We’ve been working on a very exciting project in our literacy class analyzing and designing mobile app logos. Above you can see just a few of the stellar examples of student work. It was one of those units I thought up on a hunch after overhearing a discussion between students about their favourite apps. The learning has taken on a life of its own. I feel like more of a bystander, which is basically what I always seek to be, but don’t always achieve, in my room. Here are some of my reflections. Student engagement is very high. The kids run to my class and need to be kicked out when it ends. The kids are doing homework. Not because I’ve assigned any, but because they can’t stop working on their designs. The self, peer, and teacher feedback in the class is natural and non-evaluative. The students just want help from each other to make their designs better. Talk is productive and meaningful. Moreover, it is initiated by the kids themselves. We are experiencing a level of collaboration that is something I wish I could bottle and sell (it would be immensely expensive). One kid’s idea influences and spawns twenty others that could not have happened without the first. Eventually, there’s a web of influence between my 4 classes and 107 students. I just become ecstatic when this level of symbiosis occurs. True networked learning. Still, my favourite part of the learning has been the way some of my historically less successful students have gotten a chance to shine and show off their reading and writing skills. I’m thinking of one boy in particular who I distinctly remember telling me once that he wished he was invisible. Today, I had tears welling up in my eyes when I saw him, shocked and red-faced, grinning from ear to ear, as one of the more popular kids grabbed his design, lifted it in the air, and yelled, "Hey everyone, look at this!" As a teacher, it is impossible for me to achieve all of my desired outcomes in one year of learning. In fact, there is far more abject failure than success. I do hope, however, that at least a few of my students leave at the end of June understanding that reading and writing are concepts that are ever evolving, ever-expanding, and require an open mind to truly become successful in.

So, how does social media in your classroom transform the meaning of shy/quiet? It’s not what you think. It isn’t that shy kids who don’t like to literally talk in your class can now share their ideas in an online sphere. Anyway, at least it isn’t just that. It’s that everyone in your class tends to become a more diverse, contemporary communicator. They get their ideas out for sharing in so many different ways that you stop labeling kids as the class clown, the shy kid, the leader, the follower. It helps students know and respect each other as learners in a way that is less encumbered by the complexities of childhood and adolescent social strata. Read Susan’s interview with me here.

These days, rarely a day goes by that I do not read an awesome post defending learning over technology. I just read Aviva’s fantastic post about putting expectations before toys, loved Zoe and Rodd‘s posts on a totally awesome analogue manner of teaching digital blogging, and was blown away by my buddy Danika’s gorgeously consice podcast episode on putting pedagogy ahead of the tool. I too mentioned this not long ago on this blog, but I feel compelled to add my two extra cents again. It’s funny because I recall a time not long ago when the discourse of our PLN was far more entrenched in tool adulation. "Here’s another great, new, free web 2.0 tool …" "Check out this cool website …" "Here are some Delicious bookmarks for awesome IWB resources …" When I prowl through my Twitter feed these days I feel more likely to come across "5 Reasons SMARTBoards Suck …" "The iPad Pokes Out Pedagogy …" or  "Why 1:1 is NOT the Answer …" in fact, it might even be a retweet of my own post. Perhaps this is a natural evolution, and even serves as a great analogy for your typical tech integrator’s continuum with digital tools. As my good friend @slouca11 says, it’s only when you get past the novelty that true learning begins. To get past the novelty, however, you have to experience the novelty. We shouldn’t forget that integrating technology meaningfully often is preceded by a blissfully childish stage which resembles my daughter’s love of the ice cream shop, not because it’s the most important part, but because it is an unavoidable, perhaps even essential one. It’s a little disingenuous of us to suggest otherwise.

Remember analogue photos and video? Taking care not to waste film, no one leaving comments on your photo of the day, inflicting pain on friends and family with living room slideshows instead of tormenting the world with them on Youtube? I’m still amazed by this digital imaging thing. I can’t believe the ease with which we capture moments in our life. I love the fact that ‘photographer’ is now a relatively subjective title, and that ‘movie making’ can be done on a handheld device (not to mention what it means to be a news reporter). People talk about learning styles and multiple intelligences, but I don’t think it takes much rigour to come to the conclusion that virtually all of the kids walking through the halls of our schools can be called visual learners. A digital camera is not only one of the most underrated #edtech tools around, but is also a perfect illustration of where we want all educational technology to be: normalized, mundane, at our fingertips. I try and leverage this in the classroom at all times. I have witnessed the power of digital photos and video for reflection and metacognition in learning. Here’s an example of a simple activity I do regularly with my class: Take photos and video during a unit of learning. Do a quick edit of the clips and view them together. While viewing, record a voiceover of discussion reflecting on the learning. What went as planned? What surprised us? What should we do differently next time? What was your favourite part? Some of the benefits for learning are as follows: It legitimizes the learning and conversations that occur inside the classroom. It reminds students of the importance of collaborative learning, knowledge building, and timely feedback. It values oral language. It lauds the learning process as much as its product. It motivates and engages students to ‘perform’ their learning. It is a great assessment archive. It makes students accountable for class talk and conduct towards one another. It makes the students the stars of the show. Not the teacher. This process is something I learned while witnessing my own children’s fascination with our family’s iMovie and iPhoto library. Below is a short clip of my son Jackson’s first time riding a two-wheeler. As many parents know, teaching a young child to ride a bike can be laborious and demanding. Depending on the child, keeping their self-efficacy up is perhaps the most important part of the process. We were amazed to see Jack’s fascination with seeing his success. The effect it had on his intrinsic motivation was palpable. If you were to come over to my house tomorrow, you would like see a little boy run up to you and say, "Would you like to see my biking movie?"

At this year’s Quest Conference, Stephen Louca and I co-presented on Handhelds in the Classroom. It was at one of our sessions that we were asked a question I get quite often as a teacher leader who uses mobile devices and social media for learning. "How do you deal with students using internet slang when they write?" I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic when I said, "You know, I think we all need to chillax a little about that." As teachers of writing, I don’t believe our job is to try in vain to change the way kids talk and communicate with one another. What is the point of living if you can’t play, manipulate, and have loads of fun with language, especially as a child? Rather, in this complex age, we should be far more concerned with teaching the navigation of context. These days, when people ask me questions about what I think is different about our time and place, I often say that it is the abundance of contextual difference. We are constant immigrants in multiple different cultural, language, and social frames of reference. Kids will be successful if they are able to navigate and metaphorically switch clothing and personas for multiple purposes. Instead of denouncing playfulness with language, show students how it can be leveraged. With this in mind, I thought I’d share how we are currently dealing with internet slang. We gave it an acronym, a name: S: Creative Spelling E: Emoticons A: Abbreviations P: Excessive Punctuation My adolescent students and I have agreed not to let it SEAP into our formal writing.

I love this drawing by my 8-year-old daughter Yumi. I adore the movement of the legs, as though they are made of gummy bear jelly, tangling around the bike and pedals. I dig the weirdly small wheels looking like they’re being squished. I laugh at the way my kid draws faces which exude pure happiness. The colours? Well, I totally delight in the way she is messily clean with her strokes. There’s a confidence that blows me away in her pics, because Yumi doesn’t draw for any other reason than because she loves it. As a parent, all I want from my kids’ teacher is someone who honours this and, better yet, leverages it in my child’s learning. You can find more of my kid’s pics at her blog: yoyoyumi.blogspot.com.

CC licensed Flickr photo by sanfranannie There are so many wonderful things about teaching. This is one of them. Teaching is a gift because it gives you the opportunity to reflect on your own life in a much more informed way. Think about it, you’re actually doing informal and formal research about real, living, breathing people every single day. We get to influence and learn from such an array of the social fabric. Immigrants, the upper class, ghettoized communities, homogenous, heterogeneous, dominant culture, subaltern, soccer-loving, basketball-obsessed, religious, secular, tech-crazy, antiquated, library-goers, drug problems, middle-class, disabled, mentally ill, artists, athletes. Furthermore, you actually have the ear of many of these people. You can actually effect them, for better or for worse. If you then teach as though your existence is based strictly on constant learning, the privilege becomes overwhelmingly evident.

Here is the comment I wrote on P. Tucker’s post disagreeing with a retweet I made on Twitter about Social Media. I agree with you Mr. Tucker that there are many pitfalls not only for our students who are minors, but also us as teachers. Social media and its potential use in the classroom certainly would not be the controversial topic it is were it not fraught with possible missteps or misguided use. I would add, however, that successful and meaningful use of SM in schools needs strong leadership (such as the kind provided by people such as @gcouros), clear and articulated pedagogical purpose, and, most of all, resiliency. There is no point in walking down the SM path if mistake making is not accepted as part and parcel in the process. I would further suggest that, at least from my vista, the ‘shouldn’t do’ educating, at least in terms of lectures, posters, pamphlets, and other media, is not something that is scarce. In my original retweet, I was simply acknowledging the derth of mainstream discourse on ‘the power and potential’ of SM for networked learning. I agree with you that it is somewhat naive to look upon a technology such as SM as neutral. The medium changes people and the world. No question. Perhaps what we should really do is stop polarizing SM’s effects and purpose as BAD and GOOD. It’s much more complex than that. In particular, I doubt we are ever going to reach an entire generation of young people who use SM in their daily lives so long as our dominant voice is one of perpetual admonishment.

I love phys-ed. I love the enthusiasm (most) children exhibit in finally having the shackles of desks, chairs, pencils, and paper abandoned for movement and sweating. I revel in the way the gym makes you feel comfortable to shout to the high heavens and escape the silence we too often demand in our classrooms. Most of all, I admire the way we accept very progressive ideas about assessment, evaluation, and achievement; no other subject has been doing observational assessment and instant feedback as a rule rather than a novelty. I hate phys-ed. class. I hate the seemingly immovable paradigm of ‘gym’ class. I crouch over when I think about the subtle ways we marginalize physical education in the big picture. I dislike the omnipresent gender issues that creep up when boys play with girls. Finally, I dislike the way ‘sports’ in gym class alienates many kids and causes them to literally and figuratively drop-out of gym. As a (small ‘g’) gym teacher, I always try my best to make our physical education program as active, relevant, engaging, and equitable as possible. I’m really the furthest thing you can get to an impassioned expert in this area (and most days I would be embarrassed about the mistakes I make as a teacher in that gym), but I try my best. Here’s an idea I came up with that has been a rousing success. We call it The Obstacle Course. In partners, students design a course that is: fun tests a variety of fine and gross motor movement skills includes everyone has everyone moving at all times It has been so wonderful to see everyone step up and take leadership in my classes. No stickers or raffle tickets needed. These kids are trying their best to make a course that impresses the most important evaluators: their peers. In terms of assessment and feedback, it has been phenomenal. Think about it: I design a game I talk to all of you about it You tell me how I think it could be improved We play the game As we play, I notice things that work, and things that should be changed We make changes as we play You learn from my game and make yours better The play and outright exercise has been fantastic, but it has been perhaps more special to see the collaboration and constant feedback in the gym. If you’re stuck for an idea, try this one out. Here is the organizer I gave kids in the planning stages. Let me know how it goes.

CC Licensed Photo Shared by Flickr user Micah Sittig Today I attended a very interesting presentation by a member of the AssistiveWare team. AssistiveWare develops some of the most simple yet revolutionary hardware and software for OS X and iOS. The things they are doing for physically and intellectually disabled persons is nothing short of rockin’. One app in particular caught everyone’s eye, Proloquo2Go, a mouthful to say but full of enormous potential pedagogically. Proloquo2Go provides for the user a huge database of words+icons which you can select to turn into written or spoken sentences. You can customize, edit, and continually add to this database using your iDevice’s camera. Forget Special Ed., this is an app for everyone. Sure, others exist that do similar things, but the people at AssistiveWare seem to get that aesthetics, portability, and intuitiveness are essential criteria for a successful technology in this day and age. Of course, one of their main markets is the educational sphere. Oh how useful and maybe even a little transformative this tool could be. But we’re not ready. I don’t mean that this app and all the other technologies AssistiveWare makes will not continue to transform many people’s lives, it’s that we’re not ready yet in our systems. Here’s why. We’re not comfortable yet with the idea of students using genuinely personal devices. Personal, as in, your laptop or your Blackberry or your iPad 2. Do you want to share your iPhone, or login to it every time you use it? I don’t mind people using mine (jeez, I let my children get all manner of kid goobies all over it), but I don’t want to put it back in a shared locked cupboard and go home without it. That’s preposterous. Our smart phones and tablets are astonishing in many delightful ways, but in terms of the apps that you really use as tools (Evernote, Dropbox, Grocery Gadget, Bento, Echofon, Things, Reeder - these are all in my apps hall of fame), these are not possible without customization and personalization. Proloquo2Go is great, but it’s downright beautiful if customizable to change and adapt to the user’s needs. Without this, it would be used as a novelty in our schools. The road to ubiquitous wifi and mobile/soft-walled learning is fraught with many common, as well as unexpected, challenges. I’m not even trying to attest that it’s necessarily the best path. What I am saying is that the potential of iPods and iPads in particular can only soar if kids can customize them to match their own needs.

… to everyone who checks this blog out for amusement, insight, or information. I’m very grateful that people are interested in what I may have to say about schools and learning. I want to extend a special shout-out to a former student of mine, Christopher, who mysteriously seems to be interested in what his boring old teacher has to say.

The small pink stool you see in the photo is used by one of my students (let’s call him Gregory)  in lieu of a chair. I noticed early in the year that he had difficulty sitting still for any reason. The stool changed everything. "Hey Gregory, I notice you’re always jiggling around and moving in your chair. Wanna try kneeling on this stool instead?" "Ya sure, Mr. Lee … OHMIGOD! I LOVE IT!" I will cause a million knowing heads to nod if I describe this 13-year-old: has a loud voice, is a reluctant reader/writer, is always ‘on the go’, and would possibly shrivel up and die if he couldn’t participate in competitive sports. But this little pink stool and this rugged, masculine boy have found a match in one another. On the stool, he sits calmly and stays focused. One of my favourite parts of this job is uncovering the little things that sometimes make a huge difference.

My 7 month old daughter is at the stage where she thinks holding a piece of broccoli or red pepper in her hand and moving it to her mouth is the most fascinating thing in the world. Her eyes widen like a butterfly taking flight. She shakily grips the vegetable I give her like a knight taking his first sword. My 4 year old is at this weird stage where he asks copious amounts of questions whose answers are evident. Just listen to my voice, I want to play with words like they are a musical instrument. That’s what I think he is thinking. At times it is annoying like a bad pop song, but it’s equally hilarious. My 8 year old is in many fascinating stages. One of my favourites (and one I secretly encouraged) is the comic book stage. As a kid myself, I inhaled comics. Watching Yumi munch through them like a termite has been delightful. I can’t help but get giddy about it. What I find so funny about these periods in their lives is the way it’s obvious they will outgrow them. Lucy will soon find the act of holding broccoli completely ordinary; Jackson will stop sounding like a walking Dora question machine; and Yumi will likely not find time to read her manga. As a teacher of 13 year olds, I encounter a relatively mercurial and mysterious group of students. The mood swings, the seemingly random bouts of misbehaviour, the quiet anger. The changes they have gone through this school year are startling when you really break it down. It’s no wonder vampire novels touch such a chord; they’re wonderful monsters themselves, trying to make meaning of new found power, weakness, and complexity. Some are to be savoured, while others endured, but all of life’s stages have their meaning and value.

CC licensed shared by Flickr user RLHyde I truly appreciate admonishments regarding social media from my PLN. Particularly the one which questions what trade-offs come about as a result, and if a particular one is worth it or not. It’s an important skill when you decide to accept a powerful technology. You must be perpetually metacognitive and critical of the tool itself. I thought I would use one arm of my social media life as an example. I love what social media has done for my sports fandom. I have been a terrible athlete/obsessive sports fan since a very young age. Moreover, as a reader, my favourite text genre has always been sports and music journalism. Suddenly, this type of content is now available almost entirely for free online, and it is mind-blowingly interactive. You form a community and actually connect with some of those fans, journalists and athletes. It’s like you’re part of the game itself (deluded, I know:-) You can even start a blog yourself about your favourite team and foster an audience. You can actually become a media creator, not just the consumer. There’s just one thing. I find I watch a lot less of the actual events. A baseball game, for instance, feels like an eternity to me now. A football game without the ability to fast forward? Forget it. West coast games that end well after midnight? No way. Now, I know being a committed husband and father of three young kids is likely the highest factor in this equation… Still, it’s also because I feel like I can crowdsource the experience. Bizarre I know. I’m ok with that trade-off because it allows me to be with family more while still satiating my sports need. Time is precious when you’re a suburban professional and family man. What about you - do you like that trade?

After having a quick convo with the awesome @courosa on Twitter tonight, my mind began to wander. You know how dishwashers, washers, and dryers are monstrous household machines but are virtually invisible in your house? I wonder when mobile technology and social media will be like that. Or will it never be like that? Is it already? Imagine if you’d told someone from the 1800s what a modern dishwasher or a Ford F150 truck could do. It would blow their mind. Well, everyday I personally realize that stuff I was mad obsessed with as a kid are a freaky reality now (well, that Knight Rider car is taking longer than I thought). As a little boy, my friends and I literally used to play pretend games of an iPhone world. Back then, I thought the Sony Walkman was some really advanced stuff (excuse me while I laugh again about tape fast-forwarding and rewinding). It would be like if ants increased in size and you could ride on them. So I can’t help but imagine how it changes the way my own children and students are growing up. If the kinds of things that used to be dreamed up are actually mundanely available in your pocket now (and, let’s face it, Pandora’s out of the box, baby) isn’t it one of our goals in education to teach our students how to leverage these powerful devices for the betterment of the world?

As a teenager, I was plenty rebellious. I wasn’t the class clown or the drug dealer or even the bully. Still, I was immensely disillusioned by the reality presented to me and found heaps of enjoyment in bucking The Man. If there was a boundary, I was enticed to push it. Where there was a rule, glad to subvert it. The difference between myself and some other ‘bad boys’, however, was that my misdeeds usually went undetected, under the radar. I was more ninja than Blood or Crip. That’s why I would never have worn a hat conspicuously in my high school classroom. Nor would I be very pleased with one of my own children exhibiting this kind of behaviour in a setting where it was frowned upon or not permitted. Nevertheless, I do empathize with that-kid-in-class-that-won’t-take-his-hat-off. At the risk of a brutal pop-psychoanalysis, here’s what I know about (let’s call him/her) Jamie. Jamie knows it’s against the rules. Jamie knows someone will eventually demand it be taken off. Jamie does not flaunt the hat sideways and slight tipped to one side because he/she hopes it will go unnoticed. Jamie wants someone to notice it. In fact, Jamie prefers to be admonished in front of his/her peers. That’s the point. So why do we fight this cold war? Many people say it’s a matter of respect; the wearing of the hat signifying a lack thereof. There are some people who look at The Great Hat Debate (TGHD) as akin to something like Malcolm Gladwell’s broken windows theory. Let them wear the hats and it’s a gateway to other abhorrent behaviour, they say. Others see a refusal to fight the battle as a way to end the war. If the point of wearing the hat is to mark oneself as rebel, then taking that power away eliminates the issue. Those with a bent for Cultural Studies might even see ideology and power relations being enacted in TGHD. The New Era hat descends, after all, from hip hop, African-American, urban culture. It is the comic book of hats. You’ve likely never said to a kid: "Take of that wide-brimmed sun protector! We’re inside, for goodness sake!" And maybe, just maybe, there are people who don’t even see an issue at all. It might simply be a comfortable, modern, and stylish piece of clothing that requires no further discussion. From my vista, TGHD is one of those quintessential yet tiresome debates we have about learning and behaviour in schools. What’s your stance on The Great Hat Debate?

I wanted to embed this into my blog so I would never forget Jim Gilliam’s amazing message. Enjoy!

I met Jermaine yesterday at a birthday party and asked his family if I could blog about him. He really got me thinking. Jermaine intrigued me as he walked into the little kids’ party, high quality headphones pronounced largely on his head, connected to his iPad tucked gently under his arm. I couldn’t take my eyes off him as he found a seat all by himself and proceeded to get very busy. His head was bobbing up and down to a steady beat, his fingers dancing all over his iPad’s screen, mouthing what appeared to be words to a song. I had to approach him. Here’s Jermaine’s passion. Using apps on his iPad, he makes ‘sick’ hip hop beats. His Notes app consists of pages and pages of marvellously precocious and intelligent lyrics. In addition, he is in the midst of creating his own album artwork using various creative apps. "Who taught you this?" I asked. With a look that said, why-would-I-need-someone-to-teach-me-that, he responded, "No one, sir." After noticing Jermaine had an entire song about his distaste for school, how teachers ‘don’t get him’, and how he can’t wait for it to end, I felt my heart sink into my stomach. "Are you allowed to bring your iPad to class?" I asked him. He looked at me stunned, as though he had never even considered it an option. "No, sir." I proceeded to have a lengthy conversation with Jermaine (the best part was that he kept calling me ‘Sir’) and left with the strangest mixture of anger and hope for our education system.

CC licensed photo shared by Flickr user mattlemmon In all our talk about technology, we sometimes neglect to notice the other physical indicators of the modern classroom. One thing I find vital in our learning environments is structured times to get up and talk. It’s so important yet we still marginalize it as a learning activity. Getting up to move and stretch one’s body while using your mouth to think is one of the lifeline’s of learning. Every time I have had the privilege of visiting dynamic classrooms, I see this occur. I’m sure this is something most of my audience takes for granted, but I think it’s important to remind ourselves of the little stuff too.

Hey friends, Just wanted to let you know that I’ve taken a break from my blog recently because I have writer’s block of massive proportions. I think I need to get reacquainted with playing my acoustic guitar very badly for a while. When the light turns green in the eye of my mind, revisit for more spicy stuff. love,

My good friend @techieang and I whipped this little elevator pitch up as part of our #canade Apple Education Project. Enjoy.

CC licensed photo shared by Sammy0716 It’s taken me a while to post this as I was reluctant to publish my observations on the matter at the time for fear of complicating the matter even further. To make a long story short, I ran into an interesting learning experience this year in which our class social media tool of choice, Google Apps, had to be shut down due to … political reasons. It was a very traumatic experience for me to have to take such a powerful tool away from my students when, in my humble opinion, we were doing transformative things with it. Here were my thoughts (they haven’t changed really) about a month after ceasing and desisting. As a teacher, have you ever experienced using the real public internet and social media to enhance learning for your students? Do you also know what it’s like to teach and learn without them? I’m sure many of you are saying yes to at least one of these questions. I suspect, however, that my experience juxtaposing the respective experiences in the same school year with the same group of students due to reasons I could not be fully transparent about is quite unique. Reflections? I’ve had a few. Teacher Time I work a little bit less outside of class time. Students used to message me on a regular basis seeking feedback on their work or assistance in clarifying learning. I used to write comments on blogs every day. Without that connection, there’s less homework for me. Funny though, I never considered it work. Seeking Connection The kids are doing all they can to coordinate and connect in other ways: Hotmail, MSN, Skype, Facebook, Twitter. They’re doing this on their own without adult guidance. Moreover, they are doing it in cliques. No adult has any influence over what the kids are doing with this self-publishing medium. Internet Safety Our young people are far less safe on the internet when teachers are not involved in scaffolding their development as digital citizens. Distribution of Leadership There are fewer opportunities for students to lead each other. The most awesome thing about using Google Apps was the way it brought out leadership in all manner of kids, and across classrooms. No longer were only the coolest kids influential. Furthermore, I’ve noticed the students look to me far more for directiveness now. Student Voice and Self Expression I have never ever noticed how limited oral-only conversation is. Oral may be the most important means of discussion, but it is certainly not the only one, especially in the complex social landscape that is adolescence. Of my 107 students, I would say that perhaps 80 of them are of the shy-to-talk variety. When we were using the media, talk was much more equitable. Writing that isn’t ‘Writing’ Is it writing when you are doing it just to share an idea and not complete a writing assignment? I think we all know the answer to this. And we wonder why ‘hate’ and ‘writing’ are common companions in students’ language. Mobile Devices - what’s the point? It certainly is not true that the absence of social media tools precludes effective use of mobile technology for learning. But try seeing what happens when students start off using the tech to connect in that way, and then close those doors. Which leads me to … My Main Point It’s a lot easier to teach and learn without social media in an environment that has not already experienced the tool’s potential. I know some of you may be questioning my efficacy as a pedagogue. After all, aren’t I suggesting that these things could not be accomplished in my class without the tool? I’m not saying that, and I am saying that. Social media is the most powerful tool I have ever employed as a teacher, and I would argue that empowering students with it is just one way we can make the change we so often speak of towards personalized, assessment-for-learning based, inquiry-driven, democratic, student-centered learning.