Wikipedia in School - It Has Its Place

I know I already posted this week, but my brain is too tired to let me do any of the stuff on my to do list, and I need to distract myself from the fact that I really need to use the restroom but can't leave my room for the next ten minutes because there are study hall students in here.

Last week I wrote something on the board that I could not have imagine writing sixteen years ago because it didn't exist.  I would not have dreamed of writing it ten years ago because I hated it.  Here's a picture of what I wrote as bellwork for my physics class.

That's right.  I instructed my students to go to wikipedia!  You know what else?  It's not the first time.  Here's another thing.  It won't be the last.  I need some kind of support group.  Hi, my name is Beth, and I use wikipedia in my classes. 

If you were in my class ten years ago, you will probably be surprised to hear that I would not only allow students to go to wikipedia, much less instruct them to do so.  Back then, I could not have been more passionately against the use of wikipedia in my classroom.  When I assigned a project, the instructions specifically forbid the use of wikipedia.  When a goofy student was editting wikipedia in the computer lab, I asked other students if they really wanted Josh as their source.  Now, I am telling students to go read about mirrors there or posting links to it in my own digital book.

What has changed?  Wikipedia has changed.

In the beginning, the way wikipedia worked was extremely flawed.  Anyone could post anything, and it was a long time before it got reviewed.  Students would tell me back then that they took down wrong things, and I would point them back to Josh.  He had posted something about UFO's on a page about Abraham Lincoln, and it stayed for weeks before it was removed.  If something so obviously bogus was staying there, how long would it take them to catch more subtle errors? 

As wikipedia grew quickly, they set some policies that would allow them to maintain quality control.  They have a page on how to report edits and some extensive rules about what constitutes credible objections.  There is even a wikipedia page on the reliability of wikipedia.

One of the things that also turned me around was a Ted Talk by Jimmy Wales.  He discusses the community of people that do most of their contributions.  "These are people who write in encyclopedia in their free time for fun.  You think they don't care about accuracy?"  I found that a compelling argument.  It doesn't mean there aren't still people vandalizing the site intentionally, but that dropped pretty significantly when the novelty wore off.

Wikipedia isn't appropriate for everything.  It shouldn't be a source for formal research (you may remember that printed encyclopedias weren't for that either if you can remember back to those).  I wouldn't quote it in a valedictory address or an argument in court (although people have).  If you want to learn about the history of the dual nature of light, however, they have a great article that will give you an overall summary going all the way back to Democritus and Aristotle.  If you want to see ray diagrams for concave mirrors, there is nowhere better to find all you need to know in one place.  If you want to find a source that you can use in your research paper, scroll to the bottom of a wikipedia page for the list of works cited in that article; it's a great place to start looking for sources. 

If you teach kids to think critically, you need not fear wikipedia.  If you teach kids to confirm information in more than one place, you need not fear wikipedia.  If you teach kids to use wikipedia appropriately, you need not fear wikipedia.  Let's face it; it's not going anywhere.  Let's teach them to use it well.

When Things Don't Work

I have been sitting in on another teacher's classes for the past week.  She is doing a pretty new thing in our school, and I wanted to see how it went.  Since we are a school that encourages innovative ideas in teaching, it is fun to go see when a teacher has done something new.  She took on the idea of 20% time projects, inspired by Google.  You may or may not know this, but Google gives its employees the freedom to use 20% of their work time on personal projects.  To see how this has gone at Google, click here.  http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/googles-20-percent-time-in-action.html

This innovative Google idea has spurred on a lot of talk in education.  What if we gave students one day a week to work on their own passion projects?  What would we have to give up teaching, and what parts of our curriculum would be covered by a project like this?  Since the kids end up writing a lot in this project and present them to an audience, one of our English teachers decided it was right for her 10th grade class.  For the first three quarters of the year, they have spent their class time on Fridays working on a project of their own making.  They are now in presentation time, and teachers and parents have been invited to see the presentations.  I've gone to as many as I can and have live tweeted them as they go.  One of the most important things that the students are required to address in their presentation is what they have learned about themselves and what their greatest challenges were.

Most students have said something along the lines of,  "I failed to accomplish my goal because . . . "  Fill in the blank with "poor time management, procrastinating, being used to being told what to do, not having a specific enough goal, etc."  Those who have failed to accomplish have been encouraged to own it and explain what went wrong for the benefit of the listeners. 

As I listen to these presentations, one thing has stood out to me.  I have spent a lot of time in my career batting clean up.  Every teacher (except for those who never try anything new) spends time analyzing what went wrong and how to do it better next time.  What we have not traditionally done is allow the students to see that process.  Much like the post where I encouraged you to let them see you sweat, I think it is just as important to let them see you fix things.  When a project fails, own it - in front of your students.  Send an e-mail explaining what part of the mess was on you and thank them for allowing you to try new things with them (after all, it isn't like you can try them with an experimental group before presenting it to your class).  This will encourage them to self analyze as well.

I am currently in the middle of a challenge based learning project that appears to be failing.  I don't know if it will fail in the end, but the beginning is rough.  I called the beginning a false start, posed the question again with more clarity, and we started over.  We aren't where I want to be, but we are definitely better than we started.  Don't be afraid reflect and repeat.

This is, by the way, the reason we beat the Soviets to the moon.  All of our mistakes were addressed in front of the world, open to public scrutiny, and able to be solved.  The Soviets never announced anything until AFTER it had been successful.  No one knew of their failures until decades later.  Even within their space program, mistakes were not allowed to be spoken of.  How can improvements be made if there is no acknowledgement of failure?  They cannot.

One of the things that is squeezed out of education when we run short on time is reflection.  Our class time is precious, so we fill it with all the activity and teaching we can.  However, as John Dewey said, "Learning does not come from experience.  It comes from reflecting on experience."  Thanks to technology, students can reflect outside the classroom.  You can have them reflect on a project using a Google form.  You can ask them a reflective question and have them e-mail you the answer.  If you want them to reflect together, you can have them use a discussion board or wiki.  There are many ways to give time for reflection without using your class time.  Don't be afraid to assign it for homework because it is critical to learning.

Name Changing

I have always said that if I was ever going to write a book about education, it would be called "On the Rabbit Trail."  I believe and have always believed that is where the real learning happens no matter what our curriculum is.  I was doing a professional development thing a few days ago when the question was asked, "How do you feel about rabbit trails in your classroom?" While thinking about that, I decided that my blog title didn't reflect my philosophy of education the way I wanted it to.

Like a middle school girl, I've decided to change the name of this blog to better represent what it is  becoming.  When I first started, I thought I might post about non-school things as well; but this has really become more about my teaching experiences than anything else.  I also don't feel like my ramblings are as random as I thought they might be when I started blogging.

The address will remain the same because I thought changing it might delete my previous posts, but the title is now "On the Rabbit Trail."  I hope my thoughts will help you catch some rabbits in your own classes.

Surprised by Kids

After 16 years of teaching, one would think a teacher wouldn't be surprised by much that kids do.  After all, by now, I should have seen everything a kid might think of to do.  One would be wrong.  I am constantly surprised by what kids think of. 

This is sometimes, as you might expect, a bad thing.  New and creative ways to cheat and plagiarize happen pretty frequently.  That is not, however, what this post is about.  Sometimes, the surprise is something silly.  For example, a few days ago, one of my students was turned around during a demonstration that required students to do the wave.  I said, "turn around" without saying her name, and everyone turned around.  That was a surprise that made me laugh for a full minute.  That is also not what this post is about.

This post about the surprising generosity of students displayed by a few high school girls.  Every February, our school has a Hoops for Hope event to raise money for the Kay Yow Cancer Research Fund.  It is an amazing event with silent auctions, guest speakers, a ceremony to honor cancer survivors, and (oh yeah) basketball games.  We pink out the gym, and several thousand dollars a year are raised for cancer research.  Occasionally, we have a girl who donates her hair for kids who need wigs, but it has always been an elementary an elementary school student and is usually not more than two kids. 

I will never be a person who can write a thousand dollar check for something.  I give what money I can where I can; but as a teacher, that is never going to be a life changing amount.  For this reason, I look to I Peter 4:10 - "As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace."  Before the context police (of which I am a proud member) come after me, I am well aware that this passage is about spiritual gifts.  I do not think, however, that it is out of line with scripture to use it as inspiration for using any gift you have to help others.  One of the gifts I have is O negative blood.  Having the universal donor blood type, I believe that is a gift that can be used to serve others, so I donate as often as the Red Cross allows. 

One of the other things I have his healthy, thick hair.  For that reason, I grow it out and cut off ten to twelve inches every three years or so.  This summer, I was approaching the right length.  A couple of months before it gets to the right length, it starts driving me crazy.  It is heavy and in the way.  A pony tail all day every day starts to hurt.  I had decided it would be the right length in October, and I couldn't wait for October to arrive.  Then our special needs coordinator said, "You should do it at Hoops for Hope."  Hoops for Hope takes place in February.  I gave her my You-Don't-Know-What-You-Are-Saying look and said, "I don't know about that.  Do you know how long that is?  I'd cut it today if I could." 

Over that weekend, I decided that I would issue a challenge.  The ice bucket thing was finally over, so we needed a new challenge, right?  I e-mailed every middle and high school girl in our school that has really long hair.  I told them that I would wait until February if some of them would do it with me.  Otherwise, I was going to go ahead and do it in October as planned.  I honestly thought I would get no response.  We have a lot of nice kids, but there is a special relationship between high school girls and their hair.  Also, super long and super straight hair is style right now.  I thought I would send this e-mail and then get to cut my hair in October. 

Here's the surprise part.  Less than an hour after hitting send, I got an enthusiastic reply from Grace -   "I'd love to do it. I'm in."  A few hours after that, I got an e-mail from Molly - "I'm super nervous, but sure."  Mary Mac was next.  Then came Kim and Mia, both nervous, but totally on board.  I also had two maybes.  By the time it was done, I had six high school girls.  Adding that to my own donation, we would have about 5 feet of hair to send to an organization called Children With Hair Loss. 

In the months that followed, their excitement grew.  We had to extend Kim because she was playing Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.  Mia had to drop out, but our receptionist jumped in for her on the spot.  We did it together, and it was actually a lot of fun.  We prayed over the cut pony tails together and prayed for the little girls who would get them.  (By the way, it was the girls who suggested the prayer time.)  Kim brought me eleven inches of her hair just two days after the play was over.  On Friday, I packaged it up and sent off almost a pound of hair, amounting to 5ft and 4in to be made into wigs for little kids who have lost their hair for medical reasons.  This doesn't seem like much for those of us who can easily grow our hair back, but for a little kid who must attend school with no hair, this is a blessing.

Thank you lovely ladies for surprising me with your sacrifice.  You've blessed a little girl, used your gifts in service to others, and shown your love for Jesus and for others.


Kim's hair during the play.  It now comes just below her shoulders as she cut off eleven inches!

Teaching Yearbook

I never set out to teach yearbook, but it is now how most students know me.

When I was a kid I wanted to be an astronaut.  However, 3 inches over the NASA height limit, vision issues, and a complete lack of equilibrium took that off of the list of career options when I was 12.  To be honest, I would still jump on board any time someone would let me. When I took physics my senior year in high school, I discovered that I really wanted to be a physics teacher.  Five years into my career as a science teacher, my hobby of photography became one of the biggest parts of my work life.

For years, our school passed around the role of yearbook adviser from person to person.  This. is. crazy.  The learning curve in your first year of advising is steep.  To have a different person every year experiencing their first year means you never have a yearbook that reflects the lesson learned in the first year.  This was reflected in the quality of the yearbooks as well.  People did the best they could, but not having the benefit of experience definitely showed up in the product.

During the summer, I got a call from our principal, Kathie Thompson.  It began with "Keep an open mind when I tell you this."  This is hardly an encouraging start to a conversation.  She told me that they wanted me to teach yearbook that year.  I asked if it mattered that I didn't know what I was doing, and she said that no one else did either.  Since I believe you can't judge anything on its first year, I agreed to give it two years.  I thought I could re-evaluate at that point whether or not it would be a good idea to continue.

I learned more about the computer that year than I have learned in ANY other year of my life.  Second place would be the year we began our one to one laptop program.  I learned about folders and subfolders and network drives.  I learned about pop up blockers and editing tools and software.  I learned about managing a long term project in a way I had never learned before.  I was still shooting with a film camera back then (and a dinky little 2.0 Megapixel that wasn't good for much), so I would take the film to Eckard Drug and have them make a disc.  At that time, Jostens' online program was in its Beta phase, so we could only upload one photo at a time.  I also had a large number of students who didn't really want to take yearbook; they had turned in their elective forms late and were given their third or fourth choice.  You have no idea how much I cherished the few diligent workers I had that year.  I'm not sure I would have been able to continue if it hadn't been for the Clark girls, Amy Prall, and two of the three Edwards boys.

Here I sit, ten years later, a week after submitting my 10th yearbook.  Things have certainly changed.  1. First, a plug for Jostens.  I'm sure other yearbook companies are fine and dandy, but I wouldn't leave Jostens for all the tea in China.  Every year, they ask what your dream function would be for their system, and they implement most of them, often within the next year.  They are ALL about customer service.  I have gotten calls from the plant where the book is printed because they found an error and want to know how we would like to go about fixing it.  I have great relationships with both our local rep and the plant rep.  If you ever need to make a yearbook, use Jostens!

2.  I now use a digital Nikkon 3500 DSLR.  I have a 18-55mm lens, a 50-200mm lens, and a 70-330mm lens (great for soccer and baseball).  I take about 25000 pictures per year, which would have been very expensive with film.

3.  I have students (mostly) who signed up for yearbook because they want to be part of the excellence of the program.  They like the feeling of producing something.  I can usually tell who is going to be editor their senior year during their freshman year.

4.  The school has grown, grown, grown.  My first yearbook was 88 pages.  We had about 15 athletic teams.  Our middle and high school grades had only one section, and elementary grades had two.  We had fine arts programs, but we covered each of them in about half a page.  We did our best to spread out the coverage, but we had no way of knowing exactly how many times someone was in the book without physically counting them, which we did not do.  The book we just finished had 145 pages, including 24 athletic teams,  three sections of EVERY grade, and double page spreads for EACH fine art.  Due to an upgrade in Jostens system (Have I mentioned how much I love Jostens?), we are able to tag every photo and then run their coverage report.  We KNOW that every student is pictured at least three times in the yearbook.

Lots of other things have changed too, but these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.  Yearbook has become such a central part of my life that I'm not sure what I would do without it.  What I like most is that it has kept me connected to the entire school.  I am in and out of all  classrooms across all grade levels, so I know what great things are happening in our classes.  I am at least two games/matches of every sport, so I know what is happening in our athletics.  I am at almost every theater, band, and chorus performance, so I can tell you the amazing work they are doing.  Yes, it is more work than I ever knew was possible, but it has embroidered GRACE on my heart as thoroughly as the logo is embroider on my shirts.

Thanks so much to Kathie Thompson for changing my life.  I love it and hope for ten more.

What We Learned From "The Dress" - A Yearbook Teacher's Point of View

"The Dress" has had its fifteen minutes of fame (extended a bit by the snow day effect) and is about to go away.  Before it does, I would like to take a minute to reflect on what it can teach us about pictures.

There are ubiquitous phrases in the world that are wrong despite their massive use.  "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" might make you feel better when you are going through a hard time, but it just isn't true.  One of the most meaningless phrases is "Pictures Don't Lie."  I can tell you a a person who takes 20 thousand pictures a year that pictures lie all the time.  I'm not even talking about photoshopped, airbrushed, intentionally manipulate pictures; I'm talking about the pictures you snap and post to instragram without touching them.

The picture of the cute bird sitting in a tree in your yard makes it seem like you live in a Disney movie (or at least in a country chalet somewhere).  You don't.  What is out of frame in that shot?  Is it the trash can or the car?  I have students who will tell me that I shouldn't come and take pictures at a certain game because they are going to lose that one.  Are the shots I take of the batter at the plate really going to look different if they are winning?  Not unless I include the scoreboard in the shot, which is hard to do with it being on the other side of the field.  When I take yearbook pictures, I don't include the onfield injury, the student who is crying, or the mom who just had to dress up like a princess too because she made the kindergarten event about her.  Therefore, what you choose to include or exclude from a picture can make the picture lie.  Despite this, I still here "Pictures don't lie" about twenty times a year.

Enter "The Dress."  Everyone who viewed this picture was looking at the same thing.  They were perceiving it differently, but they were all looking at the same thing.  If you want to know the science of why different people saw different colors, click this link (http://www.livescience.com/49980-dress-color-explainer.html).  My point is this.  If people looking at the same photo can't agree on what they are seeing, how can we expect to believe all pictures?  The next time there is a tabloid photo, a picture on the evening news, or a photo that went viral, remember The Dress.  Ask yourself if you are absolutely sure that picture is telling you the entire story before you snap to an instant opinion.