PROMISES…Dear Teacher

In an earlier post A Letter to the Teachers of My Children by Shelley at Teach Paperless, I made comments regarding a letter from parents to the teachers.
Now here is a poem by Angela Maiers entitled:

Dear Teacher - The PROMISE Poem

PROMISES
by Angela Maiers

Dear Teacher,

Love me,
Make me feel special,
Make me feel included,
Make me feel valued,

Smile for me,
Tell me that you’re happy to see me,
Tell me that you’re happy to teach me,
Tell me that you’re happy I am here.

Involve me,
Tell me about our work together
Tell me how I can be of help and mean it genuinely

Notice me,
See all of me,
See my emotions, my laughter, my curiosity, my anticipation
See my right, and I will work on the “wrongs”

Teach me,
PLEEZE don’t just tell me what you know
Show me what I need to know,
Show me how to do it well

Help Me,
Help me when it gets hard,
Help me persevere,
Help me know it matters

Excite Me,
I came to you in love with learning
Keep me excited!
Show me the fun
Show me your fire and passion

Promise Me,
Promise me that you can.
Promise me that you will.
Promise me that you are ready to…

Love me, help me, engage me, excite me, and teach me
I'm Ready
I want to learn.
I want to know.
I want to be your student.

I PROMISE
I will return the favor
I will reward you with my attention, my focus, my heart
I will show you what I can do
I will show you who I can be

PROMISE ME?

I know I could link back to her website to see the poem and only quote a few lines here, but I just love seeing it all laid out here together.

Besides, this way I can highlight the words I want to (as my regular readers know!)
Thanks Angela, this poem is a keeper for sure!
Do you write poetry or prose…
     … that tells your students…

         what you expect of them and…

                    what you will give them in return? 

Please let me see it.
Thanks!
Photo on Flickr by verrosassi4
[As always, in my author quotes, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s!]

Technorati Tags: Angela Maiers,Promise Me,expectations,promises,education,Teach Paperless

Letter to the teachers of my children…

A Letter to the Teachers of My Children by Shelley at Teach Paperless brought a lot of parents’ concerns to the the forefront.

Unfortunately, not all parents, teachers, and administrators are on that same page. Many teachers would be upset with receiving a letter from someone stating the “facts” like Shelley did.

What am I talking about?

Well, first, you must go over to Shelley’s post and read the entire letter.

He wants challenges in his children’s education, he wants engaged learning in his children’s education, he wants teachers to know his children, AND he wants his children’s current abilities to be acknowledged, encouraged, and broadened.

This is what we all want (or what we should want if we are involved and care about now and the future) for “our children” -- the children of the world of today!

Why don’t you write a letter to your child’s teacher, or if you do not have children in school, write a letter to all ALL teachers?

Technorati Tags: letter to teacher,Shelley,Teach Paperless

Change, Predictability, Spontaneity, and Education

Shelley over at Teach Paperless always is “pushing the envelope” and I mean that in a GOOD WAY!

Today his post is a response his previous post and the comments that post generated. (His posts are always something for discussion!)

Schools need to be safe for students, but change and spontaneity are not mutually exclusive from safe, predictable education. There is a place for all of these aspects in education today!

Shelley says

So I'd say that you've got to be open to spontaneity. That doesn't mean you can just wing it; after all, as any jazz musician will tell you, you've got to bring your A-game to any improvised set. Improvisation is an artform. It needs to be practiced and honed; the artist needs to learn from mistakes and assumptions. But, in the hands of a serious practitioner, improvisation -- and the disruption of predictability -- is a nuanced method of expressing understanding, compassion, and new forms of accessibility.
And I'd argue that these are the things kids need more of in school.

I have to say that many of my “greatest lessons ever taught” happened with spontaneity. In the “heat” of the lesson, things happen and students respond, and life changes. The lesson may go down another path, but if there is learning, we all go home winners!

What art form is in your lessons?

Do wing it?

Are your lessons practiced & honed?

Do you learn from your mistakes & assumptions?

Do you convey these lessons to your students?

[As always, in my author quotes, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s!]

Technorati Tags: Teach Paperless,spontaneity,improvisation,learning,education

Rubrics … OR let your students play in class

Shelley over at Teach Paperless is a fantastic teacher (from my view here in Cyberland!)

He teaches what many consider a DEAD SUBJECT (Latin) in a very CURRENT method. (He actually teachers other subjects as well!)

Stop by his blog to see what I mean.

Listen to what his students also have to say about his teaching methods.

His recent blog post “Rubrics Were Great” says that Rubrics fail to teach students what life and learning are all about.

Isn’t that what we should be teaching students? How to learn and live life successfully?

Rubrics give students a checklist of what to do, but Real Life is not a checklist.

When will students learn that Real Life is not a checklist?

How disappointed will they be when they “grow up,” graduate from high school, (or even college) and find out that what they were taught about the world was not really true?

So Shelley says

Well... let your students play in class. Give them open-ended assignments with no possible correct answer and no single conceivable way to get the assignment done. Don't explain things to your students, rather talk to them and allow what they say to teach them how they think. Teach your content through conversation whether f2f or online. Teach your content through trust. And don't give your students a list of things that suggests what you want, rather allow your students to figure out what it is that they want.
Because, in the end, this is about them learning. It's not about us proving why we gave a particular grade.

How do you assess your students?

Are they ready for the REAL WORLD?

or just the End of the Grade Test?

[As always, in my author quotes, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s.]

Technorati Tags: Teach Paperless,rubrics,real life,learning,education,End of the Grade Test,assessment

Twitter… AGAIN!

Okay!  I know I talked a while ago in this post about Twitter and how I still didn’t get it.  I am getting better, but to be honest, I guess I just don’t have the friends or the time.That’s what I need to work on. 

Do I REALLY need to work on it?

No, only if I want to. 

I know that everybody seems to think it is the next best thing to “sliced-bread” as Howard Rheingold states in his blog here.

I know that if I get “into” it, I will develop friends and find it more useful. 

I just switched from Google Reader to netvibes.com (Thanks to a suggestion/recommendation from Jeff Utecht.)  I have a tab on netvibes.com that is called Social. It has MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter on that tab.  So now I can keep that tab open and be READY for Twitter …

It is hard for me to think that hearing some people talk about how they are sitting there waiting for a plane to take off (Sorry Will )  or talking about the wonderful ribs they are cooking (Sorry Steve) is worth my time and effort!

OKAY, NOW! Will and Steve, you guys are big enough to be a good example here and not take things personally, right? Will, I know that you were worried about your children flying to Atlanta to visit the G’parents and Steve, my 30DBBB friend, your ribs looked mouthwatering!

So…That’s where I could be wrong.  It could be well worth my effort!

I  need to develop a community that will be there for me when I need them. In order to create that community, I need to be there for them.  I can’t just be an occasional “sucking out bits of wisdom” lurker in the “twittersphere.” I need to follow people, help them when they ask for help (especially new people), follow their ideas or thoughts,  and look at what content they are talking about.  I need to respond to their content. 

Now that is one place where I am confused. 

When I like their content, do I re-tweet it?  That’s what one suggestion I read said. 

Do I @them to tell them I liked what they said?  Or is that bothering them?

I know I don’t DM them unless we have something  “personal/not for broadcast to the world” to discuss.

I guess if they follow me or see me re-tweeting their message that is enough for them to know I liked it or thought it was worthwhile, right?

How often/how long are people on Twitter every day? 

I guess most people have their computer on all day long at school/work/home and also have their twitter feed open at the bottom of the computer all day long.  They look at it or have it set to make a noise or flash something when someone they follow makes a tweet.  Then they know when/how to respond. 

Do most school systems allow this to be going on during the day at school while a teacher is teaching a class of students? Or is most of this tweeting done during breaks, lunch, after school, or at home in the evening?

I know last semester when I was an Interim Teacher in a Computer Lab, I did not have time to Tweet. Some days getting a break to use the bathroom in an elementary school is a MAJOR undertaking!

I know that I would have been in trouble spending time Tweeting when I taught in a K-8 Computer Lab (but perhaps it wasn’t even available then!)

When do you tweet?

How are you able to tweet?

I know I’ve heard all these great examples of how people get lots of responses to their “burning questions” of the moment, how there were twitter pictures of the landing on the Hudson River, how Teach Paperless expects his students to use Twitter for tests and daily class work.

I like the immediacy of it. I like the global feature of it.  I like the sharing part of it.  Howard Rheingold  states some of these very characteristics that I have mentioned that makes him feel Twitter is  a great tool.  Characteristics of Twitter Howard Rheingold  touts are

Openness, Immediacy, Variety, Reciprocity, A channel to multiple publics, Asymmetry, A way to meet new people, A window on what is happening in multiple worlds, Community-forming, A platform for mass collaboration, and Searchability.

These are all admirable, great reasons to use Twitter.

So what’s not to like?

There’s just a tiny bit of me that sees it as a product of our society in which we all want immediate gratification, (but in this-day-and-age who wants to wait for the Pony Express to bring the answer in the mail!) and also I see it as part of the society that has produced so many ADHD students. 

So tell me more…

about how it is really good for you.

AND how it could really work for me.

Technorati Tags: Tweet,Twitter,Howard Rheingold,Jeff Utecht,WIll Richardsonhardson,Steve Dembo,Teach Paperless,education,Google Reader,netvibes

COMICS for writing, translating, and learning

From the HOTCHALK site Bob Sprankle wrote this interesting post regarding COMICS and school/learning.

My first thought was to tell Shelly over at Teach Paperless about the first site mentioned, because it says it works with LATIN!  He probably already knows about it.  I know he does lots of interesting things with his LATIN students.  As a matter of fact I think he already uses PIXTON, the second site mentioned.

The first site mentioned is by Bill Zimmerman: MAKE BELIEFS COMIX and it is very simple. Everyone can use this site.

Students of all ages can use it and it might be best for the younger students, fewer bells and whistles to confuse them!

One problem… there is not a really GOOD way to save your comic.

You can print it out, but that wastes paper and ink.

You can e-mail it to your friends, but so far that has taken an unusually long time to happen and I still do not have results

Also it is suggested on the site that you make an electronic copy by doing a screen dump (PRINT SCREEN on Windows); then you paste it into a PAINT or Photo document or even a Word or PowerPoint document.

In this final manner you can then keep a whole Word document or PowerPoint of a continuing saga -- strip by strip… with only 4 panels per event – much like a real comic strip in the newspaper.

I made a comic and wanted to insert it here.  I e-mailed it to my g-mail account, but it has not yet arrived. 

So after losing my first comic, unless it magically appears in my e-mail some day…I tried the PRINT SCREEN option.

Here it is:

I had a little trouble because I wanted to enlarge and decrease the sizes of the talking balloons.  I could not figure out a way to do that.

Also the part that points to the speaker could not be reversed, so the balloon dictates where the speaker will “sit.”  It may be harder for young learners than I thought.

While I was working on this post, I received an e-mail from Bill Zimmerman regarding my queries about the sizes of the text boxes and the orientation of the text boxes.  He says that there is a way to fix that problem.  I will have to play even more to get that to work, because I thought I had tried everything. We’ll see.

Here is his response: “You can change the size of the balloons and also flip them or select a balloon that goes with each character this way: when you click on the balloon icon, you will see it pop up in the Menu Window at the lower left-hand corner of the screen.  Under the window are red arrows; when you click on them, they will give you four balloon sizes to choose from as well as different directions in which the balloons can be placed (the bottom of each balloon will tilt either to the left or to the right and you can choose the one you want).  Click on the size which you want and it will move up to the panel window in which you are working.

CONGRATS to Bill Zimmerman for responding so quickly to a concern.

I couldn’t figure out how to make multiple balloons in the first comic, but as you can see above, I did for the 2nd try.

Here is a screen shot of my comic with all of the “bells and whistles” on the site.

There is a limit of only 4 panels.  That has its good and bad points, but  REMEMBER most newspaper comics are not much more than 4 panels during the week day!

On the site there is a button to find out how other educators have used comics. Take a look.

http://makebeliefscomix.com/How-to-Play/Educators/

Bill Zimmerman has a blog about more uses and more ideas in general – to make people, and children especially, feel wanted in life.

Overall, I am so glad that I examined this site.  Bill Zimmerman has developed lots of materials that are GOOD for the SOUL of the teacher, the student, the parent, and the individual, even if you don’t use his comic creator.

I haven’t had time to look at the other sites.  The second one is PIXTON (see link above) and I think I looked at that one a long time ago.  So far, I have not had an opportunity to use it at this time.  (I am not a permanent, full time teacher in a classroom.) Maybe you can use it. 

The 3rd site, I believe is not free, so I did not try it.

So, go to these sites, play around, have some fun, relax, and enjoy yourself. Even if you don’t use it for your class it is a fun place to play when you have a spare moment.

What do you think about this site and Bob Sprankle’s ideas? What age group do you teach and how would you use them?

Technorati Tags: makebeliefscomix,PIXTON,education,fun,comics,HOTCHALK,Bill Zimmerman,Bob Sprankle,Teach Paperless