NECC 2008

Well, so far this morning, I've discovered "Live from 1-35", how to download the Blog and Twitter NECC opml file to my newsreaders and downloaded NetNewsWire for Mac and found the Virtual NECCers group for those of us not fortunate enough to be attending NECC in San Antonio. I think that is enough for one morning.

Still don't get the Twitter thing though. Maybe this afternoon. :-)

Sir Ken Robinson - RSA Speaker

One of my most favourite speakers is Sir Ken Robinson. He has been an advocate for Creativity and the Arts for years. One of his more recent talks was his "Do Schools Kill Creativity?" talk at TED in 2006.

His most recent lecture was part of the RSA Edge Lecture series on the 16th of June 2008. In this talk Sir Ken talks about public education. He talks about how school curriculum is divided into two categories: Useful and Useless. He sprinkles his lecture with humour and lambastes "No Child Left Behind" in the U.S. which he describes as the same program introduced in Britain in 1988.

He talks about how most school jurisdictions around the world are reforming their version of education. The problem, as he sees it, is that education was first conceived around the time of industrialization. He talks about "twin pillars" - educated people and non-educated people.

The most amazing part of this talk starts with these quotes:

"I believe the changes taking place on earth now are without president in terms of their character and implications. And our best salvation is to develop a capacity for imagination and to do it systematically through public education and to connect people with their true talents. "

"I believe that there is a parallel climate crisis. I believe there is a global crisis in human resources. I believe that the parellel with the crisis in the natural world is exact. The costs of clearing this up are catestrophic. eg., State Government in California spent 3 billion on education and 9 billion on prison systems last year. "

The reason we're not getting it right in education is because we are not fundamentally changing the underlying assumptions of the system which have to do with intelligence, ability, economic purpose, and what people need. " We still educate people from the outside in". "We figure out what the country needs and then try and get them to conform with it". Rather than build education system around "personhood".

Sir Ken has a new book to be published in January 2009 about how people discover their talents and how people can be productive. People do their best when they are in their element. The evidence is persuasive that when people discover what it it that they can do then they will thrive.

Non-Fiction Writing - Glossy Ads Pt.2

Here is the 2nd part of Ronan Lee's Glossy ads lesson. He begins with a shared read followed by various instructional strategies in order for his students to get the most out of the lesson on deconstruction and construction of media.

Non-Fiction Writing - Gr. 4 Web Pages

Here 4th grade teacher Bridget Scime from the Halton D.S.B. explains how she uses quality media, text form immersion, content, and the connection between reading and writing. At the 1:08 mark she explains how she and her students co-create anchor charts for her classroom.

Rubrics and checklists are collabortively created and she explains how the writing process works in her classroom including whole class and small groups.

Deconstructing and constructing websites is a focus for the last part of the clip. Ms. Scime guides the students in the construction of anchor charts for creating web pages.

Non-Fiction Writing - Glossy Ads

In this clip grade 5 teacher Ronan Lee leads his junior students through an exercise in deconstruction of Glossy Car print ads.

Non-Fiction Media Texts - P.S.A.s

Here Dan Grant from York Region explains the process from beginning to end for what it takes to create an original Media Text. This is a Ministry of Ed. webcast from April 2008 on Non-Fiction Writing.

Here are the steps:

1. Generate topic ideas
2. Establish a specific focus
3. Identify the audience
4. Select the text form [eg., 30 second P.S.A.]
5. Text form Immersion
6. Deconstruct the text form
7. Practice with the form
8. Construct the text form

Non Fiction Reading & C.O.R.I.

With one of our district goals next year being non-fiction text, I thought I had better begin to get my head around the text connection to technology. John Guthrie's work with Concept Oriented Reading Instruction makes a lot of sense. Why not have students gain a deep understanding of a subject area, like science by reading about it. Lots of possibilities for shared reading here.

Jeffrey Wilhelm

In speaking with my favourite Principal this morning, he mentioned Jeffery Wilhelm's book: Engaging Readers & Writers With Inquiry.

We spoke about how at this time of the school year students and teachers are engaged in Summative Assessment tasks.

On pages 38 and 39 Jeffrey Wilhelm has a section entitled

Next Practical Steps: Three Key Moves

1. Identify an essential question and associated enduring understandings
2. Identify a final project
3. Create a "backwards plan"
   
   The most interesting was the final project discussion I had with the Principal this morning. He spoke about how J. Wilhelm talks about identifying projects kids can do a the end of the unit that will demonstrate their understanding - - their mastery and use of the enduring concepts and tools for dealing with the essential question. He talks about needing to know where you want your students to go and how you will know they have arrived. How will they demonstrate their mastery.
   
   He suggests options such as writing dramas, museum exhibits, video documentaries, Web sites, and social action projects. In talking about this type of design with an office colleague just now he remembers going to a workshop last fall which talked about not introducing too many "new learning" frameworks during the summative evaluation. I get this, you wouldn't have a student "just go make a movie" as part of a summative without experience making movies. Anyway, this was my aha moment(s) for the day.