More middle school chatter in the news

Again, no surprises for the middle school community, but even Education Week is stating to feature stories about the importance of middle schools in preparing students for their future. Also, no surprises to us, but "they" are starting to "discover" the importance of exploratory experiences for middle schoolers.

Google to map indoors- changing times!

I read in the newspaper this morning, and have seen on several web sites today, that Google plans to add maps of malls and other indoor venues to its mapping services... yup, the times are a changin' and educators need to shorten our time line for thinking and reacting.

Yesterday afternoon, out faculty spent an hour thinking about a vision statement for the school... the principal asked for our ideas (on paper) and then she indicated we would come back to it at the end of the school year, or maybe next year. OK, I get the timelessness of good vision,  educators must adopt a more rapid response time if we want to maintain relevance.

No kidding!

Big news on the EdWeek website!!!

The transition from elementary school to middle school can be challenging for students. There is even some evidence that steps can be taken to ease that transition and support students as they become adolescents. Wow this is amazing! We need to find a group that can help us learn more about that!

I have a cynical colleague (he is even more cynical that I am) who claims this is simply "repackaging what we have been doing forever." I suppose he is right, but I am frustrated that many of the middle school practices we know work to help youngsters grow through the middle years have been torn out of schools in the name of academic performance... perhaps the pendulum is swinging back to the extreme of reason.

I have a great idea.... plan to attend the NELMS annual conference in April (and bring a friend and a principal).

Cyberbaiting-- The world is changing

Transparency is one of the great advantages of modern ICT-- we can see what our political leaders are doing, we can get access to information immediately, we can access far more information via computers and networks that we could previously.

For educators, this transparency is seen in students' and parents' access to homework assignments, class materials, and even gradebooks via their computers and networks. In general, I believe this transparency is a good thing. A new report, however, is showing an alarming trend...

Apparently, cyberbaiting is gaining popularity... basically, students are taunting teachers to the point that the teachers have an emotional outburst, and that outburst is recorded on a cell phone and posted online. When I was a student I can remember such outbursts, and I have seen them in colleagues (directed towards students and towards colleagues)... these are nothing new and they are the result of people interacting with each other.

it sure seems to me that one way teachers can minimize the potential of being the target of such a situation (there is no way to avoid it altogether) is to create a classroom in which the students are engaged with learning they find meaningful... hey that's what middle school practitioners have been all about for decades!

LucidChart-- Chrome App!

I have a new favorite app for Google Chrome... LucidChart is used for making diagrams, flow charts and similar graphics... users can upload their own images and with the free account create multi-page documents with up to 60 items.

Virtual education

The question of virtual schooling has arisen again (at least it did on Education Week late last week)...

Critics are challenging the notion that online education is "as good as in-person." To me, the question is not about virtual schools and the credibility questions are not relative to those (although virtual schools should meet the same level of excellence we expect all schools to meet), the question is about for-profit schools.

I have attended and worked a range of schools, including for-profit universities. As with all education, the quality of the learner depends more on the approach of the student than the nature of the institution (good students are good students no matter where they attend). For-profit schools do adopt the business mentality, however, of measuring everything quantitatively. Enrollment equals dollars, and the for-profit schools knows that best.

Enrollment is best achieved, also, by creating the least objectionable curriculum possible... my experience with for-profit education confirms that they build curriculum around well-entrenched ideas and any innovative thinking or challenges to the system are not well-received.

Internet safety

I know several school are starting to be more serious and purposeful about teaching Internet safety to their students... eSchoolNews recently featured a story with 10 ideas... it is worth taking a look:

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/11/11/10-ways-schools-are-teaching-internet-safety/

My favorite Chrome apps- 1

Google Chrome and its apps have been drawing my attention recently (actually distracting me from the work I should be getting done is more accurate).

Today, my favorite apps are 3DTin and Connected Mind:

3DTin is a tool that allows users to draw in three dimensions... draw a rectangle and pull it up and it becomes a cube! In December, I am going to get some middle schoolers to help me figure out the uses of it... I know there are some, but I need their perspectives and brains to get me to see the connections.

Connected Mind is the other... concept maps and other graphic organizers right in your web browser.

Cyberbullying and more NELMS stuff

9 Charged In Student's Bullying Death:
Boston Globe - March 29, 2010
A world of misery left by bullying
Boston.com - November 28, 2010
Poll: More than half of teens, young adults harassed online
CNN - September 27, 2011

The headlines about bullying go on and on…

Want to do something about the problem?
Don't know where to turn for assistance?

Now is the time to register for:

Middle Level IS the Place for the
Prevention of Bullying

A day-long event confronting bullying in schools.

Doug Wilhelm & Elizabeth Vachon

SERESC Conference Center, Bedford, NH

December 2, 2011, 8:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.

The workshop will be divided into two half-day sessions. Presenters, Doug Wilhelm and Elizabeth Vachon, will share their experiences and strategies for preventing bullying at the middle level.

Doug Wilhelm's young adult novel, The Revealers, deals with bullying and has been used by middle schools nationwide to open up discussion on this difficult issue. During Doug's workshop he will share many of the creative strategies he has seen middle school teachers use to engage middle level students, stimulate discussions, and deepen their interactions with the novel and the real-life issues it addresses.

Doug started writing for young people with a science fiction novel for the Choose Your Own Adventure series. He found he loved writing for young adults, and he's been doing it ever since. Wilhelm often visits schools to talk about The Revealers and the issues it raises. He lives in Rutland, Vermont. For more information about Doug Wilhelm and The Revealer, click here.

Elizabeth Vachon is a L.I.C.S.W. at Birchwood Middle School and the director and facilitator of her nationally recognized program, Can't Bully in Schools. She has worked extensively with schools' students and faculty to showcase the issue of bullying and to engage the student population to think and take action on this topic. Her workshop will focus on ways educators can develop an anti-bullying program in their own school, share resources utilized for the prevention of bullying, and discuss how to get the "whole school" involved in the development of a preventative program.

Ms. Vachon was recently featured on the CBS program "48 Hours." The episode examined what Birchwood Middle School in Rhode Island is doing about bullying. For more information on that program click here.

For more information about this event and/or to register please click here.

Some NELMS Stuff...

Just a quick plug for some New England League of Middle School projects and events...

1) NELMS Spotlight Schools are those schools that have applied to be recognized for their great work implementing middle school practices. I have been one several Spotlight School visits and have met many skilled and dedicated practitioners as a result.

2) The Annual Conference is coming! April 2 & 3 in Providence, Rhode Island.

Ways to ensure IT is used...

eSchoolNews has one of the "do this to make sure people use computers" articles that are so common... the list is lots of the same old same old... until the last of the 10 (an unfortunate placement... it should have been first!):

10. Make sure the technology works—and is easily available.

The business world has known for about three decades that technology that is perceived (notice the word-- users' perceptions are reality) to be easy to use and useful will be used.

Of course, I am also coming to believe that school and technology leaders who argue "we need to provide professional development" are giving educators an excuse... and we are assuming the responsibility for something they must do themselves. It brings to mind the teacher who said she would start using computers in her math class when she got a SmartBoard... so she got one, then she said she would use the SmartBoard once she learned how to use it... and the principal was then on the hook, as she had promised to train teachers in any technology they wanted. So my principal fired was desperately trying to find a way to train the teacher... who was busy drawing on the chalk board while the dust gathered on the SmartBoard.

Copyright infringement

"Word on the street" (actually the modern version of the adage "word on the listservs") has it that ISP (Internet service providers) are receiving complaints from copyright holders that schools (as identified by the IP address assigned to the school) are downloading copyright-protected media (movies, audio, images, etc.)

The law does allow for fines to be imposed for instances in which illegal downloading can be proven.

There is a myth among many educators that. because they work in schools and they are not making money, that they may use any media as they wish. Copyright law does allow for fair use of media by educators and others, but the limits are well defined and those limits do not allow for repeated use.

I usually tell people, "if you find a great article in a magazine, you are safe to make copies of it for use in one class once, as long as you don't keep copies and arrange to but copies for the next time you use it." Of course, today, much copyright violation occurs with digital media.

My students create multimedia projects all of the time... we are probably within fair use guidelines if we (for example) get a copy of a song to use as background music, and the project is a class project that is not distributed beyond the walls of the class.

My statements contain "probably" because the laws are actually open to interpretation and digital media are challenging some of the assumptions that were well-established when the laws were written.

One of the best resources for understanding fair use, is the Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center.

Laptop repair bills!

eSchoolNews is featuring a story about the cost of repairing laptops for our friends in Maine. Camden Hills paid $56,000 to repair its fleet of laptops!

In my school, we are talking (and talking, and talking, and talking-- please someone make a decision!) about Chromebooks, and one of the advantages is we would lease them, so repairs and replacement would be "off-our-plate."

I see this also as an argument for BYOD... perhaps spending a few thousand on lockers for laptops and similar devices is a good idea!

Bullying conference reminder-- Time is running out

Middle Level IS the Place for the Prevention of Bullying

A day-long event confronting bullying in schools.

Doug Wilhelm & Elizabeth Vachon

SERESC Conference Center, Bedford, NH

December 2, 2011, 8:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.

The workshop will be divided into two half-day sessions. Presenters, Doug Wilhelm and Elizabeth Vachon, will share their experiences and strategies for preventing bullying at the middle level.

Doug Wilhelm's young adult novel, The Revealers, deals with bullying and has been used by middle schools nationwide to open up discussion on this difficult issue. During Doug's workshop he will share many of the creative strategies he has seen middle school teachers use to engage middle level students, stimulate discussions, and deepen their interactions with the novel and the real-life issues it addresses.

Doug started writing for young people with a science fiction novel for the Choose Your Own Adventure series. He found he loved writing for young adults, and he's been doing it ever since. Wilhelm often visits schools to talk about The Revealers and the issues it raises. He lives in Rutland, Vermont. For more information about Doug Wilhelm and The Revealer, click here.

Elizabeth Vachon is a L.I.C.S.W. at Birchwood Middle School and the director and facilitator of her nationally recognized program, Can't Bully in Schools. She has worked extensively with schools' students and faculty to showcase the issue of bullying and to engage the student population to think and take action on this topic. Her workshop will focus on ways educators can develop an anti-bullying program in their own school, share resources utilized for the prevention of bullying, and discuss how to get the "whole school" involved in the development of a preventative program.

Ms. Vachon was recently featured on the CBS program "48 Hours." The episode examined what Birchwood Middle School in Rhode Island is doing about bullying. For more information on that program click here.

Schedule

Friday – December 2, 2011

7:45 AM - 8:15 AM Registration & Light Continental Breakfast

8:15 AM - 9:45 AM Session #1

9:45 AM - 10:00 AM Break

10:00 AM - 11:30 AM Session #1 (cont.)

11:30 AM - 12:15 PM Lunch

12:15 PM - 1:45 PM Session #2

1:45 PM - 2:00 PM Break

2:00 PM - 3:30 PM Session #2 (cont.)

Registration forms

For an interactive pdf registration form click here. You can fill it out online and when you hit the submit button it will send an e-mail with a secure attachment containing your information. You will not be able to open the .fdf but we will match it to the form and register you for the conference.

Click here for a static registration form. If you are paying with a PO you will need to use this form (your PO has to accompany the registration). You will need to print this out and mail or fax it to NELMS.

Teens growing up fast

Research commissioned by AVG (a Internet security company) suggests that young people (10-13 year olds) have adult-like skills when it comes to computers and information technology, but that they may not have developed the maturity to understand what they are doing and the potential implication of what they do.

This is part of AVG's Digital Diaries project in which young people and their families were encouraged to record digital activities.

In 2010, that project found that more young people can play computer games than can ride bikes!

Gift ideas

Here is a great list to share with middle school parents... the folks at Common Sense Media have a list of media for gift-giving... their editors' picks of "cool" videos, games, books, etc. that minimize inappropriate stereotypes, sex, and violence. Their web site observes, "With these high-quality, age-appropriate choices, your kids will be entertained and enriched. And who knows? They just might learn something, too."

Chrome and apps

Chrome is a web browser provided by Google. It is available for download for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. Why might one want to use it? Well, the best reason I can find is the "apps." These are web sites designed to functions withe Chrome that provide functionality-- a graphing calculator, a 3-dD body, a 3-D building kit, a graphic organizer... and the list goes on.

Old, but good, cyberbullying resource

Sameer Hinduja and Justin Patchin are two of the leading scholars focusing on problems of cyberbullying. Their web site http://www.cyberbullying.us has been a valuable resource for some time.

More than three years ago, Education Week featured Hunduja and Patchin in chat... educators and others form around the world posed questions and they answered. A colleague recently stumbled upon some resources, I had pointed them towards a few years ago, and she commented that the archive of this chat still contains information and ideas that are useful.

Building a digital culture

This video is currently on EdWeek's web site... it has a very interesting take on how to transform education via technology...

Technology predictions for 2012

One of the IT vendors that sends "stuff" to my inbox in false-hope I will buy their products sent me a list of seven technology predictions for 2012... as we are nearly the end of the calendar year, such predictions will be common in the next few weeks...

Here is the list... I wonder if it applies to education (in my opinion)...

1. Corporations adopt social networking as a primary communication tool.

Educators seem to be afraid of social networks... and for good reason... but. The model of connecting and communicating provided by social networks is works, and most of our students find it familiar. Educators will find ways to join our students in the 21st century.

2. Death of the laptop?

We all hear the hype about tablets and smartphones... those devices are increasingly useful for academic purposes. While we will still use computers and laptops for those tasks for which they are needed (e.g. multimedia production and other tasks that require processing and memory), we will come to the conclusion that tablets and phones are appropriate and available for many purposes.

3. The "To the Cloud" movement continues.

Moving to the cloud will allow educators to save many costs and to provide a more seamless connection between off-campus computing and on-campus computing. Educators will realize this and join the movement to the cloud. 

4. The need for Virtualization skills will grow exponentially.

"Virtualization means moving multiple physical servers to a virtual machine environment. Virtualization vendors such as Citrix, VMware, and Microsoft are making it possible for companies to improve the efficiency and availability of IT resources and applications." These words begin the description of why this is a trend for the next year... my guess is readers of this blog will nod their heads and trust the IT professional making that move!

5. The days of owning software are numbered.

This is an extension of the cloud model, that educators will be slow to adopt (except for those of us who join the open source movement). If I buy software that provides a useful curriculum need-- perhaps to simulate experiments, and that is a useful lesson, then we--in education--are likely to own and use that version as long as we can keep it running.

6. Real bandwidth to the household.

This will be a motivator for schools to get online with distance learning, hybrid classrooms, and other applications of computers to instruction.

Apps club

Here is a 6th grade who has started an App Club at his school... surely he is exceptional, and surely there are exceptional students in our school who can be encouraged to take similar active roles in their schools:

Bullying conference!!

Don't wait to register
This may be one of the most important events you attend this year

Middle Level IS the Place for the
Prevention of Bullying

A day-long event confronting bullying in schools.

Doug Wilhelm & Elizabeth Vachon

SERESC Conference Center, Bedford, NH

December 2, 2011, 8:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.

The workshop will be divided into two half-day sessions. Presenters, Doug Wilhelm and Elizabeth Vachon, will share their experiences and strategies for preventing bullying at the middle level.

Doug Wilhelm's young adult novel, The Revealers, deals with bullying and has been used by middle schools nationwide to open up discussion on this difficult issue. During Doug's workshop he will share many of the creative strategies he has seen middle school teachers use to engage middle level students, stimulate discussions, and deepen their interactions with the novel and the real-life issues it addresses.

Doug started writing for young people with a science fiction novel for the Choose Your Own Adventure series. He found he loved writing for young adults, and he's been doing it ever since. Wilhelm often visits schools to talk about The Revealers and the issues it raises. He lives in Rutland, Vermont. For more information about Doug Wilhelm and The Revealer, click here.

Elizabeth Vachon is a L.I.C.S.W. at Birchwood Middle School and the director and facilitator of her nationally recognized program, Can't Bully in Schools. She has worked extensively with schools' students and faculty to showcase the issue of bullying and to engage the student population to think and take action on this topic. Her workshop will focus on ways educators can develop an anti-bullying program in their own school, share resources utilized for the prevention of bullying, and discuss how to get the "whole school" involved in the development of a preventative program.

Ms. Vachon was recently featured on the CBS program "48 Hours." The episode examined what Birchwood Middle School in Rhode Island is doing about bullying. For more information on that program click here.

For more information about this event and/or to register please click here.

More connection options for low-income families

The FCC is working with additional ISP's to provide low-cost access to the Internet for low-income families.  

This is information that schools can and should share with families.

World Wide Web history lesson

This is a really interesting and funny story about a leader in the technology field who decided that the World Wide Web was not something to be involved with in 1992. This really makes me wonder about the leaders who ask for innovative ideas and then find reasons to pass on every solution that comes their way.

The world is changing: GPS tracking

Today the US Supreme Court is hearing a case to decide if the police are allowed to put GPS tracking devices on cars to track people of interest without a warrant. NPR had an interesting version of the story this morning.

Although this may seem disconnected from middle school classrooms, it does point to the changing realities of life in the digital world. Not only should educators be aware of these types of issues, but we should help our students become aware of the potential uses of the devices they carry.

Prepare your students for this...

When I hear parents and teachers and others arguing we need to "get kids ready for college," a shiver goes up my spine. Every year about this time, I see students beginning  return form their semester year of school and they are in-debt and not liking school.

In a recent story in the New York Times web site, we read that students debt continues to rise... I see young people who have borrowed more money that I spent on my house to get undergraduate degrees.

In middle school, we have the chance to open kids to possibilities and to explore all of their interests so that they can make good decisions in a few years... perhaps entering the trades and feeling confident in their choice (an being healthy and engaged in the world) is the best option for many of our students.

Really liking Scratch

I have students involved with some simple programming right now. We are using Scratch, the open source platform from MIT that traces its roots to LOGO-- Seymour Papert has been a hero of mine since I first became a student of education.

Students are programming Pong-like games, and they are finding interesting ways to solve problems. I create the basic functionality with them-- paddle controlled by the arrow keys, a ball to bounce around, and targets to hit and those to avoid. They are having new characters arrive as play continues, characters change based on actions... all sorts of fun!

It never fails to amaze me how those students who traditionally struggle with many school activities will quickly figure out how to write programs in Scratch and how they arrive at "work around" to do what is not obvious... and how students who traditionally do well in school struggle to find innovative solutions using the tools in Scratch and tools like it. (There has got to be a research project in there waiting to be done!)

TV for middle schoolers...

Common Sense Media provides a list of television that is more appropriate for children than some of the shows they watch. There list is for kids from the pre-school age set to the middle school set.

I wonder what it says about me that Futurama (one of the two non-sports programs I will take the time to watch) is on the list.

TImes are changing!

Share this video with middle school kids and start a conversation about how the world is changing:

NELMS Events

Literacy Summit

November 7-8, 2011 

Find out more here

Middle Level IS the Place for the Prevention of Bullying

December 2, 2011 

Find out more here

Differentiation and Motivation

February 2 & 3, 2012

Find out more here

Teachers Over Paid?

EdWeek has a story of a Heritage Foundation study that suggests that teachers are overpaid!

The study factors in job security... vacations... benefits... presumably educators have lots of each...

Job security... not in my school with its declining population. I have had my job removed from the budget twice before and I left a job when teachers were not offered contracts because the master contract had not been agreed upon. (When I was growing up, my father got laid off from two jobs over his career-- looks like my job is about as secure as his was.

Vacations... my friends who are my age get paid vacations... they get a day's pay but are not expected to show up. My salary is paid to me in 26 installments as a courtesy (that I appreciate). I have never had a paid vacation since 1988 when I was mowing lawns in the summer between when I graduated and when I started my teaching career. (I do usually take advantage of the personal days I am allowed-- so I do get three vacation days per year.)

Benefits... yup this one is true... I appreciate the benefits I get, but my benefits are not out of line with those provided by other professionals who work in my area (in some cases our benefits are worse than those provided to other professionals).

Games and Jesse Schell

In the past, I have used this video of a speech by game programmer Jesse Schell when introducing computer ethics to students... it is still timely and I am still using it.

Wii Games - E3 2012 - Guitar Hero 5

The world is changing... Stuxnet

This morning I listened to Morning Edition in NPR and heard an interesting and scary story about Stuxnet... the malware that hit the Iranian nuclear facilities in 2009. Basically, this is a relatively new method of war-- deploy malware against your enemy so that you control their infrastructure.

This raises many new issues for students and teacher to contemplate and discuss-- humans ethics seem to have changed. While we may be able to disable enemy using non-lethal options, it seems as well that there is potential for extending lethal force to vast populations through indirect means. I wonder about the ethics of disabling the power grid in a country to prevent its military from functioning, but at the same time preventing its medical system from caring for ill civilians.

I found a trend...

As I have indicated in posts earlier this fall, I have been working with fifth graders and StoryBird.

Over the past week, my fifth graders have created stories with first and second grade students. They did this work independently... in a room connected to mind, but with little guidance, other than an occasional "walk through" and check in my one of a couple of adults. They did a fantastic job, and the one thing I am most interested in is the apparent improvement in their spelling and grammar.

Their first stories were just painful to read... of course it was early in the schools year... they were using a new system... we could go on and on to brainstorm reasons they did not write well. With these (about their third stories they handed in) the problems were (in my estimate and the estimate of the other adult who helped me review them) less than half the problems there were in their first stories.

I have no hard evidence to support my observation and I can establish no cause or effect, but it appears that having students write for real audiences and using technology does lead to improved writing.

Bullying Conference Reminder

Middle Level IS the Place for the Prevention of Bullying

A day-long event confronting bullying in schools.

Doug Wilhelm & Elizabeth Vachon

SERESC Conference Center, Bedford, NH

December 2, 2011, 8:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.

The workshop will be divided into two half-day sessions. Presenters, Doug Wilhelm and Elizabeth Vachon, will share their experiences and strategies for preventing bullying at the middle level.

Doug Wilhelm's young adult novel, The Revealers, deals with bullying and has been used by middle schools nationwide to open up discussion on this difficult issue. During Doug's workshop he will share many of the creative strategies he has seen middle school teachers use to engage middle level students, stimulate discussions, and deepen their interactions with the novel and the real-life issues it addresses.

Doug started writing for young people with a science fiction novel for the Choose Your Own Adventure series. He found he loved writing for young adults, and he's been doing it ever since. Wilhelm often visits schools to talk about The Revealers and the issues it raises. He lives in Rutland, Vermont. For more information about Doug Wilhelm and The Revealer, click here.

Elizabeth Vachon is a L.I.C.S.W. at Birchwood Middle School and the director and facilitator of her nationally recognized program, Can't Bully in Schools. She has worked extensively with schools' students and faculty to showcase the issue of bullying and to engage the student population to think and take action on this topic. Her workshop will focus on ways educators can develop an anti-bullying program in their own school, share resources utilized for the prevention of bullying, and discuss how to get the "whole school" involved in the development of a preventative program.

Ms. Vachon was recently featured on the CBS program "48 Hours." The episode examined what Birchwood Middle School in Rhode Island is doing about bullying. For more information on that program click here.