Thinking about visuals

Low tech day today but full of visuals.

I started the day with asking teachers to select a black and white postcard from my vast collection to help with the following analogy:

"The word assessment makes me feel like (black and white photo) because....."

As luck would have it, one of the teachers was an art teacher who was teaching photography to her students and had just finished their unit on black and white photos!! I wanted to stop the workshop right then and there to tap her brain to help me take better photos but I resisted!

At the mid-way point of the day, I asked teachers to do a reflection of their learning and at this point had given them color coded shapes that corresponded to reflection prompts:

Square = This idea is square with me, it get it
Triangle = Some important points to remember
Circle = These ideas as circling in my head, I have questions about...
Cloud = Some things I am thinking about related to this are...

The teachers needed to do at least two shapes for me before they left for lunch. What was great for me about using the shapes (instead of my handout with the shapes on it) is that I had a really quick and easy visual of where the group was in terms of their learning. In this case, most of them had a square and the questions easily stood out and I could address them when we came back from the break. Since the topic was formative assessment, reflection on how I used that exercise as an assessment went to the "quick and easy" which was something the teachers wanted to do more of in their classrooms. We had a great conversation about color coding and use of visuals to help with that.

What was very interesting was that as we got to the end of the day and the planning for implementation phase, many of the teachers were thinking of ways to incorporate visuals into their planning. Whether it was a visual prompt as a reflection tool or summarizing learning using visuals or having the kids take their own pictures, we certainly had the right sides of our brains working. Even better, the collaboration with the art teacher was very high and I see some real connections happening with that group.

I did have the chance to sneak in a Flickr and Picasa reference or two but didn't want the technology to start to overshadow what was happening in the room. Thinking about how I could use the technology next time to model it as well so I have added a page to the wiki to start to capture those thoughts. If you have any others, let me know so that I can add them!!

Change:A Visual Summary

As I was sitting reflecting on the past two days and how much I have learned, a notification comes across my TweetDeck (a new toy) and I find that Liz B. Davis has posted a new idea:

What if a teacher asked her students to find an image each week representing their learning. Fridays the class could go through each of the images and students could share why they chose them. Students could use Flickr to find their images where pictures are tagged with words like "citizenship" and "courage."

Liz goes on to make even more connections to what the lesson could look like including tagging, copyright, and creative commons. Since it connected so closely to what we had been thinking about, I immediately went to Flickr to do a search. I knew without a doubt what my search word was: change.

Immediately, I was gifted with the ideal picture in one of the very first images. Normally, I would have snagged that picture and posted it right away, right here for you all to see. But then I remembered asking Sara about how to cite those pictures that I love to use. I clicked on the picture and low and behold - all rights reserved. I could use that picture but first I would need to ask permission. And that certainly wouldn't be timely for this blog post.

I half-heartedly dug around Flickr for other things that were tagged with "change" but nothing struck me as much as that first image. And then I remembered that I have a camera and while I am not as gifted as the photographer of that image - I have set a goal to exercise and flex that other side of my brain every once in a while. Here it is:



I posted the other shots on Flickr with the tag "change" and "pluggedin" if you would like to see them - I clearly need to work a bit on lighting!! I was going to add why I selected this particular view of my change jar but then I thought it might just be better open to interpretation. Feel free to tell me what you think in the comments section!

Where to begin?

A small but very knowledgable group of educators gathered in a room for two days to discuss, debate, learn about "new literacies" and develop a plan to implement them back in their districts.

A scene from a science fiction novel? An administrator's dream? An administrator's nightmare? Nope - reality right here in Western New York.

In planning what this year-long work would look like with Sara Kajder (our literacy/technology anchor) my vision was to have many, many more people in the room who were ready to take the leap into bridging student technology literacies into their classrooms. Alas - issues with substitutes and budgets didn't allow that to happen. However, the group that was here was thoughtful and committed.

We talked about why bringing the literacy of our students into our classrooms in order to enhance the "traditional" literacies. One of the most important pieces that I was able to walk away with is Sara's notion of starting with with ME (what can I integrate into my life to make it more efficient/more meaningful/more connected) then move it to the WE (communicate/use what I have learned in an intimate and safe community) and then finally to the SEE (launching it out to the world and making it public).

As we move forward with this year - the goal is to focus on making one small change based upon a "problem" that we have in our practice. (Technically, action research.) We will have five months to work on making that change, noticing what we did that worked, reflecting on what did not and just taking that small step forward to plug in and create one small pocket of change.

This blog will be my place to wrestle with making that change and pushing myself to things differently, rather than spinning my wheels and complaining. I've created a companion wiki (Lifelong Kindergarten) to act as my sandbox and to point readers to in order to highlight the work of the teachers that I can get to join me on this journey. Unlike Writing Frameworks (which focuses on writing) and Grand Rounds (in which I wrestle with professional development and educational issues along with a colleague), this blog will be my "beta." The place where I test out thoughts about making changes is smart and purposeful ways or share my experiences with different technology tools.

If you are game - follow along, push against my thinking in the comments or tune in once and a while while I try to change my pocket of the world.