Plan, Prep & Read What You Want

Here it is.
The home stretch.
The dying days of summer vacation.

I love my job. I really do. I have to confess, however, that I find it difficult to transition from the leisurely pace of July and August to the structure of September and beyond. My school's caretakers are kind enough to allow teaching staff to come in during most of the summer; I did it quite a bit in the beginning of July but haven't darkened the door much since. Now that it's the last week before school, it's time to seriously contemplate what and how I'm going to teach this coming year.

Here's a dilemma - I want to take a more authentic approach to student-led inquiry this year, so how can I plan when my main teaching partners (also known as the students) aren't around to help? I guess this is something I should discuss with our kindergarten and grade 1 teachers, who are quite devoted to inquiry learning. I'll start by developing the class culture/community (gotta love Tribes) and discovering what excites them.

People I follow online have also thought long and hard about their intentions for the upcoming year. Cale Birk, a great principal in British Columbia, wrote about his plans here and the first line of his blog reads:

As we are getting ramped up for the start of another school year in British Columbia, I have now shelved my John Grisham novels and Sports Illustrated magazines until next July. 

I asked myself why this reading material had to be temporarily discarded. His next line explains it succinctly:

Like many educators at this time of year, I have re-engaged in professional reading to get myself amped up for Day 1. 

Being my perverse self, I wondered why we "force" ourselves to read things we wouldn't always be drawn to consuming. I'm not saying that Cale is reluctantly reading education-related material; he was pretty enthusiastic in the rest of the post about Five Disciplines of PLC Leaders. I like to be contrary. Why should I stop reading things I enjoy just because school is starting? I guess it boils down to our reasons for reading - reading for pleasure vs reading for information. I'm just trying to figure out how I can have my cake and still eat it. I just finished reading Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. In some parts, I had to put down the book because I was so frightened. I would never dream of using it as a read-aloud, but maybe I could consider how social issues from the book or genres can be incorporated into my library lessons.

Before you get the idea that it's a simple fiction vs non-fiction thing, I'm actually dying to read some gaming studies. I attended a session at The Academy of The Impossible recently and got to mingle with some pretty fascinating individuals.  I talked with someone who told of an interpretation of Club Penguin as a place where you can learn to be revolutionary - a complete 180 from the usual description I hear of Club Penguin as a place to train capitalists and consumerists. I want to read a study like this for personal interest!

If we are allowed to choose what we read, we'll be more eager, regardless of the reason. I still intend on reading The Choreography of Presenting both for interest and for professional enrichment. We'll see how much planning, preparing, or reading I get done in this last week.

I Remember - Thanks Mr. Sturm

I have a very poor memory, especially of my childhood and teen years. These gaps concern my parents but I have come to accept the huge holes in my memory. This is why, when I remember something, it is pretty significant and surprising.

In June, as I was co-teaching a media literacy lesson in the computer lab to some intermediate division students, I quoted my Grade 12 English teacher. It turns out that it’s a small world, because the Grade 7-8 teacher with me that day recognized the name of my former teacher and my school – he even claims that he remembers being in my class back in high school. (I searched my yearbook for proof but couldn’t find my colleague’s picture.) He had very vivid recollections of this particular teacher and, to my surprise, despite my faulty memory, so did I. What I cannot recall is whether or not I actually told him what an impact he made. Heck, I just quoted him last week in this very blog! I’ve hunted him down, found a contact email, and I hope he takes the opportunity to read this open letter.

BPCI Writers' Club: Winnie, Sean, Brian, Mike, Mr. Sturm, ZsaZsa, Kiran, Gita, Diana

Dear Mr. Joel Sturm,

My name is Diana Maliszewski (nee Diana DeFreitas) and from 1985-1990, I attended Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute in Scarborough. You were my Grade 12 and OAC English teacher. I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for teaching me and to tell you that I remember.

I remember the inventive strategies and methods you used to motivate and instruct the class. I probably still have a “Sturm Buck” somewhere around, with your daughter’s photo on it instead of Queen Elizabeth, which we were able to earn if we participated in class. We used to have to compile portfolios, which might be commonplace nowadays but was quite avant-garde in the 1980s. I worked really hard to develop items for that portfolio and reflect on what they signified. I can still recite part of the best poem I ever wrote (for your class), a response to Andrew Marvell’s poem “To His Coy Mistress”. Mine went like this …

Have we but world enough and time

Each man would give a dame this line …

[I forget the next few lines but it ends like this]

Words are wind, though you protest

Your vow can’t be put to the test

So woo away, I’ll stay as chaste

And worms can have what you would waste

I remember the little nuggets of wisdom about life and literature that you’d impart.

• Having a humorous scene in the middle of a tragedy is like eating lemon and chocolate ice cream together. The chocolate makes the lemon so much more tart; the lemon makes the chocolate sweeter.
• The sounds words make and the feeling they invoke when you say them are significant. That’s why you named your daughter Jessica Sturm – Ursula Sturm would be too heavy on the tongue and in the mouth.
• Writers must personalize large-scale tragedies. Saying six million people died during the Holocaust shows it is a horrible thing, but hearing about one family’s horrific treatment gives those hollow numbers more of an impact (and you’d tell the story of a pregnant woman bound and thrown into a cold puddle, going into labor and dying as the baby ripped her apart from the inside as her family watched helplessly and the guards at the concentration camp laughed).

 I remember that you were a witty speaker and had a way of lifting one eyebrow. I practiced until I, too, was able to raise a solitary eyebrow on command. You didn’t suffer fools lightly and had high standards and expectations. During our conference on my English Independent Study Project, you remarked, “Guilt, Jansenism and Fifth Business – what an appropriate topic for a good Catholic girl to study”.

I remember that you ran a Writers’ Club, which we called the Quisquiliae Society – quisquiliae being a Latin term that meant garbage. You encouraged us to carry a notebook around to write down ideas as they came to us. You even popped by the yearbook office when we held a surprise birthday party for the assistant editor, Kiran.

I remember what you wrote in my yearbook when I graduated – not the usual platitudes, but this: “Isn’t it wonderful to be unique – to be gifted with ability, compassion, wit, good humor and selfless generosity. It’s a gift and a burden. Be careful. People will be jealous of you and will come gunning for you just because that’s what they’re good at. Use every defensive tactic you ever learned in Phys Ed and use your blessings. You’ll have lots.”

Don’t tell the others, but you were my favourite high school teacher. I’m a teacher myself now. I’ll be entering my sixteenth year in the profession and I’m amused to see how much of an influence you’ve had on me. One of my favourite lessons uses currency with a teacher’s face on it for students to earn (not for participation in this case, but for collaboration while researching) – reminiscent of your Sturmies from long ago. My students tell me that I’m pretty funny and I still use that eyebrow lift to express surprise or disbelief. I run clubs too, and let my students take the lead, like you did long ago with the Writers’ Club. I believe in letting people know when they’ve done something wonderful and sir, when you taught me, you made magic. I appreciated it all and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Sincerely,

Diana Maliszewski

Furry Findings - Knowing What You Don't Know

Last Friday, Laura the "bunny whisperer" came to my house. Laura is a volunteer with Toronto Animal Services, South Division, and has a great deal of knowledge about rabbits. We invited her to come to our house to help us with our pet rabbit, Dolly. We had our previous bunny, Nibbles, from 2001-2009 and have not shared our house with a rabbit since then (Fudge the school rabbit being the only exception). All the bunny know-how we thought we possessed thanks to Nibbles and Fudge didn't seem to work with Dolly. Unlike the others, Dolly is often a grumpy bunny. She hates being picked up and I was at a loss on how to get her to the groomer's to have her nails trimmed. Laura kindly offered to come to my home to cut her nails and observe her in her natural habitat to offer some advice on how to "friendly her up".

Dolly, our independent little bun-bun!

Thankfully, Dolly's improved quite a bit from when I first emailed Laura asking for help to when we were able to coordinate schedules and get Laura to come. At first, we couldn't even put our hands in the cage to fill her food bowl; now, she lets us open the top and allows us to stroke and pet her. I credit my mother-in-law and her "treat therapy" during the three weeks she stayed with us in the summer for that success.

Laura was absolutely wonderful. She clipped Dolly's nails like a pro and gave lots of valuable tips. Through our conversation over the two hours she spent with us, I heard that Laura gets many emails from rabbit adopters asking questions. Dogs and cats have plenty of vets and experts that can help owners but there aren't that many small animal experts, be they either medical or behavioural. I don't know what I would have done if Laura had not consented to a home visit. Laura has a blog - http://friendlyfeathers.blogspot.com - and as we drove her home, we discussed the possibility of Laura creating some videos on YouTube to answer some of the most common questions she fields. We both got very excited about the possibilities.

Freedom, sweet freedom!

Now, there are many ways I can bring this blog post back to the topic of education ... how to handle creatures under your care (students / bunnies) that react differently than your usual expectations, the value of personal instruction, the ways technology can help teaching and learning ... but the big "aha" I wanted to reflect upon was about realizing what you don't know and need to know vs discovering what you didn't know you didn't know. Does that make sense? Let me give you some examples. I knew that I needed to learn (or access someone who already knew) how to clip bunny nails. My mom used to do it for me for Nibbles. I realized that I had no clue how to do this but that this was an important thing to know if I was to properly care for a pet bunny. I didn't know that there are significant differences in brands of bunny food and that I need to be choosy when it comes to Dolly's diet. I'm not sure why this didn't dawn on me previously - I knew that my beloved skinny pigs Max and Wilbur need their pellets to have Vitamin C added; I knew that our mischievous chinchillas are supposed to eat only the blandest type of pellets because "gourmet mixes" are bad for their digestive systems. I knew that when rabbits make a funny little twisting jump, they are "binkying" and are very happy. I didn't know that head-butting is a request for personal grooming, that rabbits don't like to be stroked under the chin but that if they rub their chins on people and things, they are marking them using scent glands, or that thumping back at rabbits to show displeasure is a controversial move within rabbit-raising circles.

Chita plays with my camera cord - no greens for her!

Max poses for a brief second - plenty of greens for him!

How do we (and I mean teachers AND students) discover what we don't know? I have a t-shirt my husband gave me long ago that quotes Socrates: "I know nothing except the fact of my own ignorance". If we don't realize we are ignorant of some/many things, we are in trouble. Realizing we don't know is a good first step. Becoming less ignorant is the next step. There are many other steps that follow that, and even though it may feel circular (my grade 12 English teacher used to say that some people got increasingly smarter about decidedly narrower topics until they were experts in something of no use), it's the great paradox of learning. I look forward to learning more about all sorts of things, and vow not to let my ignorance discourage me from seeking more information.

Extrinsic Rewards and Badges without Choice

Did you hear the cursing? I've begun to write my research paper on the impact of readers choice awards on student engagement and motivation. To prepare myself, I reviewed all the notes I took for my literature review. Here were some findings.

The findings of this study suggest that reading incentive programs are widely used and, as they are currently implemented in public school settings, may violate some of the most important principles of motivation theory and literacy engagement.

Fawson, P.C., and Moore, S.A. (1999). Reading incentive programs: beliefs and practices. Reading Psychology. 20 325-340. Retrieved from Taylor & Francis Group.

When adults share books that are personal favourites, it helps students identify with the idea of books as a part of life and not just a part of school, thereby demonstrating the richness and fulfillment that books can bring to their lives.

Whittingham, J. L and Huffman, S. (2009) The effects of book clubs on the reading attitudes of middle school students. Reading Improvement. 46(3) 130-136. Retrieved from ProQuest Education Journals.

Engaged readers have deep-seated motivational goals, which include being committed to the subject matter, wanting to learn the content, believing in one's own ability, and wanting to share understanding for learning.

Guthrie, J. T., Alao, S., and Rinehart, J.M. (1997) Engagement in reading for young adolescents. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. 40 (6) 438-446. Retrieved from ProQuest Education Journals.

 My point to these quotes above (and I had many others that were similar) is that well-read educators should know that extrinsic rewards are not as effective as intrinsic rewards and can actually be counterproductive. Why, then, do some educators, especially ones admired and lauded by others, insist on using the same old vehicle with just a new paint job?

Achievements in video games are cool - but they are only cool if players actually WANT them, as part of the whole game experience. My son is a big video game fan. As I recently wrote on my other public blog, these badges and trophies can be both wonderful and annoying. They can also be either an extrinsic reward or an intrinsic reward, based on how they are presented and by whom. If the player has finished the main storyline of the game and is interested personally in unlocking new content or playing further with the game, it can be intrinsically motivating. If my husband or I insisted that the boy get certain trophies in Lego Batman, Mario Kart, and Super Smash Brothers Brawl, and tied things like extra desserts to unlocking these achievements, then this would be an extrinsic motivational tool. Which one do you think my son would respond to best?

In recent weeks, I have become increasingly distressed by a blog that I follow (why do I follow this blog when it stresses me so?). The blog is about gamification and it treats the educators that participate with the same method they advocate for the students. It pushes badges and points to the extreme, even evaluating readers' comments and ranking them, with the "winner" getting a prize. I don't contribute to online discussions so I can "get loot". I don't want to have a conversation about James Paul Gee's book and have my post evaluated. Despite having a "kewl gam3r" format, these educational practices are definitely "old skool" and counter-productive. I don't want to be a part of professional development that involves a "Leader Board". I am a Tribes TLC (c) trainer and there are times when competition is good and healthy, but this is not the case here.

It's at this point that I hear Liam O'Donnell's voice echoing in my head: remember my post from a few weeks ago when I said that instead of debating those who are taking a misguided approach, I should show others a method that respects games, gamers, and education? Well, here's a chance to try games-based learning from an inquiry viewpoint: this is your invitation to attend the Gaming Educators Open House on Tuesday, August 21, 2012 from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. EST. If you want to learn more about our GamingEdus Minecraft server, check Liam's blog, Feeding Change, and see some awesome videos of the crazy things we've done in the really fun game, Minecraft. Contact Liam, Denise Colby, or me for details on how to join the Minecraft fun and play in the world that Technascribe, Praxismaxis, MissColby, Liragrim, Darkana, Phisagrim, Terragrim, and others inhabit.

GamingEdus Minecraft Open House: August 21, 2012 (7-9 pm)

The Process: Weeding, Beta-Reading & Writing

Today's post is all about the process it takes to complete a monumental task, or in this case, three tasks.

Although I know that much learning happens AS you work on a project, it can still be challenging. I think back to some other "products" I am proud of: my Masters of Education capping paper (2010) and my two children (2000 / 2002). I was very pleased with the end results, but getting there was NOT half the fun. I got through writing my M.Ed. paper with a great deal of cursing, crying, drinking and praying - not always in that particular order. My husband tells me that I was a very cute while pregnant (and I'll see if I can dig up a photo to prove it), but the nausea, food sensitivities, mood swings, and back aches weren't exactly thrilling. The end results were worth the agony and I'd do it all again in a heartbeat, but sometimes I wonder how I got through it. (I have this thought mid-way through report card writing, every single term.)

In my school library, I try to choose a particular section per year and weed it. This summer, my husband and I are trying hard to do major clean-jobs on certain areas of the house. We did our kids' rooms and today we tackled our book cases in the basement. As I am always quick to point out, he has six book cases and I only have two, but mine were lined three books deep with items spilling off the shelves when you walked past. It's just as hard to weed from your personal collection as it is from a school library, except that I have more options to consider. Will I keep this book here on the shelf? In a bin at the back of the basement? In a container in the garage? On the kids' shelves (which have also been weeded) or at school? What if I don't use it but it's an autographed copy? What if I don't use it but it has sentimental value? What if my pet chinchillas have nibbled it? (For some reason, Chita and Chilli really love attacking my Charlaine Harris books.) I'm not a big fan of cleaning or straightening up, but I'm happy with the job I've done on my shelves. Take a look! (I should've taken a "before" shot.)

I forget that other people have to go through "the process" as well, which is why I'm both honored and excited to be invited to be a Beta-Reader for author Liam O'Donnell's new novel. I'm used to seeing books in their full, ready-for-public-viewing (George Lucas to the contrary). Liam has been great and given his reading team some guidelines to consider when reading.  I'll be intrigued to see what pieces of my feedback (if any) are incorporated into the final book. We tell students all the time that it takes several drafts and rewrites for a text to be the best it can.

Liam isn't the only one writing. Every year, I compile an annual report and for the past few years, I've been a bit dissatisfied with the format. Carol Koechlin and just recently, Christy Den Haan-Veltman, have been helping me try to reconfigure my annual report so that it reflects a more Learning Commons approach. It's not easy. Carol has recommended using the Big Think during my collaborative units to deepen understanding and gather evidence of learning as it happens instead of trying to recollect at the end of the year; Christy read a great article (the link I've lost on Twitter - darn it!) and she suggested using an infographic or visual made from www.xtranormal.com or www.thinglink.com instead of statistics to demonstrate the impact of the school library program. Both are great pieces of advice - but part of what makes the process endurable is that the product will be appreciated. I know I should do it for me, because I cannot guarantee the response by my administration or senior board staff. I guess I need to tackle it when I'm in the mood to impress myself - because I like looking at my school year scrapbooks or things I've written and marveled at how I was able to do so much.

So, great insights on process? Nothing great but here's what I get after re-reading my own post:

• Give it time (although time is what can make the process excruciating)
• You aren't alone so try not to despair
• Look at the before and the after so you can see progress as it happens
• Consider your audience but do it for you
• Reflect as you go along, but don't let it cripple your action

Why Might You Read This Blog

The incomparable Doug Peterson @dougpete posted a thought-provoking article here on his blog called "Why You Should Read This Blog". He challenged his readers to tackle the same reflection process, and I always like a good challenge. However, mine is titled "Why MIGHT You Read This Blog" because I'm not that good at understanding what exactly draws people to read any of my blogs. (I currently maintain five blogs - this professional one, one on the video games and board games my family plays, a private one that's a family journal, and two that are run for my school students. I may add to that later with a Minecraft-focused one in collaboration with my fellow GamingEdus.) Sometimes I wonder why anyone would bother reading my thoughts and opinions, when there are so many other blogs out there with wittier and more insightful writers.

When I first began this blog on the Library Network Group, I found out that people liked it best when I talked about Twilight-related things. Who would've thought it? It was supposed to be focused on themes resonant with teacher-librarians, not my Twilight-obsessed ruminations! Now that Blogger makes analyzing your blog so much easier, I've noticed that my Ontario Library Association Super Conference reflections garnered the most hits out of the most recent posts. I know a lot more people read it than the subscription figures indicate. (I think I have 19 followers to this blog; in comparison, my Family Gaming blog has less followers, but more visitors.) So, this is my guess as to why you MIGHT want to read this blog.

• if you like to hear about conferences that you may or may not get to attend
• if you want to hear about successes AND failures from a real teacher-librarian
• if you are curious about me as a person (because you are my friend, or want to be my friend, or like spying on me to gather juicy blackmail material)
• if you like "mainstream" school library topics as well as "unique/unusual" school library topics

This isn't meant as self-promoting at all; regular readers of this blog will know I have moments of self-doubt and that I'm just as likely to reprimand myself as I am to praise - but I think that sharing both sorts of incidents makes me human, and we need to realize more often than we do that there are real human beings behind the words we read on our screens.  Why do you read this blog anyway?

Minecraft Memories from 2012

This past week was actually kind of busy. I spent two days at the Ontario Library Association to help add content to the Together For Learning website, www.togetherforlearning.ca and on the day this week that my children attend their comic design workshop at Little Island Comics, I had a meeting with amazing educators Denise Colby and Liam O'Donnell to discuss the TDSB Multi-School Minecraft Project.

We met at Snakes and Lattes, an incredible cafe where you can play any board game imaginable while you sip your beverage; it was a testament to how engrossing our conversation was that we never got around to playing any of the board games there! We discussed what worked with the TDSB Multi-School Minecraft Project, what didn't work, our next steps for September, and the future of GamingEdus. Our GamingEdus group will be presenting three times in the next twelve months (Academy of the Impossible = August 2012, Educational Computing Organization of Ontario = October 2012, Ontario Library Association = February 2013) and we'll need to plan for those presentations, but those talks don't stress me out - we've done the TLCafe and TeachersTeachingTeachers webinars together, as well as a Toronto Comic Arts Festival (although that was on comics, not Minecraft, but we definitely squeezed in some Minecraft references).

At one point in the conversation, Denise joked that she remembered griping in teachers' college about all the reflections they forced us to complete; "when will I ever do that when I'm really teaching?" We all laughed at that. This group reflection time was so beneficial to all of us. I know I learned quite a bit as we reminisced and recounted some of the events from this year's club experiment. Here were some of my personal "ahas" during our Minecraft Meeting.

1) Collecting / documenting evidence can be both easy and tricky.

We have a variety of artifacts to demonstrate the authentic learning and the benefits. The students wrote on the wiki, http://minecraftclubhub.pbworks.com. Each educator kept their own journal (I kept two - one on the Minecraft Club Hub and one on the GamingEducators wiki). We took screen shots and photos and made audio and video recordings of the conversations that went on during club get-togethers. Considering that we only really got started playing in March, we have quite a bit of data. The challenging part is how and where to share. Liam, Denise, and I have tried to be as transparent as possible but sometimes there are some anecdotal records that might reveal too much about the students behind the avatars - how do we share that kind of information?  Do we need to code our evidence, to show that sample X demonstrates an increase in literacy skills / numeracy skills / social skills? Is the type of evidence we have collected persuasive, or do we need more quantitative information?

2) Sometimes, disasters are good. 

We had some great moments of inter-school collaboration, like when we all teamed up to defeat a horde of ghasts someone had spawned, or when two individuals from separate schools played with red stone switches together. However, we also had moments of conflict, like when one student asked to share their house with someone from another school and when they agreed, the newcomer hit the home-owner (in-game) and took some of their stuff. Trying to take a group photo of all the players on the last day of the club was another challenging endeavor. These moments of strife were actually just as educational, if not more so. I can't share more details about the first situation, but it led to some good conversations with students at both schools. I learned about myself that I tend to step in immediately (sometimes too soon) to "fix" the problem but there are many reasons for actions and many solutions to problems.We could use our moderator powers to restrict what gets built where and what gets destroyed by whom, but (and thanks Denise for writing this down as a "Diana quote"), although that would be the easy way out, "it's not the learning way out".

3) Never underestimate the impact Minecraft has on players.

I knew the students enjoyed Minecraft Club, but I don't think I realized how important it was to them.
One of my students wrote for his grad comment in the yearbook ""Appreciation to Ms. Mali for starting Minecraft Club - it was fun and helped me develop my teamwork.". Students have written on the wiki that Monday was their favourite day of the week because that's when Minecraft Club was held at their school. A group of students came to see me in June to beg that they be allowed to continue in the Minecraft Club next year and offered me money so they could buy their Minecraft account. Another group made their own server and invited me to visit - a huge privilege, in my books. These are students that I wouldn't normally get to converse with on a level like this. They've taught me so much and they know so much; it's a shame that traditional schooling does not honour this sort of knowledge and skill set.

4) Rather than fight the people who are "doing it wrong", show the route we are taking.

This is a tough lesson for me. Many people are interested in games in education, but to learn more, they are turning to people and groups who are more into gamification (the "Frankensteining" of certain elements of games like badges, levels, and rewards, and applying them to lessons or units, which demeans both games and education). I've tried to dialogue with some of these people in a respectful way, but I either get ignored or indirectly criticized. (Trust me, it's hard not to name some of the culprits here, but I don't want to start a flame war!) Liam suggested Tweet Deck to sort my contacts and lower my blood pressure, and he recommended that my time and energy would be better spent demonstrating how allowing students to take the lead in determining what to do in-game and how to play, rather than micro-managing their activities, provides greater learning opportunities. We'll be having a GamingEdu open house in August so educators can have a chance to play themselves (a key foundation of the Gaming Edu philosophy), so stay tuned.

Thanks again to Liam and Denise - this is a true Professional Learning Community, one that I'm proud to be a part of. I'll play with posting reflections here as well as on Gaming Edus, Minecraft Club Hub, and Family Gaming XP (but I don't want you to get Minecrafted out!).

Yes, I own a Minecraft creeper head. So?