New Blog Address

Certainly, you are welcome to read through my old blog posts here.  However, I have moved to a new blog at flipyourglassroom.com.  Feel free to join me over there for my latest posts.
Thanks!

The Launch of our Chromebook Newscast

A few years back, I was asked by my principal if we could start a morning newscast at my K-8 school.  At the time, we didn't have the technical equipment possible to make it an easy process.  It sat in the back of my mind for awhile not sure if it would ever become a reality.

This year, we launched TigerCast!  A weekly newscast produced by our 7th & 8th graders.  The show was made possible because this school year, we went 1:1 Chromebooks in our middle grades.  With the ever increasing functionality of live Hangouts through YouTube/Google+ and each student having a Chromebook, I decided this was the year we could pull off a simple morning newscast.

Our first episode was put together by 5 students.  We had 2 anchors, 2 reporters, and 1 director.  The director was supposed to run the Hangout and did so brilliantly in our test runs.  However, one of the other students didn't show up the morning we recorded, so our director became an anchor and I "directed" the first newscast.  With the exception of me pushing a few buttons out of necessity, the newscast was entirely student produced.

Since I am my school's GAFE administrator, I was able to set up 4 different accounts that aren't student accounts and open those accounts up to Google+.  The Hangout is run live from those 4 accounts so the students don't need to log in to their personal account.  Their school GAFE account doesn't have access to Google+.

We ran 4 different Chromebooks (3 for cameras and 1 for "master control") and broadcast the newscast live to YouTube using the Hangout Broadcast feature.  We used a Blue Snowball Mic on the main anchors and once I get a couple more mics, I will use those for the reporters as well.  I then go in and edit some of the settings on the video and send to our teachers to show to their classes.  Our principal emails it out to the parents as part of her weekly newsletter.

As we get better, we are going to make an intro animation, potentially play pre-recorded video packages using the video/screen share feature, and add an animated background as our technical skills improve.  Below, you can see the first episode.  I'm aware there are several mistakes, but as mentioned earlier, this was almost entirely student-produced and I like for them to learn "on the job."  Feel free to follow along and see the progress my students make on TigerCast!

Newest 20% Project Revisions

Last year about this time, I blogged on the revisions I made to my 20% Project for the school year. This summer, I did some reflection and talked to other 20 Time teachers and made more revisions to how I am going to implement the project.

1.  Specific Day for 20 Time
At the end of the school year, I solicited feedback from my students on what should be changed.  They said they wanted a day specifically dedicated to 20% time.  I gave them autonomy to work on what ever assignment they wanted to work on each day.  When students when got behind on an assignment or had a pressing deadline approaching, they would work on that rather than their 20%  Project.  At the end of the semester, many didn't accomplish as much as they could have because of this and many said that they simply ran out of time. When I pointed out the amount of time they actually had, they realized the had enough time, but just didn't use it as well as they could have. In essence, they asked to be given less autonomy and be told what day to work on their 20% Project.  So, to start the year at least, I'm giving them a specific 20 time day each week.

2.  Negotiate Points
I gave 30 completion points to any student that was able to give a presentation about their project and keep up with their blog posts consistently. I chose 30 points because it was enough points to motivate those students who needed that little extra incentive, but not enough points to be the main motivator or really hurt someone's grade much if they didn't produce an adequate presentation.
This year, I am going to have students negotiate their point total. They will get to grade themselves, but have to defend their assessment. I want students evaluating themselves and their effort.  I don't really want to "grade" the presentations at all, but I got tired of watching some students try to work the system to get maximum points with minimal effort.  We'll see how this works out.

3.  After School Presentations
I had the students give a Ted-style presentation to end the semester.  They give the presentations to the class.  I invited other teachers, parents, and community members to show, but no one else did.  This year, I'm going to schedule the presentations in the evening at school. I'm going to set up our large projection screen and make the presentation a more formal event.  I will promote it and maybe even broadcast it. My 8th graders will do theirs toward the end of 1st semester, my 7th graders toward the end of 2nd semester.  I want the students to share their great ideas and be proud of themselves. Giving them that opportunity will hopefully help get more parents and community members to attend the event.

4. Blog and Email
I still plan to have the students blog weekly, but I will also have them email me after they blog.  I want them to blog so they can work on gaining an audience outside the classroom, but at the same time, emailing me weekly makes them feel a sense of responsibility to me personally as opposed to simply an anonymous blog post reader.

Those are the changes I intend to make for this year.  I love the 20% Project and the students' ideas, but am pretty confident I can get more out of them.  I believe these changes will help me get the most from each student.  Let me know your comments.

What is one way you use technology in your classroom?

Yesterday, I was filling out on of those online entire school corporation job applications.  Today, after a recommendation of a colleague, I was filling out an application for an award given to technology using educators.  Both applications (and others I've seen in the past) had this question in some form, "What is one way you use technology in your classroom?"

Now, this question bothers me and here's why.  My answer is really in what don't I use technology in the classroom.  Narrowing it down to one specific way is difficult and lessens the value of what I do with technology.

For example, this past week, my 7th grade reading class participated in a Hunger Games Simulation as they prepare to read the book.  Each day, students went to a blog that I had created and watched a video giving them directions created by one of their former classmates that now lives in England.

Example of one of the videos:

After they watched the video, they were to follow the instructions.  They were given a variety of scenarios and they had to use what supplies they had earned or traded for to complete the scenario.  They submitted to me through a Google Form a description of their solution.  Based on their actions in the scenario, they would gain or lose points.  They had a Google Spreadsheet shared with me in which they tabulated their score totals each day.

Also this week, my 7th Grade English class students were writing short stories.  They had two videos to watch at some point during the week.  One on Creating Characters and one on Creating Conflict.  Toward the end of the week, they peer reviewed other stories using a Google Form and autocrat script similar to what Kate Baker recently blogged about.  Their reviews and counter responses were immediately and automatically sent to the other student, and also to me through Google Docs sharing.  I could not only review their stories in Google Docs throughout the week, I could also review the reviewers' feedback.  At the end of the week, many of them also blogged about their 20% Projects.

I should mention that while all of this was happening in my classroom, I wasn't even there.  I was in Washington, D.C. on our 8th Grade Class Trip.  While in DC, using the WiFi on the bus and at the hotel, I was able to use an old iPhone donated to the school to blog about the trip with photographs and videos, tweet to parents our locations, check my students work and progress, and answer a few emails with questions from students almost immediately.  Mind you, this is the same iPhone that an Apple Store employee told me would be "worthless" without a data plan and service contract.

So, how do I answer that question?  In just this week, my students and I used video (both to deliver content and connect them to a former student overseas), Google Docs, Google Forms, Google Spreadsheets, an autocrat script, blogs (both to consume and to create), multiple devices, and Gmail all for classroom purposes. This was a pretty typical week for my students using technology even without me present.  How can I narrow that down to one way I use technology?

Research Paper: Explore Day 1

It's that time of year.  The dreaded formal research paper.  I do what we call a No Paper Research Paper because with Evernote and Google Docs, we use no paper.  Last year, I did the research paper unit as a traditional flip.  I frontloaded all the videos before addressing that portion of the research paper.  For example, the kids would watch a video on choosing a topic, or writing a thesis statement, then the next day in class would go through that process.  This year, I wanted to convert this unit to an Explore Flip Apply (EFA) unit.  I'll admit, I have a loose plan going in because I feel that is a key component of the explore stage - determining what the students already know.  So, I envision this unit as a series of EFA activities until the final apply stage is writing their research paper.

Today, I did the first explore with my 7th graders.  The first activity was having the students pull up the website allaboutexplorers.com.  If you aren't familiar with the site, it is a website with fake information about explorers.  The site looks very credible and the information is almost believable enough to make you wonder about its accuracy.  I had them choose any of the explorers and give a quick read of the information. Three of four minutes of silent reading passed. Some students looked a bit perplexed but kept reading. Suddenly a student says out loud, "Wait a minute....it says here he was killed with an AK-47?"  I played dumb and said, "Really? You don't believe that?"  Then another student said, "Mine says he thought he discovered America but then realized he was already there?" Then the flood came: "Mine says he was born in America but he was a Spanish explorer" "Mine said he traveled from 1690 to 1657."  This led into a quick discussion about trusting what you read on the internet.

The next activity in the explore phase was having the students look up a Wikipedia page of something they know a lot about.  We had 6 or 7, One Direction searches, a Kate Middleton search (did you know today is her birthday?), a Notre Dame football search (was a good example of how current Wikipedia can be with information), and a variety of other searches.  I asked students to give a quick read through the page they selected.

The next activity was a free write on 4 questions:

1. Is this information accurate?
2. How do you know or why do you believe that?
3. Is the site well written?
4. Why or why not?

 We finished the class with the free write.  Tomorrow, we'll discuss their answers in the free write and guide the discussion toward how to check for accuracy of information.

The next steps depending on how the discussion goes tomorrow:

1. More exploration of evaluating sources will probably be needed later in the unit.
2. A discussion or free write on how the writing on Wikipedia is different from other writing.
3. A exploration/discussion of writing without bias using the same Wikipedia site.
4. An extension activity of revising and editing an actual Wikipedia page for some writing and accuracy practice before starting the research paper.
5. All this will lead into an exploration activity of choosing a topic and that is when the actually research paper "begins".

A 20% Success!

Meet Kacy (not her real name).  She's a student of mine.  She's a fairly typical student.  She is bright and capable, but also has her difficulties.  She is a quiet kid, at least to adults.  She is cordial and polite when I talk to her directly, but rarely asks questions on her own.

During the whole process of completing her 20% project, she changed directions 3 or 4 different times.  She finally settled on learning to play a song on the guitar.  She didn't keep up with her weekly blog, so it was difficult for me to monitor her progress.  Since the project isn't really graded, I concerned myself more with helping her in other areas of need and hoped she was making progress on her 20% project.

Then yesterday happened.  The students began presenting their 20% projects to the class.  Coincidentally, another teacher got unexpectedly ill and couldn't find a sub.  So, I took one of her classes in my room so she could leave.  Therefore, the audience was larger than just their classmates with several students that had no idea what our 20% project was about.

I let the students volunteer their order of presenting.  Some were excited to be first or second and take center stage.  As volunteer after volunteer jumped up, I could see her make anxious eye contact with me.  She seemed eager to go, but apprehensive to volunteer.  Finally, we had a moment where no one volunteered and I said, "Kacy, are you ready to present?"  She jumped up with excitement, but then, like many teens, tried to play it off like she wasn't excited.

She went to the corner of the room and grabbed a guitar case she had left earlier.  In her presentation, she talked about her difficulty in deciding on her project.  She discussed how she decided to learn to play a song on the guitar and the process she went through.  I limited their presentations to 5 minutes.  At the end, she sheepishly asked if she could play her song even though it would go over her 5 minutes.  Of course, there was no way I could say no.

Then she sat down, and began playing a Taylor Swift song.  She also sang the lyrics which surprised us all.  She made a mistake part of the way through and had to stop and re-position her fingers.  She began playing again and made another mistake.  This time, she put her head down in embarrassment.  Then, the class began encouraging her on.  Multiple students told her what a wonderful job she was doing.  And the tears began to fall.  But they were tears of joy.  She finished the song to roaring applause. She was clearly uncomfortable with the attention, but was proud of herself at the same time.

When I conceptualized the 20% project for my class, I never imagined this. I thought many of them would learn something valuable to themselves.  I hoped some of them would be proud of themselves and maybe even inspire others.  I never expected tears and such a bonding moment for my class.  What a wonderful gift heading into our holiday break!

A Musical Flip

Two years ago, I took on the wonderful, but time consuming task of directing our school's Spring Musical.  These are middle school kids very few with an interest in doing serious theater in the future.  So, rehearsal time needs to be very efficient and focused or it turns into chaos.  And, believe it or not, I am also the Yearbook Adviser and our Yearbook goes to the printer 1 week before the Musical Show.  The more production I can get out of each rehearsal, the fewer rehearsals needed!

Last year, I recorded our rehearsals when choreography was taught and the students were expected to review the videos later and continue to practice.  This year, I had epiphany.  Why not flip the rehearsals?  This year, I am appointing a small team of Dance Leaders.  I will teach the choreo to this small group and record them doing the number.  Then, cast members will be expected to watch the videos prior to rehearsals so they have an idea of what the choreo will be.

I was going to put one of the videos here as an example, but my top notch choreographer copyrights her material and doesn't want it pilfered from YouTube.  I respect that.  So, I just put up photos of last year's cast (mainly because I'm super proud of them) and am looking forward to this years show!

How I improvised my 20% Project

My head is all abuzz from the night I just had....and no alcohol was involved.

Tonight, I had my "final presentation" for my personal 20% Project.

In the past, I've blogged about the 20% Project I have my students do. It is a great experience for them and I'm saddened when a student doesn't take the opportunity to learn something meaningful for them. This semester, I allowed my students to work in groups and some chose the group over their project. In other words, they sacrificed doing a project they really wanted to do in order to work with a specific person or group.

As I was brainstorming how to inspire them next semester, I thought, how could I model the process for them. Then it hit me....do my own 20% Project. I kicked around some ideas and decided there was one thing I really have wanted to learn for a long time, but never had the courage to do....Improv Comedy!

So, for the past 8 weeks, every Monday night I met with 10 other aspiring improvers and learned games, practiced techniques, developed scenes, and had a wonderful time. I even used some of the games with my students to teach some aspects of storytelling and purchased a book about improv games in the classroom.

Tonight, we ended the class with a public performance attended by about 25 of our friends and family. Fittingly, it was our best performance in the 8 weeks. After the show, several of us went out for a celebratory dinner. One of my classmates asked us all why we took the class to begin with. We all had different reasons; One person wanted to be a profession improv comedian, a couple wanted to improve on public speaking skills, and some just thought it sounded like fun. But, whatever the reason, we all had that internal motivation to learn something new whether it had a practical application or not.

I know it sounds cliche, but I really can't put into words the effect this class had on me. I do, however, know I want my students to experience the same rewarding feeling I had. I'm going to share with my students about my journey these past 8 weeks and let them see the enthusiasm that is created by learning something for the sake of learning.

The Level 2 class starts in January and most, if not all, of our makeshift troupe plans to continue this journey together. I challenge anyone considering or doing a 20% Project with their students to do one of their own. The personal fulfillment was so much more than I anticipated. Now, I just need to get the courage to take the next step in this adventure....inviting students to my next public performance.

 

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Using YouTube's New Quizzing Feature

I've seen quite a lot of tweets lately about YouTube's new quizzing feature currently in beta format.  All the tweets I see link articles that give me the same "press release" announcement, so I wanted to try it out for myself. This isn't really a review, as the feature is in beta and not meant to be full functional.

The first trick is activating the feature.  It doesn't just automatically appear.  You need to go here and opt-in to the beta for your YouTube account.  Once you've done that, it is available in your YouTube channel.

To use it, go to the video you want to add the quiz to and click "edit".

After that, click on the "Questions" tab.

 

From there, it is pretty self explanatory. Just click, "add question" and you get this screen:

It's really that simple.  Much easier than adding several Annotations to make your own quiz feature.  There aren't many options to make the questions more appealing.  But, I'm guessing they may add that in later.

Now, for the analytics...
Remember, this is in beta, so I didn't expect it to be perfect yet.  With Annotations, the analytics tell you which annotations were clicked, by how many people, etc.  With the quizzing analytics, at the moment, it just tells you if an answer was chosen or if the user closed the video.  Not much detail at the moment.

Also, another limitation over annotations is that your can not jump to different videos or a different part of the video based on the viewers answer.  If they answer incorrectly, they are prompted with a hint and the video remains paused.  If they click correctly, the video just starts playing again.

I like the promise of this feature, but since it is still in beta, it doesn't have a lot of functionality yet.

Here is the video I added the quiz to if you want to see how the quiz looks and operates. The quiz is 23 seconds in:

 

Please note this is just a simple practice quiz and not intended to be something identical to what I would use with my students.

Why I'm Apprehensive About Sharing My Videos

That inevitable questions always seems to come up...
"Is there a place where we can see your videos?" 

I'm asked this question every time I present to an audience of new flippers.  A substitute at my school even asked the other day because she wanted to show them to her daughter.  And, every time the question is asked, I cringe a bit. I'm hesitant to tell them my YouTube Channel has over 70 videos public and nearly that many private or unlisted. I couldn't understand why that was my initial reaction. I'm not ashamed of my videos. Some people are embarrassed to have their face seen by strangers. Others worry their content isn't "up to snuff". I got over that a long time ago. There isn't anything a stranger can say about my videos that my brutally honest middle school students haven't shared. So, why the apprehension?

Then, last night while I was working on my presentation for NCTE in November, it hit me.  I was thinking back to a conversation I had last year at NCTE with a well-respected teacher that was anti-flip. His biggest complaint was that flipping was just bad lecture on video. He asked if I could share with him what I thought was my best video.  I told him that was difficult because the video is not the biggest piece of the flip. What happens in my class time is the key component.  So, my best videos are the ones that complement what the students do in class and allow them to receive small bits of content efficiently and asynchronously. Replaying the conversation in my head made me realize that is where my apprehension lies. If my videos are viewed isolated from the entire learning cycle, they aren't that special. Letting strangers view my videos independently gives them an incomplete picture of what is really happening in my class.  My hesitation then is not because I don't want them to see my video, but rather I don't want them to have an incomplete understanding of what #flipclass is and judge it based on that.

For those that want to see my videos, here is my YouTube Channel. But, if you really want to see what my flipped class is all about, you need to visit my classroom, talk to my students, and see our pre- and post- video discussions to really grasp what is happening.

Added Note:  Visit a Flipped Class in your area on one of the Flipped Class Open House days. You'll be glad you did!

Using Google Docs and Explain Everything to do Video Writing Feedback on an iPad

I like doing video feedback for my students so they can not only see the suggestions I make, but also hear my suggestions. A goal of mine this year is to find a more efficient way to do this so I can give more feedback to each student.

Since our school is a GAfE school, I wanted to find a way to incorporate Google Docs into the process. I knew of some apps on the iPad others were using to make quick videos and so the following is the process I came up with.

Using Chrome (although it is possible with other iOs browsers) on the iPad, I open the students' Google Doc and take a screen shot of it. If you don't know how to do a screen shot with an iPad, it's simple. Just click the home button and the sleep/wake button on the top at the same time. You'll hear a click sound like a camera taking a picture and you're done.
It will look like this:

Next, I open Explain Everything. An app that costs $2.99. You could also use ScreenChomp or Educreations, which are free apps. The biggest decider for me was that Explain Everything allows direct uploads to YouTube where the others do not.

In Explain Everything, I select the icon for new project and get the options below:

I choose "Import from photo" and select the screenshot I took of the student's work. Once in Explain Everything, I size it to fit the way I want and then record my critiques as I also write them using a stylus pen.

You can also pause the recording and re-start in order to prevent dead air and wasted time. After the recording is finished, I select upload to YouTube. I could also email the file and it send it as an mp4 file. I chose YouTube instead so as to not have to worry about if students had a computer able to view mp4 files.

That whole process takes me 4-7 minutes per students. I think that is reasonable to give students feedback on one page of their writing. You also have the option to import from Dropbox and use a full pdf of the document.

Now, this is where the process slows down significantly. Once I hit upload to YouTube, Explain Everything must first compress the files, then goes to another screen to "finish compressing", then goes to another screen to upload to YouTube. This process can take 15 minutes or more. Fortunately, I don't have to sit at the iPad while this is happening. It would nice to have a batch upload option. As it is now, I set it to upload and check on it every 15 minutes. I then hit the next one to upload.

After it is uploaded, you have the option to send via Email which I do and then the students have a link to a private video critique of their work.

And the process is over. Like I said, the critique process doesn't take long. It is the uploading process that is time consuming. If I find a better way, I'll let you know. If you know a better way, please share.

UPDATE: I found a quick way to compress and upload video.  Under the the export menu, select "preference" and change the video settings.  When I changed the resolution to 640x480 and the quality to medium, it still had enough resolution to be read fine, but significantly lowered the video size.  The upload time for these are less than 5 minutes.  Now we're getting somewhere!

 

My 20 Percent Project Revisions

Last year, I did a 20% project experiement with my 7th and 8th graders.  I blogged about the start of it here. I've been spending the summer reflecting and discussing with other teachers Kate Petty (@techclassroom), Amie Trahan (@amiet731), Cheryl Morris (@guster4lovers), and others, trying to decided how best to proceed.

The issues I ran into last year:

Issue #1.  Accountability.  I didn't grade the final product.  I asked them to blog weekly on their progress, but didn't assess it in anyway.  I checked their blogs and had a discussion with them frequently about their progress, but had no consequence if they weren't making progress.  I wanted the students to focus on a learning objective and not a grade objective.  I knew some students would take advantage of that and not produce anything, but I wanted to see exactly how many.  In the end, I had about 20-30% of the students complete very little to nothing.
I go back and forth on this one.  The reason we require accountability in schools, as I see it, is to make sure they learn certain skills.  As I was evaluating this process, I realized I need to determine what it is I want them to learn.  I need to tie this project to a skill or standard.  Then, I don't have to focus necessarily on holding them accountable, but more what I want them to learn.  Therefore, I determined my goals for this project best fit all or part of 5 Common Core Standards:

SL1: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 8 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

SL1-c: Pose questions that connect the ideas of several speakers and respond to others’ questions and comments with relevant evidence, observations, and ideas.

SL4 Present claims and findings, emphasizing salient points in a focused, coherent manner with relevant evidence, sound valid reasoning, and well-chosen details; use appropriate eye contact, adequate volume, and clear pronunciation.

SL5: Integrate multimedia and visual displays into presentations to clarify information, strengthen claims and evidence, and add interest.

L4: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words or phrases based on grade 8 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.

L4-c: Consult general and specialized reference materials.

W6: Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and present the relationships between information and ideas efficiently as well as to interact and collaborate with others. 

So, that was my first change.  Now, as I assess (for my own purposes, not a grade) their progress, I can refer back to these objectives to make sure they are on their way to mastering these skills.  The project could meet other standards, but I choose to focus on these in this project.  Unfortunately, showing creative initiative isn't a CCSS.

 Issue #2:  How do you guide without deciding for the student?  I had some students that were stuck in the deciding/planning stages way too long.  Or, they would begin one project, then change, then change, etc.  This goes back to accountability somewhat.  But, I need to find that balance between pushing the students to move forward and allowing them the freedom to explore.  I like Kevin Bookhauser's reference to The Done Manifesto and to Facebook's creed: Done is better than perfect.
The other part of this issue was that some kids are so grade-driven and/or teacher-pleasing that they want to know what I expect from them.  I kept telling them, I just want to see a creative project.  But, they wanted to a visual, an example, of what is "good".  I combated this by praising every idea or acting genuinely excited to see the outcome.  I believe that freed some students up to take risks they might not have tried before.
 The change I made here is I've decided I'm going to have to give some "checkpoint" deadlines.  Adding in a proposal stage early on to make sure they're on target to move forward.  Adding an adult mentor to the equation in order to have one more accountability piece.  And, adding a presentation at the end gives them manageable deadlines, but forces them to make progress on something.

Issue #3:  A whole year or one semester?  My experiment lasted one semester.  I've considered making this a year long project like others do.  In the end, I decided, for my students, I think one semester is best.  That way, they can refocus on a new project the second semester and correct decisions they made first quarter.  If a student is really into their project, they can continue on and make it even better.  However, this gives them a fresh start to regroup and improve.

Here is how I plan to lay out the project to my students (note: this is borrowed heavily from Kevin Bookhauser and Kate Petty):

Rules:

1. You may work alone or with a small group. Choose your group wisely. It is not acceptable to abandon partners mid-project.
2. Choose a project that is new to you and something you wouldn't normally do in another academic class.
3. Choose an adult mentor with special knowledge related to your project and set up a schedule to meet with them regularly (in person or via Skype). Mentor must be approved by Mr. Cockrum before the proposal is due.
4. Write up a proposal and pitch it to the rest of the class that includes a purpose, audience, timeline, and resources you will need to complete the project.
5. Reflect on the process once a week in your blog. Posts need to be 200 words minimum.
6. If at any moment you feel lost, overwhelmed, or uninspired, you must set a meeting with me to find a solution.
7. At the end of the semester, you will present your project and reflect on the process in a five-minute TED-style talk in front of other students, teachers, and community members.

The proposal will be a completion grade.  If the student has a proposal that addresses rule 4 in the proposal they get credit.
The blog posts will average out to a completion grade.  I put all their blogs in Google Reader and I can check to see how many new blog posts they have.  If a student is not keeping up, we can have a discussion about why or a different way they can document their progress. 
The presentation at the end is a completion grade.  Give a presentation about a completed project and the student gets the grade.

The point totals will be enough so that the students take it seriously, but not enough to really hurt their course grade if they don't do well.  I don't want them afraid to take risks. 

I am also considering ways Amie Trahan and I can get our classes to collaborate on projects, so I may revise slightly based on that. However, these are the changes I plan to go with this year on my 20% percent project.

I'd love to hear about your 20% projects.

My real-world #flipclass lesson

Spending a week along the Gulf Islands in Alabama and Florida, I was watching for a chance to do something I've wanted to try for a longtime now: standup paddle boarding (or SUP). Yesterday, I found Onboard Fitness near Fort Pickens and set up a time for this morning.

I spent a lot time on the Internet learning about SUP and how to do it. Surely, that was enough for me to be a seasoned paddler, right?

When I arrived at the site, I surveyed the water and noticed a strong wind heading west-to-east. Being an experienced kayaker, I knew to paddle upstream first, because returning downstream when you're fatigued is much easier. I guessed the same strategy applied here. Once I checked in and got my board, the attendant told me the same thing. He suggested I start into the wind because the return would be much easier. Awesome! I had used previously learned content from another discipline and applied it here. I was well on my way.

The attendant pushed the board into the water for me and explained a few last minute details like how to find the center of the board. "Blah, blah, blah," I thought. "I learned all this on the Internet. Just let me get on the board." The attendant adjusted the paddle to my height, which I wouldn't have known how to do. "That wasn't on the Internet."

Then the time came, I got ready to step on the board and realized I had no idea how to get on without immediately falling off. The attendant held the board in place while I climbed on. I guess I needed him a little bit. Later I watched a more experienced person get on her board and learned the proper technique for launching a board yourself. Oh yeah, and that more experienced paddler was a 12 year old girl.

I paddled around the bay learning different skills as I glided across the water. Since you can only paddle one side at a time, I was inefficiently going in a zigzag line. After about 20 minutes of this, I realized if you lean your weight to one side while paddling, you can keep a relatively strait path.

My feet were getting extremely sore. I realized I was too tense trying to keep my balance with my feet. I knew from surfing, you need to relax your feet and balance with your core. So, I tried that.

Again, I knew from kayaking that you can turn tighter if you paddle backwards. But, it took a turn almost running me into a buoy before I remembered that detail.

I had the board for 2 hours, but returned it about 30 minutes early because my feet were cramping, I was sweating from the sun beating down on me, and I was just finished.

So, what did I learn about #flipclass from this adventure?

1) Although I thought I knew a lot from reading on the Internet, the was a lot I would never have learned without getting on the board and actually doing it. How many times prior to me flipping did I ask students to use material learned without them actually doing it first?

2) I wouldn't have gotten on the board successfully with the attendant's help. How many times do students need our help just getting on the board? If that was my SUP test, I would have failed. Not because I didn't know at least the basics of SUP, but because I didn't know how to get started.

3) Previously learned content from another discipline was very helpful.

4) I knew not to paddle with the wind, but the attendant advised me anyway. Had I not known and he not said, I most likely would have take the path of least resistance, literally, and paddled too far out of my ability to return safely. Some things just need to be said to avoid almost certain failure.

5) I returned early because I was too fatigued to continue and I was satisfied with my outing. How many times has a student turned in incomplete work and we thought the to just be lazy or apathetic? With a flipped class, I can see the student is fatigued and satisfied at the moment what he or she completed.

6) Once I returned, walking was difficult because of the tenseness in my feet. What would happen if I had to go paddleboard another waterway for an hour immediately after? I would certain not succeed. How many times are kids sent home with mentally taxing homework and once they finish, they have to start on another mentally taxing assignment?

I gained a lot of knowledge in the short time I was on the board. I was given the freedom,with minimal instruction, to just get on the board and practice. I remember a surfing lesson I took several years ago that spent nearly an hour of on the beach instruction telling me how to surf. Once I got in the water, that instruction was useless. And, each time I fell, I paddled to shore and the instructor would tell me what I did wrong. I didn't truly learn how to surf until I rented a board and just tried over and over again until I found success.

If I was graded on my SUP experience, I probably would have earned a C or B-. Good thing this was only practice.

As I was leaving the SUP rental dock, the attendant told me, "We also have onboard yoga every morning!" Unless this is going to be on the state standardized test, I have no interest in advancing my skills that much.

 

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Reading at Home Discussing in Class Part II

I consistently hear Flipped Class speakers, presenters, proponents, and even some opponents make the statement, "English teachers have flipped for years. They have students read at home and then they discuss in class."

I blogged on this last October, but recent events have compelled me to blog again. My previous blog post convinced some to stop using that example. However, at ISTE and the Flipcon, I heard it more often in a few presentations and discussions on Flipped Class.

I am bothered by that assertation because I believe it doesn't fit the core basis of what is a flipped classroom. Here's why:

1) Reading at home is usually not a lower level processing skill. In a flipped environment, we offload material that takes lower level processing skills and place it in a technology that can be consumed at a time and place of the students' choosing. Unless my students are reading for purely entertainment value, they need to be processing what they've read using reading comprehension skills and making connections to previously learned content. In other words, they should be applying what they've learned at this point and not simply consuming information. If they are unable to do this, I need to be assessing why that is and how we can fix that, which is difficult if they are reading at home.

2) Discussion isn't individualized instruction. As teachers, we use discussion to create connections and deeper thought on a topic. I think we've all had students that are very good at manipulating the "system" to make it look like they comprehended the reading. Whether they are mimicking others' comments, talking a lot on the easy questions so they can avoid being called on for other questions, or reading spark notes right before class to get enough of an understanding to BS their way through. And, the kids that clearly aren't getting it aren't getting the 1 on 1 attention that would be helpful for them. If some content is not understood by the group and the teacher must derail the discussion for a lesson, that usually become direct instruction. I'm not saying we should never do whole group discussions. I'm just saying they don't make for a flipped classroom.

Here's an example:
I use Lord of the Flies to teach about symbolism. I send my kids home to read and then we discuss the symbolism in class. What if my students don't know the definition of symbolism? Then I need an instructional step, maybe a video to explain it. Now, they know the definition, I still can't just send them out to read. Because, as we all know, knowing the definition and even understanding what symbolism is, does not mean a student can identify it. So, I believe I need to get my students to at least the identifying stage before I can comfortably send them home to read on their own. Then, class time can be used for analyzing and evaluating the symbolism. Ultimately, I'd like to get them to the creating stage of using symbolism in their own writing. If I can't get them to those higher level stages in class with me, then simply reading at home is not a productive use of their time.

I suppose one could argue that reading at home is creating a desire for the tools necessary for understanding and the discussion is the application of that understanding. In that regards, that would appear to me to be Explore-Flip-Apply (EFA) without the flip. In that regards, we're missing an instructional step in the learning cycle.

Why does this matter?
Well, as we progress with the Flipped Class movement in Language Arts, we want a clear understanding of what Flipped Class is. We can agree it looks different in every class and there is no prescriptive model, but oversimplifying to the point where people believe that reading at home discussing in class is a flipped model is detrimental to our growth. We will lose potential supporters and future flippers. We minimize what it is we do and how hard we work to create a student-centered environment. I want people to know I do a lot more in my class than send kids home to read and discuss it in class.

I'd love to hear your opinion.

English Flippers Summit Announced

The date has been set for Tuesday, July 10 at 8 pm Eastern.

I'm seeing a need and now I'm trying to fill it......
At last year's (2011) Flipped Class Conference, I met 3 English teachers out of approx. 150 attendees. So, this entire past school year, I have been searching for English teachers using a flipped model in their classroom and haven't found many at all (probably less than 10). That doesn't mean they aren't out there. They just weren't active in blogging or tweeting or presenting, etc where I could find them. I envied the math and science teachers that could collaborate on videos, bounce specific ideas off each other, and commiserate together. I took what I could from the math and science folks and customized it to my class. But, when I would turn to them for some very specific implementation advice, I commonly heard, "Well, I really don't know much about English....." Not that they wouldn't help me, they just didn't have the experience to help me in that situation.

At NCTE in November, I searched and searched for English flippers again and blogged about it. There were no sessions on flipping. I heard one presenter mention that she was planning to flip her class during her presentation. Everyone I talked to or tweeted during NCTE gave me one of three responses: "ummm....what's flipping?", "I like the concept behind flipping, I just haven't done it and am not sure where to start", or "you can't flip an English class." I'm oversimplifying their responses, but that is mainly what I got.

Then came this summer....
I presented at the Flipped Class Conference (2012). There were 300+ attendees. My session was one of the first sessions after the opening keynote. There were approx. 40 people in my session and I asked how many were English teachers. About 30 hands went up!

In addition, many people began actively tweeting about being or becoming an English flipper. Cheryl Morris, Erica Speaks, Carrie Ross, and Andrew Thomasson are just a few of the tweeps starting to come out. In true flip fashion, it appeared a grassroots movement was taking off.

In private conversations with all these different individuals, it appeared to me that since this English flippers movement was growing, we could benefit from a common direction. We all had a lot of the same questions and were piecing together answers. I was thinking during a morning run one day, "Wouldn't it be great if we could get all the current and new English flippers together and discuss our common concerns, questions, and intentions?" Then, it hit me.....through the power of the internet, we could.

So, introducing the first English Flippers Summit (if you have a better name, do share). I crowd-sourced the idea at ISTE12 and decided to try an open webinar. The date has been set for Tuesday, July 10 at 8 pm Eastern. The summit can be found here (I will tweet out the link closer to the date as a reminder). We will cap it at 1 hour. If we are still going strong at 1 hour, we'll plan another one. I want this summit to be an opportunity to "meet" each other and generate some English flipped dialogue. Where it goes, I do not know. I don't know if we'll solve anything or if we even need to solve anything. But, with so many new English flippers out there, it would be nice to connect with resources. It's free. If it turns out to be worthless, it will only take an hour of your day.

Stacy Roshan told me once, as a math teacher, she used to walk by English classrooms and envy those teachers because of the exciting activities they could do in their classrooms. Because of the flip, that has flipped (pun intended). Let's figure out a way to make those math and science teachers envy us again!

What does Apple's Announcement Mean for the Flipped Class

I'm sure most tech savvy educators have heard about Apple announcement Thursday regarding iBooks 2 and iBook Author. I received an email from my cousin, who works at an Apple Store, early on Thursday highlighting the announcement. I got the impression from his email that he was buying into the Apple hype that these products would revolutionize education.

It's still early and all the details aren't fleshed out yet. Initially, I wasn't particularly impressed. Sure, a multimedia textbook on an iPad can be more engaging than a traditional textbook. However, from my perspective, in the past 5 years, I've used my textbooks a total of maybe 10 times. That doesn't mean I don't follow a curriculum and meet standards. I just don't believe the textbook is the best way to do that. Would iPad textbooks change that for me? I believe, as Jac de Haan of Technology With Intention said in a recent blog post, "It is still a one-way delivery system." Or, as Ronnie Burt of edublogs.com puts it in his recent blog post, even with iBook textbooks, "(s)tudents are still thought of as 'content consumers' in this scenario as opposed to active participants."

I had this discussion with a Middle School math teacher at my school. He has joined me this year by flipping his class, but he uses textbook publisher provided video tutors. He still sticks strictly to the content provided by the textbook. I asked him, or rather challenged him, to see if he felt he could teach his class without a textbook. He wasn't sure that he could.

I expressed my concern to him that this announcement by Apple didn't revolutionize the way education would be delivered. It just revised how textbook teaching could/would be delivered. My co-worker made a good observation. He pointed out that, when it comes to infusing technology and a student-centered learning environment, I was ahead of the curve. He speculated that the ability to have pre-packaged content on a device like the iPad could pull more teachers into a better teaching environment. Maybe? Maybe not?

I have an iPad that I use personally and a classroom iPad the kids share. I also have laptop carts that creates almost a 1-to-1 environment. I've implemented a small BYOD program and approximately 15% of my students bring their own device. So, I certainly have the ability to use multimedia textbooks. Given Apple's history though, I do have concerns about the cross-platform compatibility of the iBooks textbooks.

As I read another Jac de Haan post, I began to think about the use of iBook Author with my Flipped Class. Currently, I used Google Apps for Education to organize my classroom content. I am very happy with the ease of the management system I've developed and the students and parents are as well. However, there is an outside possibility I could move to a 1-to-1 iPad environment next school year (those who know me personally, please don't start speculating or spreading rumors). That aside, I am intrigued by the possibility of using iBook Author to, in essence, create a textbook for my class. This "textbook" however would be populated with content that I have created for my Flipped Class along with other resourceful content that ties in. In addition, I could place in assignments, interactive elements, etc. specific to my class. I still need to explore this idea more in order to determine all the applicability of this process. But, I'm thinking it could become a Classroom Management System of it's own.

In addition, if I'm distributing my content via iPad, I could, in theory, shoot my video with the iPad, and even edit content with my iPad if I choose, making everything more streamlined and compatible. I can see a not very tech savvy teacher that is hesitant to flip his or her class finding this method appealing.

I'm still holding out judgement on the ramifications of this announcement by Apple. I'm not sure the iBooks textbooks are a huge game-changer quite yet. However, the ability to create a one-stop Classroom Management System for Flipped Classroom teachers in the form of a textbook could be a real bonus, especially if you're already working in a 1-to-1 iPad school. In the meantime though, I'm certainly taking notice and plan to begin experimenting more to see the potential of iBooks Author.

Where do you think this could go? Could this development help or hurt the Flipped Class momentum? Feel free to weigh in.

My Google 20% Project

This summer, I got to attend the Google Teacher Academy in Seattle. I came away with multitude of ideas for my classroom. I had one idea inspired by Google's "20 Percent Time" policy. If you aren't familiar with Google's 20 Percent Time, in a nutshell, it is that Googlers can spend 20 percent of their work time (and resources) on a personal interest project. The idea is to give their employees more autonomy in their work environment and foster more motivation/inspiration for creative work.

With that in mind, I wanted to motivate my students in the same way. I was implementing too many other new concepts/projects in the first semester to add this into the mix. I decided to work the project through in my head for a few months and introduce it in the second semester, which began last week. Coincidentally, almost the same day I introduced my project, AJ Juliani blogged about his 20% project.

I introduced it to my 7th and 8th grade Accelerated English classes as a "20% Project". Initially, I didn't cover the Google part (and, for the record, Google isn't the only company to do this, nor was it the first company to do it) right away. I explained to my students that they can do any project they want related to English and use 20% of their class work time (or 1 day per week) to work on that project. The other 80% of their time should be devoted to assigned work. Since these classes are also flipped classes, having plenty of in-class work time would not be a problem.

I didn't say how the students would be graded or even if they would be graded. I told them I only ask that they blog about their progress weekly. I gave them no rubric, no accountability lecture, nothing. Just said that I'm hoping to get some creative and unique projects from them.
My 7th graders were the first to learn about the project. Tons of questions began to fly. What do you mean any project we want? I threw out a few ideas (screenplay, documentary, etc.). How do we tie it to English? My answer was, "Why don't you just decide what it is you want to do for a project, and I'll help you tie it into English?" I didn't want to tie their hands at all. There were a lot of questions about what they could do, but not one single question about grades, points, rubrics or anything. I was surprised and impressed that my students were already embracing the idea.
My 8th graders had the same initial response. Really? You mean, we can do anything we want? Yep! Finally, a student asked, "How many points is this worth?" I just responded, "I'll get to that." and moved on. The question didn't come up again. Later in class, while the students were working on their current assignment, I pulled the student aside and explained to her why I don't want her focused on a grade. I just told her to focus on the project and have fun with it. She got it once I explained "the research" behind it. Quite simply, I told her, I want this to be an outcome or learning goal and not a performance or grade goal.

My 7th graders have really taken to it. As a matter of fact, they are spending more than 20% of their time on their project right now. I'm allowing them some time to develop that balance. I love to see them excited, but I don't want them to forget their assigned work.

My 8th grade was a slightly different story. About half of them were immediately excited to get started. The other half were working diligently on their poetry anthology due at the end of the week because they were behind on their work. During class today, there was a group of 3 girls looking at a laptop screen and one said, "He's so cute." I wandered by and saw a Google Image Search of the boy-of-the-week. I reminded them to re-focus on their work and one of the girls blurted out, "20% project!" I treated it light-heartedly this time and said, "I'm confident you'll come up with something better."

I'm sure this will be a problem for a few of the students. And, I can probably tell you exactly which ones will try to take advantage of the freedom. How I will handle that yet, I don't know. If it becomes a problem, I will have specific conversations with those students.

I'm excited to see what projects the students come up with. I'm also hopeful the students will learn to balance their time between multiple projects. They already do that with my flipped class, but this will add a level of independence they've not had the opportunity to explore. So, as I take on this adventure, I'll blog more updates. I may also share some of my students' blogs, with their permission, down the road. In the meantime, I'm going to sit back and enjoy the show!

The software I would like to use for my Flipped Class

Inspired by JD Ferries-Rowe's (@jdferries) recent blog post on the software he would like to use in his Flipped Class, I decided to take a shot at throwing out some things I would like to see. It is Christmas after all.

JD wrote his ideal software from the prospective of the average user. I certainly understand that perspective. Just as I don't want technology to be so difficult it gets in the way of my students' projects and objectives, I also see the need for not-so-tech-savvy teachers to be able to create videos without a lot of technical know-how. I agree with many of the features JD was asking for, so I didn't put those here unless I felt I had more to add.

However, it is difficult for me to come at this from a novice perspective. Here's why......I spent nearly 10 years as a Video Writer/Producer/Editor. I haven't worked in the field for 8 years now, so I'm not current enough to be considered the whiz I once was. I used to work in six figure editing suites with Avid Media Composer (at the time, and still is I believe, the dominant industry standard for non-linear editing). I also used Media 100 and was an early user of Final Cut Pro as it was just being introduced in the marketplace when I left the field. There are three categories of video and editing products: professional, consumer, and prosumer. Having previously been considered a professional user, it is difficult for me to use consumer level products and thus find myself falling more satisfied with prosumer products. So, my wish list will include items that aren't necessary, but having seen them in other non-linear editors, something I'd like to incorporate.

Another disclaimer is that I use Camtasia Studio's PC version. I had an interesting conversation with Dave McCollom from TechSmith at the Flip Class Conference last June about tools I'd like to see in Camtasia. Many of them he said are or may be available in the Mac version at some point. I have not used the Mac version. If you see things on my wish list that are available in the Mac version, feel free to let me know.

With all that said, following is my wish list for a software product that I would like for my Flipped Class:
1. Simultaneous multiple outputs:
As many flippers do, I output to a few different platforms in order to provide my students multiple ways to access content. This requires me to render, produce, share, create (whatever term you use for final output of video) multiple times. I would love to have the ability to select multiple platforms prior to output and that will happen one after the other without my having to continually return to my computer. In addition, if someone could add the ability to upload the video to multiple websites at once (and produce a hard copy in a selected location on my portable hard drive, that would be great.
2. Built in feedback feature:
As JD mentioned in his post, I would like some kind of interface built around the video that would allow the student to submit feedback, fill in a form, maybe even attach a document, all with the same user interface. Many of us have found ways around this by implementing blogs, Google Forms, etc. into our students' viewing process. However, I would like this to all be done in one program, through one interface, and synced together for simplicity.
3. Multiple layers of video:
I don't expect unlimited layers of video as with many professional editors, but 4 or 5 would be good. And don't tell me what has to go into each layer (i.e. Picture-in-Picture). Just give me 4 or 5 open layers and let me build what I want. If you want to incorporate nesting, that would be a nice feature. I anticipate rarely going about 5 layers, so nesting would be more of an organization tool than anything else.
4. Multiple layers of audio:
Just as I would like multiple layers of video, I would like the same with audio. I'd like to be able to split the audio across channels allowing me to clean up and blend audio better across tracks. I rarely would use more than 3 layers as a music bed isn't a highly-used tool in screencasts and teacher videos. However, the ability to overlap audio tracks and dissolve between them would be a nice feature.
5. Audio Scrubbing:
This is a time-saving feature I would love to have. Audio scrubbing, for those that don't know, is the ability to hear the audio while you drag your slider along the timeline. An experienced scrubber can quickly find a point on the timeline they want to get to more efficiently. I can use the audio waveforms in Camtasia to pinpoint places on the timeline, but still not as quickly as if I could scrub my audio as well.
6. Motion Path Keyframes:
OK, I'll admit this is a big one and a bit greedy to ask of a simple video editor, but I would love the ability to motion path my keyframes. Put simply, if I make a keyframe and then place an image at that keyframe, then I go 1 second down the timeline and create a second keyframe and move the image to a second position, my editor should path the movement of the image from one keyframe to the next for me. Right? I know it's possible in After Effects and professional level non-linear editors. Can someone give me that, please? And, since it's Christmas, throw in some bezier handles too?
7. Easier customizable transitions:
Let's face it. The only transitions we need are cut and dissolve. Seriously, good editors know this. Don't give me star filters, shutter wipes, and spin outs. Just give them the ability to easily place a dissolve and determine the frame length for it. And, since I'm being greedy, don't default it to 1 second and ask me to change it every time. Default it to 15 frames, which is what I consider the best length for most dissolves, and then I can change it if I want from there.
8. Multiple multimedia format import:
As JD mentioned, the ability to easier import a variety of common multimedia formats would be beneficial. And please, if you could, allow video and/or image alpha channels. I'm not a big fan of the performance of consumer level chroma keys, so an alpha channel would help me create much cleaner layers. But, back to the imports....allow me to import video, audio, images, etc without having to convert and give me the ability to plug them into my project seamlessly.
9. Multiple timelines in a project:
Maybe I'm missing this in Camtasia, but I frequently want to create videos from the same media bin. The videos may be similar in content or part of a series. I would like the ability to work in one project, but create multiple timelines. This would allow me to work more efficiently by sharing resources in one project, but still creating multiple videos from those resources.

I don't think I'm asking for too much really. If you can give me this product at a low price, that would be wonderful. How about you? In the spirit of Christmas, I'd love to hear what others are searching for in the perfect flipped class software suite. Maybe an elf is working on it right now and will make it happen!

Why has the Flipped Classroom evaded English Classrooms?

Why has the Flipped Classroom evaded English Classrooms? or Why has English instruction avoided the Flipped Classroom model?

I attended the NCTE convention in Chicago the last few days and these two questions, virtually the same, have been bouncing around in my head.

What led me to really begin asking these questions?
Up until 2 years ago, I had been gradually introducing more technology to my classroom. One piece this year, another piece the next. However, I decided one of my strengths as a teacher was my ability to infuse the curriculum with technology. I worked formerly as a Television Writer/Producer and was required to continually learn and be on the cutting edge of technology. I was stupefied to come into the classroom and see such an aversion to technology in a lot of areas. I decided to take the leap to more technology by cannon balling in and stop the piecemeal disorganized way I had done it in the past.

I already used the Writing Workshop model. Then I read "The Digital Writing Workshop" by Troy Hicks and got inspired to forge forward. Last school year, I also attended the NCTE Convention in Orlando. One of the biggest highlights happened on day 1 when I saw Troy Hicks, Bud Hunt, and Sarah Kajder present in a session titled "Creating Opportunities for Learning with Newer Literacies and Technologies: Three Reports from Cyberspace". Hearing these speakers not only gave me great ideas and inspiration to bring into my classroom, they also validated my decisions on the uses of technology.

After that, the convention sessions where informative but not mind-blowing until day 3 (Saturday) morning when I lucked into a session called "Using Google in Ways That Haven't Even Been Invented Yet: Visionary Reports From Cyberspace." In this session, I watched Andrea Zellner, Sara Beauchamp-Hicks, and again Troy Hicks talk about their uses of Google Apps. I sat in that session seeing small snippets of what they could do and said to myself, "I want to do that." Their presentation inspired me to become a Google Certified Teacher, which I accomplished this past summer in Seattle.

One of my biggest take-aways from the convention was there were people doing what I was trying to do. And, these people were getting respect and adulation for that work. There was hope!

As my teaching and technology infusion progressed, I came across the Flipped Classroom. As I researched this, I saw it as a way to effectively implement the Writing Workshop model. I previously blogged on my decision to move to a Flipped Classroom, so I won't rehash all that here. However, up until this point, the most support I've found in building my Flipped Classroom PLN has been from science and math teachers.

A few weeks back, in a twitter #edchat, the topic of the Flipped Class was discussed. As I have done some presenting on the Flipped Class and had been researching it extensively, I followed the chat and contributed when I felt I could. Brian Bennett was going a great job of answering many questions. Then one of my responses drew criticism from Bud Hunt. Yes, the same Bud Hunt that I had admired just 11 months ago (and still do). It seemed to me that Bud didn't agree with the Flipped Classroom model. I felt he was oversimplifying the issue, but in his defense, in 140 characters, everything is oversimplified. I don't think I swayed his leaning much, if any. I told a colleague the next day that it was difficult for me to have someone whose work I admired be against something I had so embraced. I hoped maybe I mis-interpreted Bud's argument because of the concise nature of twitter.

When the online program was released for NCTE11 in Chicago, I immediately began searching for sessions that I would like to attend. I typed "Flipped", "Flip", "Flipping", and any other variation into the search box and came up with zero results. There were still many other good sessions I planned to attend.

On Thursday evening, I participated in a Google Plus Hangout with a handful of Flipped Class gurus (Aaron Sams, Brian Bennett, Dan Spencer, Jerry Overmyer, Ramsey Musallam, and Karl Fisch) discussing a project. I was the lone English teacher in the discussion. All the others are math and science. I was the "red-headed step-child" of the group. Here I sat in a hotel with 6000+ English teachers and I was spending my time talking with math and science teachers. It didn't quite seem right (no offense, guys).

I sat in 8 hours of sessions on Friday and got some good information. Almost every session, I noticed, brought up Google in some way. I saw presentations by fellow Google Certified Teachers, and learned small tidbits of useful knowledge here and there. But, nothing was said about the Flipped Classroom anywhere.

Things changed in my second session on Saturday. I have been considering implementing a NaNoWriMo project with my students. For those that don't know, NaNoWriMo refers to the National Novel Writing Month and helps writers gain the skills to write a novel in one month. I attended a session that included Tracy Becker. She seemed very knowledgeable and well-read as she quoted John Jazwiec, John Steinbeck, and others. Her work was clearly researched based. Then it happened....she mentioned the Flipped Classroom. My ears perked up and my tail started wagging like a dog hearing its name. Tracy was looking for ways to get more in-class work time and had decided to try the Flipped Classroom model later this school year. There was no reaction from the audience. None. Almost as though they hadn't heard her. And, like that, she was on to her next point.

I listened to the rest of her presentation and the two presenters following her. After the session, I introduced myself to Tracy and told her about my experience with the Flipped Class. (Jon and Aaron, since she is from Michigan, I also told her about the Flipped Class Conference coming to Chicago in June!) We only had a few minutes to talk, but listening to her verbalize her decision to move to the Flipped Class, I saw she was where I was about 7 months ago. I was thrilled to meet another English teacher, a respectable, intelligent one at that, come to the same conclusion about the Flipped Classroom that I had. Coincidentally, she got the idea from some math teachers at her school.

This leads me back to my original questions: Why has the Flipped Classroom evaded English Classrooms? or Why has English instruction avoided the Flipped Classroom model?

I'm not saying the flipped class is right for every teacher. But, I'm surprised more English teachers haven't embraced or even tested the Flipped Class in a small way. I was discussing with a parent early in the school year the amount of English teachers that have flipped. I said, "I realize that if I am one of the few people doing something, I am either 1) extremely progressive or 2) terribly misguided."

The Writing Workshop, while a great method that I am still implement, wasn't fully meeting the needs of my class. So, I toil forward, either being extremely progressive or terribly misguided, hoping to find more English teachers willing to try Flipped Instruction. Thank you, Tracy, for giving me hope. Thank you, Bud, for challenging me to really assess what I am doing. I am still committed to the Flipped Classroom because I am seeing great learning happening in my classroom and wonderful work coming from my students.

I've proposed a session for ISTE in June titled "Flipped Instruction in the Language Arts Classroom". I am considering a similar proposal for next year's NCTE. I know it's a gamble (that's a joke for the NCTE folk as they know the conference is being held in Las Vegas). But maybe it will put the Flipped Classroom on more English radars.

So, in answer to my initial questions, I have no idea. Do you? I'd love to discuss this with any English teachers either for or against the Flipped Classroom. Comment here, tweet me @tcockrum, or accost me at an upcoming conference.

21st Century Skill: Adaptability

Currently, I am in Chicago attending the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Annual Convention. The events of the day made me really think about what we should be teaching our students. I decided to write this post. And, although some people may take offense to parts of the post, as all good blog posts, it is intended to generate thought and discussion.

We hear this term "21st Century" learning/tools/skills/etc thrown around a lot in the educational field. The implication being we need to teach children skills that will help them in our ever-changing world.

In Adam Bellow's Tech Commandments, he asserts that the most important 21st Century skill is Collaboration. He argues the tools we use aren't that important because tools will change, the skills needed will not. I agree with Adam. After the events of today, however, I believe adaptability should be right up there with collaboration.

As Karen LaBonte said in her session, "The first rule of technology is something will go wrong." Those of us that use technology frequently in the classroom understand and accept this.

Reliance on Paper
I use Google Docs extensively with my students. Before I left for NCTE, I told my students their most recent assignment needed to be submitted to my by printing it on paper. My students were stunned. I explained to them that I would be traveling and may potentially not have access to the internet and I wanted to be able to grade their work regardless. I was planning ahead for my own sake, but also modeling that skill for my students.

The first session I attended today was called "Power of Audience: A Collaboration in 21st Century Literacy". I will admit, it wasn't my first choice, but that session was full when I arrived, so I moved to my next choice. To my delight, it was an excellent session by Tom Zuzulock and Perri Sherrill from Bozeman, Montana on using Google Docs for collaboration. Their presentation was well organized, demonstrated at a level I thought was appropriate to the audience, and gave some good "take-aways". They opened the last 10 minutes up for questions and the very first question was, "Do you have a handout available?" The presenters handled the question well and responded, "Send me an email and I will send you a Google Doc." I wanted to scream, "Have you not been listening to this entire presentation?"

Why such a reliance on paper? I was taking notes on my iPad2 and saw many others as well. I saw some taking notes with a notepad, which is fine if that's what works best for you. But, to sit through a "21st Century" presentation and expect a paper handout seemed unreasonable to me.

Until the next session that is. I won't mention the session title nor will I give many details as I don't want to insult the presenters. They seemed to know their content well and were very qualified to be presenting. However, their presentation relied heavily on paper handouts. When many participants didn't get a handout, they had no back up plan. If you didn't have the paper handout, it was difficult to participate. So, I left the session and went to an informative session on using video games with writing.

The next session I attended was titled "Fly Me to the Moon: Making That Giant Leap Into Digital Pedagogy". One of the presenters was Jen Roberts. I knew Jen from our time together at the Google Teacher Academy and knew she was technologically very savvy, so I expected a good presentation. I was not disappointed.

The first presenter was Karen LaBonte and her main message was that we need to embrace technology. We need to embed it (pun intended) into our daily lives. Jen Roberts followed. Her main message, which I whole heartily agreed, was that our goal as educators should be getting to the moon (she made an analogy to Apollo 8), but many of our colleagues aren't even in orbit. Therefore, we need to help them get "into orbit."

Along these same lines, tweeted by Carl Young during the day was the statistic that only a little over 5% of teachers are using technology for writing instruction. And, the main technological tool is an overhead projector. He got that information from a session by Arthur Applebee and can be found here. It seems we have a significant amount of teachers that aren't even looking up, let alone preparing to be in orbit.

I wish our paper reliant colleagues had seen this presentation. I felt it was a gentle push in ways teachers could get into digital pedagogy. I have a Masters in Mass Communication (from a life before I was a teacher) and there are some principles of advertising known as the push strategy and pull strategy. I won't spend time explaining them. I think you'll figure them out using context clues. But, applying them to education, I'm more of a pull strategists. I move forward at a fast pace and expect my colleagues to be "pulled" along with me or to drop out. These presenters did a better job of using a push strategy than I could have. They are "pushing" colleagues through the process. I certainly admire that. I just don't have the patience to do it. And, again, no paper handouts were provided! The presenters instead posted a link to their presentation and also encouraged the use of twitter to communicate with them and others.

My afternoon sessions were great, but don't really apply to this post, so I'm not detailing them here. However, I did find out the Jon Scieszka was a very humorous individual and had great interplay with M.T. Anderson and Chris Van Allsburg. I hope to attend his session on humor tomorrow.

What? No Wifi?
Speaking of Twitter, I was following the hastag #ncte11 all day. The "trending" complaint of the day was the unavailability of wireless. Many of the tweets seemed to imply NCTE was to blame for this. Many pointed out the irony that the title of the convention included the phrase, "writing the future".

Granted, lack of WiFi was a bit frustrating, but it is far from NCTE's fault. As a matter of fact, NCTE books their conferences 5 years in advance. I'm basing this on the fact that they have the next 5 years published in their program. Could NCTE have known 5 years ago that the Chicago Hilton wouldn't provide free and/or reliable WiFi? WiFi could be purchased for like $15 for a day. I didn't check the actual price because I didn't need it. My hotel right next door had free WiFi! But, that is what I think I heard someone say. I'm sure NCTE will make a note when booking their conferences 5 years away to get WiFi included if possible. But, by then, we could all have 14G technology in our mini-tablets or whatever device is the popular choice at the time.

I heard one attendee complain that a session put on by two very good presenters ran awry when they couldn't access the WiFi for their presentation. My thought was, "What was their plan B?" Would we accept this excuse from our students? I don't. Every time my kids give a presentation, I tell them to have a plan B. If the technology fails for some reason, they should still be able to give a reasonable good presentation given the circumstances. I've presented at conferences with spotty WiFi and I downloaded the Google Presentation to my computer in advance just in case.

Interestingly enough, I just wrote an extensive grant to get multiple Chromebooks for my school. One could argue that, had I brought a Chromebook to this conference, it would have been virtually unusable. I love working "in the Cloud." I'm a Google Certified Teacher, so I embrace new technologies before many others do. I love to see technology perform the way it was intended.

However, opposite to our paper reliant colleagues, we also seem to have many WiFi reliant colleagues. This is why I believe adaptability should be looked at as a vital 21st century skill.

What do we teach our kids when we allow lack of access to frustrate us? What do we teach our kids when we panic when technology doesn't perform as expected? What do we teach our kids when someone gives a presentation and doesn't present it in the manner we prefer (no paper handouts)? If we're teaching students to be good learners, we must to teach them to be adaptable.

What do you think? Is adaptability vital? Or, should it be realistic to expect certain givens in our field? Should NCTE have provided us with free WiFi? Let me have it if you disagree. Let me have it if you agree. As I said, I want this post to generate discourse. That's how we improve our field.