Assessment or Engagement? To tech. or not to Tech? and Other Pedagogical Questions.

While on twitter the other day, an increasingly rare occurence, I came across this post from a fellow educator in B.C. @NeilStephenson:

great deal of good could be done by shifting our attention from measuring achievement to stimulating engagement"http://bit.ly/yfG5bP #sd37

I followed up and read the link that Neil had posted. It offered some remarkably challenging ideas that can be encapsulated in this one sentence, "it is achieving engagement that should be our primary concern when thinking about everything from a lesson plan to the structure of a school system." This idea runs counter to many of the practices within my school, and I believe, my school system. The idea makes a great deal of sense, but I have recently been so focused on assessment and evaluation of results that I have not been as focused on engagement as I should have been.


At the same time as this challenging idea is blossoming in my mind I come across a post from an ed. tech. guru named Michael Wesch. If you have not yet heard of Michael Wesch you are a little bit out of the loop in the ed. tech world, so let me catch you up. Michael Wesch was catapulted into pedagogical consciousness with the creation of his video with students called Web 2.0 the Machine is Us/ng us, embedded below:





This short video is certainly worth watching and discussing, but when one digs further into Wesch's work it is easy to identify and experience the fundamental shift that the information revolution is causing in how we understand the world and how we learn about anything.

The video below contains a fantastic one hour explanation of Michael Wesch's ideas and the how and why it is impacting pedagogy. Seriously, take an hour and watch the video below,


What is relevant to this blog post now is that Michael Wesch is questioning some of his core ideas about teaching. On February 12th he published a blog post titled A Tech-Happy Professor Reboots written by Jeffrey Young where he questions the fundamentals of his teaching and experience. It is also worth reading and considering.

The common thread throughout both of these questions is that nothing is, nor should it be, closed to discussion. The learning occurs, the professional development occurs, when the ideas collide and try to understand each other. I think this might have something to do with a thesis, antithesis and sythesis, but I never understood actual philosophy so whatever.

What I understand goes like this:

1. Admin and ed. culture in Alberta tells me that effective assessment is critical to learning. I consume and internalize this idea. My practice develops around the process of creating meaningful assessment in my teaching team.
2. I read a new idea on twitter that challenges my thinking about this issue. I start to question if my approach is backwards. Should I be worried about engagement first and assessment last. I experience a feeling of conflict about the importance of assessment.
3. I discuss this idea with a colleague in my team meeting and we collectively decide that engagement is the most important aspect of learning, but that we can have a more organized, focused and reproduce-able approach to engagement if we have solid agreed upon assessments already in place. 
4. My understanding of engagement and assessment is re-defined, and I am now a better and more informed teacher.

Whatever this means it is essential in professional development.

The main idea is that every educator should periodically question their assumptions and even the foundation of their pedagogical beliefs. Michael Wesch is questioning his use of technology in the classroom, and we should question the forces that drive our own individual practice. For our efforts we will become better teachers.

Parents Should Use Schoolzone.

THIS POST IS WRITTEN FOR A PARENT COUNCIL MEETING WHERE I AM OFFERING HELP AND ADVICE ON THE USES OF SCHOOLZONE.

First of all a caveat. I am not a parent! I have no real experience at being a parent. I do not know what it is like to balance a personal life, my career and children. Having said that here is what I think about parenting.

First of all, it looks damned difficult. I mean I have trouble "parenting" or teaching students in 50 minute intervals. I can hardly imagine the 24/7 demand on being a parent. My wife and I, right now, are pretty happy. We traveled to New York City with nothing to worry about, we enjoy road trips because they are calm and quiet, and we get to out for dinner or drinks as often as we feel and can afford. Which is why I find hearing about a potential loss of happiness that comes with being a parent particularly disconcerting. I mean look at this graph that shows up at 12:00.



The ted talk above and the chart that they include tells us that it is okay to admit that parents are often less than happy than non-parents.

Much worse, if you have a student that is just becoming a teenager you should expect to be extremely unhappy for the next few years. I don't personally put a whole lot of weight in these findings, but the idea that parenting is difficult comes across very clearly. Further, the parenting of teens is particularly nerve racking and difficult.

This is why many parents mistakenly use the early teen years (middle school and jr. high) to become less involved in their children's lives. Teens are also using this time to encourage their parents to become less involved in their lives. This quip from an article on how to Stay Involved in Middle and High School puts it nicely,

It's not unusual for middle- and high-school students to discourage their parents from coming to school, but parent involvement is important to your teenager's academic success. Studies show that parent involvement is linked to achievement in the upper grades, just as it is in elementary school.


That is what we are in fact talking about today. Parents are needed to help students be academically successful. Students in middle school are continually pressured to lose their interest in academics. Middle school, apart from public opinion is the time to make sure students continue their academic success, not the time to assign to it less importance.

Successful students and parents know this........... Enter Schoolzone.

Schoolzone is there to make it easier for parents to be involved in their students academic lives. Here are some Westlawn School usage statistics.

• Schoolzone is currently used by 100% of the staff for reporting on marks, attendance and lates.
• Fresh Marks are posted once a month by all teachers. With other teachers updating more often.
• Schoolzone is used by 100% of Math teachers to post homework, concepts being taught, exam dates and notes.
• At least half of the humanities teachers are using schoolzone to share some kind of class information such as homework or links to the textbook.
• Some science teachers use schoolzone extensively to report on what is happening in class, post links to class content and provide extra meaningful information for parents and students alike.
• The School is posting to schoolzone school news an average of 3 news items per week. These are important events that we want involved parents to be aware of. 

Schoolzone is there to help the parents, and I am here to help you use schoolzone.

Ben Bernake and Other Reason's Why I'm Glad I Teach in Alberta

I guess it had to come out sooner or later, sometimes while doing chores or other putzing around at home I like to listen to Alex Jones at infowars.com. His particular brand of conspiracy theory and political commentary is fun to listen to, and (please don't judge me) often enlightening. Plus the advertisements for emergency ration kits and diamond gusset jeans can't be heard anywhere else.

He had a guest on, don't remember who or when, that said over and over and over (that's kind of his shows m.o.) "please read this Ben Bernake speech from 2002 before the National Economics Club." Deflation: Making sure It Doesn't Happen Here is a particularly scary piece of conspiracyness, if you are an American.

Ben Bernake calls the shots?

Now I'm not saying I even remotely understand what is happening in global financial markets, I barely understand his speech. What I do understand is the way things look from here, the situation for most Americans, does not look entirely great for 2012.

Which is why I am glad I am teaching in Alberta, Canada.

Proud Albertan?

While 2011 saw the rights and social value of teachers in the U.S. drop rapidly, Alberta was paying and valueing it's teachers almost more than we are worth. Look at what happened to the bargainging rights of teachers in Ohio and Wisconsin and around the U.S. last year. I remember reading the vitriol and hatred towards teachers that was coming out of some American blogs and thinking, damn we gots it good here in AB. We even recently elected a Conservative premier that believes in continued long-term stable funding for education. It's like we took a great situation and made it greater.

Funding education and other public institutions is very popular  at Canadian Conservative Economic Groups in Canada?

The bottom line is this, teachers in Alberta have it better than almost any other teachers in the world, and I plan to not waste this opportunity. So here is my commitment to public education for 2012 or my long-winded introduction to my New Year's Resolutions:

1. I need to innovate my approach so that I can find a more effective and widely used asynchronous method of communicating with students and parents outside of the classroom. Any ideas? I loved how moodle's start page was a message page where the first thing that I saw when I logged on was outstanding messages from students, that were usually really good questions from students about homework, important dates, exam questions. I have yet to find the equivalent in google docs or anywhere outside of moodle. I am reluctantly thinking a "Mr. Greene" facebook page, but I don't want access to student's personal garbage. Is there anything in Google apps? Email is cumbersome. I need a live always up messaging board. 
2. I want to say, I will work more productively with my PLC on our ELO's but that sounds like AKBS. So I will say this instead. I will focus on and find direction for where my career is going to go next. I sincerely believe that I personally can offer more to education in Alberta, but I do not know how or where to direct my energy. I will start by consulting with my informal Mentors, particularly those in my admin. team and in edtech. at EPSB. By March I will decide on a path and work towards the next stage in my career.
3. So far I've got communicating, professional advacement, what else??? Oh yeah TEACHING. I am going to be an even more effective teacher this year. Every day my students will learn through reading, viewing, discussing, thinking and creating. Every class will give each student the opportunity to learn through each of the above modalities. My days of "this is a work period" are over. Students don't want to work in a group for 50 minutes. They want to read, view, discuss, think and then work in as an individual and in a group creating meaningful objects that display their learning. Everyday and every class that is what will happen in my classroom.

Guess what else Alberta let's me do in the classroom? I am allowed help students learn the harmful environmental impacts of fracturing for natural gas, I can encourage students to consider the environmental and the economic impact of completing the Keystone XL pipeline, I can provide students with the opportunity to invent a new device that could help decrease our dependence on fossil fuels, and I can inspire them to see the spiritual beauty of our own existence.

So in Alberta, I am not worried that some unelected official is going to devalue the Canadian Dollar to the point where I have to sell my house, all in order to get the 1% even richer. That barely registers in my reality. Instead, I am secure in knowing that our elected officials are going to ensure my job is here, and my collective bargaining rights will remain unassailable. 

For those that question Alberta, and for those that think we are hyper-conservative oil-loving rednecks that got all our values on backwards I say to you, "come and teach here."

Alberta's Ben Bernake?

Teaching Climate Change

What is often portrayed as a debate is, and always has been, no debate at all. There are not two legitimate sides on the issue of climate change. There is the truth and there are people that want to ignore the truth. I have not yet heard an argument that refutes human caused climate change that stands up to scientific scrutiny.

I wonder what people are so scared of in admitting there is a problem, and then working towards solutions. I just happen to be glad that those people are not teaching science classes here in Alberta, at least they had better not be.

Here is a nice breakdown of the actual science behind the theory of human caused climate change called the Climate Change Skeptic Comic.

If a comic about climate change isn't good enough for you then please read on for a variety of sources on the  reality of human caused climate change.


I want to challenge teachers to teach the theory of human caused climate change in their classrooms. Not as a debate with two equally legitimate sides, but as the best understanding that science has to offer. The equivalent would be teaching in the sixties about the civil rights movement in the U.S. and segregation and placing the Ku Klux Klan as an equal and valid argument next to the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.





There were many many people aligned with the guy on the right making strong arguments in favour of their point of view, but they were bloody wrong, and I don't think teachers working in critical thinking classes should have been presenting both points of view as equally legitimate out of some misplaced sense of being balanced and allowing students to "think for themselves" or to "tolerate conflicting points of view."

Take a look at what the deniers of human caused climate change are saying (these are arguments that people  have made to me in person, you have heard most of them, and my response to those arguments):

1. The Scientists are in it for themselves - This argument should be stricken as utterly ridiculous as soon as it is heard. The idea that there is some kind of global conspiracy where Al Gore has the IPCC and other independent climatologists in his back pocket is downright absurd. Sure there are political opportunists, and some people trying to make money, but the reality is, if there is any kind of payout to  scientists to distribute non-truths it is not coming from climate change scientists. The possibility of conspiracy is definitely there, but it is big oil paying PR firms to legitimize the skeptics. When Exxon Mobil pays authors to write that climate change isn't real then there is a conspiracy to prevent the truth from coming to light, "nine of the ten most prolific authors cited have links to organisations funded by ExxonMobil"



If you aren't convinced, then ask your self this simple questions. What  exactly do the overwhelming majority of climate change scientists have to gain from publishing their findings? How do the scientists benefit from "lying" about human caused climate change? Is Al Gore sending them a check? Is Greenpeace so powerful an organization that it can manipulate the scholastic fortitude of top universities around the world? The argument is profoundly absurd.

2. The Climate is always changing - That is true, but it has not been this warm in over 650,000 years. The evidence from NASA's (NASA isn't exactly a liberal media tool) site on climate change is overwhelming. If we were cooling and entering another mini-ice age it could easily be argued that the climate is behaving normally, but there isn't evidence of this kind of global warming in any geophysical historical record. NASA - Climate Change Evidence. The science states: "In the last 650,000 years there has been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat. Most of these changes were due to small shifts in the Earth's orbit.... the evidence for rapid climate change in modern times is compelling." The best argument that I like to use to counter this ignorance is the FACT that even the U.S. Navy is planning how to navigate and control the arctic sea once the ice there is gone. By around 2030 the US NAVY is planning to have an arctic free of ice.

The signature at the bottom of this actual report about how the US NAVY will handle climate change is J.W. Greenert Admiral in the U.S. Navy

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3. The Economy will be hurt - Only if we are not smart about this, yes there will be risks to changing from a fossil fuel economy to one that is driven by alternative energy, but the economy, or the society, that steps up first will be able to make money in the transition. There will be jobs, there will be energy exports, and we, as a species, are intelligent enough to continue finding work are experiencing prosperity without fossil fuels. Will manufacturing disappear? Will resource extraction and refinement be completely dismantled? Of course not. The new information economy will grow and develop, creative efforts will find new economic space, and the innovation sector will allow for growth, opportunity and prosperity. The truth of the matter is that ignoring climate change will be more costly than anything else in human history. This NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) report paints a bleak, but all too real warning about, The Cost of Climate Change. Granted they are an interest group, but their findings are well referenced and properly researched. Warnings that we have all heard, but choose to ignore are reported on. From the impact on agriculture - a sector that has built and continues to maintain both North American and European global economic superiority - to the cost of rising sea levels and a look at playing catch-up in the global energy market.

How much will losing our agricultural strength hurt our economy? 

Teachers, it is your duty to educate students on the truth behind Human Caused Climate Change. I hope the ideas, arguments and links above will help you to fulfill that moral and ethical responsibility. This is not a debate, in the same way that slavery was never a debate, and that segregation was never really a debate and that women's equality was never really a debate. There is truth and there is ignorance, it is your duty to help reveal the truth and expose the ignorance.

Isaac Asimov on Education and Learning

I am finding more and more informal mentors in my professional growth and learning. There are people that have done things and learned things and have great ideas around me all of the time. When I ask them questions and look to them for guidance they become and informal mentor to me. I draw on their experience and knowledge to help guide my own ideas and practice.

There are a few people in EPSB that I consider my informal mentors. I have encountered them in various Ed. Tech. training sessions and particularly at the Goolge Apps. info and sharing seminars. One of my informal mentors, Rick Stiles-Oldring, recently pointed me to a video interview of Isaac Asimov that is truly astounding.

Rick blogs at Heeding Thamus and he can be counted on to provide challenging, insightful and occasionally annoying ideas, both on his blog and in person. The reason I say annoying is because some of his ed. tech. ideas end up challenging my core assumptions about technology and learning. When a "core" assumption is challenged it means I have to re-examine and also alter most of my thinking. I have always assumed that a schools network infrastructure should stay platform neutral, any system can be supported. That is until Rick comes along with an idea that has been nagging at me for a week now. Isn't there value in platform equity? Shouldn't schools provide, especially considering the rapid decline in cost, the same platform for each student? Don't schools already have the resources to provide every student with a cheap and identical network tool? Like say a tablet or a chrome book?

I have spent the last two years thinking that the future of ed. tech. in the classroom was to increase student owned devices, now I am not so sure... thanks Rick!

This was supposed to be a post about Asimov. Watch the video below:
.

Key Ideas

1. Lifelong learning is not just for the young - especially with the internet and open access to learning. Free education at Stanford!!
2. Everyone can become creative - we were able to teach reading and writing to all youth, why not creative thinking?
3. The teacher can be eliminated. Everyone now has their own personal teacher (source of knowledge and information) at their fingertips.
4. Interactions with other students and teachers is still needed. School has a role to play, but not the same one as before. What is that role?
5. If you follow your own bent, and aren't told what to learn then learning will increase. This one is key!!! Let students find their own interests and follow it for real learning, and find your own. Be the sole dictator of what you learn, and allow your students to be the dictators of what they learn.

Thanks for sharing this video Rick.

Who is Protecting Whom?

I have to put this out there as much as possible.

I remember hearing the president of the U.S. as being referred to as, "the leader of the free world."
I don't know if we can still call the U.S. a member of the free world.

Pepper Spraying at UC Davis on Friday

This is one image among many that are revealing police brutality in response to Occupy movements across America.

Here is the video of an Iraq and Afghanistan War Veteran being needlessly beaten by police in Oakland

...and of course, this 84 year old grandmother was such a threat to public safety in Seattle that she had to be pepper sprayed.

Exactly who and what are these police protecting?????

Keep Your "Opinion" to Yourself

Maybe it is written into my professional code of conduct, or maybe it is just common practice, but wherever it comes from I am tired of keeping my "opinion" to myself.

To be honest, I don't actually mind keeping my mouth shut on issues, controversial or not, because it makes the students think for themselves, and that is what this whole thing is about, but there are one or two ideas that I fervently support in my own life which I am having a hard time keeping to myself.

Image taken from google without permission

I'm not going to beat around the bush today. I am going to jump out and say it. These two ideas that follow are supposed to be kept to myself. I do such a good job of this I doubt if my students this year would even be able to tell you how I actually feel (do you see, I am beating around the bush even though I said I wouldn't, and that somehow counts as being clever at 11:00 p.m. on a school night). 

My first "opinon" that I try so desperately not to poison my students with is that, I am an environmentalist.

This is first image in a google image search
 of environmentalist - lazy or making a point?

What being an environmentalist means is something that I will talk about at the end of this post (if I remember), but there is the bigger issue that I as a role model to students am supposed to keep my mouth shut about this idea. A professional should not have an opinion??? I can still present the industrialist argument  with some degree of merit, but why shouldn't an informed citizen model what being an informed citizen actually looks like? 

My editorial confession #2, I am also the 99%,and I support the major tenets of the occupy movement, and of course there are major tenets. Just because many of the confused anarchists in the movement can't adequately express why many people are making valid complaints about the current power and wealth structure does not mean there isn't a focus or clear reason to the protest.

I see the world in a certain way, and I will make a professional guarantee that I will never force, coerce or unfairly persuade a student to see the world from my point of view, but that does not mean I will not present my own view of the world. The argument runs that as a trusted teacher I will have undue influence on a child's point of view. I counter, that is only the case if that is my intent. When the issue is contestable then my opinion or worldview needs to be presented as valuable, but also deeply flawed. It is our responsibility to have an informed opinion, but to present it as only that, one person's opinion. 

So what about when the issue is so completely clear? Even though some still consider it a debate?

For example, What Goldman Sachs did was wrong, and we should be able to discuss the economy without blind allegiance to the free market, talk about preaching an "opinion" as if it were truth. Here is Elizabeth May on the topic, “Excuse me, but are the lunatics running the asylum? Can’t we have a healthy economy, and yes, even capitalism and corporate profits, that serves the interests of communities and that accepts its marching orders from democratically elected governments?”

Okay I need to focus.

The main point I want to make (which I haven't even done a mildly adequate job in alluding to up to this point) is that according to every valid source that I read is pointing to the fact that human caused climate change is a reality, one that is having and will continue to have devastating effects on humanity and life on Earth in general, so why the hell am I teaching the topic as if it is a debate between environmentalists and industrialists?

Professional Growth Plan

Like everything in teaching, if you want your students to do it you should be able to do it. Also, if I truly believe in the changing nature of knowledge transmission and the shift to a visually based on demand style of expression then why would I write the same old two-page Professional Growth Plan..

Those Darn Infographics are tough work. btw the last slide is supposed to be an infographic.

This Year I Break the Cycle

I will not get stressed out this October!

According to some research. October is when the reality of my job assignment comes crashing down on me and fuels the depressing burning mess that was all of my unmet goals and ambitions that have been building up over the last two to three months.

This is What I Have Felt in the Past and What I Refuse to Feel  This Year.

Apparently Teachers tend to set high expectations and lofty goals for their career and their classroom over the summer months. These ideals then meet their opposition in underfunded classrooms populated by apathetic creatures that honestly could not care any less than they already don't. This sounds familiar, and it may even be what I am feeling this exact second, but I will not follow this well-worn cycle of anticipation and defeat.

There are a couple of things I will do to steel myself against the onslaught of reality.

1. I will be aware that it is coming and I will not be another teacher trapped in this cycle.
2. I will start by establishing clear routines.
3. I will Stay Fit. I will continue my own personal fitness and family goals and give them equal priority alongside my classroom and career goals.
4. I will achieve my goals anyway - yes the membership in the media group will drop after excitement wears down, but even if there are only four kids that is still four kids learning skills after-school.
5. I will destroy disillusionment. Even in the face of all of my goals being unmet I will not allow disillusionment
6. I will treat myself often. New York City Here I Come!!
7. I will reflect through blogging all year.
8. I will be mean to myself in June!

What Should a Blog Post Look Like??

A Good Blog Post should contain a number of elements.
The first important element is the TITLE!!!

What is the title of this blog post. The title should draw me in and get me interested. Mr. Greene's blog post is NOT a good title.

The second important element I will call the Language Arts element. Every Blog Post needs to have

• paragraphs
• complete sentences
• Correct Spelling and Grammar

Third, a blog post needs great information. I should learn something from your blog, and I should be intellectually challenged. Say something interesting. Give me your opinion, your view, your voice. Why did you choose this topic? What did you already know? What did you learn? What questions do you have?

Lastly, a good blog post should have:

1. Links
2. Images
3. Video (if possible)