A New Kind of Awards Ceremony

A tweet held me to this blog post by The Bearded Teacher (aka Timothy Patrick Monreal). I had never visited his bog before but found a strong connection as I read his post …But Awards Feel So Good. I left this comment for him and then decided to write my own post about award ceremonies.

"As I was reading your post an idea come to me. Why not have students create awards for themselves? Let each student reflect on who (s)he has been as a learner during the year and design an award that is suitable. Have each student write a short blurb about why the award is being given, collect all the awards and blurbs, and use them at the awards ceremony."

I had a flashback to high school and our National Honor Society Induction Ceremony. I remember sitting in one of the rows in my high school auditorium and hoping that I would be one of the inductees. The way it worked in our school was a student who was already a member would walk down a row and then stop and put the NHS collar on the newly inducted member. I can remember the feelings I felt on that day as clearly as if they were happening to me right now. And that was some 40 years ago. I was nervous. I had my fingers tightly crossed. I kept a silly smile plastered on my face. Twice a member from our NHS walked down my row and I was thinking, “Yes, I am going to be picked!”

Well, needless to say, I wasn’t picked and I was devastated. I silently shed tears as the rest of the induction ceremony took place. Funny thing is, while I truly believed I was worthy, my grades were not of the standard that would have let me be inducted into the National Honor Society at my school or any other.

Please understand I’m not totally against organizations like the NHS, I am just sharing how deeply I was impacted by an awards ceremony and how vividly I remember how I felt that day, forty years ago. I spent several weeks after that ceremony in a funk. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t study, and I kept telling myself I was not worthy. It was something I truly had wanted, and I had been denied.

Now suppose I had attended a school where every student received an award, but no one else decided on those awards. Each student had to figure out on his/her own what award should be bestowed on him/her.

Had I attended a high school where the awards process was handled like that, I would have had to take a very honest look at myself and think about my own learning. What was it that I truly excelled in? What had I done that would merit an award? I probably would have focused on one project I did in biology lab on fruit fly genetics, or maybe I would have given myself a “Stick to It Award” for completing a knitting project for my art class. But wait – should there be any award presented at all? Shouldn’t my intrinsic satisfaction will a job well done, have been enough? I wish I could say, “Yes, I know I did a good job, and that is the only award I need!” But unfortunately I was raised in a culture where … Awards Feel So Good.

As we approach the end of another school year and the end-of-the-year awards ceremonies, what are your thoughts on awards?

Am I Preparing My Students Properly?

Today is the Saturday after my 4th graders completed LEAP testing week. It is my least favorite week of the year. I came home everyday totally exhausted and frustrated by what I observed happening during this high-stakes, high-stress testing week. I saw some of my students who are nervous, anxious, and sometimes just downright angry. Most did well and proceeded through the week with all the enthusiasm of facing a root canal. But I also saw several of my students who suffered a complete meltdown during testing. It seems inhuman to make 10 year olds go into "testing lockdown" for about four hours each day.

Well, it is now behind us and we have five weeks of school left in this school year. Now the fun begins! I have so many great projects planned from now till the end of school. Don't get me wrong, my students have participated in some great projects throughout this school year, but for the last several weeks we have concentrated on "test prep". I have been questioned by my students several times during these last few weeks as to when we will get back to doing "fun projects".

I am reflecting on how I've done in preparing my students for their future.

I discovered this Prezi from Ashley Azzopardi who is currently studying to be a primary teacher at ACU, in Sydney, Australia

Learning in the 21st Century & Beyond on Prezi

My goal this year was to teach my 21st century learners in a 21st century way. I teach in a school with an 85% free and reduce lunch population made up of about 1/3 white, 1/3 African-American, and 1/3 Hispanic students. Yes, I have a very extensive set of grade level expectations that I must cover in my social studies and math classes. I am responsible to collect a weekly assessment from each of my 75 students as well as a participation grade. My students have outperformed other 4th graders in our district on each of the five interval assessments we took during the year. But that's not how I'm measuring my success.

I'm reflecting on how well I met their needs as learners in the 21st century.

This year my students have blogged, made glogs, used Edmodo as their learning platform, and Skyped with classes across the country and in Canada. They have taught other classes about Marid Gras and backchanneled during a guest speaker presentation with our buddy class in Kansas. They have received over 1,500 comments from around the globe on their blogs thanks to my being introduced to the hashtag #comments4kids on Twitter. They have commented on the blogs of other students around the world. They begin most days chatting with each other on Edmodo. I post their assignments to Edmodo and they turn them in when they are completed. I have gotten to know them better as individuals as they post questions and responses to each other on Edmodo. They love being able to use a social media type website in the classroom. They share a netbook with another student and use websites I've bookmarked on a Symbaloo webmix each day to practice lessons they've been introduced to through the use of our IWB. They've collaborated with other students in online projects and one even won a Glogster challenge hosted by another student in another state.

But is it enough?

Presented Virtually at InnovatED

Thursday evening marked a new milestone for me. I did two presentations via Skype for the InnoveatED conference held in Memphis, Tennessee. InnovatEd was a blended conference with both in person and virtual presenters. I heard about this opportunity from Cindy Brock on Twitter and quickly signed up to present. She accepted both of my proposals and added me to the wiki she and her co-workers put together for the event.

As fate would have it my laptop got a virus Wednesday night and I was scared that I wouldn't have it to do my presentations. I relaxed when I remembered that my presentations were on Google sites, so I could access them from any computer. So I brought my school laptop home with me. I felt so geeky because I had both computers running and was logged onto the uStream channels so I could watch the other presenters.

At actually 5:40 my Skype started ringing (I love that sound) and I went live to a room full of educators in Memphis and to anyone who happened to be on the uStream channel. During my first presentation I used the screen sharing feature on Skype to show my slideshow on lessons I've learned and best practices I've developed while using Web 2.0 tools with my 4th graders. Twenty minutes later I was done with the first one. Wow, that 20 minutes went fast, but I managed to get through the presentation right on time.

I presented again in the same room at 6:00 so I just stayed online. Education with Edmodo was what I presented next. I love using Edmodo with my students and I know I was bubbling over with excitement. I had set up an Edmoodo group for the educators attending InnovatED and invited them to set up a free account and join the group. Seven of them did immediately. I finished just in the nick of time again. Phew, how time flies when you are having fun.

Above is a photo Philip Cummings sent me via Twitter to show me what the room I was presenting to looked liked.

I even got to fill in for a virtual presenter who didn't answer her Skype call. When I saw that they were missing someone, I tweeted and IMed on Skype that I would gladly fill in if they wanted me to. Richard Cumminghan acknowledged my offer and I quickly pulled up Symbaloo and shared how I am using it both personally and with my students. I felt like such a seasoned presenter to be able to do a presentation on the spur on the moment like that.

I was excited to have had a great experience using Skype to present. I really handled the tech part of it with ease. Of course I was following the hashtag on Twitter and got some great feedback. Thanks to everyone who worked on putting this conference together. I appreciate being able to participant both as a presenter and an attendee.

Coming July 9th - edcampLouisiana

On Saturday July 9th on the campus of UNO the first Louisiana unconference will take place. As one of the organizers, I proudly present edcampLouisiana. What, no thunderous applause? Oh, you don’t know what an unconference is and you’ve never heard of an edcamp. Well, not so no ago I stood right where you are standing now – with the same confused look on my face too.

Unconferences like edcamp and TeachMeet have been springing up all over the country. I had originally thought I would host a TeachMeet in New Orleans, but when Valerie Burton, another STAR in my district approached me and asked about organizing an edcamp I decided to join her efforts. The rest of our team includes: Brian Mull, Director of Innovation with November Learning; Tiffany Whitehead, Teacher Librarian in Baton Rouge; and Carl Gaines, a high school teacher from Violet.

I will be updating this blog as edcamp draws nearer, but today I just wanted to get your gears turning. I am starting out with a little history quiz. Do you know where the first edcamp was held? Do you know who the co-founders were? Better yet, do you follow any of them of Twitter? Oops, that’s not a history question. Well just head on over here to get the answers. (I cheated and had Dan Callahan, one of the co-founders, email me the answers. It pays to be connected on Twitter.)

Oh, and don’t forget we have a date. Mark your calendars for July 9th. It will be an experience like no other.

(I cross-posted this on the Louisiana DEN blog.)

A "Tweet" Surprise

I love being able to participate in #elemchat on Saturday afternoons. This chat takes place on Saturdays from 4-5 CST.

Today we were discussing assessment and how we use it to guide our teaching. As I was participating in #elemchat on Twitter today this tweet popped into my Mention column on TweetDeck-

@metrychick, aka Celeste Haar, is a parent of a former student of mine. Several years ago Celeste and her daughters decided that homeschooling was the way for them to go. Celeste, I want you to know that it still saddens me that you are no longer a part of public education. It was so sweet of you to take the time to send out this validation of my teaching. Thank you, Celeste.

2nd Twitter Anniversary

I meant to post this on my second anniversary but I missed it by three days. I joined Twitter on February 25, 2009. I reflected on my one year anniversary here and wanted to update what I've been doing with regards to Twitter this year.

I am following 926 people, I have 2,576 followers, I have tweeted 6,440, and I am included on 180 lists. I use TweetDeck on my computer and iPhone to keep up with my Twitter stream, mentions, direct messages, as well as certain hashtags. I currently have 12 columns tracking things like #comments4kids, #elemchat, #jppss(the district where I work), and #ISTE11 to name a few. I change columns to follow what is going on at conferences such as EduCon, ICE, Reform Synposium, K12Online Conference from time to time.

During the past year I got to spend time with some of my PLN (personal learning network) members at Estes Park, Colorado before we all headed over to Denver for ISTE10. I was able to get a ticket to attend TEDxDenver ED thanks to seeing tweets about it. While at that event I won a PolyVision Eno interactive whiteboard. I presented online for the K12 Online Conference because of Twitter and was invited to present on Classroom 2.0 Live which I attend most Saturdays and tweet about each week. I was invited by @bethstill to be part of a panel that will present at ISTE11 this year in Philadelphia. Thanks, Beth.

My students and I have connected with over a dozen classrooms so far this school year via Skype. Lots of those connections were started on Twitter. Read about some of those connections here and here.

If you are a new educator to Twitter you might want to check out this LiveBinder by Steven W. Anderson (@web20classroom). It contains lots of helpful information. By the way Happy Twitterversary to my friend, Steve. He and I share the same start date.

Kick Start - Activity 3 (Add Some Muscle)

Well today while enjoying the day off in observance of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday holiday, I learned a new trick. I learned how to add pages to my Blogger account so that I could add an About Me page in response to Edublogs' Teacher Challenge. I also updated My Complete Profile which is a built in part of the Blogger platform.

I am excited to now have a separate About Me page on my blog. I feel like a big kid now. Now that I have been successful in Spring cleaning my blog's About Me section let me know what your feelings are about my upgrade. Did I include too much information? Would you add to or delete anything?