Author: Mr. Chase

Meeting the man at the top

I wasn’t quite certain what to expect when meeting the principal of Wavecrest Primary School Wednesday.

I’ll be working with the faculty at Wavecrest next week to help their teachers who attended our Cape Town workshops further integrate tech into their teaching. I’m also hoping to work with their ICT Committee to set up a structured, regular schedule for meeting to achieve the school’s vision for ICT integration.

Those were the ideas in my head prior to meeting with the principal.
I knew full well they could fall by the wayside – or waveside (sorry).

Each member of our team is paired with a school identified by Edunova as most likely to benefit from some one-on-one attention in our last week here.

I’d heard varying stories from the other principal meetings. One had waved it off and said we should speak with the school’s LAN Administrator*. While not standing in the way of ICT integration, that principal wasn’t willing to make room on his plate for taking it on as his own priority either.

Some pieces of this process really do translate internationally.

These meetings can also be tricky if we run into an overzealous principal. The one who asks for full-faculty trainings, repairs to a long-defunct computer lab, physical resources, etc.


The whole idea behind EBB is capacity building.

We work with those on the ground here to build their knowledge and plans for passing that knowledge on.

If I give a whole-faculty workshop on the ins and outs of PowerPoint, the learning’s more than likely to stop once I walk o

ut the door. Teachers are sometimes left waiting for the next year’s team to pick up where I left off, not building their skills throughout the year. It

might be doing the right things, but it wouldn’t be doing things right.

As much as I was braced for the aloof, uninvolved principal, I was prepared for the hyper-interested, high-maintenance principal as well.

Wavecrest presented me with neither.

Waiting in for our meeting, I saw three of the teachers from the week before. I got hugs.

When my colleagues from Edunova, Khosi and Benji, and I sat down with the principal, he was gregarious and welcoming.

After formal introductions, I asked what help we might be able to provide around ICT integration in the coming week.

His teachers lack confidence, he said. They need to know they can use technology without fear.

“What about the school’s ICT committee?” I asked.

We have one, yes, but they will meet here and there.

“Would it be alright if we worked to set up something more formal?”

“Oh, yes, yes. That would be very good.”

2 for 2

“We have 3 SMART Boards,” he said, “But none of the teachers use them because they do not know how. Could you show them?”

“Your teachers at last week’s workshops rece

ived training on SMART Boards. We could work with them to design workshops where they help their colleagues learn about the boards.”

Again, agreement.

“Is there anything else you can think of?” I asked.

“Would you have time to visit some of our classes and observe the learners and talk with our teachers?”

Jackpot! I miss kids. It’s even worse to be spending all this time in schools, but not get to work directly with kids.

Friday Khosi, Benji and I will be meetin

g with the principal, the seven teachers who attended the workshops and the two members of the ICT committee who weren’t at the workshops. We’ll be forming up a plan for the week ahead.

I love it when a plan comes together.

*LAN Administrator here means a teacher who is in charge of developing a time table for the use of a school’s computer lab along with other duties.

13.1 miles and living

Running 13 miles didn’t kill me. I don’t even think I garnered any scars.
As I wrote earlier, I’m pushing through with Toronto Marathon training this go round in South Africa.
That meant a long run Sunday.
The last time I tried anything over 10 miles, I ended up running 10 miles. It wasn’t pretty. Not enough to eat that day, dehydrated from the get go, no precursor training beforehand. Name a stupid error distance runners make and I made it.
It was ugly.
Luckily, it was also 5 months ago.
I’ve a solid training foundation of approximately 30 mi/wk working for me this time.
Sunday worked.
Though I had to complete it by repeats of running out 2 miles and back 2 miles, I got my 13 – well, 13.1 (Why not run the half when you’re that close anyway?).
Clocking in at a 8’11″/mile pace, I was proud.
The only real break was when the ole digestive track sent me inside. No worries on that; it provided a chance at grabbing an orange.
After a day off for recovery Monday, I hit the road again Tuesday, running toward the sun setting behind Table Mountain. There are worse moments in life.
Six miles completed with a 8’19″/mile pace.
I didn’t stop the entire six. The goal was to slow myself down.
It didn’t really work.
I need to run with someone else. I need a pacer.
This has never EVER been a problem for me. Then again, I’ve never run this much or this fast before.
All I know how to do is run.
I mean, I know more than that. I know a bunch of the jargon and science and philosophy.
But, when I’m on the road, all I know how to do is run.
Slowing down was never an anticipated problem.

Don’t you dare tell!

Week 3 began Monday with a debriefing meeting at the Edunova office. Our partners in-country partners on the projects in Cape Town, Edunova works with a select group of schools to build technology literacy skills in teachers. Mainly, their responsibilities entail SMART Board training as well as your standard office suite of tools.

Last week, they did so much more. As I wrote, Khanyiso and Mlungisi designed and mostly led the sessions on building multimedia projects and their role in the curriculum. They did a superb job mixing theory and practice so that the skills could move from the week of workshops to teacher practice.

In some ways, Edunova’s hands are tied. As a non-profit, funding is connected to the deliverables their benefactors are looking for. Moving from literacy to deeper integration strategies is a jump.

Beyond all that, this team wants to make the jump.

Between last year and this, I’ve seen a remarkable change in the willingness or confidence or comfort with talking to teachers about integration vs. just working to transfer skills.

The temptation, for me, then becomes handing over resources and lessons and tips and tricks.

That has value.

Two weeks from now, when I’m on the other side of the ocean, the value drops.

The same ideals I hold in my classroom –  asking rather than telling, letting people fall and then urging them to get back up, realizing progress looks different for everyone, play is most important – are the ideals I’ve gotta hold to here.

Handing over is easy and painless in this case.

Learning, as usual, is painful, uncomfortable and beautiful.

Helping means asking questions and facilitating the search for answers.

I’ve gotta write that on the back of my hand this week.

13 miles tomorrow

October 17 I’ll be running the Toronto Marathon.

It’ll be my eighth marathon.

When I turned 21, I decided to run my first marathon. The whole idea was that the only milestone of being 21 years old shouldn’t be the right to legally drink.

From there, somehow, the goal became running 10 marathons in 10 years.

Sure, people run a marathon a month or 50 marathons in 50 days…


…but I’m a mere mortal.

I’m training for #8.

Being in South Africa and training for a marathon whilst working with teachers in schools and planning workshops and all the other life detritus makes scheduling a little weird.

Last year, I felt wonky about running at night.

This year, I know my surroundings. I know what’s what.

In this, our third home of the trip, I’ve marked an out-and-back course that’s 4 miles, round trip.

Tomorrow, I’ve a 13-mile long run.

That’s 3 out and backs with a mile somewhere at the end for good measure.

Should be interesting.

I’ve been averaging 25-30 miles/week the last few weeks.

The other piece of this training puzzle that’s been a tough navigation has been diet.

Vegetarian distance running is one thing when I’m in the familiar confines of my own city and have total control over my diet.

I learned last year that “vegetarian” here oftentimes translates to “only chicken and fish.”

I’m turning to No Meat Athlete and The Runner’s Kitchen for my inspiration to keep my hopes high.

Sure, they lose me when they start talking brand names that aren’t on the shelves here, but talking protein content of everyday foods is crazy helpful, not to mention the recipes.

13 miles tomorrow

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Let ’em admire the shiny

Due to illness, we’re down a team member today. Our partner NGO, Edunova, is also down a team member. Both of the missing team members were responsible for the same session today. As such, a little schedule shuffling was necessary this morning.

The results are to the teachers’ benefit. We’ve inserted a joint session.

For the first half, the teachers are getting a basic overview of how to use Smart Boards. Many of them have them in their classrooms or schools, but they sit dormant because teachers don’t know how to use them or are frightened of them.

They sit like white elephants in the schools, representative of thousands of rand that could have funded a laptop and projector or some other more varied ICTs.

Seems educational technology companies don’t have the best interest of schools and their learners at heart.

The second half of the new session is a Part II of yesterday’s multimedia session. Khanyiso and I drafted a project for the teachers in about 15 minutes.

Using their cell phones and Windows Movie Maker, they’re to create a 1-3 minute video answering the question, “What does it mean to be a teacher?”

We spent all of our 45 minutes on explaining the project, oggling the gadgets and storyboarding.

I’m not worried we didn’t get to the videos.

We’ve built about an hour into the day today for the teachers to play.

Many of them are planning on creating their movies.

The best part for me was watching them realize they had video capabilities on their phones and then take meaningless videos of their colleagues for 30 seconds simply because they could.

They were waking up to the power of the tools they carry in their pocket everyday.

Also, we didn’t re-direct them. We didn’t demand their attention or that they get back on task. I knew they’d get there.

For the moment, the tools were shiny.

When my first iPhone arrives, I imagine I won’t be making too many calls. I’ll just be admiring the shiny.

After about 5 minutes, all of the groups, each and every teacher, was working diligently to create a storyboard to tell the world what it means to be a teacher.

When we were wrapping up, we discussed the benefits of what they’d been doing:

  • Incorporating many subject areas.
  • Most of the work could be done in the classroom with minimal need to wrestle for a chance at the computer labs.
  • The gadgets were shiny and new, but the task won out.
  • One hundred percent of them were engaged.
  • They cared about what they were creating.

The plan is to post the finished products up on youtube and then share them here.

Most importantly, they’ll have seen what can happen once you get past admiring the shiny.

Teachers aren’t the worst audience

Khanyiso, Mlungisi and I were in charge of leading the session on multimedia in the classroom Wednesday. It was the afternoon and the usual grumblings about too much theory and not enough practice had begun in a small contingent of teachers.

They were ready for some hands on.

To get us started, I pulled up Schooltube and Teachertube to grab a few examples. The first was not so academic. The second, though, led to some interesting conversation about how the use of multimedia ICTs could be of use in the classroom.

The teachers could see how learners would be required to incorporate learning across multiple areas of study to create a short video on a given topic.

We’d talked about this in the theory portion of the week when discussing the importance of collaboration.

The teachers could tell how creating multimedia products would require learners to do new things using new tools.

We’d talked about the Literacy, Adaptive and Transformative levels of ICT integration earlier in the week, so they were able to point it out and use the language.

The teachers discussed what it would take to locate the information the learners had used in the sample video.

We’d talked about information literacy and search strategies earlier. A trend was forming.

If I’d been a different kind of fellow, I would have noted how all the theory was necessary to name the practice and discuss it using common language. If I’d been a real jerk, I would have pointed out how important the part they were complaining about was proving to be during the part they’d been clamoring for.

I’m neither of those types.

Instead, I said things like, “If you remember what Chris said about refining search terms in his session earlier…” or “What’s the difference between the transformative learning in this example versus the adaptive learning Cyndy talked about Tuesday?”

Teachers, it’s been said until it needs not be said anymore, are the worst audience. I don’t know how much I agree with that.

Teachers are learners. We make assumptions they’re inherently more willing to listen to someone else drone on and on than children. They’re not.

They’re learners.

Yes, the stages of development are different, but they still have learning styles, they still need to move, they still need to be engaged. And, learning, oftentimes, is a difficult and uncomfortable process for them.

I love it.

Would you marry the Internet again?

When I’m playing “What if?” and I come up with this scenario, I imagine someone tripping over a chord and the entire country making that cartoony power-down sound.

As you’ve likely heard, the Internet’s broken on the west side of Africa. Something called SEACOM went down and that was that.

It’s not quite what you’d like to have happen when you’re on Day 1 of a week of workshops about technology in education. If you’re minutes away from leading a session signing 25 teachers up for their first-ever e-mail accounts, it’s certainly not the news you’d like to get.

We’re not even going to consider the implications if the country in which you happen to be staying is hosting one of the most highly watched sporting events in the world.

Anyway, someone tripped over a cord up north and brrroooooooooo. 🙁

The session I was supposed to lead at the end of the day became the second session of the day – sans my google docs-stored notes.

You roll with it.

I gave the scenario a few posts ago of tech leaders from around a state showing up to a conference and losing connectivity.

Now, imagine a few countries lost that connectivity. Imagine the Eastern Seaboard of the United States broke their connection. Chaos, right?

Here, we’re moving on and teaching Photo Story 3 and discussing how to get communities surrounding schools with computer labs to take ownership of those resources.

Seriously.

The Internet’s broken and no one has set fire to a single car. I want to run into the computer lab and scream, “Don’t you understand what’s happening?! Don’t you get there’s no way to talk about it on Facebook?!”

Yes, I’m convinced the connectedness and access the Internet affords will exponentially provide South Africa educational opportunities educators and learners have no access to now. I have no doubts.

I wouldn’t be spending more than a month here if I weren’t certain.

Access will make things better.

I wonder, though, if access will become the dependence seen across the U.S.

If we had the Internet to do over again, would we?

The energy is genetic

Standing in line Thursday for lunch, one of the e-Personnel turned to me and questioned, “Zac, when will you be giving a workshop on how to have your energy?”

I get a little excited.

The energy of learning is infectious. Feeling, seeing and hearing ideas whip around in discussion or writing or pictures or music or any other mode can make me a bit manic.

That said, I didn’t have an answer for her.

As we were standing to say our formal goodbyes as a team, Friday, I referenced her question.

“I’m not sure how to teach people to be energetic,” I said, “I think it’s genetic.”

My people are kitchen dancers. I remember the radio pumped up when I was a little kid and my mom and I dancing through dinner prep. I’ll argue lasagna tastes better if you’ve got a little wiggle in your booty whilst you’re layering on the pasta.

Now, my classroom’s my test kitchen.

It’s not uncommon for me to stand on a chair to get noticed above the self-orchestrated din. I’ll dance badly when the spirit moves me. Why not sing once in a while?

I do these things when I’m working with learners young and old alike. Silly is good. Silly makes the tough stuff easier. If we’ve laughed together, we’re bonded for when the problems arise.

Getting that message across when people are teaching for their lives – when they’re scared of mistakes and terrified of looking like they don’t know what they’re doing – can prove incredibly difficult.

I’m talking about the e-Personnel we were working with as well as much too many educators in other settings around the world.

When everything’s buttoned down and deviation from the plan is frowned upon, kitchen dancing seems an impossible answer.

The energy comes from having faith in my ability to try again and do it better.

That’s a privilege.

Working with people who are hanging on every cent they can get to improve learning for their children forces the question of whether I’d have the energy were I in their place.

I’d like to think so.

I’d like to think the love of learning, of ideas, would transcend.

The Problem Statement

As I work through my online master’s program, I’ll be posting my assignments here. Seems wrong to leave them locked in a walled garden.

The first official assignment outside of the make-up of the missed chat was to submit my proposed problem statement for the project I’ll be working on for the duration of the class. The assignment was described as such:

This week you will need to create a 1 sentence problem statement. Keep it simple. 
Something you can complete within the 4 weeks of implementation. The sentence must 
be in this format. 

My Problem is that __% of my ____grade students _________________.

You will be working on this particular problem for this entire course.  Please submit the 
problem statement to the Assignment Drop Box for approval.

AND…

PLANNING THE INQUIRY ASSIGNMENT ONE Notes: -Your One Sentence Problem Statement must be approved by the AS. This is a crucial step to ensure that the rest of your assignment is on track. You cannot proceed until this statement has been approved. Examples of One Sentence Problem Statements: -My problem is that 25% of my 8th grade students score below 75% on weekly math tests. -My problem is that 35% of my 9th grade students are not comprehending my science lectures. -My problem is that 40% of my 3rd grade inclusion class students cannot maintain focus for 15 minutes to complete independent written work. -My problem is that 55% of the elementary special education students on my caseload are not socially or academically successful in their regular education setting

I went back and forth over whether or not I’d write a problem statement that applies to the work I’m doing here in South Africa. Because we’re completing the course during the summer, we’re to design lesson plans as if we were really trying to change the problem rather than actually attempting to  change a real problem.

In the end, I went with a problem that exists within our workshops here, but framed it within the context of a G11 classroom to avoid any confusion with my instructor.

The problem statement turned out as such:

My problem is that 40% of my eleventh grade students do not participate in whole-class discussion.

Thoughts?

My First Assignment

As I work through my online master’s program, I’ll be posting my assignments here. Seems wrong to leave them locked in a walled garden.

My first assignment was participating in an online chat. When South African wifi and WebCT’s hate of all my browsers combined, I missed it. Below is my alternative assignment. What do you think?

Chat # 1 Synopsis

Date and Time: June 30, 2010, 6:00 pm EST

Name: Zac Chase

Course: EDUC 610

1. Discuss the importance of cooperative learning and the benefits that it has over lecturing

Cooperative learning puts more of the oneness for the processing of the learning on the learners in the classroom than traditional lecture. Properly infused, it also builds in time for checking for understanding and creates a natural push toward application rather than focusing on memorization and recitation. Again, these are qualities of cooperative learning when it is properly applied. Without attention to individual accountability or positive interdependence, the learning becomes group work and learners are allowed to slink into the background or take control of the work. Teacher facilitation is key in this respect. It shouldn’t be confused with turning over “control” of the classroom to the learners entirely.

2. Discuss the different strategies [you use] in your classroom using multiple intelligences, graphic organizers and reflective journals.

I try to have my learners moving frequently throughout the class period. In talking with occupational therapists, I know my learners’ brains benefit from changes of state every 15 minutes or so throughout the class. This is one of the places where I infuse cooperative learning and check for understanding. Granted, some classes are devoid of these 15-minute check-ins when lessons require more endurance or focused time in one state. As far as multiple intelligences, I don’t adhere to draconian measures prohibiting learners’ use of iPods or other MP3 players when reading or writing in the classroom. We’re learning that music of different tempos and rhythms reacts differently with different learners’ brains. If this can help any learner in my charge gain clearer access to reading, writing and thinking, I’m not about to stand in the way. Working in a project-based school, I attempt to design projects that give learners choice in their products whilst still adhering to the learning objectives of the unit and working toward understanding in relation to the units’ essential questions. Sometimes, this can mean students creating works of music, annotating video, creating performance pieces, writing essays or any other myriad of outputs. Along the way, quizzes and other assignments scaffold development of traditional skills. For the overall assessment, though, I ask the learners to produce from their preferred intelligences so I can better access their learning of the key concepts and understandings.

In the realm of graphic organizers and reflective journals, I use both quite frequently. Oftentimes, journaling will be the first component of the class. For prompts, I offer choice again. Learners may respond to a photo related to the day’s lesson, a quotation also related or they may free write. Whenever possible, I attempt to keep the free write option in the journaling assignment. As it’s the first assignment of the period, I want learners to have a time to process whatever issues they may be bringing with them from earlier in the day. Oftentimes, it allows them greater access to learning later in class and creates a safe space within their days.

3. Discuss the importance of active learning in the classroom.

I feel like this was touched on nicely in our online readings, but I’ll offer up my own thoughts here. Active learning, if structured properly can bring a level of equity to a classroom that would likely not otherwise be created. When working with learners of different backgrounds (which I would argue includes all learners), active learning can work against socially-established systems of privilege and work to allow discussions on a smaller scale that can both work against socially-constructed barriers as well as allow a processing and production of learning outcomes that would be left by the wayside in a classroom run strictly through lecture.

4. Discuss the importance of social development.

Learner engagement with the curriculum and the teacher requires engagement from the community within the classroom, including a social component among peers. Learners lacking in social development will become unable to focus due to their lack of connection to the classroom itself.

Social development in the classroom is dependent upon learners feeling safe. They must be able to relate their peers, and therefore must be presented with opportunities to do so. Anything from interest-based inquiries or self-selecting group projects can help to grow a learner’s social confidence, and connection to the classroom.

Many learners, however, will reject this kind of specifically social constructions within the classroom. Learners that feel as though these are contrived events may require a less “risky” environment within which to feel socially accepted. This is the perfect avenue for an online discussion or chat with other learners within which the more shy learners can engage and feel confident in their contributions. By creating an online profile, they are able to self-identify their interests and locate other learners in the classroom to collaborate with.

The teacher is responsible for facilitating social growth within each learner. While she may want to focus solely on the curriculum or on setting academic expectations for her classroom, social development is a major part of creating a functional environment within which learning occurs.

The teacher cannot simply call on the learners that she relates to, nor can she only promote the learners who need the most help into positions of least risk.

The role of the teacher is to find a balance for all learner-to-learner interaction in terms of all learners’ needs for socialization and growth in team collaboration. Just as a teacher would create mixed-ability groups for project-based learning, she must also create mixed-sociability groups in every learning situation. The simple act of asking a questions and soliciting responses is a social act. Maintaining a healthy back and forth between those in positions of comfort with their peers and those who are more apprehensive will lead the classroom to be a safe, and hopefully, appropriately social learning environment.

5. Discuss your current method of Classroom Management, how you came about using these methods…. then discuss [whether] “change” [is] difficult or easy for you

and why.

My current method of classroom management is based largely on the work of Hal Urban. A proactive approach, it focuses on community building and positive interaction with learners. From the beginning of the year, learners know to expect “high-grade compliments” from me randomly near the beginning of the class period. High-grade compliments entail three components 1) Close proximity, 2) Eye contact, 3) Thought. They focus on the aspects of learners that might otherwise go unnoticed by teachers and other adults in their life. Keeping the selection random also pushes me to sit in front of the most challenging learners in my classroom and really reflect on the best parts of those children. It requires me to see the good on a regular basis.

As for the daily operations in my class, I regularly incorporate cooperative learning strategies to keep learners engaged, operate in an online environment and am available regularly on Facebook and instant message. I’m fairly certain these external modes of communication and collaboration go the extra mile toward showing my learners I care about them and thereby help give them permission to care about our classroom community.

As for my willingness to change, I’m all for it. The caveat to that statement is so long as it is thoughtful, reflective change. My principle is fond of evoking the Law of Unintended Consequences and asking, “What is the worst consequence of our best idea?” So long as change comes with this contemplation, I’m receptive. Change for the sake of trying something new or because it’s popular can often be dangerous.

6. Questions regarding assignment # 1.

I’ve already posted this on the forum, but I’m wondering if our first discussion post must be only the problem statement or if we should also include an explanation to meet the stated 250-word requirement.