirelessly to our network, although some students brought in their own laptops.

Amazingly enough, we pretty much had zero technical issues.

Here are some additional photos, screenshots and the two ustream embeds. If anyone has any feedback - technological or pedagogical - please leave a comment. And, of course, if you have any questions, leave those as well.













Anne Smith's Period 2 and 5 Ustream (and CoverItLive live blog archive):

Streaming Video by Ustream.TV

Maura Moritz's Period 3 and 4 Ustream (and CoverItLive live blog archive):

Streaming live video by Ustream

AWNM: Chapter 4 Live Blog and Ustream

As I wrote a week ago, some of our ninth graders are currently involved in a project based on Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind. On Thursday, January 15th, our students will be discussing Chapter 4 (Design) of A Whole New Mind with Daniel Pink (see the wiki for the schedule of the discussions over the other chapters). Mr. Pink is graciously giving us two hours of his time, so Anne Smith�s two classes will be discussing with him during second period (8:25 � 9:24 am, MST) and Maura Moritz�s two classes will be discussing during third period (9:29 � 10:30 am, MST). During each period, the two classes of students will gather in the library, and an "inner circle" of students will ask questions of and interact with Daniel Pink via Skype. The students in the "outer circle" will be watching that as well as live blogging on their respective class blogs (Anne Smith's class blog, Maura Moritz's class blog).

In addition, we will try to stream video and audio of the live discussion out via ustream. If everything is working, you can go to our ustream channel and watch and listen live to the students interacting with Mr. Pink. Please keep in mind, however, that the ustream is a bonus, we will be focusing on making sure Skype and the live blogging is working, so if there are any technical issues with the ustream we won�t be spending very much time trying to troubleshoot those. (Please also know that the ustream chat does not always make it through our firewall, so we probably won�t be reading or monitoring that.) Anyone who's interested is invited to watch the live blogs and/or the ustream.

It will be interesting to see how this first discussion goes. Last year the students didn't interact with Daniel Pink until Chapter 7, so they were very much into the book, the discussions, and had experience interacting with remote live bloggers. Since they are just beginning their study of the book and its concepts at this point, we'll see if that affects their level of engagement and the quality of their discussions. In any event, we're looking forward to an engaging and rewarding learning experience for our students.

A Whole New Learning Experience: Take Two

I blogged last year about some of our ninth graders reading A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink, and discussing it not only with each other, but with over 30 educators from around the world and Daniel Pink himself. Well, some of this year�s ninth graders in Anne Smith�s and Maura Moritz�s classes are going to get the opportunity to do it again.

If you�re really interested, you can read all my previous posts regarding our experiences with this project. But, in a nutshell, the students are reading the book and discussing it in class using the fishbowl method with live blogging. In addition to the students discussing face-to-face and live blogging, approximately 30 educators from around the world will be �dropping� in to live blog as well. They�ll be able to hear and see the in-class discussion via webcam (and MeBeam), and will simultaneously live blog along with the outer circle of students in the classroom (using CoverItLive this year). Twice during the project, once while discussing Chapter 4 (Design) and then again at the end of the book with the culminating discussion, the students will have the opportunity to interact with Daniel Pink via Skype.

The students will be doing a variety of activities along with the discussions, but their culminating project will again be a Wikified Research Paper. A Wikified Research Paper has all the components of a traditional research paper, but on a wiki so that it can include hyperlinks, audio, video, etc. It also contains other wiki pages with their research and related items, as well as the ability for others to give them comments and feedback along the way and on the final paper (although since it�s a wiki it�s never �final�).

If you�re really a glutton and want to know more about this, we have a video produced by Dana Levesque, one of the amazing instructional technology specialists in our district. It gives you a feel for what it looked like last year, including some short interviews with students, some longer interviews with Anne and Maura regarding their preparation for and reaction to this project, and an interview with yours truly talking about some of the technology aspects of this project.

The Evolution of an Evolution Discussion

We are currently teaching the evolution unit in Biology at my school and I wanted to share a couple of interesting changes one teacher made this year. Jesse Craig started the discussion surrounding evolution with a live blog, where students could share what they knew � or thought they knew - about evolution. This was before they had talked about it in class at all. A little bit later he continued the conversation with a post around the idea of a spectrum of beliefs, asking students to try to place themselves on the spectrum and share their beliefs.

A little further along in the unit, when the kids had a little bit more scientific knowledge, Jesse set up a live blog with one of his former professors at Hastings College. This was from 8:00 � 8:30 pm our time one night, and he made the professor a panelist on Cover It Live so she could see all the questions coming in. The process wasn�t perfect, Jesse tried to pick and choose questions to approve to keep the conversation somewhat coherent (there were well over 300 comments but he only approved a small subset), but the professor could see all of them and sometimes chose to respond to ones that he hadn�t approved (which meant only the student that asked the question really knew what she was responding to). After talking with Jesse, we�re thinking that perhaps next time we might have the professor ustream her responses. This would allow her to respond more naturally and not be slowed down by having to type her responses. We�d still have the kids live blog their questions (and/or perhaps submit some questions in advance), but she could reply more �naturally� for her. All in all, though, it worked pretty well, and we had a good turnout among the students considering it was 8:00 at night.

Separate from his Biology classes, Jesse and two other Biology teachers also made guest appearances in our ninth grade honors English classes. They were discussing Inherit the Wind, so the English teachers invited the Biology teachers in to talk about what it was like to be a modern day Biology teacher. While some of those students were also in Biology, most were not. It was a rare chance for us to teach/learn cross disciplinary (and I�m frustrated with how rare those chances are, but that rant is for another time). Interestingly, several of those ninth grade English students who were not in Biology also participated in the live blog with the professor from Hastings College.

So, nothing revolutionary here. (Do I dare say it was evolutionary?) But another interesting example of ways to use some of these tools to broaden student thinking. First, it allowed them to explore their thinking and beliefs about an often controversial topic in a way that felt safer for most students than having to say it verbally in class. Then they were able to state where they fell on the spectrum of beliefs, again in a way that felt fairly safe. As they began to learn more about the science of evolution, they were then able to converse (at least to a limited extent) with an �expert� from the college level. Now, Jesse is pretty darn knowledgeable himself, but � just like a parent giving advice to your own child � often hearing it from someone other than your classroom teacher resonates more. (I think bringing in �experts� virtually is something we are going to try to do more and more of at my school.) And finally, for a few students at least, the ability to think about evolution in the context of history and literature.

So, I think there�s a lot more we could do with this, but it was a great start. The other interesting part, for me at least, was that I had nothing to do with it. Typically a teacher trying something new like this would ask for my help with the tech side, but Jesse just ran with it. I think that�s a very positive sign that perhaps we are slowly getting past the idea that these are �technology lessons� but instead are just good teaching and learning.

This I Believe Goes Global

[cross-posted on Learning and Laptops - the "I" in this post is Anne Smith]

For the past two years, I have had my classes write their versions of National Public Radio�s �This I Believe� segment. I was introduced to this idea by a colleague and have been always impressed by what my students hold as their personal values and beliefs. Writing these essays has allowed for them to do something they don�t get to do all that often at school - express their heartfelt beliefs. After writing the essays the first year, we submitted them to NPR, but we also decided to podcast them ourselves � no need to wait to see if NPR might choose to broadcast them. The writing was good at expressing their values, but once their voice was added to their written expression, WOW, it simply transformed that personal essay. Instead of the words simply being words, the words conveyed deeply held emotions. Now, this is the standard.

Previous class examples:

Period 2 06-07
Period 5 06-07
Period 3 06-07
Period 2 07-08
Period 5 07-08
Period 3 07-08

We are approaching that time of year, when I am going to start the kids on this writing adventure, but this year I wanted to add a little twist with the help of you out there in the blog-o-sphere. I want �This I Believe� to go global. I want my students to benefit not only from knowing what their peers believe, or what the other AHS classes believe, but to hear and see what the world values. What do kids elsewhere in the U.S. believe in? What do kids elsewhere in the world believe in? What do some of the learned professionals that I know believe in? I want my students to walk away from this experience realizing the power they have as professional writers as well as connecting to other teenagers and adults from around the world. I want to see them exchange ideas, foster relationships, and appreciate the variety of perspectives.

So, how do we accomplish this? Karl Fisch, of course, is willing to be my master facilitator. He has set up a wiki (still a work in progress) that will provide the guidelines for the classes to follow. I am making Maura Moritz�s classes join us in this experience, too, so there will be four classes (ninth grade, 14 and 15 years old) from AHS writing and podcasting their essays: Moritz 3, Moritz 4, Smith 2, and Smith 5. We are hoping to attract at least three other classes from around the world, one each to pair up with each of our four classes. If we get more than four classes that are interested, then we will try to pair up any additional classes with another class somewhere in the world. If your class(es) are interested, email Karl with some basic information (your name, school name, location, grade level(s)/ages, how many classes, and time frame that you�d like to do this) so we can setup those partnerships. (Our thinking is that pairing one class with one class will keep this from becoming too overwhelming for the students, although of course anyone can read/listen/comment to any of the essays on any of the wiki pages).

We will create a wiki page for each set of paired classes and each student will upload their written essay as well as their podcast (the podcast can either be uploaded directly to the wiki, or you can use a variety of other services for that and then link to them). Each pair of classes will be in charge of their own wiki page and we�ll use the discussion tabs on each page to give feedback to the students. If you are an adult interested in writing a piece yourself, simply add them to the �adults� page on the wiki. I am hoping to get some notable edubloggers as well as my superintendent, CIO, and others to participate. It would also be helpful to include a brief bio so the kids can know who they are reading about.

Obviously you don�t have to do this with us or on our wiki, you can create your own. But we thought it might be interesting and helpful to have one wiki that aggregated all these essays/podcasts, one place that students (and others) could visit to learn about beliefs all over the world.

Wondering where to start? NPR has a number of education friendly links to help you along the process:

For Educators
For Students
Essay writing tips
How to contribute an essay to NPR

Timeline: For our classes we are going to start writing our essays, November 6th with a final due date of November 14th. The following week they will begin podcasting their essays. The paired classes don�t have to match this timeline exactly (although that would be great), but we�re hoping they can have theirs completed by the first week of December so that the students can start commenting on each other�s essays/podcasts.

But for other pairings you can set whatever time frame works best for you � that�s the beauty of the wiki, it�s a living document with no �end� to the assignment (although that�s why we need you to include your time frame when you email us so that we can try to match folks up). We would really appreciate any feedback (now or as this progresses) to make this an experience that is truly relevant and meaningful for these kids.

VoiceThread Examples

We used VoiceThread for the first time just before spring break so I thought I�d share these examples. We still have a lot to learn about how to use it well, but I think these are a good start. Anne Smith describes several different poetry projects some of our freshmen completed - you should read the descriptions of the different types of poems as well as follow the links to some of the projects they created using various tools. Here are direct links to the VoiceThread examples in Anne and Maura Moritz�s classes:

Smith Period 2

Moritz Period 3

Moritz Period 4

Smith Period 5

As always, constructive criticism is welcomed, either on Anne�s post or � even better � leave a comment on some of the VoiceThreads.

AWNM Wikified Research Papers

As the culmination of their study of A Whole New Mind, Anne Smith and Maura Moritz�s students had to complete a Wikified Research Paper. Here are links to the four wiki pages that have links to the students' wikis. (You�ll have to explore a little on each student�s wiki, some of them have their final paper on the home page of the wiki, others on a page titled Final Draft, and still others with various other page names .) There are over one hundred of these, so I certainly don�t expect anyone reading this to go read all of them (I certainly haven�t), but you might pick a couple from each class at random to read and then leave them some constructive feedback on the discussion tab of their wiki.

Smith Period 2

Moritz Period 3

Moritz Period 4

Smith Period 5

I wanted to take a moment to once again thank Daniel Pink and the folks in my network who helped us out with this project. Your participation, thoughts and insights are much appreciated.

Because a few folks asked, I also wanted to share a few of the technical details of the video conference with Daniel Pink. We brought all four classes together in our Forum (our large lecture-hall type classroom � the only one large enough for a group this size � around 110 students) for two hours (in-school field trip for the students). We connected with Mr. Pink via Skype. On our end we had a Dell computer that was connected to a large rear-projection screen that�s part of our Forum, as well as to speakers in the ceiling of the Forum. We used a Logitech Ultravision webcam (slightly newer version of it) for the video, and a Blue Snowball Microphone for the audio. On his end I believe he was using his Mac with the built-in iSight camera. He was also wearing headphones to minimize the audio feedback. (Skype appeared to do a great job with that � his wearing headphones helped us out, but we couldn�t use headphones on our end because all the students in the Forum needed to hear, but Mr. Pink reported very little audio feedback on his end.)

We had pre-selected twenty questions from students for Mr. Pink to respond to (they�re all in the live blog if you want to read through it), in addition to two general questions to get the ball rolling. Each student came down to the microphone to ask their question of Mr. Pink. After he answered, they could ask a follow-up or clarifying question if necessary. If they didn�t have one, then there were eight students down in front to carry on a very modified fishbowl discussion if they had anything to add to what Mr. Pink said (very modified fishbowl discussion because of the time constraints, having four classes in a lecture-hall setting, and the opportunity to hear from the author himself). The webcam and microphone were positioned to pick up the eight students down in front (as well as the students who came down to ask the questions), so Mr. Pink could hear those comments as well. The remaining students shared about thirty-five laptops and participated in live blogging using CoverItLive (I was on another Dell jockeying the CoverItLive blog).

Finally, we also ustreamed the whole thing (video archive, chat archive). We had a Canon camcorder hooked up via Firewire to a Mac and a second Blue Snowball Microphone positioned at the table with the eight students. I was at a table with a Dell (for the CoverItLive blog and with headphones to verify that the ustream was working) and the Mac (for the ustreaming itself).

Overall, the technology worked really well. The only real issue we had was that the ustream chat doesn�t always make it through our firewall, so I couldn�t monitor that, and we did lose the ustream a couple of times. Thankfully Kristin Hokanson captured the chat and helped me put the various orphaned ustreams back together so we have a pretty good record of the ustream.

Here are a few pictures to get a feel for what it looked like (especially for those of you who watched the ustream and perhaps thought there were only 8-10 students there).



Finally, I want to thank Anne, Maura and the students, for the incredible amount of time, effort and thought they put into this project. There are things we could�ve done better (and will do better next time we try something like this) but, overall, I think it was an amazing learning experience.

Mrs. Moritz�s and Mrs. Smith�s Students � What are you Going to Learn Today?

This is an open letter to the ninth graders in Mrs. Moritz�s and Mrs. Smith�s classes that participated in the A Whole New Mind project.

I had a chance to sit in on fifth period�s debrief session of the video conference with Daniel Pink yesterday and I wanted to share with all of you a couple of comments I made, and then also attempt to push your thinking a little bit more. The fifth period students were pretty hard on themselves (and the rest of you), critiquing how everyone did and suggesting a variety of ways that it could have gone better. Now, I think critique is great, and I definitely think we should always look for ways to improve (more on that below), but I think some of you are being too hard on yourselves.

Overall, you guys did a great job. Due to the constraints of the situation (110 students, remote live video conference which makes a "conversation" a little more difficult � particularly with 110 students, less than two hours to discuss, wanting to give the author a chance to share his experiences, etc.), it wasn�t possible to have a typical fishbowl discussion. Perhaps that was the adults� fault for not conveying that more clearly ahead of time, but at best this was going to be a hybrid author-lecture/question-and-answer/live-blog/some-fishbowl-discussion kind of thing � and I think you guys pulled it off really, really well. Here�s the typical feedback I heard from people around the world: "How old are these kids? Ninth graders? You�re kidding. Wow. We�ve gotta try this." Seriously, that�s what they said. So, sure, critique yourselves and we�ll all try to do better next time. But, for the moment, pat yourselves on the back and bask in the glow. You helped create something that has never been done before. Really, take 30 seconds right now and bask. OK, done? Let�s move on.

Now, don�t let the rest of this take away from the above, but I want to push your thinking a little bit. As I watched the recording and read through the live blog last night, and thought about all the discussions I�ve observed during this project, there were a few things I noticed that I wanted to follow-up on. One of the things we talk about often is the fact that the discussion doesn�t have to end when the class period is over. And I�ve certainly seen some discussion after the fact, both face-to-face and a little bit on the blogs, but I�m not sure I�ve seen the kind of extension that I think you�re all capable of.

Let me give one example. In yesterday�s discussion the topic of the Pledge of Allegiance came up. Now, I don�t want to get you sidetracked again on this topic, but as I read through the live blog I noticed that quite a few of you made arguments based on historical references that maybe aren�t completely accurate, for example "our country was built on it" or "founding fathers." This is a perfect example of something you can follow up on. Do some research and learn more about the Pledge of Allegiance. (I could link, but I want you to do the research.) For example, it was written by Francis Bellamy, a Christian Socialist in 1892, and the words "under God" weren�t added until 1954, and at least according to some sources he took out the word "equality" because too many people would object to equality being applied to women and African Americans. Now, that doesn�t necessarily mean you have to change your views of the importance or necessity of the pledge, but you might want to revise and refine your thinking and your arguments.

I don�t want this post to be about the Pledge. (If you want to continue that conversation, and I hope you do, I would suggest posting on your class blogs.) But my concern is that you seem too willing to stop at "I think" or "I believe," in this case often based on inaccurate historical information, and not follow-up with some more thoughtful research and discussion. You have the tools, the access to information, and the intelligence to go further and deeper with this, so why aren�t you?

Moving on from the Pledge, a second area I�m going to ask you to think about is personal responsibility. For me, this came up in at least two topics yesterday: grades and media bias. Some of the discussion yesterday (and also during earlier fishbowl discussions of AWNM) regarding grades seemed to center around the idea that students wouldn�t do anything if it wasn�t for grades. That may or may not be true, but I�d like you to think more critically about that and what it implies. Among other things it implies that the only reason you�re at school is to get good grades and that if you don�t have the incentive (whip? carrot?) of grades then you would just be lazy teenagers and do nothing. Where�s the personal responsibility in that? Where�s the intrinsic motivation and desire to learn? Do you really think that accurately describes teenagers (or humans in general), or do you think we can aspire to be more than that? Is the point of coming to AHS to get grades, or is it something else? And if it is something else, then what role do � or should � grades play in that? I think these are all topics you should be thinking about and continuing the conversation about, not just dropping after the live blogging ends. Do some research, have some discussions (comment here or create a post on your class blogs), think about your own responsibility for your own learning � but don�t just accept the conventional wisdom and the assumption that this is just the way it is. If after much thought and discussion you do think that conventional wisdom is correct in this case, great, but at least you've really delved into it. If not, if there is a better way, let�s create it.

Media bias was another interesting topic that came up yesterday, mostly in the context of either "negative" news or in relation to the Pledge discussion and being proud of our country. This is another excellent topic that I think you guys should research further � there�s certainly plenty of information available on this topic � so go for it. For example, I heard this story a while back that basically states that research indicates that newspaper bias doesn�t really correlate with the ownership�s or the reporters� views, but with the political views of their readers. In other words, they�re giving us what we want. (This is just one study, so by all means go find some more.) But, again, where�s the personal responsibility in all this? If you think the media is either biased or always presenting "negative" stories, what is your role in this? When I was growing up (yes, in the late 1970�s and early 1980�s), we had four TV stations � ABC, NBC, CBS and our local educational station - and they went off the air at midnight and didn't come back on until 6:00 am. We had one newspaper. And while we did have quite a few radio stations (probably 20 or so), everyone except public radio was just reading the news from the wire services. Today, you have an amazing array of sources (including access to those wire services) � you can pretty much choose where your news comes from, how many different sources � and diverse viewpoints � you want to pay attention to, and you can even participate and give feedback. So get involved! If you think certain media outlets are biased, then build your own aggregated newspaper/tv/radio station that you think gives you a more varied and balanced perspective. And give positive feedback to those that you think are doing it well, and thoughtful critique to those that you think are doing it poorly. But I think we all need to stop blaming the media, some monolithic "them," and take some action because we do have both choice and responsibility here.

I�ve rambled (ranted?) enough, but I want to make sure I�m being clear here. I�m not saying you did a bad job (see paragraphs two and three at the top). Nor am I saying that any of you are "wrong" about your positions on the topics I mentioned above. The point I am arduously (good SAT prep word - come on, double-click on arduously to see what it means if you don�t know) trying to make here is that you have the ability to take your thinking further, to continue the discussions and conversations, to push your own (and your classmates�, and your teachers�) thinking and not settle for the results that happened in a class-length-bound, physical-proximity-restricted time and space. You have access to tools and resources never before dreamed of in the history of humankind � what are you going to learn today?

Ustreaming and Live Blogging Daniel Pink Video Conference

Update 2-28-08: Well, it looks like we pulled it off. I'll reflect on it in another post eventually, but a few quick links. First, the CoverItLive live blog is archived below. Second, thanks to Kristin Hokanson the Ustream chat is also archived. Third, the Ustream archive is in four parts, available on Ustream or on the wiki. I haven't watched through them, but I think they're all there.
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Well, I�m a little worried that we�ll look back at this and say, �We should�ve quit while we�re ahead,� but we�re going to give it a shot anyway. This Thursday is our students� live video conference with Daniel Pink. They�ve finished A Whole New Mind and this is their chance to ask Mr. Pink some questions directly, as well as further discuss the book with their classmates. We�ll have all four classes of students (about 110 or so) in our Forum and will conduct a video Skype call with Mr. Pink. (One tech concern there � feedback. We�re asking him to wear headphones on his end, but on our end we have to broadcast the audio to the whole room, so we�re worried he�ll get a lot of feedback of his own voice when he speaks. In limited testing in-house, Skype does a fairly good job, but if anyone has any ideas we would appreciate it. Because we hope it will be conversational, it's tough to mute and unmute the microphones.)

Students will come up to the microphone one at a time and ask a question of Mr. Pink. He�ll respond and the student will have the opportunity to ask a clarifying or follow-up question if necessary. If not, then the fishbowl inner circle will have the opportunity to discuss the question if they have anything to add, with Mr. Pink a virtual participant in that inner circle. We�re hoping to get through about twenty questions or so in about ninety minutes, and then leave Mr. Pink time to reflect on this experience with the students.

Everything so far was in the original plan, but after some reasonable success with Ustream and CoverItLive last weekend for Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation, we�ve decided to push our luck a little bit. So, we�re going to attempt to Ustream the whole thing. We�ll point a camcorder and a microphone at the inner circle discussion and the big screen, so hopefully Ustream viewers will be able to hear the questions the students ask, Mr. Pink's response, and the inner circle discussion. We are doing this primarily so that the students� parents can watch and listen in, but of course it will be open to all of you. Here�s the Ustream channel we will be using and we'll be broadcasting from approximately 8:30 am MST through about 10:15 am MST on Thursday, February 28th.

While we�ve attempted to allow the Ustream chat through our firewall, sometimes we get it and sometimes we don�t, so we won�t be using or monitoring the Ustream chat. Instead, some of our students will be live blogging the fishbowl discussion using CoverItLive. I will be chat-jockeying the CoverItLive blogging (embedded below) and approximately thirty of the students who aren�t in the inner circle or asking one of the twenty or so questions will be commenting. I�ll be approving the comments as fast as I can and we�ll also hopefully have the live blog up on the big screen next to the Skype window so that all the students in the Forum can see the live blog if they wish. Again, this is primarily for our students to live blog, but other folks can choose to participate if they wish � we just ask you to not dominate the discussion and to make sure you attach your name to each of your comments. (If you haven�t used CoverItLive before, there�s a line for your name and then a box for the body of your comment. Once you comment once, it seems to remember your name.)

Now, a few caveats. Our primary goal is to simply get the Skype video conference and discussion with Mr. Pink to work. If the Ustream and/or CoverItLive don�t work, I�ll briefly troubleshoot those but then let it go and simply focus on the rest. And, again, the primary purpose of the Ustream is for the students� parents to be able to observe, and the live blog is for the students to use to discuss (and for the parents to be able to virtually watch the blog discussion). So, while we�re inviting the network in, we�re also asking the network to play nice.

So, wish us luck, and here�s the CoverItLive blog (if things go swimmingly, it will go live at about 8:30 am MST on Thursday).

Thinking Creatively

To go along with our AWNM project, I thought this post by Anthony over on Students 2.0 was worth passing along to our students discussing these ideas.

Twenty-first century education won�t be defined by any new technology. It won�t be defined by 1:1 laptop programs or tech-intensive projects. Twenty-first century education will, however, be defined by a fundamental shift in what we are teaching�a shift towards learner-centered education and creating creative thinkers. Today�s world is no longer content with students who can simply apply the knowledge they learned in school: our generation will be asked to think and operate in ways that traditional education has not, and can not, prepare us for.

So, students in Mrs. Smith's and Mrs. Moritz's classes, is Anthony right? (Make sure you read the entire post.) You probably want to comment on his post or, of course, you're welcome to comment here. (Or both!)

Live Blogging AWNM � Round One

As I mentioned in a previous post, four sections of our ninth graders are reading and discussing Daniel Pink�s A Whole New Mind, including live blogging and a videoconference with the author. They are also live blogging with various folks from my learning network as they discuss the six senses that Mr. Pink believes are critical for success in the 21st century.

Last Friday was our first attempt to bring in those outside live bloggers and � for the most part - it worked very well. In the spirit of sharing what works � and what we struggled with � here�s a quick summary.

What Went Well
The technology worked surprisingly well. Sometimes when we�ve done live blogging previously (just the students in the class), Blogger has blocked our IP address after awhile because they thought we were spamming comments (sometimes 200+ comments in 50 minutes that are coming from one IP address). Thankfully, that didn�t happen.

MeBeam worked pretty well, with the only problems being a software update that messed a few folks up, as well as some firewall issues (more on that below). We used MeBeam to stream the audio/video of the inner circle discussion out to the live bloggers. That way they not only followed the comments on the blog, but were able to hear the conversation in the classroom. For those that hooked up their own webcams, it also allowed the students to see what they looked like. (We decided not to bring their audio in, figuring the students had enough to concentrate on.) We used a Logitech webcam for the video, and a Blue Snowball microphone for the audio, with the Snowball pulled into the middle of the discussion using a 15-foot USB extension cable.

As usual, the students did a really nice job with the both the in-class discussion and the live blogging discussion (with one exception that I�ll talk about below). Our remote bloggers were incredible. Thanks to Dean Shareski, Darren Draper, Julie Lindsay, Jeff Whipple, Sharon Peters, James Folkestad, Sylvia Martinez, Karen Janowski and Tim Stahmer for your participation, your probing questions, and your willingness to devote time to this. We - and our students - really appreciate it.

What Didn�t Go Well
MeBeam updated their software a couple of days before we did this. As part of that upgrade, they implemented a �motion detection� system so that people didn�t use up their bandwidth with a webcam pointed at a wall or something. If it doesn�t sense any motion for about 10 seconds, it kicks you out of the room. But that meant that if folks trying to tune in to the MeBeam broadcast didn�t have a webcam connected, it booted them out. Luckily MeBeam still has their �original style� available that works without the motion detection system. I found that out the day before, but didn�t get that communicated to everyone in time. Since the feedback from the remote bloggers is that hearing the in-class discussion was really helpful, that was not ideal for those folks that couldn�t connect. Hopefully this week we�ll do better. Also, at least one remote blogger had firewall issues that wouldn�t allow him to connect to MeBeam. MeBeam uses Flash and a pretty standard port, but apparently not standard enough.

While for the most part the student discussion was really good, they did get off-topic a little more than I expected. From previous fishbowl discussions I�ve seen them conduct, they usually do an excellent job of staying on topic. I think the difference was mostly because it was a non-fiction book, and that threw them a little bit. I wanted them to focus mostly on the concept of Design, but they spent more of their time on right brain/left brain issues. I still think it was a great discussion in all four sections, but that�s something we can hopefully improve on this week (focusing on Story this week).

What I Still Wonder About
Sylvia gave us some thoughtful feedback asking if we had thought about exploring the science of right brain/left brain a little bit more, since the extreme dichotomy of �the left brain does this, the right brain that� has been somewhat discredited. (My reading of the science is that each hemisphere is still �specialized� and operates differently, but that the interplay is very complex.) To be honest, I was more focused on the six senses and not the science, and wasn�t that worried about the science because Pink was using it as a metaphor, not a scientific �fact.� For me (and this is just me), I want to explore the usefulness and applicability of the six senses to today�s students, both in a school setting and beyond. I feel like schools are pretty �L-directed� (to use Pink�s term where he tries to avoid the �left brain� idea) and that we need to incorporate more �R-directed� activities and even policies into our schools. Not everyone agrees that that is the case, of course, but I think it�s worth exploring. But Sylvia�s comments make me question whether we should�ve expanded this project even more to include the science, and I wonder how we could�ve done that effectively (or possibly could do it effectively in the future). So if folks have suggestions � or links to good resources that explore this further � please leave a comment.

You can read Anne Smith�s and Maura Moritz�s reflection on how last week went, as well as posts by Darren, Julie and Sharon with their thoughts. If you�d like to read through the live blog posts, here are the four sections (Period 2, Period 3, Period 4, Period 5). And Dan Pink has chimed in with a question for our students (on Anne�s class blog, on Maura�s class blog).

Overall, I think it was a very successful start to the project. We�re hoping that with some tweaks to the process (like sending better MeBeam instructions to the remote bloggers) and a reminder to the students to stay more on the topic of the particular chapter they are discussing, that this week will be even better. This week we�re looking forward to hearing from two of our school board members, Dan Maas (our CIO), Kristin Hokanson, Miguel Guhlin, Ben Wilkoff, Lori Soifer (a school board trustee in Michigan), Christian Long and Jim Gates.