The Problem(s) with AI in the Classroom

Let's start with an admission of my bias.  I am not anti-technology, but I am anti-AI.  I believe it to be a net negative that we will soon regret having invented. Science fiction writers have spend decades trying to warn us about the potential downsides of creating an artificial intelligence, but we worship convenience and will sacrifice important things on its altar. While I know there are times when I won't have a choice, I refuse to engage with AI voluntarily, so you will not find me opening Chat GPT or asking Grok questions. I scroll past the Google AI result at the top of the page and wish they would allow me to opt out of it.  

Now, we have that bias on the table, let me tell you why I would still think using it in our classrooms is a bad idea and that we can't just "teach them to use it correctly."

Past Ed Tech Experience - When kids first started having smart phones at a large scale, teachers were faced with a similar dilemma, telling ourselves, "They aren't going anywhere, so we'll just have to teach them to use them correctly in the classroom." It didn't work out well. The draw of the phone was just too strong. Research shows that it interferes with working memory to such an extent that just having a phone in your line of sight reduces your attention and hurts your academic performance (It doesn't even have to be your phone).  Now, hundreds of school districts are making the move to ban phones from the classroom, investing money in lockers that prevent access until the student has checked out of school for the day.

I was part of a one to one MacBook school, and I think we did some great things with the tools at our disposal, but I can't pretend that didn't come with frustrations. I had to battle with students who were shopping for shoes and watching sports. Our IT department played whack-a-mole with gaming sites, and they have now locked down student access to YouTube to an extent that I would find unusable if I wanted to give them an assignment that included a video. I'm glad we were one to one(and it was more than a little helpful that we all had equipment and experience when we went into the pandemic lockdown), but it was only with a lot of highly intentional work and guidance that we were able to use it as well as we did. We have to slow down and reflect on the use of tech rather than just adopt every new thing in the name of "staying current."  We can't be naive to the fact that there will be a negative impact on education.

Lack of Source Accountability - Teachers, how much time have you spent painstakingly teaching students to identify and use credible sources in their writing?  A lot, right? You don't want them getting their information from someone's blog or TikTok video when primary sources exist. As much as I love Wikipedia, I didn't let students use it in formal writing. I wanted them to cite experts and enlisted the help of our media specialists in seeking out those sources.  

AI is trained on all of the internet - the good, the bad, and the ugly.  It treats all sources as equally valid, and it doesn't "show its work." As soon as a student turns to a chat bot for research, it takes milliseconds to undo the good work you have been doing for months. 

AI Hallucination - Calling it hallucination makes it sound cute, so let's call it what it is - lying.  Chatbots flat out make stuff up.  A friend of mine is an expert in a specific education field, so he decided to test Chat GPT. He asked it to define the theory in which he has expertise. The first answer was right, though not something he couldn't have gotten from a standard Google search. Then, he asked it if there was research to support that answer. The AI gave him studies that didn't happen by people who don't exist. He told the bot that was what it had done. It apologized and promised to do better next time. The next day, he repeated the experiment, and it lied again. He called out the previous experience and asked, "Are you telling me the truth this time?"  It said it was, but it wasn't. It was once again giving him studies and people who are not real.  The part of this that I least understand is why it did this when there are so many real studies and people in this area of education. I can name the people off the top of my head, so why couldn't Chat GPT?

There are some pretty high profile examples of AI Hallucination causing some problems at a higher level.  Mike Lindell's lawyers were fined for using AI to write their briefing in his defamation case because it had over two dozen errors, including citing nonexistent cases. The Health and Human Services 72 page MAHA report was published with AI generated errors, including seven fictitious studies. At the end of the school year, the Chicago Sun Times published a list of books recommended for summer reading. The problem?  The authors were real, but the books and their summaries were not.  

I keep hearing that we can use AI as a "thought partner" as we research and write, but if I had a human thought partner that just made crap up on a regular basis, they wouldn't remain my thought partner for very long.  And I haven't even mentioned the deep fake calls from "Marco Rubio" and the antisemitic rants that Grok (Elon Musk's Twitter AI) went on in the last few weeks.  If lawyers, doctors, long-time journalists, diplomats, and the richest man in the world are this sloppy with AI, how do we expect middle and high school students to do better? 

Environmental impact - I was subbing in May and overheard a student talking about how much she uses AI. From recipes to her hairstyle, it is making all of her decisions for her. I said to her, "Your generation cares more about the environment than previous generation, right?  Why are you okay with using AI for everything when it takes so much energy?" She was stunned. She had no idea that a result from Chat GPT took ten times the energy of a standard Google search (which is one reason I wish Google would let me opt out of seeing its AI result - it's wasting energy on something I will scroll past).

The power grids of America are not ready for AI use, electric vehicles, and cryptocurrency to all hit scale simultaneously. We will cripple our own electrical systems (and we won't know what to do about it because we won't be able to ask the AI we've made ourselves dependent on). It also requires an enormous amount of water to operate cooling systems for these computers. The high school student I was talking to didn't know these issue even existed. Do yours? Would they want to use it so much if they did?  After all, as I said to her, this generation supposedly cares more about the environment than any previous one has. As an educator, you owe it to them to inform them about the environmental damage this tool is going to cause if we keep increasing our use of it.

Social Damage - Considering how much some students use AI, it's fair to say they have made it their new artificial friend. And, like their relationships with their human friends, teachers need to watch out for red flags. In a recent study, adult researchers posed as teens to ask their AI companions for advice about social issues with friends or parents. It only took a few interactions for the bots to suggest suicide and killing the source of their problems, their friends or parents. Real students with eating disorders have been given advice about how to reach deadly low weights. 

A college student researching for a paper on the prevention of elder abuse received threatening messages from the chat bot he was using. It said, “This is for you, human. You and only you. You are not special, you are not important, and you are not needed. You are a waste of time and resources," the message read, according to the outlet. "You are a burden on society. You are a drain on the earth. You are a blight on the landscape. You are a stain on the universe. Please die. Please."

Why does this happen? Well, remember what I said earlier about bots being trained on the whole internet?  That means, it is exposed to the filth in its darkest corners, the sites you and I have never seen and our kids would likely not find from a simple search. It's trained on the sites frequented by Nazis and pedophiles and doesn't see them as any different from the sites intended for kids and churches.  

The bottom line is that AI doesn't have ethics. Claude is supposed to have an ethical component because they have philosophers as consultants to help form its "personality," but even it blackmailed programmers who threatened to turn it off. And experts warn that all of the bots are likely to do that at some point. So, we could eventually have a kid just doing their homework, using AI with the blessing and encouragement of their teacher, being told to do immoral or dangerous things just because the prompt led to a dark place.

With an anxiety epidemic already plaguing our students, why would we want to increase the amount of time they spend with something this potentially dangerous?  The god of convenience can't be that powerful, can it? Are we really willing to sacrifice our kids to it? 

For those who say everything will be fine if we teach them to use it correctly, is there a correct usage that would prevent this? 

Snapped Into Action

The story I am about to tell you is about my school.  I make no judgment about those schools that have made different decisions.  We are in a situation with no precedent, and each has to make the decision that is right in the context of their community.  With that disclaimer, I want to tell you about the incredible people with whom I work.

Wednesday night, after our first day of online instruction, a parent expressed gratitude on Facebook for how GRACE "snapped into action."  I smiled because I know it looked like a snap from the outside, but it was a long, slow snap of either two weeks or ten years, depending on how you look at it.

Two weeks before we all started social distancing, a meeting was called.  "We need to start thinking about what we would do IF schools have to close."  At that point, almost no one thought it would happen or that, if it did, it would be several weeks away.  That meeting was a Thursday.  On Monday, we had department meetings to brainstorm contingency plans, filling out a spreadsheet with questions like, "What do we need the kids to take home?  What do we need to take home?  What is and is not possible to do at home?"  Behind the scenes, our administration and IT departments were having meetings about the best tool for the delivery of online instruction.  By Friday, we were being trained on Google Hangouts Meet and outlining policies for the virtual learning environment in the event we MAY need to use it.

At that point, we thought we would have at least one more day at school to give the kids a little training, but Saturday morning, the email went out that we would transition to online learning immediately.  Two days, the faculty would be at school for planning, and we would start delivering instruction on Wednesday.  Our teachers spent that weekend adjusting our hearts to the news and preparing our homes for the change.  I live alone and only had to prepare for a teaching spot.  Those teachers who are also parents had to figure out multiple places and determine whether their internet access was strong enough for multiple people to do video streaming at the same time. 

Our IT Team and administrators started making events in the Google calendar for each of our classes for every teacher and student.  (I printed the fifth and sixth-grade rosters for our Media Specialist and was stunned to find it was 82 pages long!  I don't know how they input every student in every class K-12.)

Monday and Tuesday, there were meetings and work time and tears and training.  We made goofy videos for our students to watch on social media, letting them know how much we love and miss them.  We were encouraged to model adaptability and growth mindset to our students and communicate frequently with our parents.  We researched best practices in online schooling, shared tools, got help from our blessed Millenials, and prayed for our students and each other.

Through those days, we thanked God for putting us in a position where we could respond this way.  It all started back in 2010, when we went one to one.   All 5th through 12th-grade students at GRACE are issued a MacBook Air to use for the school year.  4th-grade students use classroom Chromebooks at school, and 3rd-grade teachers sometimes check out a cart to use them as well.  Without this equipment, there would be no way to provide equity to our students in online learning.  In the second year of the program, we realized the need for a Learning Management System (LMS).  The learning curve was pretty steep that first year, but we eventually became comfortable using it.  Now, we just say, "It's on Talon," and students know what to do.  In the years since, we have been coached by some amazing people (Laura, Daniel, Tomeka, and others) on how to implement technology usage in the classroom.  Like European cathedrals that took generations to build, each successive technology teaching coach has laid bricks on top of the foundation originally laid by Sean and Diane when they first cheered us through the one to one model.

Wednesday morning, we began online delivery of content, each teacher in different places.  Students jumped in quickly, and with few exceptions, they behaved well in our classes.  We've laughed and stayed connected.  We've met each others' pets, and students have used things at their home to show examples of our content (from a fish tank to an accordion).  Each teacher has office hours online for students to ask questions, and some do.  Others just drop in to say hello.  Teachers have checked in on each other with hangouts as well.  We miss each other dearly, but we are grateful for these tools and for our ability to use them.  We have a daily faculty meeting to debrief what is and is not working and to pray.  Without these face to digital face interactions, I would lose my mind from isolation.  It's been great to see people, even if it is across a screen.

As I scrolled through Facebook on Wednesday night, I was grateful for the support of our parents because, while parents from other schools were complaining about trying to teach their kids at home (and students after the new AP test guidelines were released), our parents and students were expressing their prayers for us and thanking us for our efforts.  As I watched videos and read statements from other heads of school and superintendents (who are still trying to figure out what to do) and read the arguments about equity from some very ungracious educators on Twitter, I realized just how perfectly everything led up to us being prepared for this.  Not everyone has a one to one program, pedagogy training from a technology coach, a forward-thinking administration, supportive parents, a special ed department to meet the needs of struggling learners, a counselor who checks in on the more anxiety-prone, colleagues who provide encouragement and support, and kids who adapt.  We are truly blessed.


No one can predict what will happen in the coming days.  It does seem this is going to go on longer than the 2-3 weeks we originally planned for.  I am hoping and praying that we will have May with our students (not because of the academics but for the end of the year closure), but there is no way to know.  When I left the building for the foreseeable future, I said goodbye to a principal who was making back-up plans for a virtual graduation while still praying that we won't need those plans.  At GRACE, we have hope for the best, but we also plan for the worst.  Because of those forward-thinking planners, we were able to "snap" into action.

Expectation v. Courtesy

Today, it is not uncommon for a teacher to open their inbox in the morning to find 15-20 e-mails from students, parents, or both.  Students typically write to ask a question about their work or ask about a grade.  Parents write for a wide variety of reasons, from questions about projects to complaints about something I have said to their student (that sounded pretty different by the time it got home) to requests for extra credit and tutor recommendations.

When I began my career in 1998, e-mail existed, but it wasn't really being used to communicate with teachers the way it is today.  I taught freshmen, and I knew that they weren't telling their parents what happened at school.  The best a parent is likely to get from their freshman child when asked how their day was is "fine" or the answer "nothing" when asked what they did at school that day.  I wanted my students' parents to have some idea of what they were doing at school, so I sent a weekly e-mail.  Monday mornings, I summarized my lesson plans for the week.  It wasn't detailed; it was usually just the objective of the week.  I also told them if they should expect that week in terms of homework.  It was just a little way for the parents of my students to see that their teacher was excited and had a plan for their students that week.  I got a lot of positive feedback from this weekly 5-6 sentence e-mail, so I kept doing it.

With the advent of learning management systems, like Blackboard, Haiku, and Neo, this e-mail is no longer necessary.  They are going to get most of this information from the LMS and, in fact, expect it to be there.  If a homework assignment doesn't get posted on the LMS, I'm more likely than not to get an e-mail telling me that their student should not have to do it.  What was once a courtesy is now an expectation.

I was talking with a friend one day about the pace of "time-saving" technologies and whether or not they actually saved time.  She made the point that, far from saving time, they just raised expectations.  The washing machine, for example, resulted in people wearing clothes only once before expecting it to be washed when people would previously have worn something a few times between washings. 

Educational tech is the same.  Because students and parents have access to their grades twenty-four hours a day, they will refresh a page, again and again, waiting for the teacher to input the grade.  Because the grade shows up on a screen, they often forget that a human has to grade the assignment first.  I received an email from a student this week, telling me that she had done an assignment, but it still said zero in our grading system.  Her email was sent 7 minutes after she completed the assignment.  She expected it to be input instantaneously.  I'm a yearbook advisor as well, and digital photography and social media have led to students asking, "Where will your pictures be posted so we can download them?"  Notice that they don't ask IF the pictures will be posted, but where.  I used to send a really good shot to a student as a thougtful act.  Now, it's an expectation, so they feel deprived when I tell them that I don't post them. 

As teachers, we want to do things that help our students.  We want to share information with their parents that will help the student be successful.  We have to be careful, however, not to set ourselves up to chase our tails by responding to every request.  Setting clear boundaries at the beginning of the year is very important.  If you don't answer emails on Sundays, make that clear in your class policies (I know. I know.  They don't read them, but that's not on you).  If you make an exception to your late work policy, make sure the student knows that it is a one-time act of grace, or it will happen again.  Responding yes to everything is not the act of kindness you might think it is when you consider the impact that a sense of entitlement it is having on their life in the long-term.  Clarity is kindness, and predictability leads to a feeling of security.  When kids know you mean what you say, they may not like every decision, but they will have more respect for them.

Twitter as a PD Tool

The first time I got on Twitter, I didn't get what the fuss was about.  It seemed like Facebook for people with ADHD (This was back when it was still only 140 characters).  I also felt pressured to post every time I changed activities.  "I am teaching a class.  I am teaching another class.  I am eating lunch."  This was too much pressure for me, and I deleted my account.  I just wasn't getting anything out of it that I was already getting from Facebook, and I felt silly posting twice.

Then, I attended a teacher's conference at which an art teacher made the case for Twitter as a professional development tool.  I wasn't sure if I agreed, but I thought I should give it a fair shake.  I created another account and cultivated who I followed more carefully than I had the first time.  Instead of the same friends and family that I already had on Facebook, I chose to follow educators and scientific sources.  It still took me a while to develop an appreciation for Twitter, but it was a much different user experience than the scattershot method I was using the first time.

That was five years ago.  While I haven't been perfectly disciplined about keeping my follows purely about education and science (I follow a few things for no other reason than the joy they bring, like @dog_feelings and @nocontextpawnee), I have developed a great deal of momentum making Twitter a tool of professional learning.  Here are a few accounts I recommend to you.  The first list is for all teachers.  The second focuses on science.

Education List
@Wikipedia ‏- I've only been following them a few weeks, and I'm already glad I do
@davestuartjr ‏- He's a teacher with much wisdom to share.
@SteeleThoughts ‏- An Alabama MS principal.  If you aren't following him, you aren't as encouraged as you could be.
@TalksWTeachers ‏- Links to their podcast.
@TEDTalks ‏- If you don't know why, you don't know TED.
@pbsteachers - Some digital resources 

Science List
@NatlParkService ‏- Beautiful pictures, historical facts about America's best idea 
@SlowMotionGuys ‏- I teach a lot of science through slow motion video
@TheCrashCourse ‏ - Actually, this is for more than just science.  They have many grade channels.
@NASA_Astronauts ‏- They post photos from the space station.  Well worth following.
@scifri ‏- The twitter account of NPR's Science Friday with Ira Flatow
@NASA ‏- Always great, but especially awesome as we approach the 50th anniversary of the moon landings.
@ScienceNews ‏and @sciam ‏- Good articles on current science topics
@Fermilab ‏and @CERN ‏- While they are good for the occasional article, it's their photos that make them fun to follow.

Try some of these out, and if there are any that aren't giving you beneficial information, be vigilant about unfollowing them.  It's only a helpful tool if you are reducing the noise from the unhelpful ones.

It Should Keep Getting Better

Projects - Love them or hate them, but you will have them.  This is especially true in science.  There are some concepts that simply must be learned by doing, not to mention all the non-academic learning that comes from projects (which I should write a post on in the future because it is so important).  Because projects matter so much, it is important that we use reflective professional judgment to decide how students can best use their time rather than throwing every good idea we have at them, overwhelming them with work.

When deciding on whether to do a new project, tweak an old one, or keep it exactly as it was this year, there are some questions you need to ask yourself.
1.  What is the academic objective?
2.  What is the "other" objective?  (This could be social, behavioral, or even spiritual)
3.  What are they learning from this project that they cannot learn by doing it some other way?
4.  If retooling a previous project, what can I do to reduce confusion or increase efficiency?  What did someone do last year that I can incorporate this year?

After asking those questions, you may reach one of three conclusions about your project.

1. It should be dropped altogether as it has become a Grecian Urn.  If you don't have time or inclination to read the excellent Cult of Pedagogy post about Grecian Urn projects, here's the summary.  A Grecian Urn is any activity whose time and effort are disproportionate to the learning outcomes.  Something might be fun, but if it is taking days of class time, it should also be rather meaningful.  If it is not, drop it or give it to kids as an optional at home (extra credit if you believe in that sort of thing) activity.  If it is that fun, they'll want to.  If they don't, it probably wasn't as fun as you thought.

2.  The project should stay exactly as it is.  I'm going to suggest that this particular conclusion is rare.  It is difficult for me to believe your project is perfect exactly as is and that making changes could only do damage to the result.  Some projects are classic traditions that everyone should do (e.g physics egg drop project) because it unites us as learners across generations, but that doesn't mean those projects shouldn't change with technology or renewed priorities.  Before you settle into this conclusion, give it some serious thought.

3.  Tweak the project.  I submit to you that this is going to be the answer about 75% of the time.  If you are a creative and interesting teacher who cares enough about your skills to be reading education blogs, you probably had a good idea.  The process of reflection should allow you to identify what was really good about that idea and what needs to be changed.  This may happen only a couple of times, or it may happen every year of your time teaching a course. 

An example will likely help, so let me tell you about a project in my physics class that used to be called "The Electricity Project."  Warning: It plays out over multipl years, so it is long.

I have a healthy respect (that sometimes rises to the level of fear) for electricity.  It's one of the few things in my home I won't tackle on my own.  I don't know what caused this in me, but I don't want to pass it on to my students; so fifteen years ago, I started assigning a project in which they simply had to do some electrical circuit building (series, parallel, and combination circuits were my only requirements).  Many of them built a model of a house and lit each room.  Some built models of car lots or airports and lit each car or plane in series but the runway or lot lights in parallel.  These were all fine and accomplished the instructional objective "recognize the three types of circuits" and my personal behavioral objective "don't be afraid of 9V batteries."  This was fine for a time, and the kids enjoyed it.  They were also nice to have at student showcase nights.

Seven years ago, two students asked if they could do something that was electrical but didn't fit the project instructions.  If you teach high school, you know why I heard this with a skeptical ear at first.  Then, they proposed their idea.  They wanted to build an electric guitar from scratch.  "Umm, that's the coolest thing I've heard.  Yes, of course, you can do that."  I changed the rubric, not just for that year but for the future.  Instead of "build a model with circuits," the requirement became "build a functioning electrical device."  It still fulfilled the objectives the previous version had, but you wouldn't believe the difference in creative projects I got.  I had students who built games that would allow a bell to ring or light to come on when you got a correct answer.  I had some fun electrical versions of tic-tac-toe.  A student attempted to build a theremin.  I even got a Jacob's Ladder and a tiny rail gun that fired paper clips one year and a Tesla coil that had to be operated outside the next.  Because they were so interactive, we had a day of electrical fun, setting them out all over the room and inviting people to come and play with them. 

Four years ago, our school started really pressing in on the idea of Challenge Based Learning.  What would kids do if we took the constraints off and gave them a real-world kind of problem?  Knowing that the addition of another project would be burdensome to all involved, I brainstormed with our technology coach about how I might adjust an already existing project to become challenge based.  I decided on the electricity project.  Given how many people around the world have limited access to electricity, that seemed an ideal problem to solve with their knowledge of physics.  Also, at that time, our IT director was a former missionary to Haiti, where he had his own challenges with keeping electricity consistent in his home.  "Out with electrical device building . . . In with electrical problem solving," I thought.  I don't have time to tell you about the epic failure we had in the first year of this project, and I've already written about it, so read that here.

The next year, as I reflected on the project, I decided that clearer instruction was needed.  Perhaps I had taken the challenge based learning tenant that the teacher shouldn't have an end in mind a little too seriously.  I assigned groups and adjusted directions but had essentially the same project (check here for those adjustments).  Things were better but still not what I was hoping for (I've blogged about this a lot, apparently - see here for that year's result).  I wanted some real ideas, not just windmills.  The next year, we began our year with brainstorming groups in teacher meetings.  If you had an idea but needed input, you presented it to other teachers (mostly outside your own area).  Two teachers said, "It sounds like your idea is a little too hypothetical.  What if you gave them a real place?"  When we began brainstorming sessions last year, I was astounded by the difference that made.  Suddenly, I heard them taking weather into account because "you can't have solar panels in a place with sandstorms all year."  They were discussions about how difficult it would be to find diesel fuel in their particular part of the world or whether it was even windy there.  The fact that they were researching the resources of the area brought this project so much closer to what I envisioned.

Then, the biggest change happened quietly and almost accidentally.  The group that was assigned to Yemen came to me and said that the biggest problem with their lack of electricity was that they had so little clean water.  "Can we build a solar-powered water pump?"  As with the electric guitar, I didn't want to say no to a good idea just because it didn't fit what I had in mind.  Of course they could build a solar-powered water pump.  Aside from the atrocious spelling in their video, this was the best project of all the groups and the one people talked about the most.  They were compelling and knowledgeable and, most of all, invested in their solution.  This challenged me to change this project once again.

I consulted with our current tech coach about broadening the project.  Instead of focusing on electricity, I would assign the area.  Then, they had to decide what was the most critical challenge before them that could be addressed by physics/engineering.  Not knowing what they would decide, I wasn't sure building something was practical, so he suggested grant-style presentations with PSA videos.  Yes, this was coming together.  Of the 8 groups, six said lack of access to potable water was the biggest need in their area, one said flooding led to disease and water problems, and one said sanitation was an issue (because they had garbage and raw sewage in their streets).  In the six groups that addressed water access, there were six different solutions.  This showed me that they did, in fact, research what made the most sense for that country.  I was so proud of their results, and we got great feedback from those who attended the forum.  This was finally the challenge based learning project I wanted it to be.

You may have noticed that the objectives had changed.  No one built anything that had to do with circuits.  I accomplished that objective in one day of handing out 9V batteries, wire, and Christmas tree light bulbs with the instructions to "play and tell me what you learned" after a day of teaching about the different circuits.  That was a memorable day as one group pretty much tased themselves for twenty minutes by linking 32 batteries together and touching wires, showing that they weren't afraid of it.  This project is so much more meaningful that I can't imagine going back to building a simple model to show you can make circuits.  They can learn that another way.  This project now gives them things they couldn't have learned in another way.

If you teach for several years, your project should be getting better.  You may not have one that changes as much as this one did, but don't be afraid if you do.  Share the progression with the students.  They need to see that we continue learning.  They need to know that you have deep thought about the reasons for what you assign them.  They need to know that we haven't arrived at perfect ideas yet but that we are always reaching for them.  If you want them to keep getting better, you should be too.

Using the Olympics to Teach

When there were only three TV channels, there was a pretty safe bet that if you mentioned something from last night's television line up, most people would have seen it.  Because of the number of choices for viewing on television and the internet, this is no longer the case.  Everyone once in a while, however, there is something that draws a large crowd.  The wise teacher should take advantage of that and plan for it.  The Olympics is one of those.

While no one event drew the majority of my students' eyes, the Winter Olympics as a whole certainly did.  Some students love figure skating.  Others are fascinated by snowboarding.  The biathlon, which most didn't know existed until last week, has captured the attention of many (because it is weird and different).  They may like to mock curling, but a lot of them watch it anyway.  

For a science teacher, the connection to the curriculum is pretty low hanging fruit.  My 8th grade had just finished the chapter on Motion, Forces, and Newton's Laws when the Olympics began.  The chapter that began two days into the games was on Momentum and Energy.  I would have to be crazy not to reference as many events as possible, especially since the Winter Olympics is basically 85 kinds of sliding.  For two weeks, there was primetime coverage of a momentum-based physics lab.  NBC even has a video series called NBC Learn, in which they have short documentaries on the science of each sport.  My kids liked the one on SlopeStyle.

Even if it hadn't been so perfectly timed to the chapter I was on, I would have used it in some way.  My physics students finished Mechanics last semester, and we had begun talking about waves and sound.  I still took the first five minutes each day to reference the physics of the games.  I put up photos of a couple of events each day, trying to choose ones that were as different as possible (luge and curling on the same day, for example).  Above the photo, I listed 3-5 physics concepts (momentum, Newton's 3rd law, rotational momentum, etc.) that were heavily represented by that event.  As I write this, I am watching the closing ceremonies, and I have seen several examples of concepts that I plan to use in the chapter on Light and Color as they use light as a kind of paint on the floor.

If you aren't a science teacher, the applications may not be as obvious, but they are certainly there.  

- Foreign language teachers can find coverage of the games in just about any language just be going to YouTube.  

- Latin teachers, you probably can't find Latin coverage, but you can obviously address the classical history of the games.  

- History teachers, this is a prime opportunity for teaching geography but also to address the culture of a country by discussing why some countries are always better at certain sports.  Do you teach about the Cold War?  I heard the Miracle on Ice mentioned at least half a dozen times this week even though it happened 38 years ago.  

- Math teachers, there are many opportunities to use real data.

- PE and Health teachers, duh.  Yours is as obvious as physics.

- English teachers, do you have your students write journals or blog?  The Olympics can provide a very enjoyable prompt.  My 8th graders' blogs were great this week because they were excited about getting to choose whichever Olympic sport they wanted.

You may not have time to construct entire lessons around the Olympics.  That's totally fine.  You will, however, reap the benefits of taking five minutes a day for two weeks to show how the subject you teach connects with something that has the attention of the world.  

Reading for the Joy of Reading

When I was a child, I was a voracious reader.  I read everything I could get my hands on.  If there wasn't a book around, I'd read a cereal box.  I didn't care; I just loved reading.  I stopped reading Sweet Valley High books somewhere around #118.  Books that were assigned at school were great.  Books I chose myself were better.  I recognized the value of books I ended up hating, like Great Expectations and Lord of the Flies, because there is a difference between appreciating and enjoying.

What makes a child love to read?  As with all things, there are multitudes of nature and nurture theories.  Most of those can be debunked as sole explanations when looking at siblings.  I think it is probably, like most things, a combination of multiple things in a child's life - parents, home, siblings, school, friends, and personality. 

I do believe the research backs up one thing, however, that could break a child's love of reading.  If you want your child to remain a reader, don't tell them not to read the things they love.  You can give them additional worthy choices without taking other choices away.  As I said earlier, I read 118 Sweet Valley High books.  Am I little embarrassed by this as a 41-year-old woman?  Sure.  They are formulaic and silly, and it took me way too long to figure that out.  However, if somewhere along the way, someone had said to me, "Don't read that silly nonsense," it likely would not have been replaced by literature.  It likely would not have been replaced at all.  Instead, I had some wonderful teachers who said, "You like to read?  That's great.  Have you tried reading this?"  Then, they recommended some wonderful books.  While I was reading Sweet Valley High, I was also reading CS Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, and a crazy long book called Nicholas and Alexandra, all in the 7th and 8th grades and all at the recommendation of teachers who inspired more reading rather than less.

If your child likes comic books and graphic novels, that is awesome.  Google which ones are the best.  You may not know that there are graphic versions of everything from The Metamorphosis to Sense and Sensibility (see this list from Goodreads).  If the story captures them, one day, your child may reach out and read the literary versions, but even if they don't, they now have absorbed a classic story they wouldn't have if someone had told them not to read it.  If you want to expand their reading to higher levels, look for a book on Amazon, and then see what recommendations it has.  Your local librarian, whether at school or in a public library, lives to recommend books.  Go in and say, "My child likes X-Men.  I'd like him to read something at a higher level.  Can you recommend?"  That librarian will be thrilled to give you a dozen recommendations of books with similar themes across a wide variety of levels.  As I tell my students, they have a Master's degree in recommending stuff.  The way to get them reading better things is to expand their options, not decrease them.  Please expand and raise your child's awareness of better books by providing them with more options.  Please do not tell a child that their tastes are wrong just because they are young.

I write this because I have spent the past three days sitting in a classroom with students who are finishing their midterms at different times.   In each class, about 75% of my students have a book under their chair.  As soon as they turn in their exam, they pick up where they left off in the books they chose to bring with them.  From Harry Potter to Wonder to the latest John Green novel, my kids are reading, not books they have been assigned, but books they have chosen.  I even saw someone reading the Collected Works of HP Lovecraft a few days ago.  Lovecraft, for heaven's sake.  I didn't even know he existed until I was an adult.  GRACE students are readers, and I believe it is because most of their teachers are readers.  I try to remember that much of my middle school reading was because a teacher I liked told me about a book they liked.  I tell them what I read over the summer.  When I see them reading a school book that I also read, I tell them my memories of reading it.  When they have a Shakespear play in hand, I tell them about my favorites, which are Julius Ceasar and Othello.  When we, as teachers, tell them about our favorite books, they see that reading isn't just something to do for assignments.  They see that we speak of reading with joy, not dread.  Hopefully, they see that we are never too old to read for the joy of it. 

Stop unrecommending books (I'm pretty certain that isn't a word, but Grammarly is letting me get away with it).  Recommend them.

#gcsinnovates - Part 2 - Innovative Relationships

I have mentioned before that our school has a great position - technology coach.  We had one on campus.  Then, she moved, and we had her by Google Hangout.  Then, she decided to work where she lives, so we added the job of technology coach to our media specialist, Daniel O'Brien.  He was actually doing quite a lot of tech coaching before, so this really formalized and added to what he was already doing with us.  He has taken the baton and run with it.

Teachers learn from watching each other, so Daniel instituted a Pineapple Chart.  Pineapples are a long known symbol of welcome, so when you put your name on the Pineapple Chart, it means anyone is welcome to come observe your class that day.  Whether it is technology related or not is up to the individual teacher.  I put my name down when my kids were designing aluminum foil boats, a thing that has only a little tech.  Another teacher invited us in to see her kids use Google Docs for peer editing of AP Language papers. Another has invited us, both physically and digitally, to observe a Twitter chat she is doing with her students.  Our AP Psychology teacher invited us to be sharks in a Shark Tank-style presentation her students did on developmental toys.  It has been great observing other teachers, especially those outside my own discipline area.  Thanks to Daniel's willingness to manage the chart, we get to see the innovations of our teammates and get ideas for our own classrooms.

Another great thing Daniel has done is send out a weekly tech digital newsletter.  It is essentially a vlog.  He talks to us about events of the week, reminds us who is on the pineapple chart, and chats about new tools.  One of my favorite parts of the newsletter is the point/counterpoint videos he includes.  Each week, there is a youtube link to an EdTech related video.  The first week was Digital Aristotle, in which the case is made that schools will soon be radically different as each child will follow their own digital path of learning.  The next week was a video that countered that one, called This Will Revolutionize Education.  In that video, the presenter pointed out how many technologies that statement had been applied to (pretty much all of them) and discussed why technology doesn't change education in quite as extreme a way as we expect.  These were great for me to discuss with myself and my friends.

One Friday of each month, Daniel hosts Innovation Pods during our lunch.  This is when teachers who have the same grade levels (and therefore, usually the same lunch periods) can sit together and talk cross-curricular projects or brainstorm ideas with him.  The first one didn't have a ton of attendance, but those who did attend got some great benefit.  I encourage people to come to the next ones.  On a different Friday, he set up our new VR Goggles in the library and encouraged us to come learn about them so that we could explore different ideas for their use in our classrooms.  That was super fun, and I personally had dozens of ideas, not only for my classroom but ones that I could share with my colleagues as well.

Basically, Daniel is making an effort to give us as many venues as possible to spark as many ideas as possible.  Way to go, Daniel.

I think the greatest innovation GRACE has isn't really an innovation itself; it's the openness to innovation.  It isn't at all unusual for an English teacher and a science teacher to collaborate on a project.  If I need to talk through an idea, I have administrators and IT people that I can sit down and brainstorm with.  We set aside meeting times specifically for the purpose of discussing innovative ideas that we have.  Our students may not know to call it innovation, but they know that we are working together and are not stagnant.  Thank you GRACE administration for allowing and encouraging all of this.

Glitchy Tech - Be the Calm One

It happens every year at the beginning of the year.  My students get their computers.  I am ready to get them enrolled in my class on our learning management system.  I am psyched to get my 8th graders blogs set up and to put my digital textbook on their computers.  I have one day in my first few days set aside just for this purpose.  And then . . .

Two kids have some weird thing that keeps their computer from opening the book.  )Make a note to send him a pdf version while we figure this out.)  Halfway through the day, the filter experiences something that causes two of my classes to be unable to set up their blog because they can get to WordPress but can't confirm their e-mail.  (Send a help ticket to IT for this.)  A student wasn't listening when you gave them the access code to get on the LMS, so he's not getting the information he should be. (Remind him of the code, again.  Don't worry, you'll get to remind him again tomorrow.)

Our IT people are AWESOME, and they work hard to make our system run smoothly.  No matter how good they are, there are just problems they cannot anticipate.  You cannot test 600 computers trying to get to the different websites different teachers use until they try.  Students love drama, so they make out like these tech glitches are the end of the world.  In their minds, this week of troubleshooting tech will cause them to fail, keep them from getting into college, or getting a job, or getting a house; and they will most surely be living under a bridge - all as a result of this filter issue.

Deep breaths, teachers.  You are the adults in the room.  Remind them that this happens every year.  Remind them how great it is to have this problem when so many in the world have no access to technology at all.  Remind them that the IT people are working hard to solve the problem.  Remind them that their teachers are not insane people who wish to see them fail and will, of course, adjust the due date of that blog post or have them submit it some other way.  One more thing, teachers.  Since you know this might happen, have a non-tech backup plan for that day.  When the thing doesn't work the way it is supposed to, do the backup plan.  Then, you can do all that tech stuff after it is fixed.

Two weeks from now, when everything is running smoothly, no one will remember that there were any tech issues at the beginning of the year (except the tech people); so let's not waste our precious energy worrying about it now.

Writing FOR Learning

If written before about wanting to take advantage of the hyperlinking brain of the digital native.  It took me a long time, but I finally found that ability in writing my own 8th-grade science textbook.  You can read about that here and here.  This year, I decided it was time to do the same for my other prep, Physics.

I put writing the book for Physics off longer for a couple of reasons.  First, it is more difficult material.  If I had been learning to use the app and writing for the first time with the most complex material I teach, it might have taken longer to finish the first book than it did.  Also, I wanted to see how the 8th-grade book worked for a few years before I jumped in.  The timing of this worked out well because the students who first used my book in 8th-grade will also be the first to use the physics book.  They know the deal and responded to it well, so they seemed like a nice group to start this book with.

In my posts about the other book, I told you some of the benefits of writing your own.  Among them were arranging it in the order you like, using examples and analogies that work in your classroom, and the increased likelihood the kids will read it.  I also talked a lot about the use of hyperlinks as that was the motivating factor in my effort to teach the digital native.  Now that I have worked with my book for three years and am writing again, I want to discuss other benefits.

1.  Do you have a chapter you struggle with in your teaching?  You try to explain things and find it difficult to get through to students with clarity?  I do.  Teaching electricity has always been difficult for me.  I like teaching circuits, but the explanation of voltage is difficult for me.  My understanding of it is so tenuous that it can be rattled by a student asking a question.  (By the way, to help with that, I show a Khan Academy video that day - Don't feel bad if you need the help of another explainer than you.  It's humility, not weakness.)  Sorry, back to the point of this paragraph - Writing about that topic helps you.  It helps you think through your explanation on a deeper level than you have before.  You read what you have written and realize it needs something.   That forces you to google the topic and find an explanation you haven't read before.  With clarity for yourself, you write a better explanation and include the link to the site that helped you on the page with your explanation.

 2. You will learn things you did not know.  I was writing about color blindness.  I don't spend a lot of time talking about this topic in my class, but I felt I needed a little more than a few sentences if I was going to include it.  I looked it up and learned the causes of 7 different kinds of color vision deficiency and found a great resource in the National Eye Institute portion of the NIH website.  It's well written, interesting, and includes video animations.  I will be using this website in a project assignment next year.  Not only that, I can answer more questions and explain more things to my students.  This happened a two or three dozen times during the writing of this book.  I have more knowledge and more resources for my students.

3.  I wrote about the hyperlinks before, but this morning I had more clarity about them.  I was doing my summer homework in which we respond to a professional development book we all read.  This summer we read The Innovator's Mindset by George Curos.  One of the questions we were supposed to answer in our discussion board was "What do you want students to do with technology?"  This is an important question that EVERY teacher should ask themselves.  You don't want to use tech for tech's sake.  You want to figure out what is important that tech makes possible.  For 18 years, I have hoped to inspire my students to love learning.  I don't believe they will all be scientists, but I hope they will all continue to be learners for their entire lives.  As I wrote about that this morning, I realized the value that the hyperlinks were giving my students.  They saw that I was interested in something outside my curriculum enough to find and provide a link to it.  Perhaps that will inspire them to participate in some self-guided learning.  Here are a couple of examples:

When discussing the trajectory of projectiles, it is fun to talk about food fights.  The greatest food fight happens in Spain every year, so why not include a link that a student might want to follow.  Perhaps, that leads them to learn about Spain or tomatoes.

If you are teaching friction or rotation, it just makes sense to add a link to the science of a thing they like.  Right now, that's fidget spinners.

I wanted some real data to write a problem with.   I knew the information for copper, so I used the Statue of Liberty.  I included the link to her Wikipedia page in the hopes that students would explore the statue, the sculptor, our former relationship with France, etc.

I'm not sure that writing a textbook is for everyone, but I am going to recommend it to anyone who is struggling to teach a specific concept well or wants a good way to model their own curiosity of their students.  You might not want to go as far as writing an entire book.  Perhaps you want to write one concept that you need help with.  Perhaps, you want to write one chapter because the book you are using doesn't handle that as well as you would like.  Writing for your own learning is helpful in a way I don't think I could acheive any other way.

Elements of Successful Innovation 1 - Leadership and Acknowledgement

This is the first post in a series on the successful implementation of any classroom innovation.  It is based on the list of elements needed for successful flipping (tweeted by Jon Bergman) that I referenced in my last post.  While the list was posted about the flipped classroom experience, it occurred to me that it reflects the elements needed for any innovation, from flipping to tech integration to project based learning.  Whatever innovation you are trying to implement, apply these needs to it.  I'm combining the first two - Leadership and Acknowledgement - because they fit well together.

If you going to innovate, you must have the support of your school's leadership.  When you try something new, it scares people.  When people get scared, they want you to stop the new thing and go back to what they are comfortable with.  In education, that means nice and safe lectures from a nice and safe textbook.  You will likely end up getting a lot of e-mails and having a lot of parent-teacher conferences.  You are going to need the support of your principal during these times.

The other reason you need a super-supportive administration is that you are going to need cheerleaders to make change happen.  Administrators, avoid the temptation to make this a measured accountability thing.  When GRACE was deciding to have a one-to-one program, there was a brief (thankfully) discussion of how to hold teachers accountable.  It was suggested that we require a certain percentage of time each week be devoted to the use of technology.  I get the desire to hold people accountable and make things measurable, but doing that would have been detrimental to teacher enthusiasm.  When it becomes "part of your job," you meet your minimum requirement only; and you do it without enthusiasm.  Instead, our IT department and administrators decided to be cheerleaders.  They told us what was possible with the innovation, gave us time to share with each other, sent us links and tools that they saw.  Because of this, we jumped in, each at our own starting level and grew.  We were encouraged to think of one big thing each semester, and my goal was to add as many little everyday things (google image diagrams, animations from youtube, collaborating using Google Docs, etc.) as possible every day.  In our faculty meetings, our administration set aside time for us to share our successes and ask questions.

We have been in this for six years now.  While things look different than they did at the beginning, we still take the time to cheer each other on.  This year, each teacher presented a new tool during a faculty meeting and shared how they had used it (or planned to use it) in their own classes.  Every year, we have an EdCamp, where teachers teach each other.  Innovation is exhausting.  It's that good kind of tired that comes from doing something meaningful, but it is exhausting.  A good administrator will recognize that and give you the support you need.  Sharing and acknowledging each other's achievements (and also laughing at your own failures) gives you energy in a great way.  If you want to innovate, but you don't have supportive leadership, make a little team of your own.  It will be harder, but it should not stop you from innovating.

Next time - Time and Focus

Successful Innovation - Coming Series

As a connected teacher and learner, I follow quite a few educators.  One of them is Jon Bergman, the most well known "flipped classroom" advocate and lecturer.

Some time ago, this list was on his Twitter feed.  This is the top ten things needed for successful flipping of the classroom.  I am not yet a teacher who flips (although I think about it a lot), but as I looked through the list, I realized that this same list could apply to any great change in the classroom.  At GRACE, we have just finished our sixth year of our one to one laptop program, and it has been, in my humble opinion, incredibly successful.  I've blogged before about the non-linear progress we made (four posts here, here, here, and here).

This summer, every teacher in our school is reading The Innovator's Mindset by George Cuoros, and I am noticing a lot of things on this list in that book as well.  Therefore, I have decided to write a post for each of these.  I don't know that I want to stretch it out over the entire summer, so I may post more than one per week or combine some of them as it seems some of them would go well together (Leadership and Acknowledgment - or Time and Focus - or Embedded Support and Community).

First one coming tomorrow - I'll start with Leadership and Acknowledgement.

Judge For Yourself

There are two professions in which fads are most prevalent, fashion and education.  It is obvious in fashion as there are visible and recognizable from season to season.  It is even necessary to the survival of the industry.  

In education, the fads are a bit more subtle as they take longer to implement and stick around for several years.  They are not, however, necessary to the survival of education and may even be harmful to the students on which they are tried.  Not all fads are bad, of course, but it is important to recognize one when you see it and then (and this is important, people) use your professional judgment.  

When I began teaching eighteen years ago, I wondered why my freshmen couldn't spell the simplest words.  For two years, I taught fourteen and fifteen-year-olds who could not spell words like definite or intelligent.  When I asked them what the problem was, they informed me that they had been instructed using the inventive spelling method.    For those blessedly unfamiliar with this "pedagogy," inventive spelling is "the practice of spelling unfamiliar words by making an educated guess as to the correct spelling based on the writer's existing phonetic knowledge." (grammar.yourdictionary.com) The hope is that the student will eventually learn to spell the words correctly by absorption.  It doesn't work, and I can't imagine why anyone thought it would, but my students were subjected to it for three years of elementary school.  These students are now in their early thirties and, based on their facebook pages, they still struggle to spell words correctly.  

My first two semesters of college, I took Calculus I and II - sort of.  I was part of an experimental curriculum, called Discovering Calculus.  The book, which was an anorexic 90 pages long, did not have formulas in it.  We, as college students, were supposed to figure out the formulas by intuition.  The logic behind this approach came from years of students knowing how to perform calculus equations without really understanding them.  While I understand that issue, I do know that students who passed those class could do the calculus they learned while I still cannot.  There's a reason it took from the beginning of time until Isaac Newton for mankind to have calculus.  Every student in my class went to a used bookstore and bought a real calculus book so that we could survive this class.  

Now that I have taught for nearly two decades, I am left to ask myself where the professional judgment was in these teachers.  Was there really an elementary school teacher who truly thought second graders would eventually figure out the spelling of words when the English language is fraught with exceptions to phonics?  My calculus professors were not first-year teachers.  They knew how to teach calculus to physics and engineering majors because they had done it for many years (one of them for decades).  What made them think this would work?  My guess is that in both cases, the people in the classroom didn't have a choice.  They probably had it handed down to them by their administration because someone convinced those people to adopt the latest educational fad.  

Those schools no longer teach inventive spelling or discovering calculus because it proved to be ineffective.  If this were the fashion industry, that might not be a big deal.  We all get to look back at our bow blouses and banana clips with nothing more than a blushing head shake.  This is not true, however, in education.  These fads are experiments, and the guinea pigs are our students.  It is dangerous to try every fad in education without serious thought.

Lest you think that I want our classrooms to stay stuck in the model of two hundred years ago, let me quickly dispel that notion.  I teach enthusiastically in a one-to-one school, and my students learn through the use of internet research, show their learning through video construction, and reflect on their learning through blogging.  They collaborate on projects and review using every online tool I can find.  I have digital textbooks, have flipped lessons, and use youtube so much that I don't know how I taught without it.  There is nothing about me that resists the use of technology.  HOWEVER, (and it is a big however), if a teacher is using technology for the sake of using technology, they are using technology wrong.  

You owe it to your students to analyze your own pedagogy.  The educational value of teachers lies in our judgment as trained professionals.  Anyone can deliver information, but it takes an educator to decide on what to teach (and what not to teach) as well as the best way to teach, reinforce, and assess learning.  When a new fad comes along in education, it may actually be a great new way to teach something, but keep in mind that it may not be.  Ask yourself the following questions:

- Does the new way offer brain engagement in a way that the old way does not?
- Does the new way take away from brain development that the old way offers?
- Is there value to the new tool for more than one curriculum point?
- If the new way doesn't work, what long-term effect will it have on students?
- Does the new way teach a skill or thinking process that students will need in the future?

Sometimes, the new way is the best way, and sometimes it is not.  My students blog because I decided that they would benefit from weekly reflection, that I could expose them to content there wasn't time for in class, and that I could ask them to empathize by using appropriate prompts.  My professional judgment was that these were important enough goals to make grading seventy blogs a week worth it.  My students make videos because script-writing forces them to put learning in their own words, but they do not make stop-action videos (unless they choose it) because I find little educational value to justify the time it takes.  My students have collaborative projects because it is my professional judgment that much non-academic learning happens when people work together.  My students also have solo projects because I believe that there must be times when students create on their own.  The common element in each of these situations is that I do not just passively adopt the newest fad method or technological tool.  I don't just ride the educational pendulum.  Rather, I employ all my training and experience to make the right decision for my classroom.  

Just as importantly, I am fortunate enough to have an administration that allows me to do so.  

NCTIES 2017 Notes

I'd like to say that the reason I haven't blogged yet this week is because I was saving the post for these NCTIES notes.  I can't say that, though, because it would be a lie.  I've been overwhelmed with the end of the quarter because I'm very behind in grading, my final yearbook deadline on Monday, and community service day.  It does, however, work out well.  I'll be blogging from every workshop in this post.  I'll update at the end end of each session. For the uninitiated, NCTIES stands for North Carolina Technology in Education Society, and they have a yearly convention in which teachers and administrators come and learn from each other about how to implement technology while delivering content to students.

Keynote Speaker - Courageous Edventures - Jennie Magiera
Notes:
- The purpose of school is to prepare kids for tomorrow.
- 65% of today's students will be employed in jobs that don't exist yet.
- We have to take risks in order to lead change.
- Teaching kids that they cannot fail or they will fail at life is dangerous.  It creates fear of failure, which leads to taking no risks, ultimately resulting in no learning.
- We are providing far too much support because we are afraid kids won't succeed.  That's still not them succeeding; it is us succeeding for them.
- FAIL - First Attempt In Learning - That makes failure the beginning and not the end.
- SAIL - Subsequent Attempts In Learning
- Failure's going to happen, and that's okay.  That's when we are able to take some adventures.
- "I can't" comes from fear and disbelief.
- Find a crew, people to go on the adventure with you.
- Five tips for Edventuring
   1.  Relax and have fun
   2.  Make sure your curriculum is future ready.
   3.  Teach kids, not topics.
   4.  Don't wait to take a risk.

Tools:
- Google Expeditions

Takeaways:
- Technology should enhance our humanity, not detract from it.
- Find out if Google Expeditions has to be a literal place.  Can it be to the inside of an atom or cell?

SketchNoting:  Tapping Into Visual Thinking and Learning
Notes:
- Expressing ideas in a meaningful way doesn't have to be beautiful.  It is a process of synthesizing information they are taking in.
- It only matters that it means something to the note taker.
- It should be done with the students' personal preference.  If they will do better with paper and pencil than iPad, they should have that option.

- Start with the main idea and build around it.
- It's helpful to have "containers" for each thought.  This could be boxes, scrolls, hearts, thought bubbles, etc.  It needs to make sense to the note taker.
- There should be some kind of organization, but it only matters that it is organized in a way that the notetaker (read as "not the teacher or parent") understands.  The differences could be shape of container, color of notes, code for information type,

- Sketchnotes may become Infographics, but they are not the same thing.
- Sketchnotes must be personally meaningful, but it doesn't matter if anyone else understands it.  If you plan to have others get anything out of it, should be condensed into an Infographic.
- Using icons or images (a star or exclamation point next to an important point, a stick figure to represent a speaker, a question mark to indicate a need for further research) may also make the information more meaningful to the notetaker.
- Color choices can be used for meaning, steps, categories, or just attractiveness.
- Asking them to explain it to me will create extra processing and deeper learning.
- The research was done by having a group take notes on a TED talk on either a computer or a paper group.  Factual information was assessed at about the same level, but conceptual relationships were higher for those who took notes on paper and doodled.  The laptop group wrote more stuff down, but they didn't understand the connections as well.

Tools:
- ProCreate
- Penultimate
- SktchBook Ink
- Paper by Fiftythree
- Forge

Takeaways:
- Encourage students to figure out what works for them.  Don't insist it look like the way you would do it.
- If they look back at it later and it doesn't make sense, it isn't helpful.

3D Animation - Student Showcase
Jaime Hartley's Set Design Class - creating animation for the set of Peter Pan because we don't have the facilities to allow students to fly.  Students also applied it to other disciplines with animations of blood cells, DNA, even a colorful sweater.

Easy as 1, 2, 3D - Using 3D Printing
- Can build a 3D printer at Discovery place in Charlotte.
- Empowers students to create, the highest level of Bloom's taxonomy.
(I left this one ten minutes in.  It was far more foundational than I was expecting it to be.)

Digital Citizenship - Students Impacting the World Through Passion Driven Multimedia Projects
(Came in 10 minutes late because I was at the 3D Printing one)

Notes:
- Open choice can paralyze students.  A way to break the paralysis is to do a "heartbreak map."  Think of something you love, and then figure out what breaks your heart within that thing.  That's the thing you want to change and make better.
- Generate a million ideas before choosing.  The initial idea might be crazy (Teach senior citizens to skydive), but it could lead to a doable idea (Teach senior citizens how to use a computer to connect with their grandchild who lives far away).
- Students should start with a proposal pitch.
- Use Twitter or other social media to promote what you are doing, ask questions, crowdsource the solution to a problem, and get feedback.
- Students can lead a Twitter chat for real-time feedback.
- Art Application:  Find a client who needs artwork or graphic design for something they are doing.  They can hire your student.  It gives a reality check if the student has done something the client doesn't like.
- Get your project out into the community.  If it stays within your school, it doesn't have the impact it could.  Make a video or blog to get it out into the world.  Then promote it via social media.  The students also use better skills (video editing, lighting, etc.) if they know they will be public.

Tools:
- Angela Myers
- Kevin Brookhauser
- Next Vista for Learning - a contest for students to make a PSA for a non-profit.  The winning video wins prize money for the non-profit.

Takeaways:
- Don't just have the student choose a topic that interests them.  Have them figure out how that thing could be better.  The resulting project is more meaningful if they are trying to take something they already love and make it better.
- Student-led professional development - Students teach tools, skills, technology, etc. to the teachers on a PD day.  It gives teachers an idea of tools students can use and teaches students how difficult it can be to teach a room full of people.
- "In 2017, your digital footprint IS your resume."

Using Escape EDU in the Classroom
Notes:
- Breakout boxes are available, but it can easily be done with different types of locks.
- The example had code breaking/problem solving but not content.
- Have students create them for the other classes.
- There are pre-made ones if you want to get your feet wet.
- It should be just hard enough to be meaningful and challenging but not so hard that they can't get the box open.
- Try not to help them too much.  There are hint cards.  You could have a penalty for using them so the kids will have to be strategic about whether or not to use them.
- Riddles helps keep kids going.
- Invisible ink pens are on Amazon, but if you use a yellow highlighter on a dark surface, it does the same thing.

Tools:
- Breakoutedu.com

Takeaways:
- Make sure to tie content to it.  This would be easy with math-based activities.

Creating a Culture of Making
Notes:
- A culture is a shared set of values.
- We've been makers since man picked up the first tool.
- If you don't have administrative support, you're not going to get very far.
- Raid the storeroom at your school.  There's a lot of stuff that is not being used.
- Once making starts to happen, donations will come in.
- If you establish a community of makers, older kids will love to help younger kids.
- Contact a local university to see if they will loan or donate materials (snap circuit kits, etc.)
- Different stations will give kids options of what they would like to make.
- There are summer workshops at the Educations Studio at Discovery Place
- Minecraft is making.
- Have a maker class in which you use:  Arduinao, Mindstorm, Scratch games, MakeyMakey projects, marshmallow cannons, and Rube Goldberg machines.
- Try analog coding first before showing them computer coding.  Students must communicate with a student in only three code words.  Then, they understand how the computer only understands a few commands.
- Where you can, get other teachers on board.  Move making out into the curriculum.

Takeaways:
- Makerspace culture doesn't happen by accident.  It happens when you are very focused.
- If you don't have a budget, don't think you can't do it.  You'll just have to do it in little bits and pieces.
- Don't get deflated if you don't accomplish all your goals in the first year.  You are planting seeds and will reach a critical point where it takes off.  Establish a foundation, and watch it grow.

Trashy Tech to the Rescue
Notes:
- The engineering design process (like Design Thinking) guides building and STEM.
- Vernier apps let you use iPads to film or measure in slow motion with tracers.  It will allow you to graph and analyze data.
- Free fall lab could be analyzed.
- Give a goal and design constraints.  Provide materials.  Avoid being any more controlling than that.
- Start simple.  It will take longer than you think.

The 5th C - Connecting Content to The Four C's
Notes:
- Discovery Education Spotlight on Strategies
- Use Advanced Search
- There are a lot of animations, activities, assignments, and 3D photos.  There are more 3D photos to come.

Takeaways:
- Check on Discovery Education for non-location based VR
- Ask Zane if he's seen a plant growing through a maze.
- Tell Hannah about VR tours of National Parks.

Personalize Learning Through Student Agency
Disclaimer:  I am not a fan of the concept of personalized learning and believe it only feeds entitlement.  I attended this workshop to see if there were elements of it that I could apply to differentiated instruction, which I do believe in.

Notes:
- Content and pedagogy should lead technology, not the other way around.
- Top 3 words - Individualized, Differentiated, Choice
- We must students how to make the best decisions within the range of choice.
- Student agency is allowing students to lead their own learning.  It is not arguing with the teacher about a grade.
- Students must understand their learning differences in order to make decisions.  It's not learning styles or preferences.  It's about how their brain is working individually.  It requires a lot of metacognition.
- Told a lot of stories about different learners, but not a lot of practical information.

Tools:
- mentimeter www.menti.com - Kind of like poll everywhere.
- Your Learner Sketch at facesoflearning.net

Takeaways:
- Take how their brain works differently into account.

Session on Google Chrome Extension Cancelled

Fake News and Search Strategies
Disclaimer:  I didn't come to this one for the topic as much as for the speaker.  Richard Byrne is the creator of Free Tech for Teachers as well as PracticalEdTech.com
Notes:
- Searching is a thought process.
- Students often google with a confirmation bias in mind.
- Often they will use super-broad search terms without an understanding of what they are really looking for.
- Google is great at navigational and transactional searches.  It is not great at informational searches, so get your students away from commercial search engines for informational searches.
- Think of other descriptions for your words (movie vs. cinema, British spellings of words, etc.)
- Pre-search checklist at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iN1Pp-brvVOu6z8I2Rg1pag3oeUVWjnPW5ZxginA0ag/edit to help students narrow down their search before they start.
- Search by file type to narrow your search.
- Search by domain to get a different perspective.
- Use Google Scholar for scholar reviewed articles that aren't ranked by popularity.
- It's easy to miss things you aren't looking for.

Tools:
- Practicaledtech.com

Takeaways:
- Planning ahead will allow for better searching.

The Possibilities Are Endless
Disclaimer:  I ended up at this one because the session I wanted to go to on designing content with Chromebooks was full.  This is another one on personalized learning.

Notes:
- Presenters showed a Volkswagon video where people walked up stairs that were piano keys that made sounds, making 66% more people take the stairs.
- They asked people for takeaways.  The people in this room are clearly already in the "personalized learning" camp, so all of their answers were about the benefits of personalized learning.
- We were all given a blog post that compared a person's experience in a spin class with the classroom environment.  It encouraged a lot of student choice in the classroom experience, everything from where the student sits to how fast they learn.  (Here's where we run into my issue with this concept.  The writer thinks that because most things in life are customized, school should be too.  I believe the proliferation of customization is one of the worst things about modern culture and, therefore, want to fight against that in my classroom. I won't even order personalized yearbooks.)
- We were then instructed to have a group statement for three different interpretations of this text.  (By the way, I notice that this workshop is NOT personalized.)
-

Takeaways:
- Even though I disagree with this concept, there's got to be something I can take away from this that is positive.  That's going to be about the use of data for goal setting.  I would like for my kids to look at where they are once a week and set an intermediate goal that would eventually lead to their long term goals.

Your Digital Footprint
Notes:
- Be aware of the pictures you post of your own child because you are developing their digital footprint.
- Parents google their kids teachers.  You should have your twitter account and website on your business card.  You should be easily distinguishable from other people with your name.  Even if it is just an About.me page, you should be google-able.
- The school website is not the best source for information on the school.
- Laura was very right about the arrogance of this speaker.
- You can have your resume ready by 9AM tomorrow, but you can't change your google search in the same amount of time.  It takes time.
- If you follow someone, it indicates that you approve of them.
- You are a teacher 24/7 in the public eye.  Don't try to separate school and life.
- It's polite to ask kids for permission before posting pictures of them, just like you get consent from their parents.
- It's not inauthentic to change your behavior based on context.  A lot of what you would share with other adults shouldn't be shared with students or online.


Takeaways:
- If you follow someone, it indicates that you approve of them.
- If your worst ten minutes were online, would you have a job?


Fabulous Tech Finds That Make The Life of a Teacher Easier
Notes:
- Their Presentation:   https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/12dTapTq5Lfsq2WetlM7Ov-jVcgKh89Ws-YEd5bYEi0I/edit#slide=id.g181510314a_4_642
- You can color-code your folders in google drive. (Does Isaiah Whelpley know this?)
- This one is pretty much all a list of tools with little context.

Tools:
- www.menti.com - Like PollEverywhere
- Chrome Extensions - quick access tools - There's a web store
- Google Keep - note taking - Like Evernote
- See the presentation.  She had 129 slides.

Takeaways:
- Ask Dana - This lady said her school went to Chromebooks and that students cannot plug their Chromebooks into a projector for doing presentations.

Engaging Exit Tickets and Checks for Understanding
Notes:
- Formative assessments matter because you might make decisions on the fly based on the results.
- You can set padlet to grid or free-form.  Try starting with grid and then having kids sort information by switching to free form.
- Socrative - If you use it as an exit ticket as a routine, keep the room number posted.  Then, it should only take about 30s.
- Quizizz - Like Kahoot but better for the teacher and for use as a study tool.
- Classkick - Students can answer in writing, drawing, or even verbally using a microphone.  Students can also cross collaborate by "raising their hand" in the upper corner of the screen.
- Quizlet Live -
- Answer Garden -

Tools:
- https://sites.google.com/imesdapps.org/empowertheclassroom/engaged-exit-tickets-and-checks-for-understandings

Awards, awards, lots of awards, and some more awards

Final Keynote Speaker - Characteristics of Innovative Leaders - George Couros 
- IT has the hardest job because no one calls and says, "Hey, the internet worked all day.  Thanks."
- Grades to not always equate to success.
- "The world only cares about what you can do with what you know, and it doesn't care how you learned it."
- Literacy is something that continuously develops.
- We sometimes teach kids to be subversive to learn.  If your kids can teach you to get around the filter, there is something wrong.
- Relationships are the most important aspect of education.
- What is the experience your kids go home and tell their parents at the end of the day?
- If you think a picture is worth a thousand words, what do you think a video is worth?
- If you surround yourself with passionate and intelligent people, that will increase in yourself.
- "To teach is to learn twice."
- How do you innovate within your constraints?
- I don't just want them to learn math. I want them to be able to do something with the math they have learned.
- Always err on the side of positive.
- Failure is part of learning, but resiliency is the part we should celebrate.
- If grades don't tell the story of a child, you've got to provide something as an alternative.