Build a Bridge!

This link, http://ar.gy/1VY6 ,will take you to the video of the Ignite Talk, Bridge and Fences, that  I gave for our New Tech Network's National Conference Closing. There were 10 of us who "volunteered" for this, and I think it safe to say it was MUCH more difficult than any of us imagined. That being said, I am so glad I did it. Too many times a zip code is a fence that our students just aren't able to bridge alone! So as you begin a new school year, think about what bridges you are going to build!

I LOVE that this photo was tweeted to me from someone who was inspired on his way home! Thanks @Jshackow this made my day!

Twitter, Hashtags and Chat, Oh My!

I live in rural Indiana, but my office is in Napa,California,I telecommute. We often tell our students we are preparing them for jobs that don't exist yet. I have a job that certainly didn't exist back in 1990 when I graduated from Butler University. My job is to facilitate communication and connections both between our 85 New Tech Network schools across the nation and with innovative educators world wide. We connect in a number of ways virtually, but for this Web 2.0 Challenge, we are going to focus on Twitter!
There are many ways you can use Twitter in your classroom, but we are going to talk about Twitter as a way for you to create your own personal learning network online.
If you are new to Twitter, here is a great video tutorial  from Common Craft to get you started.. Watch the video then click on over to Twitter and sign up. Choose your twitter name carefully. You want it to be short, easy to type and keep in mind you will  likely have colleagues and community members as followers
Speaking of followers, who will you follow? It isn't all about the Kardashians and Justin Bieber!  A few of my favorites are @cybraryman, @web20Classroom, I even follow children's author, @judyblume and of course, follow me,  @TheresaShafer.
One of the best ways I have found to form my Twitter PLN is through the use of hashtags. A hashtag is a key word preceded by the # sign and identifies the tweet as containing information around a certain topic. This makes the topic searchable.  For example when you are on twitter, search for any of the hashtags on this list to find the subject, grade level or topic you are interested in.
Now on to my new favorite Twitter activity, Twitter Chats. There are many (over 600 chats) that happen on Twitter through out the week. I most often participate in #edchat and the one that I moderate as my other Twitter name, @NewTechNetwork,  is  #PBLChat . PBLChat is on Tuesday nights at 9pm EST and we discuss all things around Project Based Learning.  An excellent way to get your feet wet with a Twitter Chat is to simply check out the chat archive.  I use Storify to archive our chat, others create a wiki or even a google doc.  I use the tool Tweet Chat for participating.  You go to Tweet Chat, type in the hashtag you want to watch and off you go. You can choose to simply "lurk" and follow the conversation or jump right in and tweet your own questions, solutions or thoughts. The cool thing about Tweet Chat is it adds the hashtag for you! Blogger for Edutopia and PBL author Suzie Boss wrote about this chat a few weeks ago and can give you additional insights.
I have gained so much from building a network on Twitter, I talk often with a PBL educators from Australia, have had tweets from Daniel Pink, get insights from Indiana's own Yancy Unger, I offer solutions, ask questions but most importantly I learn everyday. No where else but during our #PBLChat have I had a deep discussion around homework purposes and policies that included teachers, parents, administrators and students. I encourage everyone to reach out beyond the halls of your own building and see through the lens of others. If you have any questions tweet me @theresshafer, @newtechnetwork or send me an email! See you in the twitterverse.

Bridges and Fences

Ignite Talk from NTAC12 in Grand Rapids, Michigan!

Bridges & Fences

 I know, I know you think I’m going to talk to you about the awesomeness of Twitter and about all the ways you can get connected with social media,  but I’m not going to talk to you about social media.....very much.   I’m actually going to talk about bridges and fences.

Jeff Bridges, foot bridges, suspension bridges, the Golden Gate Bridge, London Bridge covered bridges, there are so many kinds of bridges. Bridges are built to connect two things, places or people that may have never reached each other without a bridge.

What about fences? Garden fences, wooden fence, split rail fences, playground fences, barbed wire fences, prison fences. Fences are built to keep people out or are they actually built to keep people in?

Bridges are written about in symbolic ways throughout literature and song, Bridge to Teribithia, A Bridge Too Far, Bridge Over Troubled Water. You are never supposed to burn your bridges and things in the past are water under the bridge. No doubt bridges are important. 

Some bridges are short, but still scary. You know that colleague across the hall, the one you have been politely nodding to and then shutting your door? Open the door, cross the hall,share an idea, give a compliment, offer to help, invite them in. Build bridges with your colleagues.

How well do you know your school board members? Only by what you read in the paper or hear in the lounge? Find out their talents, their likes and hobbies. Send them an email, give them a call, copy them on your good news, include them in a project. Build bridges with your school board.

How well do you know your community? What hidden gems are there that you or your students may have yet to discover? Contact your Chamber of Commerce, leadership groups, and city government. Authentic problems may be right in your own downtown waiting for students to solve.  Build bridges to your community

So what fences are there keeping you from connecting with your colleagues, school board and community? Some fences are made of grudges long held, offenses not forgiven, judgements made in haste. I encourage you to let these go. Let these go and begin building bridges.

Every time you craft a driving question, you are building bridges. Bridges that connect past experience to new information.  Bridges that connect closed minds to opened eyes. Ones that connect content in a book to realistic application in student lives. Build bridges with questions.

 Every time you create a group you are building bridges from student to student. When you put the young lady with hair that is a different color everyday in the same group with the one who wears a different headband everyday, you are breaking down barrier,s teaching students to value differences. Build bridges with students.

 Every time you bring people in from outside of your classroom, you build a bridge. Whether they Skype in or walk in, you connect students to mentors, to colleges, to careers. You also show the world these students have tremendous talents worth sharing and nurturing. Build a bridge to the world for your students.

 What fence is keeping you from connecting to these people? Many fences are build by fear, fear of disruption, of embarrassment, fear of confrontation, fear of failure. Fear is a fence that keeps many people from getting out or letting anyone in.

 Echo is a really safe place to begin building bridges. I encourage you to join a group or even begin a group discussion about topic you have an interest in exploring, ask questions, weigh in with answers. Connect with others all over the network. Build a bridge with Echo.

 Build a 140 character bridge with Twitter. 500,000 million people do and many of them are educators. Follow,  tweet, re-tweet, join a chat , search a hashtag. You will get feedback, pushback, and you can give back. Build a bridge with twitter.

 Blogging can build a bridge! Whether you write a blog, or read and comment on someone else’s,  you will be joining in a conversation that will connect you with people who echo your own thoughts or maybe make you think again or think differently. Connect and reflect in a public forum. Build a bridge with a blog.

 Adam Babcock built a bridge from Danville New Tech high to film. One tweet built a bridge that connected his students with one of the award winning producer/directors of The Interupters,  Alex Kotlowitz,  who Skyped into his class and talked with his students about the issue of violence and young people. Adam is a bridge builder.

 Leah Henry built a bridge from downtown Indianapolis all the way to China. She reached outside of her classroom and took her students with her. In doing so she made the phrase “global education” real. This bridge opened eyes, opened doors and opened minds. Leah is a bridge builder.

 Dan McCarthy built a bridge out of tombstones. While exploring the novel Our Town the students at Zebra New Tech took information from this local cemetery, uploaded it to FindaGrave and began being contacted by people from all over the United States who now were connected to their past.  Dan McCarthy is a bridge builder.

  While many of us have built our own fences and must take responsibility to tear them down, so many of our students are born inside theirs, fences they did not have a hand in creating . Fences of poverty, stereotype, fences that exist simply because of their zip code.

 These fences are exactly why we must build bridges. Our students will climb up on those bridges and cross over their fences heading for places they have yet to see or even hear of, as you go back to your communities, schools and students, I challenge you to be a bridge builder!

A Little Less Talk & A Lot More Action

Last week I followed and tweeted during the NY Times Schools for Tomorrow  #NYTedtech conference, I spent my Sunday afternoon tweeting and listening to the conversation happening at Education Nations’ Teacher Town Hall.. While I am very happy that these conversations are happening on national platforms with large audiences, I crave as Elvis Presley once crooned "A little less conversation and a little more action, please".  

To get a little more action, I traveled to Columbus, Indiana to Columbus Signature Academy, a New Tech Network school, and spent two days at this school with a model that Jay Mathews called "A Wild Idea for an Ideal School" that has been cultivating a culture of trust, respect and responsibility for going on 5 years.

I could write pages about the school culture led by empowered students and teachers. The autonomy with which the students worked, the work spaces clearly designed for collaboration for both students and teachers or any number of ways the students and staff were engaged in the business of learning.  I will try to describe my two days in about 500 words, give or take a few.

Originally, I was invited to be in Jose Martinez and Katie Ferguson's Social Justice course (an integrated course of Eng10 and Current Problems, Issues and Events)  to sit on a panel and give feedback to students who were presenting videos they had created for a project around Censorship, the 1st Amendment and Fahrenheit 451.  Through Twitter, another facilitator (aka teacher) learned I was coming to campus and promptly requested a workshop with his students on utilizing Twitter to find experts as resources.  We set this up for first thing in the morning. The students were engaged and inquisitive as to how to create their own PLN via Twitter, which is unblocked for both teachers and students. 

During a conversation with the Director of Columbus Signature Academy, Mike Reed, we began discussing Social Media and the role it plays for schools. I suggested that the right person to manage the school's Facebook page might just be the students.  Mr. Reed nodded thoughtfully, looked at his watch and said Publications is at 11:00, does that fit your schedule?

Just before eleven I arrived in the work space for Publications, had a seat and pulled out my laptop.  Students arrived and began work on their tasks, not waiting in rows for a bell to ring or a teacher to call the class to order, they were engaged and busy as they walked in the door.  A few students recognized me from the morning workshop or their Social Justice presentations, sat at my table and inquired my purpose in this class.  I asked if they were interested in discussing how Social Media might fit into Publications and immediately a group of about 7 moved to my table to get started.  Clearly taking an idea from a thought to an action is a process this group knew well.  One young lady popped up her laptop, stating "I'll start a Google doc".  Then for about an hour we discussed knows, need to knows, challenges, possible solutions, veered off topic when an exciting idea came up (careers in social media, like mine), were brought back to topic by someone in the group and finally with about 10 minutes to go, someone piped up, "What are our next steps, what do we need to do to make this happen".  With every student chiming in the next steps were listed, and contact information exchanged.

All of the ideas I found interesting in the conversations happening at NYT Schools for Tomorrow and during the chats around Education Nation were alive and happening at Columbus Signature Academy. Here is a school with a culture that empowers, teaching that engages and technology that enables. 

So, while the conversation is good, let's model what the students at CSA did, what are our next steps so we can have a little more action!

Not Enough Student Voices! Engage with Education Nation!

Education Nation’s second-annual nationally televised Teacher Town Hall is this Sunday, September 25^th, continued live streams around specific topics happening on the 26^th and 27^th.  

When I attended an event at  Calumet New Tech High in Gary, Indiana during Secretary of Ed. Arne Duncan's Midwest Bus Tour, Dr. Martha Kanter engaged in a round table discussion about education, engagement, higher education and many more topics with the students.  The wisdom and experiences they shared should be heard by policy makers!

This year on their registration form they have included a dropdown choice of “student”.  I thought it might be something you would be interested in having your students, view the livestream,  comment on Facebook , follow on twitter . I would love to see some student voices come across the twitter feed.  We don’t hear from our students nearly enough during the national education discussions!  

Of course being able to work with this event and your students requires any number of progressive policies in place at your school, unblocking Twitter, or at the very least that it be unblocked for teachers and perhaps  students could access on their cell phones (if those aren't banned, too)! If you need some resources around unblocking, you can start here with an easy to understand post from the folks at Mind/Shift. 

A very helpful site when following a twitter stream around an event is TweetChat . You just type in the hashtag (for example,  during the Teacher Town Hall, #TeachersEdNat )  and it will pull up every tweet being tweeted.  Also, you won’t have to keep typing in the hashtag as you post, it puts it in your tweet for you! Each topic on the 25th, 26th and 27th  has its own hashtag and can be found as you scroll down this page.

Please forward this to teachers in your school(s) that might be interested in working with their students around this, or that may tweet or facebook during the discussion as well. I would suggest it for anyone leading current events/Government/Econ and/or digital media.

Hope you can tweet and/or chat during the Education Nation Teacher Townhall on 9/25 and for any of the events following on the 26^th and 27^th! I look forward to hearing those student voices!