A fun way to take a quick trip through a lot of media to find out what’s happening is to use Google’s Fast Flip. It displays the front page of magazines, one at a time, and you can “flip” through them… YOu can go in deeper to the text of articles, and you can also choose the genre of magazine or newspaper. Very easy, very cool!

Much of our world is moving online and as our technologies grow and change, our practice must follow. Six years ago, under the Project Enrich grant, I developed online courses based on instructional strategies that would work for all students. Over the years, I have pushed some tools to the limit to develop and offer the best courses for teachers. As we have seen the technology grow, I am thrilled about a technology found at ISTE: Schoology. Schoology is first FREE online learning course management system that I am aware of.
At the ISTE Conference, I attended every session I was able to about online and/or distance learning. I was involved in white paper discussions with graduate students and other conference attendees who were researching online learning and student completion rates. The following links are a few resources on the previous topics: Drop out Research, Online Learning for the Novice Student, Improving Online Discussions.
For me personally, learning new technology is exciting when I can directly apply it to my work. So in a recent face to face event, I presented resources for teacher leaders in our state to work with Best Practices Online and we practiced using schoology to hold discussions about this topic. As with any technology, if you learn a new tool, practice helps you remember it. We built in time for ”practicing the tools” into our event. I encourage you to go try a new technology such as schoology today!

And finally, my favorite presentation while attending ISTE:

Where the Girls Aren’t

 The technology I’m most interested in right now has everything to do with my passion: music. I’m a songwriter and composer, and I just love how new tools can open up new possibilities for me, creatively. Technology tools can do the same for our students. They can discover things about themselves and their creative potentialities—sometimes just by being introduced to a new tool. For me and my creative work, the new tool has been Garage Band. I’ve had a home sound studio for years, but until I had unlimited access to a Mac, Garage Band was an out-of-reach tool that I could never use long enough to incorporate into my own creative process. Now, after a few months of use, I’ve not only discovered and created pieces that would never have existed without this linking of artist and tool, I’m also taking what I gained and moving forward toward other Mac-based tools. I can’t wait to see what might happen next!
So what’s the downside?
Some tools are just so cool they can tempt us away from our creative source—something that can’t be purchased or upgraded. Garage Band, for example, is filled with wonderful pre-recorded loops that can be endlessly configured, reconfigured and manipulated to form all sorts of musical pieces—long and short, fast and slow, high and low, Hip Hop to Classical, Country to Reggae…. It’s endless! And it can be endlessly dissipating, creatively speaking.
Garage Band can’t get at, for instance, my frustration with the Gulf Oil spill, or our tendency as a society to be reactionary in the face of calamities and tensions rather than to be thoughtful and considerate PRIOR to acting. Garage Band has nothing to do with the feeling I get when a particular chord pattern matches up with a specific lyric and melody to say something I didn’t have words for BEFORE they came together. So if I become enamored with the tool to the point of distraction from my own deep well of experience, then the tool becomes destructive—no matter how cool it is! In fact, sometimes the cooler it is—the more impressive, the more likely I am to trade off inspiration for cosmetics.

Inspiration comes from the Greek root meaning to take in breath, or to take in Spirit. Cosmetic comes from the Greek root meaning an ornamentation, or ordering of the surface. Inspiration leads us to an INSIDE-OUT movement, while cosmetics attempt to create a change from the OUTSIDE-IN. Our students can lose themselves, if we aren’t careful, by trading off the deep well of their unique selves for a mere reconfiguration of the surface. At its lowest point, education has sometimes settled for this—for the cosmetic over the inspirational. This is why some people reject technology outright. But this rejection comes because, sometimes, technologies in schools have been abused.
Technology should be a brush or chisel in the hand of the artist, not a substitute soul.
As educators then, we must help our students settle into the delicate balance between the deep well and the cool tools. For me, this meant (and means) stepping out onto my back deck with my guitar and notebook in hand, considering my frustration with our knee jerk attempts to “fix” everything around us, often via a violent or explosive reaction, and then moving back and forth (for weeks, actually) between laying down tracks (both pre-recorded loops and fresh instrumental or vocal recordings), and listening to various mixes (in the car, my iPod as I walk, on our stereo) and seeing how what the technology brings me RESONATES within the deep well of my experience.
Eventually, what it brought this time was a new song, Punch Another Hole.
The growth-intensive use of a new tool, though thoroughly saturated with technology, is not primarily about the technology. It is always about human experience, human expression, human resonance across time and space. Inspiration transcends cosmetics. But technology, when used best, can provide a fresh bridge toward taking in NEW air—a new spirit, inspiration that deepens the well rather than capping it.
And while technology SHOULD cap some wells, it should never cap the deep well of the soul.

Interested in a related NY Times article concerning the current popularity of introducing  imperfection to humanize digital technology? http://nyti.ms/d4Ykee

Bernie Dodge – presenter

How do you define engagement?  Think about that for a bit.

Now let Bernie Dodge take you  into interesting engaging areas that help you really understand what engagement is.

Engagements are about the interactions that go on in the classroom. Time spent determines engagement. Teachers need to allow deep processing.

What if you took the magazine article below and held it up to your computer and it became interactive?

http://www.esquire.com/the-side/augmented-reality

At ISTE 2010 in Denver, I had the opportunity to attend a workshop entitled “Best Resources for Elementary Integration and Transformation,” facilitated by Boni Hamilton, a doctoral student at the University of Northern Colorado.  Many educators today feel that they lack sufficient time to search for instructional technology resources.  During the session, Boni shared a multitude of high-quality resources across all content areas for both elementary and middle school teachers.  Here is the link to her site:  http://easyintegration.wikispaces.com/Top+Websites. 

Among the most interesting sites that she shared is a site called “Skype An Author,” http://skypeanauthor.wetpaint.com/, a site that provides K-12 teachers and librarians a way to connect authors, books, and young readers through virtual visits.  Many of the authors offer free 10-15 minute visits to the classroom.  This is a great resource that teachers can use as a way to boost student interest in and appreciation for literature.

For elementary and intermediate writing teachers, there is a website called “Instant Poetry Forms” (http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/newpoem.htm), a site in which poetry forms are provided for students, so that they can type in the “creative” parts.  Once the students have completed a poem, they may push a button and see their poems automatically formatted.  

Another resource that I found to be fascinating is a site called “Learning Science,” which contains an aggregation of some of the best interactive science sites for all grade levels:  http://learningscience.org/.  This site contains rich educational resources for many of the different science courses, including physical science, life science, and earth & space science.

For math teachers, there is a site known as the “National Library of Virtual Manipulatives” ( http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html), which provides students with immediate feedback as they continue to hone their individual math skills through games, puzzles, riddles, and other interactive methods.

Social studies teachers may want to visit a site called “Digital History,” a site that has great units, digital resources, and an interactive map/timeline.  Here is the link:  http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/.

For foreign language teachers, there is a site called “Digital Dialects”  (http://www.digitaldialects.com/), which allows students to enhance their speaking skills through a variety of interactive exercises.

Physical education, music, and art teachers may want to check out the following websites (respectively) for great activities to integrate with their students:  http://kidshealth.org/kid/; http://www.exploratorium.edu/music/; http://www.kerpoof.com/.

There is literally a world full of resources waiting for all elementary and intermediate teachers at their fingertips!  Enjoy!

While traveling across the state on last week, I listened to the following segment on NPR/Talk of the Nation.

Last week Ryan and I attended the OTA Sessions in Sioux Falls. Focused on social media, the event brought together people from the arts, creative fields like advertising and marketing, and businesses and non-profits that are increasingly using Facebook and blogs. A speaker who captured our attention was computer scientist, artist, and storyteller Jonathan Harris. He talked to us after his presentation about the project We Feel Fine as well as an idea that guides his work. Ryan produced a short edit of Jonathan’s interview:

Staff members from the Rural Learning Center in Howard, SD were at OTA too. Check out the blog ReImagine Rural to learn more about how topics discussed at OTA relate to our communities and their futures. If you’re intrigued and want to attend next year’s OTA Sessions get connected here.

If you haven’t been to www.thinkfinity.org recently, you might want to check out one of its content partner sites. ReadWriteThink has gone through a site redesign and I think you will love it. If you search the lessons, you will notice a new little feature where you can now select the state standards for that lesson!! So now each lesson in ReadWriteThink can be quickly aligned to SD Standards. They have a lot of other new features as well, so please visit the website and check it out. I would love to hear your comments about the features you find exciting and useful. Please comment.

What would it feel like to live at the epicenter of the world’s most horrific genocide?  I’m currently reading Barbara Coloroso’s book, Extraordinary Evil, A Brief History of Genocide, which I got from Barbara at this last week’s Systems Change Conference in Sioux Falls. In the introduction, she details her visit to a genocide exhibit in Kigali Rwanda at which she saw a recounting of some of the genocides that have ravaged our globe. On a poster on the wall she reads:

1. North America (1492-) 15,000,000 people
2. South America (1500-) 14,000,000 people
3. Holocaust in Europe (1933-1945) 2,000,000 people
4. Cambodia (1975) 2,000,000 people
5. Pakistan (1971) 1,500,000 people
6. Armenia (1915-1918) 1,400,000 people
7. Rwanda (1994) 1,000,000 people
8. Former Yugoslavia (1991-1999) 800,000 people
9. Uganda (1971-1979) 300,000 people
10. Manchuria (1930) 200,000 people
11. Iraq (1980-1988) 100,000 people
12. South Africa (1902) 30,000 people
13. Australia (1824) 10,000 people

And then scribbled below the poster on the wall:

14. Sudan 200,000 and counting

This isn’t information that I didn’t have access to, it’s just a reality that doesn’t often strike home in a significant way to most of us here in the middle of America. We are home to the most numerically devastating genocide that has ever happened. Despite our attempts to halt the destruction and restore the historical peoples and cultures that STILL exist here, there is a level at which this deep injury continues to do its work. Our Native American neighbors live disproportionally not only in the poorest parts of our state, but also in areas qualifying as the poorest parts of our nation.
Many of us believe that education is part of the remedy. I believe this too. Still, some of our lowest scores come out of the schools in these very regions—primarily Native American, economically disadvantaged. It is one more insult on top of injury to claim that this problem is somehow endemic to the Native American population itself—that’s just one more bit of the type of “bullying” that Coloroso reveals as being at the source of genocide. Education may be the answer, but not just any kind of education. What kind of education then? Education according to whom? Education to what particular end?
Coloroso begins her book with a quote from holocaust survivor Chaim Ginott:

I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no man should witness: Gas chambers built by learned engineers, children poisoned by educated physicians, infants killed by trained nurses, women and babies shot and buried by High School and College graduates. So I am suspicious of education.

My request is: Help your students to become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths, educated Eichmanns. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more human.

For Coloroso, at least a part of responding meaningfully to this plea is developing an Ethic “rooted not in rules, but rather in deep caring.” I believe, for the most part, that does describe us as educators in South Dakota. However, something else is at work here, perhaps a different kind of genocide, one having less to do with the destruction of the body and more to do with the unintentional destruction of a way of being and knowing.
It’s clear that the largest part of the devastation of the First Nations of our continent was the systematic destruction of the pillars of their cultures: the eradication of the Buffalo, the elimination of their languages, the outlawing of their religion, and the breakdown of their tribal and familial bonds. But none of these came about in a vacuum. The powerful European push was to have them eat domestic beef rather than Buffalo, to speak English rather than their native tongues, to become Christian rather than follow their spiritual traditions, and to look and act like the white families who were swarming onto the plains rather than live the tribal lives to which they were accustomed. For most Americans, talk of elimination would have been too strong, but assimilation into something “better” seemed not only gentler, but perhaps even benevolent. It was something about which we could pat ourselves on the back.
What happened historically was a shift of power, a change of energy. Whereas a people once proudly pursued their own destiny, now a “better” destiny was chosen for them—whether they liked it or not.
As I was thinking about this change of energy or shift of power, I was reminded of a conversation I listened in to at the 2008 Indian Education Summit. I was the lone “white man” at a table of Lakota elders, and the talk turned to “Counting Coup”. In case you don’t know, counting coup is the social convention practiced among many Great Plains nations of gaining power over an enemy. Sometimes it was touching your enemy in battle with your coup stick—not seriously injuring him, but reminding him that you could have injured him. Sometimes it was the taking of items or horses. In this way, the balance of power was shifted, in some ways the distribution of goods (furs, horses, foodstuff) was balanced.
But when the Europeans “counted coup” on the Plains Nations, power was permanently shifted, goods and food were forever changed. This imbalance became the death of millions.
The discussion at our table was about education and books. One gentleman made the statement that has stuck with me ever since.

“I tell these young people, ‘These books are counting coup on you… don’t let them. You must count coup on the books.’”

In my work on a school audit team in a primarily Lakota community, I struggled over the “cultural congruity” portion of the audit. I came to realize the impossible position in which we place our Native schools and teachers. As we identify standards and measurements, from a Eurocentric mindset, we count coup on all that is Lakota. We place our teachers in the position of not only offering “something better” but we also require of them, as this audit did, to be true to Lakota culture. Conforming to the values of the audit (which demanded that they value Lakota culture) was often incongruent with traditional Lakota values. But this isn’t only a problem for our Lakota students, it’s a problem with any student who feels subjugated by a book, a curriculum or an educational model to the point of conceiving of learning as a tradeoff of self for growth.
Growth NEVER subjugates SELF. Growth is always a fuller revealing of SELF in relation to the world around.
The elder was right. In our education of all students, native, white, rural, urban, minority, majority, male or female, we must teach them that Learning is to count coup on all that is to be learned. It is not to be subjected to books or curriculum or educational approaches, but rather to bring whatever is being presented into an understandable linkage with who I already am. This idea is at the core of Coloroso’s plea for an ethic rooted not in rules but in deep caring.
Deep caring does not impose upon the individual; it embraces all parts of the individual until vibrant linkages are made which feed growth in all parties. Deep caring encourages the individual to take in the “third thing” (a book, a problem, a curriculum, a way of understanding) and make it his or her own—not to lose SELF in its complexity. This Deep Caring ethic is what enables us to teach reading, writing, arithmetic and anything else in ways that help our students to become “more human.”
To become more human, one must be fully possessed of his or her own authentic self.
One type of genocide is the destruction of bodies in order to wipe out an identified ethnic “other”. This problem may never be fully eradicated, but we are at least aware of it and have labeled it as an “extraordinary evil”. The more insidious genocide is the one that attempts to wipe out one group’s or individual’s way of knowing the world for another. This second type of genocide may seem on the surface to be more benign, but in both types, death is the dynamic, not growth.

It starts with good intentions. We want our students to learn. We want them to be better writers and readers and communicators. We want to be able to open them up to a world that has so much language to offer, a world of dialogue to which they can add their own unique voices. That’s how it starts, anyway. Good intentions.
To whatever degree a society has contracted value into consumerism, and progress into competition, its educational system will find itself pushed to prepare good consumers and driven competitors. Within such a system, even the good intentions of educators will degrade into mere complicity.
Because students come to us with the innate desire to be heard and to be understood, motivation isn’t really a problem, initially. They step into the classroom a bit scared, a bit nervous, but it only takes a few minutes before the majority are interacting, playing together, inquiring of each other, laughing and crying… all the things we human beings come out of the womb doing. When they arrive, they are operating on the assumption that they are the masters of their own worlds. They name what they use. They claim what they desire. They step into relationships as though they were always perfectly understood and perfectly accepted. But eventually, someone says, “No, that’s not the way it is… you’re wrong.” And they say it, often, in a way that leaves the first of a large number of permanent marks. It could come from another classmate, or perhaps a teacher—it’s usually both. Suddenly the individual discovers that the world is a place where some people are higher than others, and that those higher ups get to make the rules, even if they’re wrong.
Those good intentions sometimes convince us that the most important lesson others need to learn is where they stand in relation to everyone else, and especially in relation to us.
At some point, over the next few years, each student finds his or her relationship to power. Some find a complacent place at the feet of power—following closely, hanging on every word, every bit of instruction. They willingly abdicate self to become whatever benevolent power ordains. They find reward in the smiles, the gifts or the positive assessments of power—a deep addiction ensues. To wean one’s self from the incentives offered by an authority figure is difficult after years of conditioning. The Pleasers will battle internally only so long until the spark of initiative is finally extinguished. They become compliant—just the kind of citizen the market desires.
But some students are less willing to swallow self and absorb the demands of power. Though they haven’t the confidence to rebel, they also haven’t the heart to conform. So they withdraw. These students become Survivors who often develop a vivid inner life. But it’s an inner life that has few outlets. They are turned in upon themselves, reading books, but remaining as invisible as possible, hoping not to be called upon—not because they don’t know the answer, but because they’ve learned that revealing the true self is too dangerous, too risky.
Of course, there are also those who refuse to subvert self. In fact, as teachers and peers push more and more to exert authority over them, a polarization takes place. The non-conformists are pushed to become the Rebels. The one with all the questions is pushed to become the radical dissenter. The one who longs to tear down the invisible walls that others keep putting up, the walls that block individuality and initiative, is prodded into becoming the vandal… the bully… the perpetrator of violence.
At this point, the system has done its job, each student placed neatly in his or her category, and the broader society reaps what it has sown:
• Pleasers hopelessly play out the parts they feel they are expected to play, so divided from self that they don’t even know who this person is who stares back from the mirror.
• Survivors are left on the fringes with voices that have great insights, but are never heard. They live in fear of opening up, of taking action, becoming the silent doormats who do the work no one else will do. Sometimes, when they pass away, they are buried in unvisited graves.
• Rebels fill our prisons, or become the brilliant, corporate few who swindle us and destroy our economy; they sometimes become the terrifying few, who hate—even in the name of God or Family or America with a misplaced tribal consciousness developed over years of dwelling on the injustice of all other perceived “tribes”.
There is yet a handful unmentioned who slip through the System, managing to retain the beautiful integrity of self while never abdicating, cocooning into passivity, or depicting “the other” as enemy. These individuals have found the way to excel without comparative analysis, without prizes and awards and conquests other than the growing sense that they are learning.
The system has failed to disempower these few, and so these few hold the power that may eventually redeem our present system.