This morning as I read through my Facebook news feed, I came across an annotated article from the WaPo that my friend, Melanie Smith-Bell had shared. As a lead into to the article, Melanie said:

After reading the article, I happened to agree with her assessment of her reading experience. This got me thinking... For years now, I have kept a running Facebook group for my biology classes where I post articles that are relevant to the topics we are discussing in class, and I encourage students to do the same. This allows us to extend conversations about biology beyond the textbook, the walls of my classroom, and the 90 minute time limit. The articles I choose are meant to do two main things:

1. Expose students to real world applications of the content that we study in a limited scope that is defined by the textbook and the curriculum. In courses with external exams like IB and AP, the syllabus drives the teaching, and time is always a limiting factor. Sometimes it is hard to model the application of foundational learning to the world that we live in to the extent that we would like.
2. Help kids to revise content throughout the course by pointing out connections to prior learning in applications that are integrated, not just topic specific.

Sharing articles is a great first step, but there have always been limitations to truly accomplishing what I set out to do by simply sharing the article.

1. Often the articles I post contain foundational information that goes to a greater depth than the content presented in class. I have always wished that I could walk the students through these articles and offer enough of an explanation for the concepts that they are unfamiliar with to allow them to truly access the significance of article itself. Simply adding a commentary at the end doesn't do the trick because it doesn't reveal my triggers.
2. As I engage in reading these articles, I actively think of applications, questions, further potential for scientific exploration... the list goes on. I have always wished that I could share these thoughts, extensions, and questions with the students to model active reading, engagement, critical thinking, exploration, and questioning.
3. Nothing that happens in the real world is isolated. Everything is integrated. Yet, when we teach a science curriculum it is often isolated. Today we are talking about the chemical structures of starches. Tomorrow we are going to talk about enzyme digestion of starch. While there is an opportunity to make connections during these spiraled learning experiences, again, time is limited to truly dig in and reteach. Not to mention, students do not innately transfer learning. Making connections and transferring new learning to other concepts, disciplines, and real world problems are things that need to be modeled and taught.
4. Just because I share an article, it doesn't mean that every student reads it. How do we ensure that they have not only read an article, but understood it, and have the space to ask questions and explore along their own pathway of learning?

As I read the WaPo article, I found the annotations to be extremely helpful. There were so many gaps in my knowledge that I would have missed most of the subtle nuances. What ARE the rules guiding a FISA warrant? How is it renewed? If I am not armed with this knowledge, I run the risk of accepting the claims in the memo simply because it was written by someone who by the nature of their job and qualifications are in a better position to judge this issue accurately. Thanks to the annotation, I was enlightened about things that helped me to read this memo with a more critical eye and I was empowered to formulate my own questions.

The top of the annotation sidebar had the logo GENIUS, so I decided to search Genius annotations. It turns out that Genius is a free web-based annotation software originally intended for annotation of music.

So why was WaPo using this app to annotate its articles? Hmmmm.... This is the beauty of innovation. According to Yale Information Technology Services:

Genius expanded its reach allowing news organizations like WaPo to take a site intended for the annotation of music and use Genius's re-purposed applications to create value for WaPo's readers. We as teachers have the power to do the same for our students. Not only can I now achieve the goals that I set out to accomplish with the sharing of articles on my Facebook groups, I can now pass on this power to my students as generators of their own commentaries and discussions about articles they read beyond science.

It could not have been easier to sign up. Simply go to this link and log on. Simple instructions on how to annotate articles can be found at this link. Here is an example of a short article that I messed around with for my class. Feel free to play with the comment function. After posting about this discovery, I have already heard back from many teachers with ideas of how this can be adapted to suit their unique educational needs in the classroom. To name a few:

• EAL teachers: Classroom teachers often share articles with language above the reading comprehension levels of many EAL students. EAL teachers can simply take the article, and highlight difficult words and annotate them with their meaning at a level that these students can understand allowing them to access the curriculum alongside the other students in the classroom.
• History teachers: When doing analysis of primary sources, history teachers could have students annotate articles as an assessment.
• English teachers: When analyzing the meaning of texts in literature, teachers can prompt discussion in the class around certain quotes to debate intentions, meaning, as well as pointing subtle nuances and writing strategies used by the authors (can you tell I am not an English teacher... or a history teacher ... or an EAL teacher for that matter??)

How might you use this in the courses that you teach?

After signing up, Genius sent me a welcome email. It seems they have developed a Genius News Blog that focuses on print rather than music. Perhaps an Education Blog is in their future?  Check it out and let me know what you think. As Genius says:

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]]>This Web-based App is Nothing Short of GENIUSRory NewcombSat, 27 May 2017 04:32:34 +0000http://biororz.squarespace.com/onething/2017/5/27/my-letter-to-the-fashion-challenged-class-of-2017510e8464e4b060f86e714ce3:510e8464e4b060f86e714cf1:5928eeba59cc6892f6ef4f63

I woke up this morning feeling very reflective and flooded with a host of emotions. Today will be the last time I witness the graduation of my babies at the American School of Bombay. My last class. Earlier this week, the honey badger (Miel) shoved a camera in my face and asked me to deliver a message on the spot about what I will remember about this class.  For some reason this was a much harder thing to do than in years past. Typically, it was relatively simple for me to boil down my reflection into a simple phrase or even a word. Three years ago, the "Dream Team" graduated. For better or worse, this was the class that was literally stuck with me as a teacher from 9th grade to 12th grade. They were my dream team because they were entirely a product of my efforts in science from beginning to end. They were also my first class of 9th graders at ASB. On the day of their graduation they presented me with a book that they had all signed.

It was quite fitting as they were my babies and they were all leaving me to begin their lives. The separation anxiety was palpable.

For my next group I was able to boil it down to the word "nice". In excerpt from my graduation speech that year, I said:

Every class seems to have a collective character. Ask any one of your teachers and they will give you a few adjectives that describe each class... not all of them are flattering. For the last two years, one word has always come to mind first when I describe the class of 2015 and that word is nice. You have no idea what a great compliment this is. Every year I have a pile of letters of recommendation to write. Each one has to be unique and embody the true character and potential of a student in the best possible light. This can be tricky. One thing that we are always asked to do on rec forms is to list a few words that describe each applicant. What words would come to mind when people describe you? Are they accurate? Do they reflect how you want to be seen by others? If not, now is the time to change perceptions. Every year after I finish all of my recs, I like to make a word cloud of my rec letters to see what words pop up the most. This year, in particular, I am happy to say that empathy was a top contender.

The class of 2017 was much more difficult. I struggled with this as I read through my news feed this morning rife with recent posts of commencement speeches that delivered tears with my morning coffee. Finally, while watching Lauren Duca from Teen Vogue deliver a commencement speech to Simon's Rock college at Bard, it hit me. It wasn't what she said in her speech, it was who she is and what she has accomplished that finally helped me to find the words I have been searching for. Back in December Teen Vogue showed up in my feed numerous times because of an article about the gaslighting of Donald Trump. Now these posts weren't coming from Teen Vogue directly. Give me a break. I pride myself in my carefully cultivated news feed. I focus on reading pieces from journalists on the front line exposing truths often at a cost, a disruption of the public narrative...sources that force humanity to ask the hard questions. Why then were people shining a flashlight on Teen Vogue of all sources. Over the next several months I found myself sharing posts from Teen Vogue, apologetically at first, until I stopped apologizing and Teen Vogue became part of my cultivated feed.

So what does this have to do with the Class of 2017 you ask? Bear with me. This is my blog post after all. When I received my new crop of IB students two years ago, there was a lot of buzz. "This is one of the strongest classes academically." Now, I had taught many of you in 10th grade, and that might not have been the first descriptor that came to mind. Not to say that you weren't strong students, it just wasn't the first word I would use to characterize you all :-) There was however, a palpable confidence brewing in my new group of 11th graders, most likely due to this reputation that you had all become accustomed to hearing. What I can say is that for many, this was a false sense of confidence that in the end it became your greatest challenge moving forward through the IB program. At this stage you are all probably thinking, "I can't believe Nukes is going to lecture us on our last day of high school!". I am not. You see the two words that characterize this class on your last day of high school are transformation and confidence, and I am not talking about the confidence that gained from your parents or teachers telling you that you are great. I am talking about the confidence you gained from facing your challenges head on and having the grit and determination to transform yourselves into the people that you are today. This is far more noteworthy. You had to work hard to transform, and it is more likely to stick with you for a lifetime. During the senior recognition ceremony, this was evident as each and every one of you crossed that stage and shared your takeaways from ASB. You have developed as a class into adults that have the skill sets to pursue your dreams and hopefully enhance the lives of others with all that you have to offer the world. Your confidence reaffirmed my confidence, and I know that you are all ready to face whatever the world throws at you.

I remember being struck by this when asked to choose one person from each class to give a science award to about a month back. I have always struggled with this on a personal level, but this year was even more of a struggle. An impossible task really. First of all, at some level, the majority of you experienced significant transformations as learners and human beings over the past two years in my course, each equally critical, important, and noteworthy. Each eliciting a deep sense of pride in me that cannot be measured by a piece of paper or a public nod. Like Lauren Duca, I feel these "trophies" are meaningless when compared to your own self-awareness and sense of personal accomplishment, growth and achievement. This should not be defined by that piece of paper. In my speech to you on Wednesday, I made reference to a book called "I'm OK, You're OK". To me an award sends the message that one person is OK while 17 others are not. This could not be further from the truth, and it is the last message that I would want to deliver as I send you off to your next destination. I hope that I have articulated to each and every one of you just how much of an impact you have made on me as your teacher, mentor and friend.

In her speech, Lauren advised:

Stop waiting for someone to tell you you can, and do the thing you want to be doing. Beyond that, the practicality: You can’t plan for opportunities, you can only be sure you’ll be ready when they happen to show up. Steve Jobs nailed this part in his commencement: The dots can’t be connected before they appear. What I’d like to give you today, is a renewed focus for thinking about the process of getting between them. The future is full of landmines, so stop wasting time trying to avoid them, and focus on running head first into the good stuff. Promise yourself you’ll power through the bull shit.

This can be done by following three simple guidelines:

Number 1: Never let anyone tell you who you are.

Number 2: Embrace the greatest version of the person you know you were meant to be.

And, Number 3: Work your goddamn ass off.

...Living with intention ... capitalizes on the moments of greatness, unlocking your ultimate potential, and leaving little room for regret, no matter how many boxes get crossed off that checklist. You decide how you define yourself, and that definition doesn’t need to include reference points from LinkedIn.

Over the past two years, many of you have experienced such significant transformations, I hardly recognize that 10th grader I met three years ago. This is something unique to this class. It is also the most admirable. I know. It didn't happen to me until much later in life, so this gives the class of 2017 an advantage over most as you diverge off to your new adventures. Having said that you are all still working on your masterpiece. As I send you off with this newfound confidence, I ask only that you write down Lauren's second piece of advice and post it somewhere as a reminder:

Embrace the greatest version of the person you know you were meant to be

...and forge ahead into the unknown with your new, well-deserved sense of confidence. Just don't forget that from time to time you need to "sit down and be humble" so that you can hear what the world has to say to you as you continue working on your masterpieces. I promise, you will get there a lot faster if you do.

Thank you for making the final part of my journey at ASB one that I will treasure for a lifetime.

All the best...

NUKES!

August/September: All teachers set their professional goals for the year, submit them in writing and most meet with their supervisor to discuss.

May: All teachers meet with their supervisor to go over their evaluation which includes a discussion on their goals to close the loop.

Now how many of you "know someone" who has to ask their supervisor to send them a copy of their goals so that they can prepare for the meeting? How many of you "know someone" who has been either pleasantly surprised by all that they accomplished towards their goals that they forgot about as soon as they hit send on their PD goal setting doc back in August; OR were frantically trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for the fact that they did nothing to work towards their stated goals as they don't remember making them in the first place? 

This artificial dance, regardless of how ineffective it is, continues to dominate teacher evaluation cycles around the world. Now I am not saying that goals are a bad thing, but when the goal setting is forced into an unnatural, artificial timeline it is bound to fail. Let's consider one example:

Teacher A: Just arrived in India for her first year at an international school known for its technology integration. On day one she is introduced to a host of unfamiliar systems that she has never heard of that she will have to use on day 1. Veracross, Haiku, Google Drive, Hapsara, EVB, etc. Panic sets in. Not to mention, INDIA. She just manages to keep her head above water for the first month wondering if it will ever make sense. Then she has to set her professional goals for the year. All she can think about is mastering the virtual grade book system. So she puts that down as her goal. Now we all know that Teacher A doesn't really want to focus on posting grades as her professional development goals this year, but in August/ September it is all she can think of. By October the grade book system is a muscle memory and she discovers PBL. This gets her excited. She wants to explore how this might enhance the learning in her classroom so she throws herself into it. Awesome. Then comes her meeting in May. What were my goals? Oh ya! Great talk...but can I tell you about something that I am really excited about?

We do the same thing to our students. First week of school during advisory. What are we doing? SMART goals. Those 9th graders don't even know what is about to hit them. Neither do those juniors who are just starting IB. A month in their realities are going to start to change drastically as they start to get feedback from their teachers. Along with this change in reality comes a change in direction. Those goals they set during the first week under artificial parameters will likely no longer apply.

Enter my latest obsession, Michael Phelps.

Last practice on American soil complete !! Nothing like a little fun afterwards with the crew!! #number5 #letsdothis #mp #mpswim 📷 @jhlynch4

I chose this picture for a reason. I am a biology teacher, and I could actually use his body to teach muscle anatomy. Look at his hand alone. Someone like this does not achieve this level of fitness without dealing with goals from time to time. So why is he successful? What makes a simple boy from Maryland, the most decorated Olympian in the world? Now I admit there are some oddities in the way his body is formed that might contribute to his success, but not without an insane amount of grit and determination...and maybe some goal setting.

This article arrived in my news feed just in time. 

Big Goals Can Backfire. Olympians Show Us What to Focus on Instead.

A take-away from this article:

...a team of researchers from Harvard, Northwestern, and the University of Pennsylvania set out to explore the potential downfalls of goal-setting. They found that overemphasizing goals — and especially those that are based on measurable outcomes — often leads to reduced intrinsic motivation, irrational risk-taking, and unethical behavior.

Their answer to this dilemma? Focus on the process. A process mindset as opposed to a goal mindset. but how? 

First, set a goal. Next, figure out the steps to achieving that goal that are within your control. Then — (mostly) forget about the goal, and focus on nailing the steps instead.

This has always been my advice to my IB students. If a student comes to me and tells me their goal this year is to get a 7. My question is how will you go about achieving this. If their answer is study more, I know they will not be able to achieve that goal. You see the key is is to help the students nail down the process and focus on the little victories. With a little (actually a lot) of reflection, this will help them to work towards the forgotten goal.

Goal setting should be a dynamic process. It should not have artificial deadlines. How is it possible that every goal set by every teacher in the world spans 8-9 months? Bizarre ;-)

In the classroom this is very real. When students become too achievement focused, they tend to cheat the process. Just the other day, a student in my class messaged me at night to clear up a misunderstanding before class the next day. This misunderstanding involved a process that he mastered first semester of last year and scored a borderline 6/7 on the test. Not only was it obvious in this chat that he hadn't mastered the concept, at times it was like he had never heard of it. His goal for my class is to achieve a 7. As a result he has mastered achieving a 6/7 on short term assessments by cramming the night before. Unfortunately, none of this sticks. He focused on the goal of a MEASURABLE score rather than the process to alter his approaches to learning so that he can crack the 7 ceiling in the end. While he might be able to get close to a 7 on unit tests, in the end the amount of material he will have to relearn or rather re-memorize for the exam will be too much for the amount of time he will have and he will not achieve his goal.

My students are always asking if they can improve their predicted scores before applications are sent off. My answer to them is SHOW me that you have changed your process. Demonstrate consistently that your victories are not fleeting and superficial. To do this, we as teachers need to help them focus on the process. Identify the target, prescribe the pathway, then forget the target and focus on the process.

I am a member of the Research and Development team at my current school. A couple of years ago, we formed a task force to re-imagine professional development in our current climate of professional sharing and learning through social media, MOOC's and global conferences. One of my tasks was to research and develop an alternative model to what we currently have in place in most schools that I have worked at.  In terms of professional goal setting and professional learning cycles, here is my proposal to solve the issues with current models of teacher evaluation cycles.

If Mikey likes it... maybe we should all take a page from his book and, be like Mike. Phelps that is.

In my first class with the 9th graders this year, something peculiar happened that cannot be ignored. In an effort to establish a baseline of my student's understanding of investigative techniques in the laboratory, we began with an introductory activity that for the past two years has taken our students the full period and then some to complete. This was different. This year half of them finished with time left to cause trouble. The kind of trouble that 9th graders inevitably find themselves involved in with they don't have structures and routines controlling their every move. Again. This was different. I noticed a group of them were deeply involved in whatever was happening on one of the student's computer screens and my imagination went wild. Much to my relief, they were watching him code a game that they all played together. I asked how many of them liked to code, and almost half of them raised their hands and they were competing with each other to explain how this "Choose Your Own Adventure" game worked that they were all involved in. It was clear to me that they were able to speak and communicate in the language of code with the same level of comfort and proficiency that you would see in a person who was fluent in a second language. I am predicting this class will be known as the challenging "Techy" group. I say challenging because I would argue that most teachers will not be able to speak the same language that this group of kids prefers to converse in.

In the past 5 years, we have incorporated some problem-based learning units into the Integrated Science 9 and 10 curricula. What always amazes me the most is the ease with which students access and integrate various technologies to communicate their learning. Websites, infographics, programs, novel presentation platforms, video/multimedia creation platforms. You name it. Their learning curve is steep and fast.

 This got me thinking of Moore's law.

Back in the 1960's Gordon Moore of Intel predicted that the number of transistors per integrated circuit would double every 18 months. This was of course based on prior trends, but it has held true for an additional 50 years...so much so that industry has been driven by this predictive metric.

In an article in Co.Design, Mark Zucherberg applied Moore's law to the culture of sharing:

We talk about the Moore’s law of sharing, but we never meant that all this will happen on Facebook—it will happen in the world. Our challenge is to make that happen on Facebook. I draw an analogy to Intel. Moore’s law was great for them, because they could point at the world and say, "Okay, in 18 months, someone’s going to fit this many transistors on a circuit board—we’d better be the ones to do it or else someone is gonna eat our lunch!" I look at this the same way. Three years from now, people are going to be sharing eight to 10 times as much stuff. We’d better be there, because if we’re not, some other service will be.

I would argue that there should be a Moore's law of education as well.

The evolution of artificial intelligence and the impending technological singularity has been an obsession of mine for quite some time. In short, the idea is that in developed nations the evolution of human intelligence has begun to plateau and technology is in a position to overtake human intelligence. By combining the two, humans stand to kick start an unimaginable increase in human intelligence which would trigger a technological singularity. Even more alarming is that the predicted dates of this merger between human and machine seem to focus on the decade between 2020 and 2030. My 9th graders will be graduating from high school in 2020.

As an educator, I have to ask myself, "How am I preparing my students for THIS future?". Even more importantly, Educators should be asking, "How are we preparing ourselves to prepare our students for THIS future?"

I encourage you to check out this video, entitle Humans Need Not Apply: 

I have been a Technology Integration Coach at ASB for the past three years. This has given me a unique opportunity to observe learning from many perspectives. The teachers at ASB are some of the best that I have ever worked with. They work tirelessly to understand their students needs through collaboration and data-informed decision making in an effort to personalize the education of each and every student. The problem is not in the teachers efforts but in our systemic metrics. Our school is an IB school. For seniors the focus is on IB scores and college admissions. To prepare them to achieve their goals it takes 25 hours a day. As a result, education as an institution is focused on the slow-to-change systems (IBO, College Admissions processes, SAT, etc.). This does not leave room for a great deal of forward thinking beyond the general trends of higher education. Another unfortunate consequence is that educators in general are much slower at learning and integrating new technologies into their practices than our students. This is the conundrum. If advances in technology are increasing at a pace predicted by Moore's Law, and our students, despite a lack of instruction in this acquisition of knowledge are gaining at a much faster pace than those in charge of educating them, at what point does the gap become too large? At what point does our current educational model become irrelevant? 

As a biology teacher, I often find that biological systems serve as perfect metaphors for any wicked problem we face as a society. The one that best fits this wicked problem is climate change. For years we have been contributing to the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in the name of progress and innovation. The human species was launched into relevance by the agricultural and more importantly the industrial revolution. The system was huge, the rewards were inconceivable and numerous, and the risks of environmental impact were considered negligible if they were considered at all. Now it is rumored that climate change is real (have you read about the floods in Louisiana this week?) :-) We are on a pathway to destruction and people are still in denial. Scientists all over the world are desperately searching for solutions while the populace continues to ignore the threats in the face of economic hardship. A plea published by the Economist leads with the subheading: 

Global warming cannot be dealt with using today’s tools and mindsets. So create some new ones.

Has climate change gotten too out of hand for us to find a solution in time? Is it too late to change the system?

Let this be a warning to educators around the world. If we don't do something to prepare ourselves to prepare this next generation for a technologically advanced society, will the gap between our level of integration and our students level of integration become too wide? Will we become irrelevant? We owe it to our students to look beyond college admissions and IB exams. It is time for education to change our curve before it is too late.

For a while now I have been using Quizlet to help my IB Biology students learn vocabulary for my course.  Finals are just around the corner, so I posted the following messages to our class Facebook group: 

My first reaction was to dismiss this idea as I suspected that it was going to serve the same function on a different platform, which means twice as much work for the same result.  However, I went ahead and signed up for QuizUp to see what the fuss was all about. 

A week later, I find myself ranked #2 in India hot on Rams tail, though admittedly he has a bit of a lead on me.  A couple of days into my obsession with this game I mentioned it to a colleague of mine.  At midnight a couple of days later he sent me this message: 

We have decided to start a QA group at our school:  QuizUp Anonymous or 12 steps to getting more sleep at night.  But enough about us... it IS all about the students after all. 

To play the game, you choose a category (there are tons of options) and then you either challenge a friend to play with you (in real time or asynchronously) or you can challenge a random person in the world in real time.  Each game has 7 questions and you have 10 seconds to answer the question. You get experience points for guessing a correct answer, your speed in answering the questions, completing games and victories.  For each category, points add up to numerical levels and levels add up to achievements in the form of player titles (I am an Evolutionary Einstein formerly a Genetics Genius) as well as badges such as this one:

There are even a few badges for the not-so-fortunate among us: 

A student of mine discovered this after challenging me one too many times.  He should have known better than to go after an Evolutionary Einstein! 

Anyway, you can check out your stats as well as the stats of your "friends".  Here is a breakdown of the games played by the student that introduced me to this game. 

Can you tell that he is studying for his SAT in December?  I love that his top three topics include Biology and Physics.  Unfortunately, after playing "a few" games under the topic of Biology, I realized that the biology questions for the most part didn't address the IB Biology curriculum.  In passing my student had mentioned that we could create content for QuizUp, so I wrote to them and asked if I could create content for a new Science category with my students that would be focused on the IB Biology content that they would be tested on in May.  I figure if you can't beat 'em, you might as well join them.  How great would it be to leverage a tool like this for student learning?

They loved the idea, and have charged me with creating a spreadsheet with a minimum of 300 questions to launch the new topic.  Once this new topic is released, students all over the world will be able to access this question bank and play other students while accidentally preparing for their exams in May. 

I would like to open this up to other IB Biology teachers.  The format required for the questions is as follows: 

• All questions are multiple choice and need to be submitted in a spreadsheet
• Questions can be a maximum of 130 characters
• Answers are limited to 30 characters
• The order on the spreadsheet needs to have the question first then the CORRECT answer, followed by 3 wrong answers.

If you are an IB Biology teacher, and you are interested in helping me to create content for this game, send me a message and I will be happy to add you to the Google Spreadsheet that I have started with my students.  The faster we get this done, the sooner it will be available for our students to use.  You can reach me at my Twitter handle @roryaileen, or by email at newcombr@asbindia.org.  I am also looking for a catchy title (with IB somewhere in it to avoid the addition of non-related content) as well as achievement level title suggestions.  I am thinking of going with an evolutionary theme.  Instead of beginner, they start as primordial slime, and progress to higher organisms until they reach the top level, Super Human Intellectual Terrestrials.

I will keep you updated on the release, but for now, my arch nemesis from Spain has just challenged me to a rematch, so I must go. 

Relying on my biology metaphors, it can sometimes feel like I am an opportunistic predator (read educator) –always searching for the PD rich experience but always aware of the energy and motivation costs of the hunt.  It can be hit or miss, and I have found that localized PD experiences in my host countries can frequently be a miss.  Having said that, limiting my professional development to the small group of teachers that I work with in my physical space can be just as much of a miss for no other reason than the statistical significance of a small sample size.  What is the likelihood that I will find another teacher in my building who wants to explore iPad apps that will help me to better illustrate the movement of electrons and hydrogen ions in the electron transport chain during both the cyclical and non-cyclical light dependent reactions in photosynthesis for my 12th grade IB class or gamifying my chemistry unit for 10th grade? 

Another issue is technology.  It is impossible to stay abreast of every new app, tool, and resource that hits the market.  It is even more difficult in international schools if you don't have a critical mass of connected educators constantly sharing out resources that they have discovered outside of our little bubble.  The key word here is connected.  It is because of Twitter, that all of the issues mentioned above have completely disappeared for me in the past year. 

PLC or PLN?

Before I joined Twitter a year ago, PLC used to stand for Professional Learning Community.  It was the edupopculture (yes, I just made that word up) buzz word for your department, vertical team, grade level team etc.  It usually consisted of less than 10 people who shared a common goal, often a goal predetermined by the administrators dictating your meeting agendas.  PD was delivered and often watered down to address all grade levels and all disciplines.  In the international schools that I have worked at in the past, this frequently involved literacy or something more tool oriented like Atlas Rubicon.  My PLC time was often spent documenting what were already doing rather creating or discovering new ideas in uncharted territory.  Then I joined Twitter.

I have now expanded my PLC into a PLN.  Though it may look like only a difference in one letter, there were actually two major paradigm shifts that took place.  The obvious change is that I now have a network rather than a community.  Instead of being isolated by an ocean from other educators that share my vision and mission as an educator, I am now connected to them through my network.   

The second shift is more subtle on the surface, but has a far greater impact on my development as an educator.  Instead of a Professional Learning Network, I now refer to my PLN as my Passionate Learning Network.  Whenever I have time to explore or discover, I simply turn to Twitter.  In no time at all, I am connected to people who share in my passion for learning and offer far more insight and an endless stream of new ideas for me to dig into.  My world now looks a little more like this:

This image came from a great post that you should check out:  40 Maps That Will Help You Make Sense of the World

Snapshot:  How do PLN's Work

So today, I went onto Twitter and one of my fellow Tweeps from California posted this:   

My question was what is this ThingLink and why are you awake at 1:30 am California time?  So he responds: 

Hmmm....Note to self:  Check out ThingLink; it could be the answer to my photosynthesis dilemma.  What is #playdate13?   

Before I could ask him, another Twitter friend, @clongbh sent me the link to the Google site for the unconference that they are going to attend, Playdate Los Angeles.  After taking one look at the site, I felt the isolation creeping in...but only for a moment.  I was frustrated that I couldn't be there to participate and learn from the amazing educators that are participating in this creative playdate.  It then occurred to me that I can still participate by following the hashtag #playdate13 this evening as all of the people attending are connected educators and will be tweeting out resources and commentary throughout the event.  I suspect that several of the sessions will also be aired live via Google Hangouts.  Chris then invited me to a new Google+ Community that can answer all of the questions that I have about Thinglink and connect me to other educators using it in their classrooms.  

This just in:  While writing this post, I received this tweet:   

I do not follow ThingLinkEducation, but their search engine must have alerted them to the fact that I was tweeting about ThingLink so they sent me a link to their educator's toolkit and a Google presentation on 70+ Interesting Ways to Use ThingLink in the Classroom.  Need I say more?  Two minutes on Twitter, and I now have hours of exploring and creating to do with an instant support network made of people who are passionate enough about ThingLink to share their expertise.  I am definitely looking forward to digging deeper when I finish this post.  If you are still not convinced, or not sure how to get started, here are some previous posts that I have written about using Twitter for professional development. 

What it Means to be a Connected Educator 

Twitter for Professional Development Series  

Update:  I received these two tweets from @CoffeeNancy after sharing this post on Twitter.   

Now in the past this had been a foolproof plan...but then last year, I approached the teaching of the material differently than before.  When planning the unit on Cellular Respiration, I paid careful attention to the type of activities that I had the students engage in along with the sequence and spacing of exposure to the content according the current neuroscience research on memory retention.  Eric Jensen recommends the following strategy for content exposure to maximize retention in his book, Teaching with the Brain in Mind: 

By following Jensen's schedule of learning exposure combined with the use of collaborative multimedia learning activities, particularly this one, I have to put this one in the win column.  We reviewed a couple of the videos that my students created for this assessment, and were surprised to find that one of them had over 650 views!  Even better, one of the students claimed that she was probably responsible for 100 of them while she was reviewing for her final, and it wasn't even her video!  I will definitely be rethinking my plan for teaching photosynthesis over the next couple of weeks.  It is pretty awesome walking away from day feeling this optimistic!  Maybe that other shoe won't drop! 

It is time for my yang twin – I'm a Gemini – to take over so that I can hit the ground running on my first day back which is incidentally in 12 hours and 50 minutes.  UGH!  Normally the change in scenery is enough to get the gears in my brain going...

 ...but not even the cows blocking my path on the sidewalk did the trick.   

Fortunately my saviors, Daniel Pink and Seth Godin, awakened the yin twin in me. 

If you haven't read   To Sell is Human by Daniel Pink, I highly recommend it.  If you are in a time crunch, here is Daniel Pink's To Sell is Human in Less than 10 Minutes .  In his discussion on clarity, he presents a sample case where he offers several guiding principles that resonated with me. 

1. Clarify others motives with two "irrational" questions.   He explains this questioning strategy in this post. 
   
2. Try a jolt of the unfamiliar.  
3. Become a curator. In the book, he references a post by Beth Kanter that does a great job of explaining how to become a curator of information.   
4. Learn how to ask better questions.  Again, he directs his readers to a link for a questioning strategy that will help you to ask better questions.   
5. Ask the Five Whys.  
6. Find the 1%.   (Still trying to figure this one out)
   

Though this chapter was about clarity, I found myself leaving it with more questions than I started with, as did many of the members in my virtual book club this summer.  It reminded me of this Regis University advertisement that I saw in the Denver airport this summer.  

 Then in Seth's blog today, he wrote about focusing on the colors rather than the numbers.  Read it. My summary would be the same length as his post :-) This also struck a chord with me as I suspect that one of the first things that we will do when I return tomorrow is look at data, such as IB scores, to develop our goals and strategies for the year.  This is ironic considering that we are in the middle of a paradigm shift in education, and if looking at the numbers will only get us better numbers, shouldn't we be looking at alternatives to standardized testing?  Shouldn't we be creating different assessments to measure student learning on the 21st century skills that serve as the focus of our teaching and learning?  What are the colors that I should focus on to take my teaching to the next level this year? 

So with 12 hours and 4 minutes left before I give complete control to yang, I will leave you to your reading, while the yin in me signs off to watch the Newsroom.  

As you can see I presented at the conference.  For those of you who did not attend, which includes probably everyone who reads this blog, here is a link to the how-to-guide that I created to go along with the presentation and my blog posts.  This is a good place to start if you have no experience with games or gamification as I have included links to tons of helpful resources that have helped me along the way. 

In my last post I discussed selecting your content and choosing a level structure for your game.  This of course is something that we as teachers do everyday when planning our lessons and units.  This should be the easy part!  Having said that, here are a couple of things to keep in mind before committing to your game if you are planning on creating a long-term game (more than 2-3 lessons): 

Remember, do yourself a favor and start small.  If you are one of those people who adheres to the mantra "Go big or go home!" then I would advise you to lock all future levels beyond the one that your students are working on.  This inspires curiosity creating a sense of heightened anticipation, which is motivating to your students. It also gives you a chance to call audibles and change things up.  Get rid of things that don't work and add in things that do.  Your first game will be a lot of trial and error, so give yourself a break as you will be doing a lot of "building the plane while you are flying it" your first time through. 

Once you have selected your content, it starts to get a little messy.  There are three main parts that you have to deal with:  the content, the narrative, and the mechanics.  There is no right way to approach designing your game, so if the creativity hits you, go for it and focus on the narrative and the mechanics when you are in your flow.  For others it will be helpful especially your first time through to focus on the content structure first and then embellish it afterwards.  I used the latter approach for my first game, but for the two that I am working on now, I am all over the place!   Below is a snapshot of my process.

The Dilemma: 

At ASB we follow a trimester system, so students take a trimester of chemistry in 9th grade and then a second trimester in 10th grade.  Because I work at an international school with a transient population, every year in 10th grade, I get several new students who have never had chemistry before.  I also have a handful of students who could us a solid review of 9th grade chemistry if you know what I mean.  When there are only 50-60 students per grade level, this is a significant percentage of my students.  Having said that, it is not fair to hold the others back.  To address this issue, I designed a self-paced chemistry review using online resources via our LMS.  The problem is that students are not as motivated to truly learn (read practice and/or memorize problem solving strategies) especially those who are further behind than others as they tend to skip the necessary repetition to catch up with their peers.  So I have decided to gamify the review in hopes that the game itself will help to motivate the students to take the time required to build a solid foundation.  None of the tasks associated with the review will be graded.  They will all be formative assessments.

My game will have 4 levels.  I arrived at this number by analyzing the content and determining the natural breaks in terms of difficulty and complexity.  So my level structure for this one is easy to hard/more complex.  This is where it gets messy.  The narrative exploded on the scene before the rest of the structure fell into place for me.  So I went with the flow.  As a result, I can only share how I have designed the game thus far, but it will give you an idea as to how to get started. 

The example posted above shows the first task in the game.  Students will be assigned basic vocabulary that they will need to accomplish the first level of tasks (electron, proton, etc.) I have created a set of online flashcards on Quizlet that will be shared with the class.  Quizlet has both a built-in self-testing tool as well as two games that students can play for practice. I will play one of the games, and set the "score to beat".  Prior to the quiz, I will encourage grinding by holding a class game competition.  I will set a deadline (before they can sit for their first quiz) and the top three scorers who managed to beat my score on the word game will receive a code breaker card.  These tchotchkes are essentially a subeconomy in the game that will confer special privileges to the students in possession of the card.  Students will be allowed to barter and trade these cards on the black market as part of the game to purchase equipment for their laboratories if they choose not to use the privilege themselves. 

The card pictured above will essentially grant the student the right to retake a future quiz with no penalty (reduced amount of rubles earned, higher penalties for missed questions, eligibility for other tchotchkes). Note that by locking levels/ challenges beyond this one, I will be able to read when it is necessary to offer a privilege like this again and to whom to ensure that all students stay motivated and in their personal flow. All students will be awarded Rubles based on the number of questions that they get correct on their quiz.  They may retake the quiz as many times as necessary, but their earning potential is smaller for each subsequent attempt.  This encourages students to get it right on their first attempt, as you don't want students to waste too much time on retakes due to a lack of effort or preparation. 

As the game progresses, students will be able to use their rubles and tchotchkes to buy lab equipment on the black market (such as a bunsen burner) to upgrade their lab from an underground bunker to the next level.  There will also be surprise challenges like a chemistry scavenger hunt through the school using their knowledge of chemical elements and compounds to decode their search which can earn them equipment, tchotchkes or rubles. 

Takeaways:  

• Small manageable chunk of content
• Assessments allow for quick grading (program does it for me) to provide students with immediate feedback
• mechanics selected (game competition, tchotchke award for top 3, ruble amounts) all motivate students to thoroughly learn the vocabulary required
• Tchotchkes are designed to help avoid flow anxiety later in the game.   
• Students that don't make the top three in the game will most likely have played it enough times to learn the vocabulary which will earn them a sufficient amount of rubles without having to retake the quiz.   

More to come as I flesh the rest of this out!  In the meantime, here is a link to a list of mechanics you might want to consider using in your game as you design your playbook.   

A few weeks ago, I read this post in Fast Company, one of my favorite online publications.  Apparently Evan Williams, one of the co-founders of Twitter, and Evan Hansen, a former Wired ​editor, formed a partnership to change the way that content is promoted on the web.  When you think about the way the social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter work in terms of your news feeds, the newest content always shows up at the top of your feed.  As a blogger trying to share out content, this has always been problematic, particularly with Twitter.  If you don't share a link at just the right time, chances are pretty good that the majority of your audience will never see it as the feed populates with newer content rapidly pushing your post further and further down in the feed.  

In the Fast Company article, Evans posed, "The reward structure as we have it now encourages high-frequency, low-cost content chasing pageviews and unique visitors rather than investing in a single article--a dilemma poignantly articulated by Atlantic editor Alexis C. Madrigal back in March."  ​

Medium, their new collaborative blogging platform that is still in beta, has adopted a more Reddit-style upvoting system.  At the bottom of each post there is a button for you to click if you recommend the post (no this does not "retweet" or post to any of your social media sites). 

Then when you go to the homepage feed, the posts are presented in order of the most recommended as opposed to the most recent posts. 

Why use Medium as your blog platform?  ​

Williams gives three reasons for this: 

1. Medium lets you focus on your words.  ​
2. Medium is collaborative
3. Medium helps you find your audience

I was certainly intrigued, so yesterday I wrote my first post entitled What it Means to be a Connected Educator.  ​Click through on the image above to read more if you are interested in contributing to Medium.

My Two Cents

As Evan claims, Medium is a beautiful space for reading and writing.  There are no widgets, sidebars or plug-ins.  It is also one of the easiest writing platforms that I have used.  It feels a little like the Mac computer of blogs.  Steve Jobs would be proud.  ​Last night, one of my Twitter "friends" who read my post confessed that he uses Medium and has several drafts that he hasn't posted just because he likes writing on the platform so much.

When you start a post, you add it to a collection of similar posts.  There are still some bugs to work out with this, so I would recommend that you create your own collection for your posts.  It is easy to do.  You can always add your post to additional collections later. 

I have found that in just 24 hours, my post on Medium has reached a wider audience than it would have had I posted it on this blog.  ​That being said, in order for it to stay relevant, readers have to make it relevant by recommending it so that it stays high enough in the feed to be read by visitors to the home page.   Though the idea of competitive blogging takes me a little out of my comfort zone, I do believe that it forces you to write better content.  I also like that you can blog whenever you want on Medium due to the collaborative nature of the platform.  People don't go to Medium to read my posts on education; they go to Medium to expose themselves to great content on a myriad of topics regardless of the author.  For example, yesterday, I read this great post by Austin Kleon (love Steal Like an Artist) called Shut up and write the book! but then I read an equally great post by Raymond Duke (no idea who he is) entitled You are Completely Full of Sit. 

Reading Medium is like reading your favorite magazine with out any of the adds or subscription inserts.  Give it a try. If you like what you read, go ahead and click that green button.  :-) 

In my previous post, Training Camp I discussed ways to prepare yourself to gamify instruction in your classes particularly for those of you who are not gamers.  Continuing with my football metaphor,  I want to share with you how I designed my playbook for my Physics game.  Though it may seem daunting, you will find that designing your game is incredibly similar to how you would design a unit in one of your classes, as the mechanics that you might use in a game align well with the pedagogical practices that we use everyday in our classroom. Having said that, with gamification, I found that students experience heightened anticipation, emotional engagement, and ultimately greater success due to the interweaving of game mechanics and fictional elements coupled with a disconnect from the pressure associated with grades.  

The screenshot above from Angry Birds does a great job of illustrating this.  Angry Birds is divided into worlds.  The first world of Angry Birds is called "Poached Eggs" which establishes the fictional elements of the game.  Each world is divided into levels that increase in complexity and difficulty as you move through the world.  The levels remain locked until you pass the level below.  Locking levels is a game mechanic that creates anticipation.  What will I find in Level 2?!?  There are multiple ways to pass each level with varying degrees of success equated to points and stars.  You also have the opportunity to redo each level if you are not satisfied with your feedback.  For a more detailed description, check out the Angry Birds Wiki and explore one of the themes (levels).  See if you can identify the game mechanics used to create the emotional experience that you have when playing Angry Birds.  ​

Now compare the description above to a unit that you teach in your class.  ​What would you need to do to heighten a student's anticipation?  How could you reduce their anxiety and transfer their focus from grades to the learning?  Does your content become more complex and difficult as you progress through the unit?  How frequently do you provide feedback to your students?  What opportunities do they have to act on your feedback? 

Keeping these questions in mind, let's get started on designing the shell for your game.  ​

​Step 1: Select the Learning Objectives

As with any unit that you design, you must have your learning objectives in place before you create your assessments.  It is crucial that these are clearly articulated so that you can integrate them into the game play.  Students should not be able to be successful in your game without demonstrating mastery of these objectives.  When choosing your learning objectives, you should focus on content that can easily be divided into smaller chunks and levels of difficulty or complexity.

One of the most appealing aspects of games is player control.  This translates into empowering students to be in control of their learning.  Your game should give students voice and choice over their game play, and allow for self-pacing.  Select content and skills that will allow you to be as far away from the driver's seat as possible. 

My advice for those of you who are new to gamification is to start with something small and manageable until you get the hang of it.  Keep in mind that games are not perfect for every situation.  ​Gamification works really well with Math and Physics units.  For other disciplines, you need to think carefully and creatively about how you will go about structuring your game. ​

For my physics unit, I had the topics of work, power, energy, and momentum to cover.  When I decided to gamify this unit, I focused my first “world” on work alone.  This narrowed down the list of learning objectives considerably making it easier to differentiate and assign levels. 

​Step 2:  Choose your Level Structure

Once you have selected your content and skills, the next step is to choose your level structure.  I have provided a few examples below, but you can also just as easily come up with your own.   For educational games, the best approach to this is to do what Karl Kapp refers to as a mission-based structure.  I had not read Kapp’s book when I designed my game, but this is exactly how I did it because pedagogically it makes sense.  The two structures that he suggests are:

• easy, intermediate, hard (using the same content)

• demonstration, practice, and test mode (this is similar to the model that I used).

The three levels in the game that I developed were:

• Level 1:  The collaborative, self-directed learning level.  I used online resources (Physics Classroom, and G-docs) to guide their learning.  The learning was self-paced, and this blended learning approach allowed my stronger students to forge ahead to more challenging tasks, while freeing me up to help the weaker students one-on-one or in mini workshops.  

• Level 2: The challenge level (read test).  I made it a requirement that students had to get a minimum of an 85% to receive their badge.  However, they were allowed to retake it if they didn’t accomplish it the first time through.

• Level 3: The project level.  I designed this level to force them to use higher order thinking skills (problem solving, creativity, critical thinking etc.) to accomplish the task.  Within the level, I built in different levels of difficulty to keep the stronger students in their “flow”.  Flow is a very important concept in games.  
  

Keep in mind that you can lock levels and keep your students in the dark.  It increases their excitement and anticipation while at the same time allows you to call audibles and change it up in the middle of game play.  Win-win! ​

CAUTION:   Be cognizant of the amount of content you put in each level and the amount of time that you allow for it.  If students are stuck in a level for too long, they will move into the zone of boredom and lose interest.  Timing is key.  One solution to this is to add sublevels (see example).  Change things up after every sublevel, or have mini-activities in place for some hands-on experiences.  I would recommend adding these at the end when you go back to revise your game.  

Another game structure you should check out is Michael Matera's Realm of Nobles that he created for his 6th grade world History course.  ​He does an awesome job at illustrating how you can gamify content in language-based disciplines.

I could literally go on and on about this topic, but I think that is enough to get you started.  To summarize as you begin to create a structure for your game and divide up your content and skills, ​you should consider the following suggestions: 

• allow for self-paced learning
  

• ensure that each level is challenging enough to maintain their curve of interest (flow) for all students (differentiation).

• adhere to a short time limit per activity/level

• build in an increasing level of difficulty from level to level
  

• provide for a variety of learning approaches

​In my next post I will discuss assessment/reward/feedback strategies.  If you missed my previous posts on gamification, you can find them all at this link. 

When I think back to my process for gamifying my Physics class last year, it felt a little like the journey a coach goes through while preparing for that first game of the season. The planning and execution phases can easily be divided into training camp, designing the playbook, pre-game pep-talk, the season opener, and finally reviewing tape.  In this post I will discuss my approach to training camp. 

I am a die hard Cowboys fan in case you couldn't tell from the picture at the beginning of this post.  While searching for an appropriate image for training camp, I happened upon this headline from CBSlocal.com.

Co​wboys May Use Center Who Never Snapped

This resonated with me as I was by no means a gamer when I decided to explore this option in my class.  I had played my share of Angry Birds, but that was about it unless you counted my brief pre-teen encounters with Space Invaders, Pac Man and the occasional game of Frogger.  Once I discovered boys, I tried to forget that Atari and parachute pants were ever part of my vernacular. 

I wouldn't even consider myself a casual gamer.  Last year, while the idea of gamification was percolating in my brain, I taught across the hall from a true gamer who was completely immersed in gamifying homework practices in his class. I called him Crazy Train as the ride he was on was borderline obsessive and insane (or so I thought at the time).  I frequently caught myself checking to make sure the coast was clear before leaving my room in an effort to avoid interactions with him because every conversation was ultimately dominated by his overwhelming excitement over things like avatars, subeconomies, level-ups, warp zones, and other gamer terms that sounded a lot like Chinese to me.

Fortunately, for me, I soon discovered that you do not need to be a gamer to gamify your content.  That is what training camp is all about.  For the non-gamers out there that are looking for a way to make your classes more engaging and fun, this is a good place to start.  As a bonus, gamification will also help the learning stick. 

Step 1:  ​Play Games...Actively

To get started you simply need to play some games.  Pick something easy and manageable at first, like Angry Birds.  ​Approach your game play with the same strategies that you advise your students to use when "actively" reading an article or chapter in a book.  Be an active, reflective participant in your game play. 

While playing, ask yourself the following questions and take note of your responses:

• What emotions did you feel throughout the game play and how did you respond? ​
• What made you want to continue playing?  
• ​Was there only one way move to the next level, or did you have choice in your journey?  
• ​What happened when you made mistakes and how did you feel?  
• ​Did you feel like you were in control?  
• ​What kind of feedback did you get, and how often?  
• ​How did the feedback affect your play?  
• What elements of the game helped you to maintain your focus? ​
• What was your reaction to failure?  How was this different to other experiences you have had with failure?  ​
• What role did game mechanics play in your experience?  ​What role did the fictional story line play in your experience?  ​(If you are not familiar with these terms, read through the references to these in my previous post.) 
• What learning was required of you to be successful in the game?  ​

Now compare your experience to the experience that your students have while participating in one of your lessons.  How are they similar?  How are they different?  ​

​Step 2: Do a Little Research

There are three books that I have found helpful in designing my game.  

1. The Gamification of Learning and Instruction: Game-based Methods and   Strategies for Training and Education
2. Designing Games:  A Guide to Engineering Experiences 
3. ​Gamification by Design: Implementing Game Mechanics in Web and Mobile Apps

​There is also great value in reading blogs about gamification.  Once you discover a blogger that has a passion for gamification, check out the bloggers that are linked to his/her blog.  This is a hot topic at the moment, so a simple search should send you in the right direction.  A few that I would highly recommend at the moment are: 

• Michael Matera's awesome series on gamification​
  
• ​Alice Keeler's blog called Gamericulum with tons of great practical tips on gamification
  
• Jason Roy's blog Crispy Math (He has a ton of easily adaptable single lesson games on his site) ​
• Karl Kapp's blog (author of one of the recommended books) ​
• ​Gabe Zichermann's blog (also an author of one of the recommended books)
  
• Gamification Paper.li Daily ​

You should also follow these people on Twitter if you are a Tweep:

@gzicherm  @roybot  @mrmatera  @DanBenoni  ​@alicekeeler

Finally, if you are really keen, Kevin Werbach from U. Penn offers a course on Coursera​ about Gamification.  He doesn't have one going at the moment, but you can add yourself to the watchlist and Coursera will inform about the next start date.  You can also contact him personally on Twitter @kwerb

​Step 3: Discuss Your Ideas with Colleagues

After doing a bit of research, I was ready to jump on the Crazy Train myself (metaphorically speaking).  It was truly great to have him as a resource throughout this process. If there are other teachers interested in gamification at your school or district, form a group to discuss strategies with each other. Two minds (or three or four) are always better than one.  If you are flying solo, revert back to my Twitter suggestion.  There are so many people out there who would love to discuss this topic with you.  Just search using the hashtags #gamification or #gamify, find someone who is tweeting about relevant experiences and then engage them in a dialogue, or reach out to one of the handles posted above.  You can also send questions to me at ‏@roryaileen.

​As we head into summer vacation, this is the perfect time to start exploring gamification while you are not immersed in the day to day grind of being a teacher. Gamifying your content takes time.  Start small and give it a go!  In my next post I will discuss designing your playbook.  Until then, happy training! 

Meet my niece and nephew, Brody and Riley.  They were three and two when these pictures were taken.  That is my iPad.  They are now five and four.  I live in India, so sadly, I only get to see them once or twice a year.  We usually meet up at my parents house while I am home for the summer.  ​I count the days and then hours until I hear the sound of the car in the driveway and catch a glimpse of the excitement on their faces when they first see me on the back patio.  My nephew can hardly contain himself as he desperately tries to break free of the seat belt, scrambling for the car door.  He runs towards my open arms, shouting, "Aunt Rory! Can I play with your iPad?!?!". 

Angry Birds 1:  Aunt Rory 0. 

I take what I can get.

Typically, I don't see my iPad for the duration of their visit.  The lengths that my nephew,  will go to to play games are astounding.  Who knew such small people were capable of such sinister manipulation and deception.  ​One afternoon, we spent about half an hour looking for Brody, only to find him hiding behind the couch in an Angry Birds trance with the sound turned off to avoid detection.  We have all been there, or know someone who has lost all will power and surrendered to the call of the game Sirens.  Just ask my students.  The other day this post from one student to another showed up on my feed.

You know it is bad when they don't respond to Facebook messages!  My response?  STOP PLAYING CRIMINAL CASE AND STUDY FOR YOUR IB EXAMS!  Hmmmm... Maybe if IB exams were more like a game.  Now there is a thought. 

​I decided to give it a try.  About an hour before my seniors went in to take their IB exam for Biology last week, several of them showed up in my classroom in a state of sheer panic.  It was time for the pep talk.  "It's just a game.  Go in there and grab as many points as you can while trying to beat your own high score or better yet, beat Mr. Roy. Exact your revenge for all of those times that he took advantage of your age and inexperience just to add another mark to his win column. Just think of it as a game."  I immediately saw the tension drain from their faces, and a couple of them had gone to their happy place replacing the panic with a confident smirk.  It was obvious that they were about to engage in an epic battle against Mr. Roy for the next three and a half hours and the odds were in their favor. 

24 hours after exams, the teachers are given the exam materials, including the multiple choice booklets that the students mark up before putting the answers on their answer sheet.  While searching for a clean copy to add to my files, I discovered this on the cover of one of the exams.

​Anonymous Student 1: Mr. Roy 0

So what makes games so appealing?  I have been reading a book called Designing Games by Tynan Sylvester.  Tynan does a great job at defining the emotional journey of a game by breaking it down into the elements that make us so vulnerable to those game Sirens.  The first piece of the puzzle is the mechanics of the game.  Mechanics are the elements of games that define how a game works and determine the complexity and level of player interaction.  Things such as risk and rewards, movement, resource management, victory conditions, timing, loss avoidance etc. are all examples of game mechanics.  Mechanics create an arousal state using threats and challenges.

Mechanics are then layered with fictional elements or the story of the game.  This gives the game emotional meaning, which as we know is important for learning (see below). 

When you combine the mechanics and the fictional layer, you create events that provoke emotions and ultimately lead to ​an integrated experience. 

So what does this have to do with education?  Rule #4 from the book Brain Rules by John Medina, is "We don't pay attention to boring things".  Medina goes on to explain, "We pay attention to things like emotions, threats and sex. Regardless of who you are, the brain pays a great deal of attention to these questions: Can I eat it? Will it eat me? Can I mate with it? Will it mate with me? Have I seen it before?"  A perfect example of this is Apple"s 1984 commercial introducing the Macintosh computer.  ​He also talks about the positive effects of stress and emotional memory (check out slide #2).  Games are great at creating emotional experiences with the right combination of mechanics and story elements.

Games also have an element of repetition or grinding built in that enhances the brains ability to retain learning for a longer period of time.    ​

When you compare the elements of games with current brain research on learning enhancement, gamifying learning is theoretically a win-win, a "no brainer" if you will.  The trick is to find a way to make the learning objectives an integral part of the game play so that the only way that a winning condition can be achieved is through the mastery of these objectives. 

Examples of Gamification

The first example is an activity from my 10th grade Physics class called "Save Earth".  See if you can identify the game mechanics in this activity.  Here is a video clip of the students working on saving the world from destruction.  By combining the game mechanics with the fictional elements I was able to successfully design an emotional experience for the students to enhance their learning of Newton's Laws. 

Jason Roy is the review game master.  You can find many examples of gamification on his blog, crispymath.com​.  Two great games of his that are easy to adapt to different disciplines, are Crocodile Dentist and Danger Cards.  They definitely do the job of creating fun, emotionally charged experiences while accomplishing the learning objectives.

If you are just getting started and want to start with something less complicated, check out jeopardylabs.com for a ready-made online jeopardy template, or give technology taboo a try.  ​

If you have gamified content in your class, please share your experiences and suggestions.  I would love to hear about them! 

In my next post, I will discuss a strategy for getting started on designing longer-term classroom games.  

As a teacher, this was one of those moments that you never forget.  While hugging my seniors goodbye hoping that some of my knowledge and confidence would rub off onto them, I looked out to find my entire 10th grade class reviewing the cell membrane as one cohesive group.  Three of the students took the initiative to grab some whiteboard markers and lead the rest of them through a review of the topics that they are required to know for their independent projects.  Amazed and shell-shocked, I went outside and joined them, but not as their teacher. At this moment, I was an admirer, impressed by the fact that each and every one of them had made good decisions about their learning independent of my supervision.  They could have just as easily been playing games, chatting on Facebook, setting fire to each other and countless other things that I would rather not think about.  It was so fulfilling to join a discussion with a group of students that were prepared and determined to explore these concepts at a deeper level.  At the end of the day, if all they walk away from this project with are the skills of collaboration and taking personal responsibility for their learning, I would consider this a huge success.  Fortunately, most of them will also understand the mechanisms of cell membrane regulation and be able to apply them to specific functions of the human body such as lactose intolerance, Parkinson's disease, how endorphins work, starvation, why asthmatics need inhalers, weight loss and many other interesting topics.  I truly look forward to learning from their presentations at the end of the project.

After school today, one of the students posted the pics from class to our Facebook group via Dropbox!  ​

At 3:30, the first wave of my SL students returned to my class to report back on their exams.  The first words out of there mouths were, "You are like magic! The two topics that you predicted and reviewed with us at lunch were essays on the test! Thank God we went over gene transfer!  We nailed it!"   ​

Last weekend, the tweets started pouring into my feed about this coveted week for teachers, typically acknowledged only by other teachers desperately needing recognition for all of their hard work and the occasional nod from admin.  Each year at this time, I am reminded of one special educator.  For the life of me I  can never remember his name, as my friend and I referred to him affectionately with a hint of competitive spite as "Little Man".   ​

The year was 1997.  I had just graduated from  Texas A&M University with a degree in Biology.  I had decided to give teaching a try, because I had fallen in love with tutoring athletes during my stint in College Station.  Same thing right?  Being a self-assured, driven, adventurous ​23 year old know-it-all, I scoffed at the idea of staying on to get my certification.  Who needs that?  Well, that and maybe I had run out of money and needed to start earning some cash to pay back my exorbitant student loan bill.  Luckily, my dad went to university with a man who was an assistant superintendent in a small town in East Texas.  They were desperate for science teachers, so they decided to grant me an emergency certification provided I managed to obtain my certification in the next three years. 

I still remember my first conversation with my principal during the PD days before school started in August. She showed me my classroom and asked me if there was anything that I would need.  My response?  A podium!  How else was I going to deliver my lectures to my 7th grade classes?  The next question I asked was where can I make overhead copies of the notes that I plan on having the students copy during my lectures?  I know, I know... Shameful!  Having said that, shame on the principal for allowing me to have that podium!  As you can imagine, those 7th graders ATE ME FOR LUNCH that year.  I knew that I was meant to be a teacher when I agreed to come back for a second year. 

The following summer, my friend and I found a certification program about an hour and a half away that only required 21 hours of coursework. SCORE!  So for the next year and a half, we found ourselves attending certification classes at Lamar University in Beaumont, TX.  I soon discovered that several of the professors obtained their teaching degrees from Disneyland.  Methods classes that described classes with 15 well adjusted students eager to learn with the surplus of materials that you had at your fingertips.  None of these students showed up to school with a gun, and none of their parents were in prison for murder.  I immediately tuned them out and prepared to suffer the remaining hours of my sentence in silence.  After all, I learned more from my one year of hell on the job than they could ever teach me.  That was until I met Little Man.   

Little Man reminded me of Lou Diamond Phillips from Stand and Deliver wrapped in a mean little package no more than five feet in height.  He had a long braid down his back with an evil little twinkle in his eye, and he had my number from the first moment I walked into his class.  As with my other courses that I had faked my way through, I deliberately ignored the first reading assignment for class.  At the beginning of class, Little Man singled me out of a crowd of about 70 other students and asked me to stand up.  He then proceeded to grill me on the theory from the reading.  It was not pretty.  Several students approached me after class to thank me for keeping them out of the line of fire.  My friend Suzanne vowed never to sit next to me again, as asked me to pretend that I didn't know her.  That night I went home and memorized the reading for the next class.  As expected, Little Man called on me again. I stood up confidently and proceeded to school him on the reading from the night before with more than a little "in your face" sass. Did I mention that I was 23. He gave me a little smirk and then thanked me for my "long-winded speech".  Ouch!  I knew right then that this was going to be a great learning experience for me.  For some reason, I couldn't get enough of him.  His classes were so engaging.  My mind never wandered, and I couldn't figure out why.  Then about halfway through the course, he revealed his secret.  Stories.  He talked about the attention span of adults and revealed our tells.  He knew that in order to get us to sit through a 90 minute lesson, he was going to have to reengage us every ten minutes or so.  The second he noticed a critical mass of students sitting back with their eyes disengaged, he would break into a story.  Some of his stories would make us laugh out loud, some made us cry, but all of them were personal reveals about the man that we had come to love.  As if he had the magic touch, our bodies would shift back towards him to find out what happened next.  It was then that he would transition back in to the lesson at hand. 

During that year, I discovered that Little Man was also a biologist.  In fact, he was sent down to Venezuela with the purpose of making contact with a local tribe ​that had never allowed foreigners to travel in their territory.  He was the first man to take a photo of Angel Falls which was subsequently published in National Geographic...or so he said.  Who knows if any of this was true.  I never found that photo. You know I searched for it. The next semester, I took a reading strategies elective course...because Little Man was the teacher.  I had no intention of ever teaching elementary school students, but that didn't matter.  I was in it for the stories.

Two years later, I received a phone call from Bambi Betts in Venezuela offering me a job.  It was a no brainer.  It was meant to be.  I have been teaching overseas now for 13 years.  When you ask former students of mine what they remember most about me, most of them will respond, "Her stories".  Granted, my 11th grade IB class will go into a "who's on first" skit of mixed metaphors involving a Japanese bicycle maker, my father and books about books about making bicycles.  Don't believe them.  They are just bitter that I haven't graded their tests yet.  The one thing I know to be true is that I owe all of this to Little Man. ​ He taught me the one skill that is the key to my success as an educator.  I will never forget this gift and I will never forget Little Man.

This past weekend while I was thinking about him, I embarked on a desperate internet search to find any trace of him.  Problem was I couldn't remember his actual name, and surprisingly Little Man didn't return any relevant hits.  Hours and hours later, it came to me.  Ed McCaskill?? So I searched some more.  Still nothing.  No trace.  Until tonight when I received an e-mail from the Lamar University Alumni office confirming my suspicion (yes, I contacted them; I admit it).  They offered to send him an e-mail on my behalf.  I doubt that I will send him a link to this post as he doesn't know that in my mind he is a 5 ft tall Native American force to be reckoned with that I call Little Man, but you can be sure that he will be hearing from me in honor of teacher appreciation week. 

​Thank you, Little Man, for being an exceptional, inspirational educator.  I know that countless others have been touched by your lessons on biology, the craft of teaching, and most importantly, life.

Update:

I did end up sending Dr. McCaskill my blog, and he did have something to say about my nickname for him. 

However, I might add that which you might not be aware of is that at one point in my life I was six feet three and one half inches tall.  This was before the accident.  I fell from a piper cub air craft at about ten thousand feet and landed on my feet, quite an impact.​

Perhaps he was in the habit of telling tall tales after all. 

We started our Ecology unit in IB Biology today.  Every year I struggle with teaching this as the benchmarks tend to sacrifice critical thinking and other higher order thinking skills for the rote memorization of specific definitions and classification terms that my kids will most likely never use again.  That is unless they become an obnoxious biology teacher who tends to identify all organisms encountered by their phylum and trophic level while snorkeling, hiking, or doing community service projects with students.  I am embarrassed to admit that I once quizzed a biology student on all of the organisms we discovered while clearing brush in a cemetery...for hours.  She ended up scoring a 7, but she will forever break out in hives upon hearing the words bryophyta, mollusca or filicinophyta, and the sight of a spore will forever cause her adrenaline to surge.  I just hope she always chooses flight over fight. 

So last night, I started brainstorming ideas that would teach these concepts, while at the same time engage the students AND for them to use some of those 21st century skills that we value so much.  At around 10:00 pm, it came to me.  Game of Thrones.  ​

I started researching things about this show as I know that several of my students have either seen the show or are reading the books.  Then I came across two links that helped me to put the pieces together.  ​

The first is a fictional food hit list, containing 75 names of dishes consumed in the series.  ​

With a little imagination, students will be able to identify organisms from the delectable dishes that exist in the Game of Thrones ecosystem.  Add a little research to the equation, and students could easily identify a sufficient number of organisms for their food web.  For example: 

• Flea Bottom Bowl of Brown (fleas)​
• Venison stew with barley, onion, and carrot with bread (deer, barley, onions, carrots, wheat)​
• Fruits and sweetgrass stews (lots of sweetgrass recipes....hmmmm a primary producer maybe?)​
• Meat skewers with onions, fire peppers, and mushrooms with trenchers and beer (Finally a decomposer... and how pray tell is beer made?)
  
• Dothraki blood pies (now things are getting interesting and complicated)​

You get the idea.  But what about the top predators?  Should we include the hierarchy of human groups in our food web?  One students posted this comment on our class Facebook group when I posed the idea to them:

                 Producers: Starks 

                 Primary Consumers:  Lannisters

With a little more digging, I came across this site.  A compilation of the strange animals that can be found in Game of Thrones.  Enter dragons, direwolves, manticores, and shadow cats.  Where do the white walkers fit in?   ​

So you see, constructing this ecosystem will require a sizable helping of critical thinking, problem solving, creativity and research skills. ​ Sadly, by the time I fleshed this idea out (that was for you Carsten), I had run out of time to troubleshoot and create a food web of my own, so had to find something quick for class the next morning.  Luckily I came upon a similar ready-made food web activity using imaginary animals created by Michael Rockow.  With a little tweaking, it was ready to go. I will share my IB adaptation of this activity on the Biology Lessons page.  However, next year, it is game on for Game of Thrones! 

For those of you interested in pursuing this on your own, there were also lists on this site for Hunger Games.  I wonder what tracker jackers and jabberjays feast on when they aren't busy torturing and spying on contestants?  Next year I plan to offer several options, so students that are not so keen on Game of Thrones will be able to find their learning niche.  There is even potential for gamifying this project. Hmmmm... more on that later!  ​

I decided to take my first personal day in I don't know how many years and extend my weekend so that I could take a well deserved mini-vacation in Goa. It sounded great in theory, three full days of lazing in the sun reading David Sedaris's newest book with work the furthest thing from my mind...and then Twitter shattered my fantasy.  Saturday evening while recovering from a day of burning my pasty white skin poolside in my decadent air conditioned hotel room, I found myself following along with #satchat followed by #satchatwc, while pretending to work on my report card comments so that I could avoid some serious mocking from my friend.  Then on Sunday, after a hot stone massage, I found myself alone in the room trying to regain consciousness while my friend was having a facial. That is when  #suncat that @barbarawmadden has renamed #sinchat happened.  Not even the gorgeous sunset pictured above, or the arrival of my friend catching me in the act could tear me away from the great discussion led by @mssackstein about how to keep students engaged in their learning until the end of the year (more on this in my next post). 
After half an hour of disapproving looks, I finally closed the computer and embraced a glass of wine (the chat was over after all).  Judgy McJudgerson might have also shamed me with some disparaging comments that included things like "rock bottom", "addicted", "workaholic", and "Twitter ninja".  That last one might have been mine.  Did I mention the wine? 

Fast forward to the next morning.  I woke up refreshed and satisfied that I had the strength of conviction to still be in Goa while the rest of my colleagues and students were on their way to school.  Such a rebel!  So I made us some coffee, and then crawled back into bed and opened my computer...​

...to #CAEdchat happening right before my very eyes!  For those of you not familiar with hashtag lingo, #CaEdchat stand for California Ed chat... as in for teachers in CALIFORNIA.  Trying to be discreet, I started reading the feed while "checking my email".  It was too good to pass up.  I don't even remember what happened for the remainder of that hour, but the next thing I knew, I was signing up to be part of a book chat on Daniel Pink's new book, "To Sell is Human" led by@clonghb, a physics teacher in... wait for it...California!  When I told Judgy McJudgerson what I was doing, I had one of those out of body experiences where you see yourself for who you really are.  For some reason hearing it out loud made it real.  I am THAT guy!  You know, the one that hijacks a state specific Twitter chat and then joins their summer book club.  Having said that, a part of me was still in denial, until @clonghb posted this...

...a map of our book club.  Ouch! I guess it IS time for an intervention. I admit it; I need to go to Twitter Chat rehab...but after I finish the book.  I started reading it on the flight and I don't want to miss this chat! Baby steps. 

For now however, it is getting late, and I have to get up early for work after taking three days "off".  After all, I have to do something with all of these ideas I have from my weekend "vacation".  Not to mention, tomorrow is Tuesday and you know what that means...#edchat!  ​

Every Saturday morning, educators from around the world come together on Twitter to collaborate, share ideas, create, problem solve, discuss hot topics in education, and well...to chat.  There are three main chats that I frequent on Saturdays: #satchat, #satchatwc, and #rechat.  Each chat lasts for only an hour, but if the topic fits your passion, you could potentially learn more in that hour than you would from an entire conference.  Really.  This is why I refer to Twitter chats as "speed dating" for educators. Like speed dating, most people are resistant to the idea of participating in a Twitter chat because it can be overwhelming. Unlike speed dating, all of these chats are archived, and there are apps like Tweetdeck that will allow you to move at your own pace and ensure that you don't miss ANYTHING!  To illustrate this, I am going to walk you through the last #satchatwc that I participated in, via the archive.  You can follow along with the archive of this chat on Storify. 

​How do chats work?

Twitter chats typically have 1-3 moderators that initiate and facilitate the discussion around a pre-determined topic.  Again, typically there are a series of questions that are posted by the moderators with the format Q1, Q2 etc.  To respond to these questions, the participants begin their tweets with the corresponding A1, A2 etc. to keep track of the discussion.  To maintain the chat thread, each tweet included the hashtag of the chat for filtering purposes.  At the bottom of this post, I have included links to resources about participating in chats and getting the most out of the experience.  Below you will find my personal takeaways from last Saturday's chat on the use of apps in education.  Once you get the hang of it, you should stop reading this post and dig into the archive to create your own personal learning from this chat.  I then encourage you to explore the ideas that intrigue you the most, and look for ways to creatively integrate some of these ideas into your practice. If you find your interest piqued by one of the tweeps in this chat, expand your PLN and follow them on Twitter.  So without further ado…

Why are apps in education awesome? Because apps...

• ​increase engagement for everyone (most mentioned)
  
• facilitate collaboration between students and teachers
• are resources for remediation or enrichment; differentiation
• allow for creativity/ design
• save time and help with organization and efficiency

• good for recording student/teacher observations and provide feedback ​
• facilitate the creation of videos ​for student projects, tutorials etc.
  
• ​improve the quality of communication between students, teachers and parents
  
• allow for self-pacing
• are good for tactile learners
  
• help students to grow socially and develop relevant technology skills
  

• add rigor without sacrificing engagement
• have web-based counterparts; great for BYOD
• are great for workflow
• can serve as LMS/CMS

Strategies for using/introducing apps in schools/classrooms?

• leaders should encourage experimentation in the classroom with iTunes gift cards, coupons, or other rewards/ acknowledgement and then give teachers the freedom to take risks and innovate
  
• create sharing opportunities in your school
  
• teachers should set individualized tech integration goals for integration "introduce one app every two weeks until the end of the year"
• introduce to class, evaluate, then share out with colleagues; take risks

• carve out time during faculty time (PLC's, meetings, PD days) for tech teacher leaders, teachers, students etc. to share useful and innovative apps (as described below) with other faculty members. 
  
• ​ when sharing apps, document by creating collaborative lists of apps to share with a description of each app's educational value, purpose, usefulness, effectiveness and suggest strategies for integration
  

• provide support for teachers on integration of apps into their teaching and learning practices.  ​
• provide teachers with the devices ​and give them time for exploration and experimentation
  
• preload standard "gotta have" apps ​on devices then provide PD before the year begins.

• (admin and teacher leaders) model use of apps in meetings

• ​have students share what apps they think would be best to use ​​​(@Sabrapro)

• when evaluating apps, ask yourself: "Does this tech make my instruments more effective?  Does this tech promote 21st century skills for my students?  ​
• be willing to try and then fail/succeed and then try again. Take risks.​

By this point most people should be at the very least intrigued by the idea of using educational apps in your classroom, while others are ready to dive in with both feet.  ​The next question brings us to why these chats are so valuable to me.  The links.  Links = going down the rabbit hole of PD.  140 characters turns into an endless supply of relevant insightful blog posts, new websites to explore, new apps to try out, and new ideas to process and use as a springboard for creativity and integration in your teaching. Time to explore whatever peaks your curiosity or makes you mind engage. 

​Links and apps to explore after this chat: 

• ​TWITTER (mentioned COUNTLESS TIMES)
  
• Bloom's Taxonomy vs. apps, an iPedagogy wheel
• PBL using Trello, an web-based app with mobile versions​
• Cybraryman's links for App Smackdown archives​
• ​Tweetdeck
  
• Todaysmeet
• Evernote
• Edcanvas
• Diigo
• Explain Everything
• HaikuDeck
• ​DIY PD using Twitter, Flipboard, Pinboard, Instapaper, and Feedly
  
• ​Flipboard 2.0: New features and tricks
  
• Hootsuite
• Teacher Cast
• Linked-in
• Zite
• Youtube Capture
• @voicecomments ​
• Screencastomatic​
• ​Paper.li
• ScoopIt
• ​How to Survive and Thrive in a Twitter Chat
  
• Symbaloo
• Dropbox
• iMovie; check out this teacher's use of iMovie trailers
  
• Edmodo
• ​Feedly
• Socrative ​
• @poweroficu
• GAFE
• Form Emailer
• Doctopus
• Google+ Hangouts

• Pinterest
• SlideRocket
• Keynote on iPad and iPhone
• Prezi
• Teachers, invite them and they will tweet​
• #geniushour
• EMD PTE for chemistry teachers
• @remind101
• Thinglink
• Reflector app
• TwitterFall for screen projection
• ​EdCanvas
• Post about making time for all of this exploration​

And the list goes on and on.  So what now?  I plan to choose a few of these apps that I am interested in exploring further and start researching on Google, Twitter, and the blogosphere.  Blogs are a great resource for learning about apps because educators will explain how they use them in their classes and include suggestions for use and strategies for effective integration.  This is a good way to spark your imagination. 

The great thing about Storify archives is that you can interact with the people from Storify itself.  In fact while writing this post, I replied to several of the people with questions, suggestions etc.  I also added people to my PLN that I missed the first time around.  Time to dig deeper.  ​Here is the link to the archive again in case you made it all the way to the end of this blog :-)  I am exhausted after reviewing this hour long chat, so I will take a brain break and start working through my long list of takeaways later! 

Questions for you:  ​What were your takeaways?  What is one app that you want to explore further?  Are there any apps that you would add to this list?  It isn't too late to share.  Just include the hashtag #satchatwc in your tweet. How many people did you add to your PLN? Are you ready to give "Speed Dating" a try? 

There is a Twitter chat for everyone, and there are several chats scheduled every day.  Check out @cybraryman1's schedule of chats to find one that engages your interests and passion for learning.  There is even a chat called #tlap, or teach like a pirate!  Sorry to disappoint, but it is a chat about creativity in education, not pirates.  I know, I know...ARGH!  Once you decide on a chat, all you have to do is log into Twitter and search for the hashtag of the chat. 

This will filter your feed.  To participate, just make sure to include the hashtag in your tweet.  Be sure to check All Tweets instead of Top tweets or People you follow when you participate in a chat.

If you are still not feeling brave enough to jump in, here are a couple of links you can check out to help you come up with some solid strategies for participating in chats:  ​

• Why Tweet? DIY PD Using Twitter
• ​VIdeo tutorial using Tweetdeck
  
• @cybraryman1's "How to chat on Twitter" page​
• ​The Ultimate How-to Guide
  

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