I spent the day yesterday at St. Paul’s Education Conference here in São Paulo yesterday and attended Ben Mardell‘s  session Making Learning Visible: Children and Adults as Individual and Group Learners Over the past few decades, much attention has been devoted to developing learning communities in schools. Yet the attainment of knowledge and understanding is still primarily viewed as an individual process. In and outside the classroom, thinking and learning are generally considered individual rather than social and communicative acts. This course is for educators who want to explore the power of the group as a learning environment. Participants will learn about documentation as a central component of learning groups, enabling group members to see how and what they are learning. Group learning practices and examples of learning groups from early childhood, elementary and high school classrooms from new book Visible Learners: Promoting Reggio-Inspired Approaches in All Schools will be explored. Participants will take part in an activity that helps them consider such questions as (1) What is the relationship between individual and group learning?; (2)How can teachers support the creation of learning groups?; and (3) How might the process of observing and documenting children’s learning shape that learning? I did not tweet the session very much, since I am trying to improve my sketchnoting (visual note taking) skills. I am pleased (not necessarily with the artistic rendition, handwriting skills, etc.), but with the process of note taking. When I look at my image: I am able to recall details that were discussed I am able to quickly see the main points I got out of the session I am able to re- follow the flow of points made

This screencast below will show you how to use Google Docs as a backchannel or exit ticket during a presentation, lesson or workshop. Creating a BackChannel or Exit Ticket on Google Docs from langwitches on Vimeo.

Our students just finished a second round of Student Led Conferences (SLC) this school year (one in Semester 1 and another in Semester 2). SLCs are a formal opportunity for students to present to their parents about the state of their learning. The students’ advisor (a teacher responsible for a specific group of students during the school year) serves as a facilitator to prompt and guide the students if needed, but is a silent presence as the students share their learning with their parents. SLCs are not a time to talk about grades, student behavior, but about learning habits, process, improvements and goals. Although there was emphasis placed on an ongoing documentation of each subject area as learning and reflection happened throughout the school year, a significant amount of time was dedicated to prepare for the SLCs Preparation for Student Led Conferences Each subject area had to be represented with at least one blog post. Each SLC blog post was to contain a title, an artifact, a reflection and be properly labeled. Min Kyung’s Blog Karin’s Blog Juan Carlos’Blog     Ji Won’s Blog Using the documentation posted to their blogfolios (process and showcase items), they select posts and artifacts that best demonstrated improvement or mastery of a learning target. Students connected their learning to specific school identified Core Values. The slides below were shared with students to guide them through the process of preparing for the SLC. (Thank you Claire Arcenas for written directions as well as Visible Thinking Routines)  Student Led Conference Students and parents gathered with the advisor for up to 30 minutes in a classroom setting. The student’s blog site was projected to the screen and students used the artifacts as a trigger to talk about their learning. They spoke about their challenges, successes and areas of growth in relationship to the Core Values. Parents were encouraged to ask clarifying questions at any time. To wrap the SLC up, students spoke about the learning that occurred by going though the process of preparing for the conference and their learning goals for the last quarter. Notes and Reflections There was a loud rumbling noise among students in the days that lead up to the SLC. Comments such as the ones below were expressed by many: "We are tired of writing reflections" "I am sick of having to write a blog post in EVERY SINGLE CLASS!"  "Why do I have to do this?" "I am writing what my teachers want to hear, but not really what I think." I seriously started to doubt the approach to support Blogging Beyond One Classroom. Was it inevitable, if students were expected to "learn, reflect, share"for all their classes  (from Math, Humanities, Science to Orchestra to Physical Education), that they were going to burn out? Could the "exponential explosion" of reflective blog posts  clumped together in the immediate days before the SLC be blamed for it? Was "too much of a good thing"…. well simply too much? Did we need to be more selective with WHAT types of reflections we asked students to make their learning visible? (Not every assignment, project or activity needs to be documented and reflected on?) Did we need to adjust our language to not bunch everything under an umbrella of "Please write a reflection on your blog". I am reminded that "It’s one thing for us as teachers to articulate the kinds of thinking we are seeking to promote; it is another for students to develop a greater awareness of the significant role that thinking plays in cultivating their own understanding." ( Making Thinking Visible by Ron Ritchhard, Mark Curch and Karen Morrison). Do we need to double our efforts in helping students develop that awareness and continue to give them the why behind maintaining a blog (learning, reflecting and sharing as part of an overall process)? Did we need to change/alter/modify the routine of adding the reflection as a separate piece, tagged on the end of a assignment, project or activity? Despite the fact that students openly did not seem to "enjoy" the process  of  blogging and reflecting as it was happening in the days before the SLC (among my advisory students), it was unanimous (again informal survey from among my advisory students) that the process of reflecting, thinking about one’s learning and going back to re-read/watch/look at previous posts and artifacts  to identify areas of growth HAS helped and they are glad to have gone through the process.  Students also recognized and articulated in their SLC specific learning opportunities and teaching methods from many of their classes that inspired and supported them in their learning process. SLCs are an opportunity for: Authentic opportunity to showcase skills in information literacy (organizing, categorizing and archiving of information created and published) Building blocks of a positive digital footprint (How do we support and guide our students to positive online publishing? What does it mean to be "googlable?" How do we not only build, but also maintain a positive digital footprint?)  Digital citizen issues come to surface (What is shared? Why should we share? Observance of copyright. How do we keep ourselves safe? ) Evidence of using technology to demonstrate learning (Technology is not only about Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or video games. "Digital natives might be wizards in using technology in other domains, but need guidance for using it for learning) Resource or non-academic subjects are given time in conference and equally contribute to the students’ learning profile Advisors have a chance to step outside of their own classrooms and learn about their colleagues’ work As compared to first semester’s SLC: Overall blog quality has improved (communication through a variety of media forms, logistics of inserting & embedding different media, beginning of hyperlinked writing, advantages of writing  in digital spaces became evident) As blogfolios are continued being  maintained, it is possible to track learning over time The connections to the Core Values seemed much more natural and not an add-on Student (oral and visual) presentation skills were practiced  in a supportive environment Students and parents focused less on academic grades and more on learning habits and process SLC served and supported parent education in terms of modern skills, literacies and learning pedagogies Juan Carlos‘ Blog: "I used to think my learning was accomplished by simple things such as paying attention , doing my work and taking it seriously but now I know that learning has more than those things , you need to be reflective , critical thinker and also a communicator. You need to apply all the core values to able to learn in an effective way." Kari’s Blog "In which of the core values did you show the most progress or growth?  What makes you say that?  I am getting better at communication.  I am learning more Portuguese and improving with my blog and other technologies.  This is very important in terms of communication.  Balanced says that you can communicate in multiple languages.  Improving in Portuguese means that I can communicate more to people who do not speak English.  Also, I am getting better at using my blog which is another form of communication.  People can come on and see my work and how I use my Blog." "I used to think my learning was mostly about critical thinking, but now I think my learning is more about being reflective.  Sometimes you cannot really grasp what you have learned unless you reflect on what you have done.  This is an important part of learning and changing your learning habits and becoming better at something.  If you just do something once and then never again, you don’t really learn anything .  Reflection makes you rethink again and understand better. " Now what? Where do we go from here? My hope is to continue: supporting blogs as a global communication hub. A hub to receive feedback from an audience beyond one teacher (Learning About Blogs FOR your Students- Part IV: Connecting ) helping students build a Personal Learning Network strengthening the blog as a platform for learning documentation and student reflection ( Making Blogging Visible ) becoming a culture of making thinking and learning visible (embed visible thinking routines in an organic way, not as an add-on) showcasing blogfolios as a  valuable source to help teachers assess for learning as well as support their efforts  in differentiating their students’ learning (Assessment in the Modern Classroom: Part Three- Blog Writing ) expanding the use of the blogfolios to include "out of school learning" embedding presentation skills to support the use of visuals to "tell the story of learning" (Embedding Visuals Into Teaching and Learning) paying close attention and coaching teachers and students in hyperlinked writing (Wondering about Hyperlinked Writing, Hyperlinked Writing in the Classroom- From Theory to Practice, Anatomy, Grammar, Syntax & Taxonomy of a Hyperlink ) Where are you in your journey of student digital portfolios/blogfolios? How do you prepare, run and learn from Student Led Conferences?  Contribute to the exchange of ideas, thoughts, experiences, doubts, failures and successes? We are all pioneers. No one has done this for years and is an expert. We are all learning along the way. Let’s help each other. Leave a comment or connect on Twitter, but don’t keep your observations and perspectives on the topic to yourself.

Inspired by Poetry, Performance & Taylor Mali and Beyond…, 8th grade Humanities teacher Shannon Hancock coached her students to create their own original "Mali Poem"and record a visual and vocal performance. I joined the class to give a brief overview of presentation design. I used selected slides from my slidedeck below to talk about image quality, typography, white spaces, metaphors, rules of third, etc. Presentation makeover from Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano What type of tools could students choose from to heighten the message of their original writing with sound effects, vocal effects, music and images? Movie Editor &  Presentation Tool Combination First start out by creating slides in a presentation tool, such as Haiku Deck (web based or on the iPad), keynote or PowerPoint. Add relevant images that represent and support your poem mood,  text and message. Haiku Deck will automatically search within the Creative Commons domain for images and add the proper attribution citations on each slide for you. If you are using another program, search for Creative Commons, Public Domain images and give proper attribution for each image used. As always, you are encouraged to take your own images to use. Keep presentation design principles in mind: more image, less text, rules of third, quality images (high resolution photographs) Export the slides as individual images. When in Haiku Deck, export as a PowerPoint File, then save as jpegs (all slides). You can also take screenshots of each individual slide and save as images. Drag and drop exported images into movie editor software (iMovie or Movie Maker) timeline Add transitions, sound effects, voice recording, music Export movie project as a movie file In HaikuDeckEnter text, Search and choose images, Select a layout for your text In PowerPoint or KeynoteExport individual slides as images Under option, choose "Save Every Slide" If I am everything that I ever touched…. from langwitches on Vimeo. Animoto, Voice Recording & Presentation Tool Combination ( Animoto is limited to a 30 second video as part of the free version) First start out by creating slides in a presentation tool, such as Haiku Deck (web based or on the iPad), keynote or PowerPoint. Add relevant images that represent and support your poem mood,  text and message.  Keep presentation design principles in mind: more image, less text, rules of third, quality images (high resolution photographs) Export the slides as individual images. Upload images to Animoto (note how long the video clip ended up being) Record an MP3 file (ex. Audacity, Garageband, etc.) of you reading your poem (make sure the length of your recording is the same length as the video clip) Before you produce Video, click on pre-chosen song and then choose to upload your own "song"(audio file) Produce video I am from In the end, all students chose not to use Animoto due to the length of video limitation. Haiku Deck was a big success, since looking for quality images and the citation was made easy ( I wish many more web 2.0 tools, would make it as easy as Haiku Deck to observe copyright while not sacrificing the quality of the images)

I wanted to take a closer look at the iPad Evaluation I previously blogged about in Evaluating Apps with Transformative Use in Mind. The section of Content and Components deserved a closer look and explanation. You can  download the PDF file of the iPad App Evaluation for the Classroom with the following sections of evaluation included: Considerations Content & Components Logistics Fluency Substitution vs Transformation Model (based on SAMR model of Ruben Puentedura and Alan November‘s work) Evidence of Learning (based on conversation with Stephen Wilmarth) After looking at iPad apps through the lens of Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, November’s Digital Learning Farm, 21st century Upgrades, let’s take a closer look at the content and components of these apps. It is important to remind ourselves that shiny visuals and audio not automatically translate into pedagogical value of the program. It is our job, as educators, to assure that by using specific apps, the learning goal for our students is supported. A selection, combination and variation of the above six characteristics should be evaluated in the assessment process for learning. In addition, as you are strategically evaluating the content particular apps provide, these components will serve as critical support consideration as they are being brought up to your school, district or decision makers for potential app purchases. These considerations will also provide a wealth of support in speaking with parents or other stakeholders to articulate the value of iPads as a tool for learning. After each component consideration, I am going to put the Book Creator app (By RedJumper Studio- ) through the test, as an example, to see how it stacks up against the evaluation of its content and components. Curriculum Connections Using an app for the thrill of the bells and whistles any particular app under the educational umbrella promises, is not a good enough reason for adding it to your app library. Careful examination is in order if the app supports or practices skills and literacies that are strongly connected to your curriculum content, standards and your individual student ‘s needs. Start out by looking at your standards, lesson/unit goals and objectives. Where do your students need to be supported and given time to investigate new content, analyze, apply what they have learned or give evidence of their knowledge and understanding? Can a product created by your students with a particular app be used as an assessment of curricular objectives? While there are apps that are geared to be replacement for textbooks or worksheets and bring in a myriad of multimedia support of a specific subject or topic, does the amount of content they provide justify the cost or use of the app? Is the content static in nature or does the app allow dynamic information flow (via RSS feed for example)? Is there an option of adding your own content? Is the app flexible enough for you to find, import, insert, tweak or create your own curriculum related content? The BookCreator app does not come with a pre-loaded content geared towards a specific grade level, subject area or proficiency level. It is an app that allows for complete freedom to create an eBook about any subject, topic, genre, level, etc. Any standards, from research skills to content knowledge (history, science, math, language arts, foreign language, etc.), writing for an audience, multi- and transmedia skills, design elements and more can be addressed. The app molds to any content requirement you are in need of. Authenticity: Too many times, students do not know why they are filling out this worksheet or completing that assignment. "Why do I have to do that?" and "I will never use this again" are sentiments we are hearing too often in our schools. Be aware of apps that are specifically designed for the educational arena. Ask yourself, would someone outside of school use this app? Is there a genuine purpose for this app outside a school environment? Strategically chosen apps can help students not only learn and practice skills in case they will need them one day, but are targeting skills that are practiced in an authentic format and are part of just- in- time solutions. The app is not a simulation of a process, but allows students to get hands on time to do real world work like creating products with tools that are used  outside of school, gaining important digital literacy skills in the process. The BookCreator app is not designed for a school environment only. The ability of creating your own eBook and publish the book for others to download and read fulfills an authentic need for the world outside of the classroom as well. The era when book publishing was in firm hands of publishing companies, editors and agents are gone. The skills to be able to produce and publish our own content is real, relevant and desirable. Personalization We live in a time when customization is king in business and our personal lives. We all are used to, including our students, to be treated as individuals. From the special laté we order at Starbucks to the movies we watch on Netflix, the personalized T-shirts or shoes we order, the targeted ads on Google or the customized recommendation list we receive from Amazon, based on our previous browsing and purchasing history and yes, also the way we outfit our smartphones with apps and customized covers. We are individuals and don’t want to settle for "one size fits all". In order for an app to earn high marks in the personalization department, it should be able to offer options to import our own images or videos to personalize the content. Personalization can mean, the app supports streaming content of our own choosing, allowing RSS feeds from a variety of sources. The app also contributes to organization and curation of the user’s learning and facilitates personalized workflow, by connecting easily or automatically to photo gallery, research, content and preferred input or dissemination channels. The BookCreator app allows for an easy and complete personalized experience. Users create eBooks with their own content, images, audio and/or video. Formatting options for background, colors, fonts and size are left to be customized for the user. Organization of the content and easy access to personal content are present. Differentiation According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differentiated_instruction ) , differentiation in education is defined as "a framework or philosophy for effective teaching that involves providing different students with different avenues to learning (often in the same classroom) in terms of: acquiring content; processing, constructing, or making sense of ideas; and developing teaching materials and assessment measures so that all students within a classroom can learn effectively, regardless of differences in ability." Comparing differentiation with the other component of personalization, differentiation deals with the teaching component, while personalization is closely related to the learning aspect. Applying the above definition of differentiation to the context of apps, the app should offer flexibility to alter the settings to meet individual students’ needs. "One size does not fit all", applies to both sides. An app that does support differentiation does not impose any limits to grow skills and to create. It seamlessly allows each individual learner to be challenged their strengths and support their weaknesses. The BookCreator app gives ample flexibility for customization of differentiated expected results of the final product for each student. It also has the capability to address and accomodate preferred learning styles to give evidence of knowledge and learning. Personal Learning Personalized learning is about using our own content, such as text, images, video or audio, while personal learning is about the learners’ interests and passions. An app that supports personal learning supports the flow of receiving, organizing, annotating, adding value to, remixing, creating and connecting to these areas of interests and passions. The app could allow users to add feeds that filter information by their personal chosen requirements and is set up in the "just perfect" way to make the learn flow of the individual learner smooth and fluent. An iPad, as a personal learning device, contains specific apps, that together support the individual’s pursuit of the just right amount of desired information, delivered in the preferred media of choice, capable of allowing the user to use, add, remix, create and disseminate. The BookCreator app encourages the creation of eBooks to publish and share with others about any desired topic. Users could use the app to become the expert and author of a book about their chosen interest or passion. Publishing The learning environment in and outside of schools has and is continuing to drastically change. While learners once were only passive recipients of knowledge, learners have now become active participants and creators of knowledge, collaborating and contributing to a worldwide network of learners. The boundaries of experts and learners are blurring more and more and the transparency of sharing one’s work with the world is possible and is becoming the norm for the new generation. The ability of an app to support the publishing and dissemination process of created content is an important component to consider. Be aware of the degree of ease to export or embed the product in a variety of formats and directly to various platforms (Ex. blog, wiki, Facebook, twitter, Flickr, YouTube, etc.) The BookCreator app allows for export as a ePub file, by sending the file via email to a recipient. It can be directly sent to iTunes, be opened up in a variety of other apps, that support the ePub file extension or it also give the user the choice to print the book on paper. I

I might be (very)  late to the party around the popular YouTube Channel from the Fine Brothers and their series of Kids React, but I just made a connection to student blogfolios and student led conferences. In the beginning of  each episode of Kids React, kids are being presented with an object or videos (artifact) and are being filmed reacting to these. They are asked to "think out loud" without any further instruction. Kids are articulating questions that are popping up in their head, they are narrating out loud how they are trying to make sense of what they are seeing, how these things fit into their world view  or trying to make them work. Next comes a section called "Question Time", where they are being asked guiding questions. Again they are being filmed as they are trying to answer these questions according to the background knowledge, their perspective and ability to communicate their answers. "Kids React Facts" are short snippets of background knowledge that the Fine Brothers overlay as text titles to specific video sections. How do I think these videos are related to student blogfolios and student led conferences? We are asking our students to think out loud, when sharing their learning and reflection on their blog. Documenting their learning, requires students to ask: Where have I been? What have I done, Where am I now? How does this fit in with what I already know? By asking students to use Visible Thinking Routines and giving them guiding questions to consider and address in their blog posts, there are making their understanding of the learning process, their thinking path and learning strategies, their position (in this moment in time) in relationship to the learning targets visible to us and their blog readers. Leaving comments or creating links  to add The blog platform documents and shares the students’ understanding, point of view and journey. It is a platform that allows all different types of media to be embedded and inserted to be able to communicate student thinking to a potential global audience. These documentation is archived and organized for later retrieval. During student led conferences, we are asking students to orally share their learning with their parents. They are using artifacts which they created and that demonstrate evidence of their challenges, successes, process and learning. The following remix of snippets from the 100th episode  is an opportunity to see the participating kids (over the last 4 years) grow and see their thinking and communication skills evolve. It is my hope that the blogfolios with the documentation of students’ learning and thinking evolve in the same kind of timeline that allows to see that growth happen before our eyes as well.

I get asked all the time about the name of my blog: Langwitches. So here is the story… It’s a cultural thing… Some cultures see "witches" as a normal part of human history and playing an ongoing role in literature throughout different time periods. Other cultures don’t have a place for witches or see them as heathens and evil. I grew up in Germany, where witches don’t seem to have a negative connotation or at least not one I was aware of when growing up. My father’s nickname for me was "Hexe" (German word for witch) and we have had over the years two dogs named "Hexe". In Germany, there are plenty of witch related knick knacks being offered in the stores or street markets, from porcelain dolls, puppets, erasers, pens, books, films, etc. Over 10 years ago, I maintained a website (in German) called Sprachhexen. Sprachhexen started in 1999 as a resource for German families living abroad trying to raise bilingual children. Since then Sprachhexen has grown to address also the needs of foreign language educators who are looking to find support and ideas from other teachers in teaching bilingual children as well as as second language. Through examples, concrete lesson plans, recommendations, and relevant links Sprachhexen wants to fill the need for quality resources which many foreign language teachers lack, due to professional isolation from colleagues. I wrote the following as an explanation for my liking for witches. See translation in English below… Unsere Vorliebe fuer kleine Hexen… Es ist kein Geheimnis ! Meine Kinder und ich lieben kleine Hexen. Egal, ob sie in Buechern, Filmen oder Spielen vorkommen. In unserer Familie lebten schon zwei Hunde, die den Namen "Hexe" trugen, mein Vater nannte mich als Kind seine "Hexe" und auch noch heute habe ich eine Vorliebe fuer Marionetten- Hexen und Hexen-Puppen und anderen Hexen-Schnick-Schnack. Kein Wunder, dass dieses Online -Projekt der Unterstuetzung zweisprachig erziehender Eltern auch "Sprachhexen" getauft wurde. Immerhin habe ich ja drei kleine Sprachhexen zu Hause. Aus Spass an der Freude wollen wir nun auf Sprachhexen spezielle "Hexenseiten" vorstellen. Warum finden wir kleine Hexen ueberhaupt so suess und interessant? Böse Hexen gibt es in Kinderbüchern kaum mehr. Die letzte wirklich gruselige Hexe, die meinen Kindern Angst einjagte war die Stiefmutter von Schneewittchen. Die Hexen in der heutigen deutschen Kinderliteratur sind auf pädagogisch wertvoll getrimmt und nicht dazu da den Kindern Angst einzujagen wie in den alten Maerchen. Die meisten kleinen Hexen sind ganz normale Menschen im Alltagsleben, die zufällig extra Kräfte haben und diese eigentlich zum Guten oder vielleicht gerade mal zum Unsinnmachen nutzen. Die Hexen aus den aktuellen Kinderbüchern gehen genau wie alle anderen Kinder zur Schule, muessen lernen, treiben Sport, haben Freunde und ähnliche Problme wie ihre Nicht-Hexen Leser und Leserinnen. Die Anzahl der deutschen Bücher, die von kleinen und grossen Hexen handelt, beweist ihre Beliebtheit unter den Kindern ( und auch Erwachsenen) im deutschsprachigen Raum. Der Erfolg der Harry Potter- Bücher und des Filmes zeigt dies derzeit am Besten. Der Klassiker aller Hexenbücher ist und bleibt für uns "Die kleine Hexe" von Otfried Preussler. Auch hier ist die Hexe dafür da, den Lesern eine Moral beizubringen. Gute Taten sind besser als schlechte. Natuerlich kann man Bibi Blocksberg nicht vergessen. Die kleine Hexe aus Neustadt , die mit ihrem gruenen Kleidchen und ihrem heissgeliebten Besen "Kartoffelbrei" das Herz kleiner Maedchen von 3-13 Jahre hoeher schlagen laesst. Fuer uns im Ausland Lebenden ist es manchmal schon ein zweischneidiges Schwert mit unserer Vorliebe fuer kleine Hexen. Nachbarn schauen schon ab und zu komisch, wenn die Kinder als kleine Hexen verkleidet, spielend auf ihrem Besen durch die Strasse fegen (und nicht nur an Halloween) und wir sind andererseits erstaunt, wenn der Schuldistrikt hier in Jacksonville die beruehmten Harry Potter Buecher in der Schulbibliothek verbieten moechte.   Our fondness of little witches It is not a secret! My children and I love little witches. It does not matter if they appear in books, movies or games. In our family, already two dogs bore  the name "Witch", my father called me as a child his little witch and still today, I have a fondness of puppet witches and witch dolls and other witch related memorabilia. No wonder that I named my online project to support parents of bilingual children "Sprachhexen" (witches of the languages), since I also have three little bilingual children at home. Out of fun, we are presenting dedicated Witch pages on the website. Why do we find little witches cute and interesting? Evil witches barely appear in children’s books these days. The last creepy witch my children were afraid of, was the mean stepmother in Snow White. Witches in today’s German children literature are geared towards pedagogical values and not to scare young children like in old fairy tales. Most modern witches in German literature are normal humans living a normal day-to-day life. They use their extra powers to do good or at its worse to make nonsense. Witches, in modern children books, go to school like normal children, they have to learn, they do sports, they have friends and similar problems like their non-witch readers. The amount of existing German books who deal from little to big witches show the popularity among children (and also adults) in the German speaking regions. The success of Harry Potter films and books supports this as well. Among the classics of all witch books, our favorite is "The little Witch by Otfried Preussler. In the book, the witch is there to present the moral of the story.Good deeds are better than bad ones. Of course, one can’t forget Bibi Blocksberg either.  The little witch from Neustadt, who with her green little dress and her beloved broom "Kartoffelbrei" wins over the hearts of all girls between the ages of 3-13 years. For us, who are living abroad, it sometimes can be a double edged sword with our fondness of little witches. Neighbors give us funny looks, when the children dress up as witches and use our kitchen broom to play on the street (and not necessarily only during the Halloween season). We, on the other hand, are surprised when the local school district bans books like Harry Potter from the school libraries. As my children grew, as part of my Master’s Degree in Instructional Technology, I created a website for Using Technology in the World Language classroom (geared towards educators).  The new was an extension of the original Sprachhexen site (geared towards parents).  It was a logical extension to name the new site a direct translation into English "Witches of the Languages", which then became the play on words of "Langwitches". 

Today, April 22, 2014, NASA is crowdsourcing Global Selfies. NASA astronauts brought home the first ever images of the whole planet from space. Now NASA satellites capture new images of Earth every second. For Earth Day we are trying to create an image of Earth from the ground up while also fostering a collection of portraits of the people of Earth. Once those pictures stream around the world on Earth Day, the individual pictures tagged #GlobalSelfie will be used to create a mosaic image of Earth — a new "Blue Marble" built bit by bit with your photos. Need an idea of what kind of picture to take? Get outside and show us mountains, parks, the sky, rivers, lakes — wherever you are, there’s your picture. Tell us where you are in a sign, words written in the sand, spelled out with rocks — or by using the printable signs we’ve created that are available at the bottom of this page. The Earth mosaic image itself and a video using the images will be put together and released in May. My students at the American School of Sao Paulo and I  have participated. How about you? There is still time. Post your photo to Twitter, Instagram or Google+ using the hashtag #GlobalSelfie, or post it to the #GlobalSelfie event page on Facebook or the #GlobalSelfie group on Flickr. You can also join the #GlobalSelfie Google+ event page.

If you are blogging with your students, you have been exposed to them. You have been exposed to hundreds of unimaginative, cloned, generic and uninspiring BLOG TITLES. When opening your...

Humanities teacher, Shannon Hancock, at Graded, the American School of São Paulo, read and worked through The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo with her 8th grade students. Not only did they read the text, learn about literary elements, but also learned to articulate and discuss in a professional manner the text with their peers. Shannon chose to use the Socratic Method, specifically a Socratic Seminar (Inner/Outer Circle Fishbowl) to hand the learning over to her students. She stressed to them: " Educators don’t need to have all the answers, it is about asking the right questions." Wikipedia explains the Socratic Seminar as follows: This approach is based on the belief that participants seek and gain deeper understanding of concepts in the text through thoughtful dialogue rather than memorizing information that has been provided for them. While Socratic Circles can differ in structure, and even in name, they typically involve the following components: a passage of text that students must read beforehand and two concentric circles of students: an outer circle and an inner circle. The inner circle focuses on exploring and analysing the text through the act of questioning and answering. During this phase, the outer circle remains silent. Students in the outer circle are much like scientific observers watching and listening to the conversation of the inner circle. When the text has been fully discussed and the inner circle is finished talking, the outer circle provides feedback on the dialogue that took place. This process alternates with the inner circle students going to the outer circle for the next meeting and vice versa. The length of this process varies depending on the text used for the discussion. The teacher may decide to alternate groups within one meeting, or they may alternate at each separate meeting. Shannon prepared her classroom by physically arranging the desks in an inner and outer "circle"… … and prepared her students with the Socratic Seminar Norms for the discussion. We tweaked the traditional format of the Socratic Seminar to include a backchannel. A backchannel is a  parallel discussion, a collectively shaped comment on some ongoing conversations, not that different than the outer circle described in the Socratic Seminar. The backchannel in this case was the secondary digital discussion of the literary text. One student was the backchannel moderator in charge of making sure that Today’s Meet was projected and refreshed properly on the screen. Watch the video below to catch a glimpse into Shannon’s classroom and their use of a backchannel for the first time.   Reflection of the Backchannel as part of the whole class text discussion: All students had opportunity to contribute to the conversation (even the "silent" outside circle) (Shy) Students who had a harder time articulating orally their opinions in the "inner" circle were able to contribute in written form The skills to listen, observe, document, contribute, read, write, add value, ask questions and respond to others in the backchannel, all at the same time, is not a skill we are born with. It requires exposure and practice. The backchannel log, gives an opportunity to review and assess individual students beyond the "in-the-moment". It also gives students an opportunity to review and reflect on the experience. The backchannel exposes students to a collaborative writing environment. Possible extensions: Assign a student (or a group of students) to be the "Backchannel Cleanup", responsible for saving, copying and pasting the log into a shared document. They then edit and format the log by deleting duplicate, unrelated or non-comprehensible comments. They can also organize the comments according to topics. Analysis of the Backchannel Log: There were many different layers going on in the Backchannel. Observation and comments about the Socratic Seminar behaviors Observations of literary discussion elements Documentation of inner circle discussion Added commentary of own opinions. Parallel conversation going in backchannel and inner circle. Please note that the screenshots below are not in chronological order. They are shown to illustrate some of the points of the reflection and thoughts about the use of the backchannel.   I must admit, that I was in complete awe of the students and their teacher of how well prepared they were to come together and have a serious literary discussion round. The Socratic Seminar lesson could have stood on its own without adding any further layer facilitated by technology. It was the quality of the teaching and learning already present that allowed the backchannel to add another quality layer. I can’t help myself, but I am already dreaming of further amplification. What if .. What if the class connects with another class who is reading the same book. What if the one of the class can potentially contribute yet another perspective (possibly due to culture or geographical location) to the understanding and comprehension of the text. (Ex. Could our Brazilian class not contribute the perspective of the controversy of the Alchemist book here in Brazil to a class located in Sweden, for example, reading the same book?) What if half of the inner circle (the fish) is in one class and half of the inner circle is participating via Skype or Google Hangout from a different class? (Synchronous) What if the backchannel is comprised of students from BOTH classes (synchronous (Today’s Meet) and asynchronous (Google Document)? Interested? Let’s dream up another layer of collaborative reading, writing and discussing literary text.

7 Billion Others… There are seven billion other humans living on our planet. How do they live? What is important to them? What makes them tick? Do they live similar than me? Are they different than me? How? These questions intrigued Ana Paula Cortez, one of our Portuguese teachers at Graded, the American School of São Paulo, and compelled her to explore them with her students. Inspiration: 7billionothers.org In 2003, after The Earth seen from the Sky, Yann Arthus-Bertrand, with Sybille d’Orgeval and Baptiste Rouget-Luchaire, launched the 7 billion Others project. 6,000 interviews were filmed in 84 countries by about twenty directors who went in search of the Others. From a Brazilian fisherman to a Chinese shopkeeper, from a German performer to an Afghan farmer, all answered the same questions about their fears, dreams, ordeals, hopes: What have you learnt from your parents? What do you want to pass on to your children? What difficult circumstances have you been through? What does love mean to you? Forty-five questions that help us to find out what separates and what unites us. These portraits of humanity today are accessible on this website. The heart of the project, which is to show everything that unites us, links us and differentiates us, is found in the films which include the topics discussed during these thousands of hours of interviews. Objective: Raise awareness of culture and interconnectedness of common themes/threads that connect humans no matter of their cultural origin. Take advantage of our multilingual students to share and connect speakers of different languages. Students: 7th & 8th grade Portuguese Language Learners Project Idea: Middle School students create a video (testimonies, journal type) responding to pre-set prompts from 7billionothers.org (love, happiness, work). Future extension idea: personalize the prompts by tweaking to address specific middle school topic…. friends, family, what do you want to be when you grow up….) Process: 1. Discuss video filming techniques.. observe the ones recorded on 7billionothers.org Framing Angle Stability Background 2. Watch Testimony videos (students get to choose) 3. Discuss and record prompts students answer the same prompts (practice orally with a partner (ex. dreams, family, country, happiness, fears) record the video talking about the specific prompt (keep it short 15 -50 seconds). Students get to choose in which language (Portuguese/English/Mother tongue) add subtitles in Portuguese/English/Mother tongue depending on the language they chose to record the video in upload and embed  to their blogs write a reflection about the chosen prompt (not on video technique) and publish (Ex. Gaetano, Clara, Ivanna, Seo-Hyun, Laura, Francisco, Jason, Juan Pablo, Andrew ) 4. Amplify original prompts and videos brainstorm additional prompts ,what would same age kids in other countries be interested in hearing their opinions about? finalize and choose new prompt to film record thoughts (less than 30 seconds) Language: your choice Add subtitles in Portuguese/English/Mother tongue upload and embed to blog, publish Future Idea (next school year starting August 2014): having example videos, invite classes from around the world to contribute to the same prompts Looking for Global Partner Classes Are you up for it? Can you see how your students could articulate, communicate and contribute to a more global understanding of "What separates us? What divides us?" How are we different? How are we the same? from the perspective of a Tweens and Teens? How can you connect this to your curriculum objectives and standards? World languages, Technology standards, Media Literacy, Global Literacy, Network Literacy, Information Literacy… Leave a comment (make sure you receive notification of follow up comment and/or fill out your email box in the comment form) if you are interested and want to be notified next school year to be part of the amplified project.

What Do You Have to Lose?  was a blog post I wrote 4 years ago… It is a new idea for many classroom teachers/students to move from writing, reading and "doing" work, not only for themselves, supervisors/parents or for a monetary compensation/grade, to share their work openly and freely with others. The idea of putting oneself "out there on the internet" (on a larger scale than the teacher lounge) and publicly "brag" about successes, admit failures, ask for help or document one’s learning and teaching process, feels unnatural and even scares many of them. A lot of water has gone under the bridge, a lot has changed in terms of technology… It has been 4 years and my belief in sharing to amplify teaching and learning has grown stronger, even when the work I share gets taken, plagiarized and used for profit by others. I am continuing to make the benefits of documenting (for reflection,  metacognition and connection purposes) visible, but the documentation can not be the end all. The next step must be sharing and disseminating that documentation. It is about sharing conversations, resources, model lessons, student work, reflections, innovative ideas, action research,  etc. Sharing in service of benefiting the educational community and advancing eduction. Sharing in order to be part of a network that supports each other and and pushes thinking forward. Without individual parts, there is no network. The more parts, the larger and stronger the potential network. In the last few weeks, there have been many examples at Graded, the American School of São Paulo, that show the power of sharing and the ripple effect it created: Teaching others you will never meet Authentic audience Feedback Personal Branding Remix & Added Value Building a Personal Learning Network Let me share three specific example when educators reached far beyond the walls of their classroom, school, direct colleagues and students. Claire Arcenas, started her own professional learning blog to document, share and grow her understanding of Visible Thinking across subject areas. Not long after she started blogging, Ron Ritchhart’s (one of the authors of the book) on the Making Thinking Visible Facebook page shared the link to one of her blog posts, validating to a certain degree her work in the classroom and demonstrating that her work is being read by others. Shannon Hancock  allowed me to video record her as she was facilitating a Socratic Seminar and a Backchannel. Through blogging and sharing the video and the lesson via the Langwitches blog, Shannon taught and reached many teachers (around the world) and colleagues (at school) who did not have come into her room to observe the lesson. In turn through them, she reached many students beyond her own classroom. Re-tweets or posts on Twitter  or "sharing counters"on blog post as well as blog reflections like the one Terry Eichholz shared on  What would Socrates do? help demonstrate the ripple effect started by simply sharing. Even if you do not have enough digital devices to exactly replicate Shannon’s lesson, I encourage you to take a look at the article, which includes a wonderful video of the class in action, as well as examples of comments made on the backchannel.  I love the way Shannon introduces the lesson, as well as her encouragement of the students to collaborate by having a short discussion with partners at the half-way mark. Watching Shannon Hancock inspires me to work harder to make our classroom Socratic Circles more meaningful and deep, whether we use technology or not. This kind of evidence of dissemination and inspiration to others are helpful in receiving feedback of our own teaching and learning, as well as gauging interest on a particular topic or discussion and finding potential educators to grow your PLN and to connect and collaborate with in the future. The third examples is from a Math teacher, Laurel Janewicz, who did action research about Metacognitive thinking in her Math class. Sharing the student created screencast videos about making their thinking visible as well as documenting the process in the classroom created far reaching ripple effects. Not only did she present her work at the AASSA  conference (Association of American Schools in South America), but her work was also retweeted by Scott McLeod , someone with over 30,000 Twitter followers. Think of the reach such "seismic network dissemination wave" of a resource can have. A few days ago, another school in Brazil having read the blog post, contacted our principal to ask if it would be possible to come and visit our school  in order to talk with Laurel about her work. Laurel’s sharing is producing waves in thinking and action, inside and outside of her classroom. In the spirit of sharing and amplifying… I am sharing with you the image of the ripple effect below, before, I added my perspective and interpretation of amplification by sharing. Download it, remix, reuse and re-share your thoughts and ideas of a ripple effect in education. Leave a link in the comment section to your new image. PS. I used the iPad Paper app to draw the ripple effect background and Perfect Captions app to add the text to the image.

Mark Engstrom. 8th grade Geography teacher and Assistant Principal at Graded- The American School of São Paulo, has redesigned his entire course. Students move through the modules of this blended learning course on Geography at their own pace.  They build out content knowledge using a Personalized Map (through google maps) and the content delivered through this Digital Learning Farm method will be curated so that they can build out multiple pins on their map.  This content is then used as content knowledge to increase their understanding of the region. He wanted to experiment with a different type of note taking to add to students’ documentation of gaining subject specific content knowledge.  The class was divided into 3 groups. Each group contained one  person responsible to contribute by : taking  notes on one google doc- each has a column adding raw data (statistics, facts, charts, graphs, etc.) adding images that visualized what was being talked about writing on the backchannel asking questions linking to the course’s Essential Questions   Take look at the following video summarizing the class. It is incredibly insightful to be going through and analyzing the backchannel chat after the class is over. It gives you a better understanding of: what students heard what students felt was important to capture the discussion that evolved in the backchannel alone the connections students made and shared It was now back into each individual student’s court to CURATE their own notes. Students had access to all  documents from each group as well as the backchannel. It was up to them to go trough the information and take the pieces that they deemed important to add to their content knowledge. Digital curation  is the selection, preservation, maintenance, collection and archiving of digital assets.Digital curation establishes, maintains and adds value to repositories of digital data for present and future use.This is often accomplished by archivists, librarians, scientists, historians, and scholars. Enterprises are starting to utilize digital curation to improve the quality of information and data within their operational and strategic processes Curating information has become a critical skills as part of information literacy. The ability of finding, evaluating, analyzing, remixing,  organizing and archiving information is more important than ever in the information overload era. The amount of information we are confronted with and that is being thrown at us is exponentially growing with no sign of stopping nor slowing down. We need to find ways to support students in becoming  curators of information. One of the students, Ben, observed the following as he was going through the notes from the Backchannel group: I found these very interesting because Florens and Tibet really try to link what is happening in India to our life in São Paulo which for me is a smarter way to learn things; by comparing them with your everyday life.  

There can never be enough examples from the classroom to share. The benefits are many, from creating a ripple effect  of digitally documenting and sharing to a glimpse in someone else’s classroom by having the opportunity to be a fly on the wall via a video clip. I have shared the Excitement of Learning that can unfold with a Mystery Skype call before. The following video clip is from David Jorgensen’s 8th grade Humanities class (São Paulo, Brazil), recorded during their first Mystery Skype with a class from rural Iowa, USA. Take a closer look at the collaboration, roles of each student (based on Alan November’s Digital Learning Farm), and their practice of questioning techniques.

We are fortunate to have a Visible Thinking Routine (VTR) expert at our school. Claire Arcenas, our MS/HS Physical Education teacher, previously a third grade classroom teacher who has done extensive readings and research in experiencing, implementing, embedding VTR in teaching and learning.  Recently, she started sharing her experience and reflection on her professional learning blog: Visible Thinking Across Subject Areas.   Claire invited me to an 8th grade PE class before a unit on Volleyball skills and allowed me to film her facilitating the VTR called Chalk Talk. She explains the overview of her volleyball unit on her classroom blog post Setting Goals for Player’s Success Grade 7 and 8: Exploring our Enduring Understanding and Essential Questions for Volleyball… Enduring Understanding: Volleyball requires the application and coordination of skills necessary to contribute collaboratively in achieving a common goal Essential Questions: What is volleyball? What movement skills are needed to play volleyball successfully? What are players’ responsibilities? How is organization needed in playing volleyball? How can the skills and attitudes learned in volleyball be used in other sports and activities? In the movie clip, you will see Claire giving an introduction to the Visible Thinking Routine, get kids in groups to rotate around posters with an Essential Question on each. Silently, students added their thoughts, drew visuals or documented questions that they had. After all students had the opportunity to add to each poster, Claire collected all the posters and saved them for the second part of the thinking routine after the actual volleyball playing experience in the gym. At the end of the unit, students met in the same groups to come full circle with the chalk talk routine. Claire distributed the posters, gave students time to re-read their original ideas and thoughts. They then turned the poster over to add new understanding, any connections or new questions. The final part of the process and to conclude the learning process is for students to reflect on the classroom blog using the VTR: I used to think… but now I think…

Another glimpse into the classroom! Previous video clips: Socratic Seminar & Backchanneling, Visible Thinking Routine: Chalk Talk, Mystery Skype Call, Collaborate & Curate In the spirit of opening up classroom walls and creating a ripple effect of teaching and learning by sharing ideas,  methods, action research and modern literacy upgrades,  here is another video clip. You are watching a 7th grade Humanities classroom, led by their teacher David Jorgensen at Graded-The American School of São Paulo. The students are reading The Giver, by Lois Lowry and have been annotating their thoughts as they are reading individual chapters in a Google Doc chart/table, labeled: Observations Inferences Rituals Questions/ Predictions David uses a circle share out technique to have students articulate out load their thinking and annotations of their reading. It is a faced paced method to allow kids to contribute and listen in a short amount of time. A follow up that David practices is then for the students to get in smaller discussion groups to talk in more in detail or get clarification about  what they heard.

A short video with Heidi Hayes Jacobs talking about the necessity of being globally literate. Links she mentions: Curriculum21 Hub Global Partnership Hub Mastering Global Literacy Book Pulitzer Center Projects Out of Eden

I have so many questions! I am wondering about the puzzle pieces that I need to think about and understand  to push forward towards transforming teaching and learning? How do I bring these questions and puzzle pieces to the surface and make them visible to coach others? How do I make my own thinking visible? I am finding visual note taking an intriguing part of the thinking process that I just recently started exploring. Since I am not a natural artist, I am nevertheless finding the process of drawing itself and thinking about how to represent an idea super valuable. What are some of YOUR questions?

Blogging in education is about quality and authentic writing in digital spaces with a global audience, while observing digital citizenship responsibilities and rights, as on documents, reflects, organizes and makes one’s learning and thinking visible and searchable! Blogging is not analog writing in digital spaces. Blogging is not an activity, but a process. The process includes reading, writing, commenting and connecting. It is about reciprocating and an emphasis on quality, not just publishing.

On the heels of Blogging is NOT Analog Writing in Digital Spaces, I decided to re-create the sketchnote of  There is More to Blogging with Your Students. I added Reading in Digital Spaces to the Mix.

Blogging is about reading and about writing in digital spaces. We want students to make their learning and thinking visible. We are developing a platform and a blogging pedagogy for students to document, reflect, organize, manage their online learning records and using student work on blogs as a source for formative assessment. Timely feedback from their teachers, peers and a global audience is critical to the process.   Once the "Blogging Kraken" has been released and the process is on its way, keeping up with: reading all of students’ posts giving timely feedback using student work on blog posts as formative assessment holding students accountable for observing copyright connecting and disseminating your students work to a global audience continually developing a workflow can quickly turn into a nightmare for a teacher if they are not prepared and organized. Below you will find one strategy to help with developing a workflow. Since Google Reader was discontinued, I have been using Feedly as my RSS Reader. I keep two separate Feedly accounts, one for my own professional readings and one specifically for student blogs. The initial set-up is tedious (if you have a lot of students to follow), but well worthwhile the effort. Each individual student’s blog URL needs to be added manually to Feedly. It is a good idea to create separate folders/categories to house the blog feeds of individual classes, blocks or entire grade levels. Once a URL is added, Feedly will give you a choice to add it to an already existing category or to create a new one on the spot. Once the categories are created and blog feeds are added it becomes much simpler to: have an overview of students’ work have one-stop access to their posts (no need to visit each student blog URL individually) keep up with when students are posting or if they have posted keep track of the posts you have already read and still need to read search ALL blog posts in ALL your feeds (not just within one particular blog) see any overall trend (How often students post- timely, quantity? Use of keywords and "quality" blog titles) Feedly allows you with the use of categories/groups to take a look at a list of latest blog post by looking at the entire category or by choosing individual student blogs.   Feedly also supports the teacher’s workflow to: save specific posts to be responded to later or saved to other platforms (Ex. Evernote, Pocket, Instapaper, etc.) disseminate via email and several social network platforms (ex. Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Linked in, etc.) An important feature of Feedly is to be able to export and import all the categories and the feeds you added. Once you have created a school or grade level wide Feedly account, you can: export all by creating an OMPL file of your account (make sure you are logged into the account to export before you click on the link) or click on your account name in the bottom left sidebar, then scroll down to the "Save as OPML" button to export your feeds and categories. The file that you are downloading, can now be shared with a colleague with the same students or an administrator. Go to your Feedly account (again be logged in) Click on your name in the bottom left sidebar Then click on the Import OPML botton Browse for the OPML file that was previously shared Import the feeds  How are you organizing you workflow of keeping up with student blogs?

The step from using a static website or emails as a mean to share announcements or calendar items  to sharing the same type of items on a blogging platform is not far nor a steep step. My ultimate goal for using a classroom blog or student blogfolios though, is that of creating transformative teaching and learning opportunities, not to have a platform that substitutes a composition book or paper journal. To make the difference visible and clearer, I am looking through the lens of the  SAMR model. First, a Classroom Blog seen through the lens of SAMR What about Student Blogs? Substitution- technology acts as a direct substitute for the task A student uses the blog as a tool to substitute a handwritten/typed and printed assignment. The student copies and pastes a Google Doc or other file from a word processing program into a blog post. The comments on the blog are closed or not being utilized. Students might upload a scanned image of an analog test score, worksheet or other analog artifact. Students might answer a prompt or question posed by teacher to the entire class. There is no added value to the learning process versus the analog task. Augmentation- technology  acts as a direct tool substitution with functional improvement Students use their blog as a platform to publish assignments (research papers, essays, responses) for their teacher to see. The blog is a place to push out information, possibly for Student Led Conferences or a showcase/process portfolio. They insert or embed images, videos, presentations or audio to support their written text. They possibly insert hyperlinks to additional resources. Students tag and categorize their posts with searchable labels. The blog platform becomes a digital organization of students’ online learning records, which is centralized, archived and searchable. Teachers use the comment section to give feedback to their students about their performance. Classmates read each other’s papers and leave comments. Modification- technology allows for significant task redesign Students use hyperlinked writing as part of digital writing process to show and connect their thinking to topics, influences, relationships and process between previously published content and external resources. Students communicate beyond the written word, in multimedia and transmedia ways. It is evident in their work that they are writing with a global audience in mind and their work encourages conversation, invites multiple perspectives to add and influence their work. Students receive constructive feedback from peers as part of the writing process. Comments inform students’ writing and original task of "paper" extends and "spills over" into the comment section, altering form of writing piece as well notion of "completion" of paper.Students are demonstrating writing skills for digital spaces, by observing digital citizenship, hyperlinked, networked, peer- connected and non- linear writing. Redefinition- technology allows for the creation of new tasks previously inconceivable The student blog becomes an embedded part of the process and a natural extension of communication and learning cycle by documenting evidence of learning, reflecting, sharing and receiving feedback in order to consider revision. Teachers and students actively and strategically disseminate and connect the blogs to a learning network for feedback and resources. The blog archives artifacts, reflections and connects learning over time. The blog becomes a natural extension beyond assigned academic work and is being used as a hub to document students’ learning, demonstrating self-directed and self-motivated lifelong learning habits as they are organizing, building and maintaining their own online learning records, a growing academic digital footprint and develop their personal brand as well as personal learning networks.  

6th graders, under the facilitation of their Math teacher, Laurel Janewicz, have learned to take data, analyze the data and tell a story with it. They are demonstrating their understanding of Math concepts, data graphs, misleading graphs and communication skills. Laurel chose to give authentic, relevant and meaningful data (not invented data) to her students to analyze from the results of a Challenge Success survey taken the previous school year at the school. The survey compiled data about the school’s extra curricular activities, homework habits, parent involvement, student engagement, sleep patterns etc. Laurel’s plan was to have students analyze the data and then create different types of graphs to be able to communicate their findings in a presentation. Students were to tell a story of the data. The rubric below showed students Laurel’s expectations in terms of content, communication/presentation and a blog post. Laurel also made connections to standards clear: The bottom of my rubric has the content standards for statistics and data, but Common Core also has 8 Mathematical Process standards and this project hits on a lot of them: 3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. Make conjectures, justify conclusions, communicate them to others 4. Model with mathematics Identify important quantities in a practical situation and map their relationships using diagrams, graphs,etc. Analyze those relationships mathematically to draw conclusions 5. Use appropriate tools strategically Be sufficiently familiar with tools appropriate to make sound decisions about whether these tools might be helpful, recognizing both the insight to be gained and their limitations. Identify relevant external mathematical resources, such as digital content on a website, and use them to pose or solve problems. Use technological tools to explore and deepen understanding of concepts. Laurel, in her own words, lists some of the observations and comparison from teaching the same unit in previous years. What is different this year? I used real data that is relevant to them because I created a survey which they responded to and shared the results with the students and assigned each student a question/results to analyze. I pulled all the parts of this unit into one project.  Instead of making and analyzing graphs for one set of data (real or fake), finding and analyzing measures of central tendency for another (real or fake), creating and analyzing misleading graphs for another (real or fake), they do all of it for one real, relevant set of data. I added the element of making the data tell a story- using it to communicate or persuade.  Data and a narrative go best together. I incorporated use of technology so they could share this on their blog not just with their classmates and the Graded community, but with a global community. I dedicated a lot of class time for working on this and shared student work along the way so students could see exemplars and offer and receive feedback. I designed specific questions for students to offer feedback on the projects on the blog posts. From the perspective of modern skills and literacies upgrades: Good teaching is good teaching. Adding technology to bad teaching still will not increase student learning. Adding technology to good teaching can add new layers and open up new dimensions of connections and learning. Laurel’s lesson on data analysis and graphing (including misleading graphs) was well planned, developed and executed to begin with. The lesson could have stood on its own and would have addressed the Math standards. By tweaking the lesson, as Laurel described above, so many more instructional methods, skills, literacies and standards were addressed: making thinking visible being able to visually tell a story with data communicating that story via an electronic media for a larger audience (potential global connections) communicating math concepts going through creation cycle: data analysis, creation, sharing, publishing, feedback, revision differentiated personalized student choice media literacy: choose appropriate media, possibly "media/app smashing", by mixing several tools/media to create one project network literacy: writing for an audience, receiving feedback, responding to feedback information literacy: analyzing data, recognizing misleading data, visualizing data, interpreting data from multiple perspectives digital citizenship: be aware of copyright of digital images (Creative Commons, proper citation) Natasha, one of the sixth grade students summed up her experience in her blog post: In math, we have been working on a project with data from the responses we got from the Challenge Success Survey.  I thought that this project was extremely interesting because we got to incorporate our knowledge of most of the things we had learned about in that math unit.  I really liked taking on my project from a different perspective.  I also got to experiment with different websites that were really cool.  I got to learn all about misleading graphs, graphs and so many other things that I hope you find as cool as I did. Student examples (created in Wideo, Google Presentation, PowToon, Piktochart, Prezi) of presentations: How Much Time are Graded 6th Graders Spending on Homework? by  Maya W. Come to Graded by Jack Is it Fake or just Misleading? By Yael Let’s Get into This by Rens You Can Never Get Too Deep When it Comes to Data! by Tashi Homework? Time? What’s Going on?  by Laura Do you do as much Homework as I do? by Alyssa The Challenge is Complete by Felipe Interested how this story continued to unfold? Watch for an upcoming blog post of Blogging in Math class, with student samples and model lesson video of Laurel introducing her expectations for quality blog commenting in Math.

Ana Paula Cortez, a Portuguese teacher at Graded, The American School of São Paulo, got her 7th and 8th Grade students excited about practicing the target language during a Life Cycle unit. Students were learning vocabulary words and traditions around the birth of a child, their school and college years, work life and retirement. Ana Paula designed a project titled: "De volta para o futuro" (Back to the Future). She asked her students to create a character and fake Facebook pages to accompany the character throughout his/her life. Objectives (Objetivos) Describe past and future events (Descrever atividades passadas e futuras) Speculate about destiny, professional and personal future (Especular sobre destino,  futuro profissional e pessoal.) Enduring Understandings (Conhecimento Duradouro) Values (A criação de valores) How does the present establish the basis of the future? (Como o presente estabelece as bases do futuro) The importance of planning for a successful future (A importância do planejamento para o sucesso futuro) Essential Questions: (Perguntas Essenciais) What values ??today will I take into my future life? (Quais valores de hoje levarei para minha vida futura?) How will my actions in the present create my future? (Como minhas ações presentes vão criar o meu futuro?) How to plan for success? (Como planejar para o sucesso?) Content (Conteúdos) Review of the Present Perfect Subjunctive (Revisão do Pretérito Perfeito do Subjuntivo) Vocabulary related to adulthood (ex. getting married, student exchange, gap year, etc.) (Vocabulário relativo à vida adulta (ex.: casar, formar-se, fazer intercâmbio, ter um ano sabático etc.) Conjugations (Conjunções) General Instructions (Orientações Gerais)  Create a page on Fakebook (fictional character - from birth to retirement) (Criar uma página no Fakebook (personagem fictícia - do nascimento até a aposentadoria) 4 snapshots: before birth, childhood and adolescence, adulthood, retirement; (4 snapshots: antes do nascimento, infância e adolescência, vida adulta, aposentadoria) Include all basic elements: profile, photos, videos etc; use Facebook Template (Incluir todos os elementos básicos: perfil, fotos, vídeos etc; Usar template do Fakebook) Use Creative Commons images. (Usar imagens do Creative Commons) We found a Google Apps Presentation Template to start, Ana Paula Cortez translated the template into Portuguese and shared the file via Google Drive with her students. They each made their own copy and shared it back with their teacher. Student examples:     Students created a page announcing the birth of the "person", during the infancy/childhood, High School time,adulthood and retirement age. Student comment about the project (Hint, use Google Translate to copy and paste the comments and translate into English) By Andrew: Este projeto foi muito divertido. Foi muito legal como criamos uma pessoa e seus amigos e familiares. Foi como fazer uma história. Eu aprendi muito e espero que possamos fazer outros projetos como este.