Lessons My Granddaughter Taught Me - Lesson #2 - The Power of Recognition

My granddaughter was about to burst when I picked her up from PreK, brandishing a note from her teacher and a sticker.  "I got a Good News note, Nana! And a sticker!"  Her good news note said that she had played with a new friend today.  Now, if you know my granddaughter, you know that making new friends isn't all that unusual for her.  She loves making new friends and is constantly on a mission to make a friend of anyone she sees.  But what was different this time was that she got recognition for it.  Not anything big, just a note and a sticker from her teacher.  She was so proud and so thrilled that it reminded me of the power recognition holds.

As educators, and as parents, sometimes we are busy and often forget to give that little bit of recognition for a job well done or a small kindness our students, our children, demonstrate.  Yet, how great do even we feel as adults when someone gives us a small nod of recognition or appreciation.  Here's to remembering the power of a Good News Note!

Lessons My Granddaughter Taught Me - Lesson #1 - Do Your Research

My granddaughter attends our district Universal Pre-Kindergarten program and I have the happy job of picking her up each day after school.  One day this week she and I arrived at my car in the parking lot and she announced that my car "is a girl car."  Now I drive a silver Chevy HHR.  It might be considered a 50-something-year-olders type of car, but I couldn't figure out what made it "a girl car," so I asked.  "Well," she said, "You have Cinderella's coach on your antena."  I do have that as my antena topper.  She brought it to me from her recent trip to Disney World.  "And," she said, "Boys don't like Cinderella.  I asked Justin (her cousin) and he's a boy and he said boys don't like Cinderella.  Girls do."

When you have an opinion that is backed up by field research, it's hard to argue with the conclusion!  Leave it to a four year old to remind me of the power of doing your research!

I'm Baaack!

It's been a long time since I've been here.  I got myself really hung up on the idea that I needed to have something deep and long and inspiring to say before I could post to my blog.  As you can see, those moments have been few and far between.

But recently I got to thinking, maybe my expectations needed an adjustment.  I love microblogging.  I post regularly to my PLN on Plurk and to my Facebook page.  I read the short posts of others in these places daily.  Maybe I should think smaller when it comes to my blog.

So, here I am once again attempting to be a "real blogger."  My goal is to post at least once a week, focusing on 3 topics/categories.


Lessons My Granddaughter Taught Me will be short posts reflecting on just that - things I learn about life and learning while spending time with my granddaughter.  When you take the time to really listen to a child and reflect on what they say, how they learn, and what they think, it's amazing the things you can learn!


This summer, while attending the ISTE Conference in Denver, I attended a session presented by Will Richardson about how technology can put us in a position to really make a difference in the world.  This presentation inspired me to strive to reflect on my professional practice and my personal life and look for ways, big and small, that I can make a difference regularly.  My Make a Difference posts will share those moments when I think I have made a difference or when I've had the privilege of observing someone else making a difference.

Finally, we all face challenges in our personal lives as well as in our professional lives.  Being an educator and a technologist in this time of economic strife and ethical, moral, and safety issues, isn't always easy.  There may be times when my posts will reflect on these issues under the category of Breathing Through Jello.


It's my hope that being a "real blogger" again will lead to a feeling of personal and professional fulfillment for me.  I hope it won't lead to a feeling of boredom for you!  Perhaps something I say will spark something in you.  I hope you will leave me comments and let me know what you are thinking.

The Power of Collaboration

Collaboration by LoriB
Originally uploaded by LoriB

Here's my picture from Day 9 of my 365 Photo Project. At first glance it just looks like teachers in a computer lab, probably chatting with other. Nothing extraordinary. Ahh, but that's where you are wrong. This was really quite a lot more than what meets the eye.

I facilitate technology study groups in each of our 3 elementary buildings. We meet in person periodically to learn about some new tools and then the participants also work on assignments between face-to-face meetings using what they've learned about. This year we have a theme of collaboration.

At this particular meeting, instead of learning something new, the group decided that they wanted time to work on some projects using tools we'd already learned about, but having me there to support them. They'd all been having trouble trying to figure out ways to use Google Docs, which was their assignment from last time.

This session began with a few questions I could address and then "the magic" happened. Someone leaned over and began helping the person next to them and before you knew it, I was the superfluous one in the room! Those who had thought they didn't know what to do or how to use the tools, began helping each other. Ideas began to flow, projects started taking shape, and the excitement level started rising. Two participants, from 2 different buildings, who were already more familiar with Google Docs, started talking about Scratch, a programming tool. They began teaching each other, sharing experiences and planning some collaborative projects for their students. Time flew by and everyone left our session enthused and fired up about what they had begun and where they planned to take it from here! And the best part is that none of this came from me, the teacher, the facilitator of the group! I had been the observer, not the leader.

So what do we, as educators, take from this? How can this inform our classroom practice? In our classrooms we need to encourage collaboration between students. We need to have times where we set the stage, get things started, and then stand back and let our students talk to each other, take charge of their own teaching and learning, struggle, share, negotiate, laugh, make mistakes, problem solve, and help each other. We may not know ahead of time exactly where such an environment will take our students, but don't we all dream of a day when students leave our room talking emphatically about what they learned and how they are going to use it tomorrow? Ahhh, the power of collaboration!

Beginning a New Year

Beginning a New Year
Originally uploaded by LoriB

I've decided to give myself a new challenge for 2009. I've joined a 365 Ed Tech Photo Project on Flickr and a 365 Random Photo Project, both inspired by other members of my PLN. The goal is to post a new photo every day in 2009. To that goal I've added a goal of my own and that is to try to find a photo that I can use as a reflection focus and post those here on my blog. I'm not sure that I'll post all 365 photos here, but I'll try to capture something that I can reflect on at least once a week. You can see my full LoriB's 365 Photo Project 09 photo stream on Flickr to view all the photos I'll be posting. You can also visit my photo blog specifically for this project, LoriB's 365 Photo Project.

I live in a high tech world, and, given my job, my focus is almost always on using technology in some way to accomplish my daily tasks, to interact with colleagues, friends and family, and to help others integrate technology into teaching and learning. However, as a child of the mid 1950's, I would be classified by many as a "digital immigrant" and admittedly, all of my technology use has been part of my learning journey. But, I also have the opportunity to observe a true digital native, my granddaughter. You will see some other blog posts here about her digital life.

On January 1st, as she and I spent much of the day together, it was nice to see that some rather old-fashioned, non-tech things are as much a part of her life as are her iPod and other digital accouterments. She enjoyed sitting with her bear and sharing animal crackers as they chatted and watched the Tournament of Roses Parade on TV. Proof, I guess, that being immersed in technology and digital tools, doesn't mean that your imagination, creativity, or enjoyment of simple pleasures is deleted.

What a Difference a SMART Board Can Make!

I had a wonderful experience today observing 5 sixth grade students presenting their work in a research project. These students represented two different teams. One team had worked together to research Australia and the other, Spain. But let me back up a minute.

Nearer to the beginning of this project, the teacher had asked me to come to her classroom to talk with the students about how to present their projects. She had lots of examples of exemplary projects from past classes for the students to look at. The one difference this year is that the classroom now has a SMART Board, so she wanted me to talk with the students about ways to use the unique features of the SMART Board for presenting their final projects.

We had had a great discussion that day, led completely by the students' questions. We talked about how to navigate a PowerPoint on the SMART Board and how to make use of the SMART tools, like the pens, to focus attention or highlight information during the presentation. But then they also began asking questions about how to embed and play video, how to use text and pictures as hyperlinks, how to make a presentation more professional looking, more interactive, more interesting for the audience. I was impressed by their questions and thrilled to have the opportunity to discuss the art of presentation with them.

Fast forward to today. I saw one pair of girls finishing up their presentation on Spain. They were so calm, confident and poised. They navigated their PowerPoint on the SMART Board without missing a beat, as though they'd been doing it for years. They had embedded links in photos they had downloaded that took you to websites for more information. The next team, 3 boys, presented their research on Australia. Again, with confidence and enthusiasm, they ran their PowerPoint. They had embedded and linked all manner of multimedia to their presentation, all of which enhanced what they were sharing. They included links to websites, to videos, to virtual tours, to Google maps street view so that they could walk you up to the Sydney Opera House. They had built and embedded graphs that they could manipulate as they spoke about the data. They posed multiple choice questions with photo choices and linked to the correct answer. They used the SMART Board pens to color code and highlight information on combined graphs that they thought might be confusing to their audience. They included maps and used the pens to highlight areas they were referring to. It was so refreshing to see students use a PowerPoint to really present, to go beyond the usual bulleted points with semi-appropriate clip art, with things flying in and out and students just standing there reading the over abundance of text on each slide. You know, the usual 6th grade student presentation we've all seen hundreds of times.

So how did the SMART Board make this transformation happen? These students were motivated to reach beyond, to really think not only about their research and the information they wanted to share, but also about the best way to present it. Having a somewhat novel piece of technology available and having seen their teacher present lessons and ideas differently using it, caused them to consider aspects of presentation that most other 6th graders never think about. Because of what they've come to expect during lessons using the SMART Board, interactivity, student involvement, multimedia content, they just naturally assumed their presentations should include these same elements. Yes, these same things, for the most part, could have been done without the presence of the SMART Board, but I don't think it would have been as likely to have occurred to these students. The SMART Board has, by example, raised the stakes, so to speak. These students expect more in their lessons and reflected this in their own presentations as well. What a difference this SMART Board has made!

Personal/Professional Learning Networks

Creating your own network of resources, people, ideas, podcasts, blogs, wikis, web sites, etc. that you use and learn from regularly is one aspect of how technology serves as a "flattener" in today's world. The Internet is immense and is an exponentially growning database of ideas, knowledge and more. Yet, it can be so overwhelming to find, bookmark and manage this information so that it is useful to you.

I plan to post a short series of blog entries illustrating how I am creating my own "PLN" and the value that it gives to me. In this first post in the series, I'd like to introduce you to Plurk.

Plurk, and other similar networks such as Twitter, enable you to find others of like or differing ideas and interests and "follow" them. People post short snippets of ideas, questions, projects they are working on, links to resources and more.

Take a look at Plurk through my Plurk network.

Lori's Plurk Network

So, what value does my Plurk network give to me?
In the last 2 months, people in my Plurk network have made the following possible for me:

• I've gotten countless links to resources that will be very useful in my work. I think I've added more than 50 terrific links to my Delicious account from my Plurk network.
  
• I was stumped by a problem I was having with Moodle, the software I use for my online courses. I had asked several people I know and see regularly and no one could help me. Instead, someone I have never met, in Michigan, and a member of my Plurk network, helped me to solve the problem.
  
• I was made aware of a wonderful project, Pinwheels for Peace. I was able to involve students and teachers in this project to celebrate International Day of Peace. We were able to add our photos to those of others around the US who also participated as one of my Plurk colleagues made a collaborative VoiceThread.
  
• I've participated in thought provoking discussions that help me to grow professionally
  
• I've participated in purely "just for fun" real time discussions with people all over the United States as we simultaneously watch our favorite television program.
  
• I've gotten, and have shared, feedback almost instantly about software, hardware and other resources.

And these are but a few of the things that being a part of this PLN have brought to me.

Back on Track

Okay, so this blog has been a lot more "intermittent" than I had planned! I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at how easily I got sidetracked. Such is life. But even so, I've been learning and learning and learning since last I reflected here.

The National Educational Computing Conference that I spoke of in my last post was wonderful and, as usual, caused me to once again think about things in new ways. The focus was on innovation and creativity, not on technology. That may sound odd for a technology in education conference, but the point is that we need to move our thinking beyond merely what technology we use or don't or how well we use it. Yes, technology allows us to do things in different ways, faster, more easily sometimes, and to share it with the world in a split second. However, what is the content that we are sharing? One of the speakers, Tim Tyson, principal of Mabry Middle School in Marietta, Georgia, said something that really stuck with me. His students participate in an annual film festival, the theme being "Making the World a Better Place." When he is working with students his first question to them is "what is it that you want to say that is so important the whole world should know it?"

As I move forward in a school year that is already so incredibly busy that I can't seem to come even close to catching up, I try to keep reminding myself to reflect on that question.

National Educational Computing Conference

On Saturday I'll be on my way to Atlanta, GA to attend the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC), sponsored by the International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE). This is the 4th year that I've attended this annual conference and it is always a rich experience. It is one of the main sources of personal professional development for me and offers me a chance to learn from and collaborate with experts and novices from all over the world.

I will be posting information from the sessions I attend here on my blog. Along with some of my colleagues from BOCES I will be producing podcasts about our experiences as well (In the NECC of Time 2007). I will also be a volunteer conference correspondent for eSchool News Online. So, there will be many opportunities for me to share with all of you about what I'm learning.

Check back here for posts and links. I'll try hard to keep things updated in a timely fashion.

And a Baby Shall Teach Me

Another event that has caused me to once again really think hard and reflectively about teaching and learning is one that you might not expect. Last July I became a grandma for the first time. It's absolutely the most glorious thing that has happened to me since the birth of my own children! On a personal level, I knew this would be a wonderful experience. I didn't expect it to have an impact on me professionally, but indeed it has.

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As I sit with my granddaughter (11 months old) and she plays with the plastic ball that you put the shapes inside, I tell her the name of each shape that she picks up, turn the ball so that correct hole for that shape is on top, and help to guide her hands as she tries to put the shape inside. Then I praise her for doing a good job. Next shape, next shape, next shape and so on until all 10 blocks are inside the ball. Then we dump it out and do it again. Sometimes she wants to play over and over and sometimes she moves quickly on to a different endevour. Who determines when we play this game? Brianna does. Who determines when we are finished? Brianna does. As I was playing the shape game for the 10th time one day, I started thinking about the teaching and learning that was happening and how that connects to what we do or don't do in schools.

How did Brianna become interested in this game? I showed it to her one day (Teacher introducing new content). She was curious and wanted to do something with it (Student interest in new content - the proverbial "teachable moment"). That determined when we began. I didn't wait until a previously determined time in the "baby curriculum" when I knew that it would be good for her to learn about the shape ball. There is no scope and sequence to this. I didn't wait until a list of prerequisite skills in isolation was learned first. Brianna can't name the shapes. She can't even talk yet. But still I tell her the name of each shape as we play. I have an expectation that she will be able to learn the names of the shapes when she's ready, so patiently I say them over and over again. There is no test. I don't say the names 3 times and then stop, deciding that her time is up and she's failed to learn them. I know in my heart of hearts that I'll keep saying the names and some day, she'll start saying them back. She can't find the correct holes for each shape on her own. This is not an independent skill for her yet, so I provide the scaffolding she needs in order to be successful. Again, I have an expectation that some day she'll be able to do this on her own and until that time, Grammy will provide the help she needs, whether it takes weeks, months or even years. I think that we, as teachers, understand the need for scaffolding, and we do provide it initially, but do we provide it as long as a child needs it or do we take it away at a predetermined time when we "think they should know it by now?" Repetition after a point seems to drive adults nuts, but not kids. Brianna will play this same game over and over and over again with me. Brianna decides when we play this shape ball game and how long we play it (child centered learning). Brianna is in control of her own learning. And there is no fear of failure, no negative and positive. She'll make mistakes and I'll show her how to fix them and neither one of us will be sad or discouraged or upset. As a matter of fact, we'll rejoice in each tiny step Brianna makes towards doing this on her own.

So what is the result of all of this? Brianna loves to learn. She understands that this game has a purpose. There is something you are supposed to do with those shape blocks. She's learned that they go into the holes and that you keep doing it until they are all inside. Then you start over again. She rarely stops before all the shapes are inside the ball. She seems to understand that the game has a beginning and an end. She knows Grammy will be there to help. She gets the ball, brings it to me, watches my hands and my face as we play. She "studies" me and the ball and the shapes. She knows there is something to learn and she wants to learn it. And observing all this in her, and participating in the process, is grandly exciting and rewarding for me. Brianna has a whole world of content to learn, but I'm learning too, as I take the opportunity to reflect on my own practice.

Why are we so infinitely patient with babies? Why do we so eagerly and freely model and teach and guide, never worrying about how many mistakes are made or how long it takes? Why do we lose this when we go into the classroom and are faced with students who can walk and talk? Being a grandma and getting so close to the core of teaching and learning definitely gives me a renewed perspective on what it means to be a learner and what it means to be a teacher.

Excited About Teaching Again

I've been a teacher for 22 years. Gosh, that makes me feel old! When you've been doing anything for a very long time, you risk becoming complacent, becoming "ordinary," even of becoming "stale." While settling into a familiar groove can be comfortable for a while, in time I find it lacks fulfilment and satisfaction for me. When I find myself in this situation, I begin to reexamine what I do and look for something that will relight that spark that gets me really excited about teaching and learning. Several "events" in my life and career lately have relit that spark for me and have gotten me to reflect on my practice and become really excited about the process of teaching and learning once again.

One of those events has been creating and teaching my first online course using Moodle. If you are not a participant in this course (Issues, Trends, and Tools in Education and Technology in a Web 2.0 World) but are interested in finding out more about it, email me and I'll be happy to tell you more. This activity has caused me to be:

A Learner

At a very basic level, I needed to learn how to use Moodle in order to put the course together. I'm still learning how to use it as my students and I move through it together over the life of this course. It's a constant learning experience for me. And knowing that taking this course is a stretch for some of my students who do not consider themselves to be very "tech savvy," I think its really important for me to be stretching myself as a learner as well.

Additionally, I took an online course not too long ago. As an online class student myself, I formed definite opinions as to what worked well, what didn't work well, and what I would do differently if I ever taught an online course. Now it's time to put my money where my mouth is and apply what I learned about taking and teaching an online course from a student's perspective.

A Communicator

One of the things I enjoy most about teaching is the interactions you have with your students. These teaching, learning, and communication interactions are critical to creating a classroom environment where learning can occur and is valued. When you are teaching online I think it is still just as critical for the teacher to have ongoing interactions with his/her students. However, since the environment is different, I need to rethink the process and methods by which I do interact with my students so that they feel supported, encouraged and valued.

A Teacher

Much of what I'm teaching in this course I've taught or presented in one form or another in the past during in-person classes or meetings. However, putting this content online has caused me to need to rethink my teaching practice. I need to make the content engaging, clear, "just enough" information, not too much so that it's overwhelming or too little to be valuable. I need to anticipate the questions, concerns, misconceptions, confusions, etc. and try to plan for those things in advance since students won't be able to just raise their hands and ask. And I need to be able to provide content that will be interesting and accessible to a range of students - those who are fairly technology savvy as well as those who feel less knowledgable or who are less comfortable with technology.


All of this has caused me to really examine and reflect upon own teaching practice, to challenge my usual routines, to "clean up" my pedagogy. This takes me a bit out of my comfort zone as a "seasoned" teacher, but I find opportunities like this exciting and rewarding. I think stretching my thinking and my practice ultimately helps me to grow and improve as an educator, no matter what environment I'm teaching in.

Welcome to My Blog

I've been a blogger for some time, but usually I'm facilitating school-wide blogs for students (Village Poetry Portal, Respect Week Blog, Burch Blogosphere, Terrific Tales) or helping teachers in their classroom blogging efforts. I also facilitate a technology study group blog for teachers (EdTech Buzz) and also one for my instructional tech specialists group at BOCES (Digital Illuminations). I don't really have a blog of my own that I can use for reflection and exploration. That is, until now.

My goal for this blog is to do just that - to reflect on teaching, learning, technology and more. Right now I'm teaching my second online class, the first one I've done using Moodle, so I'll be reflecting a bit on that experience to begin with.

In my sidebar, you will see links to the blogs of the students in my current online class. Please feel free to read their blogs and comment also.