• Nationally, over 12 million adults maintain a blog of their own.
• Over 57 million individuals read blogs on a frequent basis
• There are over 1.4 million new blog posts per day.
• Blog readers average 23 hours online each week.

So if there are 1.4 million new posts everyday I wonder how many of them are written by teachers? Even if it is just a small percentage of that 1.4 million, it is still an enormous number of posts. I am also interested in the fact that there are an enormous number of blogs that are written giving advice on how to attract readers, how to increase ones statistics, how to attract advertisers and build a readership. Yet do teachers blog to attract readers? I have to admit that I occasionally check my statistics. Yet is that why I blog? On reflection I think I blog for the following reasons.

• I blog to share my ideas about what works for me in my classroom
• I blog because the act of writing gathers my thoughts and helps me plan
• I blog because I see myself as a lifelong learner and it is through reading blogs that I learn
• I blog to give back to the community of learners I learn from
• I blog to share my conference presentations, after all why should I exclude those who cannot escape the classroom?
• Sometimes I blog to avoid doing other things, such as my housework.

But above all I blog to reflect on my teaching practice, as over the past two years I have found that the act of writing and sharing my thoughts has allowed me to improve and refine my teaching practice. I try to publish once a week but I also have many incomplete draft posts, that I still reflect and learn from. Why do you blog?

Other posts about blogging

The Bloggers’ Cafe

Blogging in the classroom

I think for students, it is vital that they feel asking for help is what you expect them to do. But I also know that some students find this hard. To acknowledge that one has not understood a concept can be really difficult, especially for those students who struggle in class. I love to hear someone say ‘I just don’t get this’.  But I know that for some students, this admission is almost impossible for them to do out loud. To admit they need help, is seen as an admission of failure.

This week i have found myself wondering about those who should ask but do not. Is it because they are afraid to fail? Almost certainly. Is it because they are afraid to seem weak in front of their peers? Again almost certainly. Is it because they would rather keep quiet, stay in the background and not be noticed? Again almost certainly.So what do I do about this problem?

• I encourage and praise students who ask for help out loud, who acknowledge their non-understanding.
• I catch those I know will need help and quietly check they are okay.
• I allow students to email me their questions.
• I allow students to send me messages using edmodo.
• I reply to individuals who do ask for help with links to videos that may assist their understanding.
• I use buddy peers in class time, students teaching students can be a better way of explaining a concept.

It appears to me that many of my thoughts relate directly to the mindset of my students. I am hoping my questions may be answered by the book I am currently reading, Mindset by Carol Dweck. What I am interested in today though is, what do you do in your classroom? How do you assist your students to ask for help? How can teachers allow students to fail in such a way as to allow them to grow as learners? How can we help them to see that it is only through failure can we truly grow?

As to how I see my fellow teachers asking for help? And how do I ask for help? Well that is a thought for another post.

Older posts you might enjoy

Old ways and new ways of learning

My classroom menagerie

Image thanks to http://images.cdn.fotopedia.com/flickr-2200500024-hd.jpg

It was a rainy Sunday afternoon when I checked into edmodo a few months ago. After reading through and answering my students requests and comments I visited the language arts community, where practically the first post I viewed was from a Mrs Fairchild at an elementary school in Hanscom Massachusetts. She was seeking an Australian year 6 class to connect her year 6 to. I immediately responded and a new edmodo group AUS/USA was born. You may have read before when I wrote about the amazing connections my students were making. And about how Mrs Fairchild had commented on the improvements in her students writing and the interest her students were showing in her Australian project..

Well last week a parcel arrived, a box filled with American goodies, filled with a signed baseball and  model of a baseball player, girl guide cookies, ‘spring’ flavoured oreo cookies, taffy toffee, maps, guide books, photographs and more. My class were thrilled. at the items contained in the parcel and the obvious effort that had been put into packing it.

The conversations that have been taking place in our USA/AUS group and the incidental learning that has taken place as a result, has been wonderful to watch. Now the classroom and edmodo is a buzz with ideas on what we can  post back in return. What goodies can we send that represent Australia? Planning is a foot and soon a box will be in the post filled with twisties, Vegemite, tim-tams, Australian stickers and more.

None of this learning was programmed, none of it was planned. It was a chance connection that led to this occuring. Yet as a result both my class and Mrs Fairchilds have made connections beyond anything that could have been planned and learned more about life in another country than could have been designed on paper..

So why am I telling you this?  Take time to allow the incidental learning to take place. Take time to make connections with other classes. Put out a message on Twitter, or edmodo or join one of the many networks of teachers from around the globe. Break down those classroom walls and allow your students to make memories. After all it is those memories that will stand the test of time.

Other posts you may be interested in:

Connecting in the holidays

Making memories

So why do I need your help? Let me try and explain. I have just spent the past two weeks of my holidays programming our Go Maths units for next term. I am planning these units for three different maths groups. So in my planning I have to attempt to second guess exactly what resources, ideas, worksheets, videos, links etc each teacher will need for the unit. In order to assist us and for the benefit of future planning I have been building each unit of five lessons and an investigation in SMART notebook. Last term I was lucky enough to only have to modify previous units created by the amazing @karenfalcs who kindly gave me ones she had created previously. This term though I was on my own, so I have now created nine SMART notebook files one for each unit. Every lesson has a daily number sense, a quick number quiz with answers followed by links to possible worksheets, links to possible explanatory videos, links to possible websites, links and ideas for games and more. Fabulous I hear you say, what a great resource. And indeed they are. Except that each unit has taken me a minimum of eight hours to prepare.

I know that once I start teaching these mathematics units all the work will seem worthwhile. I know also though that depending on the day, the stage or the students I will almost certainly ditch some lessons and extend others.I know that no matter how hard I have tried to second guess their needs I will not have fully managed to do it.

So why do I need help? Well my question today is what do you do? How do you plan your mathematics units or lessons? Is is worth my spending so much time on just one subject?

• Do you use a text book and work your way through it?
• Do you spend hours trying to find just the right video to help explain a concept, tearing your hair out at just how many truly bad ones there are out there?
• Do you use online resources, if so which one?
• Do you create Power Points or SMARTboard files in the hope you will use them again one day?
• Do you have the time to prepare your maths lessons daily? If so how on earth do you manage?

Just how do you ensure you are the most effective mathematics teacher you can be?

Other posts on the teaching of Maths.

Teaching Year 5 Mathematics

Another year of Mathematics draws to a close

Today though I am reflecting on whether my students realise just how much they have been demonstrating their learning during the past ten days of holidays? They too are spending time with family and friends, visiting other countries. Going to the Easter show. Having sleepovers, watching movies and more. How do I know this? I know this because they are writing about it. They are writing to each other and our American friends using our Edmodo groups. They are writing in depth accounts of days away, holiday trips, things they are reading about, movies they are watching. Sleepovers they are having or looking forward to. They are writing to each other from across suburbs and across the world. The American students are asking questions such as ,’what is netball?’ My students are responding with lengthy answers. All the time they are writing, reading and learning.

I wish I could show you some of the in-depth and well written responses I read last night but I can’t. Our edmodo groups are of course private and in many ways that is what they need to be. Only myself and an American teacher are watching these conversations. We are not correcting the grammar or checking the spelling. Just eleven year old children being social in ways they know how, using the medium they are used to and the program that best connects them.

Interestingly to me is the fact that not many of them are blogging. A few posts here and there but nothing to brag about. Yet in Edmodo the writing is in depth and the conversations are flowing, My guess is that in a few years time it will be facebook, I wonder though if the conversations they will have then will be in quite so much depth? Will they be as well written? Will they be as interesting as some of these are to read?

Previous Posts you might be interested in:

In praise of holidays

Why I love Edmodo

I read this article recently that Parents are taking a back seat in their child’s education, with almost two thirds saying they have little contact with their youngster’s teacher, a survey found today.  What a shame I thought that 43% of the teachers in that survey said they were unapproachable. What a wasted opportunity to acknowledge the ups and downs, the successes and failures that make up learning. I have also read that many schools only contact parents when their child is in trouble. What message does that send?

I have recently finished my first batch of three way parent, teacher, student interviews.They were a success and I have been reflecting on this. By success I mean that no parent was caught unawares, no student was made to feel uncomfortable. No messages were given that were not already clear, both in the minds of the students and the parents. I have the usual mixed ability classroom with students who are ‘gifted, struggling and in-between’ yet my parents were able to view positive steps in learning for every child.

I am sure that it is all about relationships, this is how I build relationships and keep the communication doors open in my classroom. What do you do?

• Do you maintain a class blog that displays learning, thinking and work samples?
• Do your students have personal blogs, that reflect themselves as learners and thinkers?
• Do you tweet with a school account from excursions sharing the day out with families?
• Do you tweet with a school account while on camp?
• Do you use a private instagram account to share photos of camps and excursions?
• Do you email or write to parents to acknowledge both successes and failures?
• Do you let parents know it is okay to pop into your classroom at the end of the day?

I am sure that if you do all of this your parents will already know their child’s strengths and weaknesses before they meet with you at interview time. Nothing will be ‘news’ to them. You will maintain open lines of communication and you will build relationships. Perhaps even more importantly you will be maximising your students opportunities for learning. Since ‘Parental engagement is vital to a child’s learning and known to help raise attainment. To do this effectively, there needs to be a meaningful dialogue between parent and school, keeping the parent informed and updated.

Take maths for example. I cannot see how it can possibly help any student for me to take in a math’s book and cover it with coloured ink to indicate errors. What self respecting ten year old is going to look at such a page and do more than close the book? So I ensure that all mathematical marking is done daily by getting my students to correct and check their own work. Obviously a more formal assessment needs my marking however I still prefer to write comments such as ‘does this look correct to you?’ or ‘please check your calculations here’ rather than distribute a sea of crosses.

Written work though is harder. As I mentioned last week, I recently attended a two day course on Habits of Mind. I really connected with a scaffolded approach to marking that was mentioned by the presenter James Anderson. While talking about the Habit of ‘Striving for Accuracy’, he raised the important point that for marking to be useful we must stop correcting our students work, we must direct them not correct them and teach them to find their own mistakes. For example when correcting spelling, in stage one teachers might write out the correct spelling word on a student’s written work. Moving to stage two where teachers should circle or underline mistakes. And finally to stage three where a teacher should just tell a student they have have X number of errors in any given section of work. He argued that if we continue to correct all their grammar, spelling and punctuation we are robbing them of the opportunity to become better at self-editing.

This approach really rang true with me. After several weeks of instruction and practice my students have recently written a descriptive piece of writing. It was an assessment task and they spent an hour writing it. In that time they were encouraged to plan, write, edit and correct. They were given dictionaries and allowed to correct their work as they wrote using a different coloured pen. I was thrilled with their efforts and their results. I could see effort in writing and effort in editing throughout. I have now spent much of my weekend marking it. Their pages are covered in little pink ticks indicating where I have spotted great use of figurative language. Stars have been placed in the margin to indicate spelling errors and an extensive comment has been written for each student.

It remains now for me to award them a tick in a box. Outstanding, High, Sound, Basic or Limited are my choices. Yet I cannot do it. And this is what I hate about marking. How can I tell one student that her response is sound when I know that for her this is an outstanding response? How can I say to another that her writing is outstanding when even though it is, I know she is capable of even more? I find that I cannot. So tomorrow I plan to give my students back their written tasks. I will allow them to share them with each other. I will encourage them to read them with their friends, to talk through the writing and editing process with each other. I want them to acknowledge and discuss their mistakes. I will encourage them to listen while others read sections out loud. I want them to realise that I value all of their efforts and I want to praise all of them, since I know they all tried their hardest. After this I will ask them to assign their own grades. From experience I know they will not let me down. They will reflect and if anything they will mark themselves harshly.

What I am really interested in though is how do you grade? How do you mark? How do you encourage and how do you teach all your students to strive for accuracy in everything they do?

I read an article last year about a teacher who used a pack of named cards, to randomly select students to answer questions in his high school maths class. I too have used a pack of cards with the students names on, as well as named paddle pop sticks kept in a mug. Particularly in lessons when I really want to ensure everyone contributes. What I don’t want though, is to ever make a student feel uncomfortable and there have certainly been times when through no fault of their own a student just hasn’t known what or how to respond and has felt embarrassed at being singled out in this way. So although at times I use my cards and my paddle pop sticks, it is not the only questioning strategy I have at my finger tips.

You see in my classroom I have the usual mix of students who thrust their hands in the air at the merest hint of a question, before they can have even heard, thought about or reflected on the question. I also have some students who will never volunteer an answer, even when I know they have the ability to respond with a sensible well thought out response. So one of my well used strategies is to ignore the eager hands and randomly ask students to contribute. I often follow this up by asking for other points of view or asking if others want to add to the classroom discussion.

This week though, thanks to James Anderson, I have a new idea. My school is planning on implementing Habits of Mind as a whole school initiative this year and this week I was lucky enough to be able to attend a two day course which introduced me to the Habits. A course which I found both interesting and informative. I was particularly happy to discover that the research behind Habits of Mind reflects my own reading. I was affirmed that my classroom is on the right track. I have much I want to blog about as a result.

The questioning strategy that I picked up though is this. Wait time. James discussed how questions that require a thoughtful response require wait time, in his view a wait time of ten seconds. His key point is that If a teacher poses a meaningful question and the eager hand raisers leap into the air, then that becomes a signal for everyone else in the classroom to stop thinking. James’s strategy is to ask his question and slowly tap his toes to the tune of ten seconds, as he does this he refuses to acknowledge the hand raisers and the callers. He then requests that everyone turns to a partner to discuss, elaborate and reflect on his question. He will then randomly pick a student to report back to the class what their partner’s answer was. Doing this on a regular basis he argued will assist students to develop the essential concept that cognition takes effort and time. As well as ensuring that the choice to opt out and stop thinking is not given because that of course is what we all want in our classrooms.

So now I have a new questioning strategy to use in my classroom. Do you have more? I would love to learn them too.

So here she is, showing herself off for the world to see, posing provocatively for the camera in her school uniform in the classroom, I have blurred her face to protect her identity and privacy. This picture was not the worst I found while searching the web of users linked to her. I am happy to spare you those. Does this girl realise just what she is up to? My guess is she doesn’t. What was she thinking as she uploaded this photo? Presumably not that I might be viewing it one day. Did you know that not only can one view all the photos of your own followers and their followers, but if someone then likes a photo you have access to their portfolio as well. There is the option to mark oneself as a private user of course, whereby people have to ask to follow you. But this relies on your personal network of friends which may limit the number of followers you might have. Part of the kudos of this social media app is to have a lot of followers, therefore many young students have little desire to use this option. Does this student realise that this picture is put there forever? Probably not. Or perhaps she does and simply doesn’t care, after all, 12 year old students tend not to think too far ahead.

What implications are here for her, for this girl? Perhaps none but to my mind, showing off like this age 12 might lead to who knows what age 15. So again I keep coming back to why is she doing this? Why is her online digital footprint going to forever contain images like these.

My guess is that at her school ICT is locked down, contained and controlled. Blocked and filtered. My guess also is that her iPhone was once her parents and one of them passed it onto her without realising or thinking about its capabilities. I am also fairly confident that no-one is taking responsibility for teaching this girl about her digital footprint. Her school believe they have taken the responsible high ground by blocking and filtering and although she may have completed various cyber safety courses, I suspect she doesn’t see the threats portrayed in them as very real, as this worrying online activity clearly indicates.

I though can be fairly sure that my Year 6 students will not be doing this in year 7. Why? Because we are a blogging classroom. Daily my students experience the world of the internet through our class and their personal student blogs. My students learn to deal with spam comments by tracking their digital footprint. They learn to ensure they use correct spelling and grammar when commenting at other school blogs. They learn daily with constant reinforcing that what they do online stays there. The mantra of their digital footprint rings loud in their heads with every opportunity I give them to lead open and honest online lives.

So if you are a teacher or better still a leader, think about this girl. Her parents do not understand the capabilities of the latest phones, do you? Her teachers are probably not aware of this students online activity either. Is it not time we stopped locking down, shutting up, blocking out and restricting our students? Is it not time we took the open and honest approach of teaching by example, of letting them create their own digital footprints from an early age?

How far does it have to go, what damage has to happen before someone somewhere with authority has the good sense to say enough is enough. We need to stop closing our eyes, shutting our ears and start accepting that teenagers are social beings who want to and need to connect with each other. They just need to be guided how to do this safely and appropriately – the classroom is the place to do it.

Update: A must listen to podcast by the Ed Tech Crew with Danah Boyd on this topic can be found here. The interview is at the end of the podcast and you must listen to the last question.

The secure online networking forum of Edmodo has so many classroom and teacher uses, that to list them here would take too long. You can read more about why I love and how I use edmodo here and here. You can read a series of posts about how Bianca Hewes uses edmodo in her high school here. Thanks also to Monique Dalli for her excellent blog about using edmodo in a high school setting.

At my school, class blogging is scaffolded and promoted from K-6. We start with class blogs and move towards integrating personal student blogs. Every step we take follows a scope and sequence and it is introduced slowly. By Year 5 student blogs are also added for those who are interested and this is extended in Year 6. We use edublogs as our blogging provider, since in my opinion their help guides and online support are excellent. They also have links to many class blogs around the world. For a list of some of the excellent ones in Australia please read this post. To read through a Themeefy  so as to learn more about the uses of edmodo and blogging with students please read this post.

I will also be promoting some of the excellent teacher blogs from around the world. My aim is not to promote one blog over another but to show participants how they too can connect and learn with and from others around the globe. In my classroom I aim to model and promote a love of learning and an enthusiasm to try new tools. I believe though that it is about the learning and not the tools. In my opinion both edmodo and edublogs are tools which support reading, writing, and digital literacy. They also provide students the opportunity for extension, collaboration and sharing. During this workshop we will discuss other free tools which are valuable resources for classroom teachers. These will include voicethread, animoto and Spelling City. You can read more about tools that I use in my classroom here.

During my workshop I will be showing this prezi.