Another Great Day in Classrooms, But What About the TEST? #dlday#3

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Today my car turned north, almost on its own as we headed out with my bags of 21 century equipment to spend time in Highland Falls Intermediate classrooms.

Just a dusting of snow and drizzle on the way but the 30 minute ride with a glimpse of the Bear Mountain Bridge on my right side that features the Hudson River from another vantage point, reminds me that Spring will force me to stop to grab new shots on my way to this district.

But I was running late and so I dangerously raced through the town’s 30 MPH speed limit. Safe again!

I had my list of classes: Special Ed with Cecilia, 6th grade with Lucas, 8th grade Social Studies with Jen…and planning stops along the way.

Since the very end of November, this challenging project of professional develop has become comfortable. THe rooms along this hallway on the second floor are filled with familiar faces. Most teachers are welcoming and there are wonderful things happening with their students. Will they receive accolades as a result of higher test scores this year? Probably not! Clearly the assessment tool needs to be revamped in a positive way but will it be?

What I see behind the lens of my camera takes my breath away. Most teachers (grades 3-8) have opened their doors to me, with pleasure and with some, the planning conversations are ongoing. Everyone is charged with a project that focuses on CCSS Anchor Writing Standard 1 and 8. My challenge is to support argumentative writing that moves beyond traditional nonfiction print resources and could include a digital project beyond the written piece.

In March( fingers crossed) all teachers will meet together with Hudson Valley Writing Project leaders and TCs to use protocols as they examine and reflect on student work and the digital pieces. FINGERS CROSSED!
There are many pressures playing on school administrators to prepare teachers for new accountability instruments and we may be upstaged.

I can’t say for sure that February 1st will be the official Digital Learning Day but I saw a lot of Digital Learning going on today.

Cecilia shared her student blogging comments with the whole class. Lucas had his students writing Haikus to images of their Hudson Valley area.

Jen has kids creating PSA’s on critical social issues. This is as new for her as it is for her students.

And there was more…

I left exhausted, but like my visit to Dover just a day ago, I left breathless and grateful to be a part of something exciting!

A Day At Dover: DLDay#2

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Today I was back at the Dover School District to work with the IC2 8th grade teacher team led by Jack Zangerle and Matt Pool and then head over to the high school wing to join HVWP TC Ann Murray and her class of 15 tech boys! Funny, that I never expect the experience will be as wonderful as it always turns out to be and again, this day took my breath away.

I arrived comfortably on time even with a slow start on the Tappan Zee Bridge and with Jack’s students’ engaged with their writing, I had time to do a first read of his Gates Unit: a unit that he will use with the IC that will include the creation of PSAs that will include reading and writing strategies, so much of the work inspired by our work with IC I last year, and his Hudson Valley Writing Project experiences and ultimately, the National Writing Project. Of course his Dover collaborator, Matt, on the other side of the wall, is his day-to-day team and I’m honored to be welcomed in both classrooms.

Our teacher team was small today but mighty. Last time I shared a writing project workshop with them focused on using the strategy of found poetry to make sense of non-fiction texts. The group worked through the workshop and took the techniques to their IC groups earlier this morning. It didn’t work perfectly and together we talked through the issues. No one was willing to toss it away.

Jack took the student tech team today to feel me up to work with Ann’s tech class. It was hard to leave this very scrappy group of 8th grade techies who are preparing to present their work to their IC groups next time. They have early pieces of 5 photo stories inspired by Wesley Fryer on Flickr. It was a great way to create something and then talk about it with the group. Their second piece, still with just images focused more specifically on their IC group topics. Last year we allowed the kids to stay unfocused for too long. This year assignments have anchored them.

I wanted to stay but we all race with the clock and off I went to find Ann in the high school wing. Finally!
A group of boys- 15 high school boys. Lots of testosterone!

Ann is teaching this tech class for the first time and while she is very comfortable with technology, she was hoping for support and with a bit of moving periods around, she was very pleased to have me join her today and I was very happy to be there. Teaching a group of high school boys, what a pleasure!

She prepared them. They would be writing. She had pens and paper and enough connection with them that they were open to the experience. I dipped into my work with Kevin Hodgson and had them writing H is for… etc…

Now their course has been moving in an opposite direction. They have been working with video and I moved them back a bit…I left them with three loops of writing. They have story starts and Ann is challenged to keep them going. Of course Ann and I are FB buds and the conversations will continue, probably some Skpying into her classroom as well.

I returned to Jack’s room and watched him work with his students. His students working together is small clusters with their small laptops engaging in interesting conversations. Good thing my camera batteries were charged. I caught some of his students and then raced with Matt to grab something from his work.

Collaboration!

I left Dover on a cloud!

Digital Learning Day Is On Its Way and Where Will I Be?

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Greetings Everyone,

So far I haven’t jumped into the this upcoming NWP event even though I’ve been getting wonderful invitations from Christine and Kate and I’ve been lurking in the twitter world, reading #DLDay tweets and some wonderful posts shared by Jack Zangerle on the Digital Is site..

So finally, on this foggy Monday, it feels like it right time for me to join in the fun.

Even though I don’t have my very own group of kids to get digital with, I have great invitations from teachers in two of our HVWP school districts.

Off to Jack and Dover tomorrow… and next week I will be playing in the Highland Falls Digital World.

More details to come…

Mom’s Back Home

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It’s been a tough week for my mom and family.  It’ s just not easy to be 93 with complications.  There hasn’t been much hospital time in her  adult life but the older you get, the harder it is to avoid and we all held our breath for that week away that she would come back home with herself intact.  It seems that even though she needs a lot of sleep she is happy to be home with her dog and her husband. But her home has changed.

The rest of us have used this golden opportunity for a gentle intervention to renovate our family home to make it more user friendly for both of our parents.  My dad has been on board with chair lifts, furniture changes, tubs transformed into showers, but it’s breaking our hearts to what my dad fume over an invasion by helpers.  We have a staff of cleaning people a nurses now welcomed in to clean daily, take over the washing and drying of clothes, making meals and my dad is furious.

  I am resolved to honor my dad and respect his frustrations. Of course it’s easy for me.  I don’t live across the street.  I can make my daily calls and offer support and some humor and then hang up.  I can visit once or twice a week but it’s my brother and sister-in-law with the daily routines that are constantly broken.  Dad, I’m thinking about you and about me.

I’m Living in a Nightmare but Reading Fantasy: SOLT

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I’m reading Finnish Lessons and saving my pennies for a trip to the fantasy world of Pasi Sahlberg, its author.

Today Andrew Cuomo, running for President in 4 years, as he raises his voice when he speaks about holding “bad” teachers to the fire.

Seems like I’ve been writing and thinking about this dichotomy for months now, maybe longer and we just seem to be moving farther and farther away from supporting the good and great teachers.

Am I wrong?

Just last week, as I was making my way from classroom to classroom at HF I stopped for a conversation with a fantastic Special Ed teacher who loves her students and stands tall, a giant of a teacher. She is excited that her students in a self-contained classroom, are getting very excited about the project we have been working on. Excited that her students want to know more about Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks and Ghandi…

And how will that be measured?

Her students are excused from the high stakes tests, BUT SHE’s NOT! Whether they take the test or not they will be scored with a 1. She will be scored with their 1.

And how will the community judge her?

And I crazy or what?

Puzzle Progress:SOLT

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Morning Slicers,
I spent most of yesterday, sitting at my dinning room working on the tough sections of the piece: the blacks and grays.
I needed all my patience and focus to move around the table working from difference perspectives and working on it both out of the frame and then back inside. It was easy to multi-task and I got to catch up on my taped interviews on Charlie Rose, just listening to.

Sure, as I worked on a puzzle that I will probably tear up when I finish it, I did feel guilty about what I wasn’t doing so I did get up and play guitar and exercise and work on another draft of my Spielberg digital piece, but the day began and ended here and I realized that this piece could be included in my new digital composition…What does romance/love look like?

So it’s a slow start to this new day, but it was worth it.

BTW, I’m hoping you join me for a community piece on romance/love into the new year.

Bonnie

Reading Ken Robinson’s “The Element”: Yearning to be in the Zone

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I am reading his book The Element, now and as much as I love it, it’s a tough one to read given the present reality of testing in schools, that’s testing with a VENGEANCE.
His simple premise, very few of us are passionate about the work we do and schools have not helped this. They are not places to explore our passions and find outlets for our creativity.
There are many stories to support this, and story after story makes me sadder and sadder… but something great happened yesterday as I was reading at the gym… sweating on the treadmill longer than I had to just to finish and consider his description of being in the ZONE…where I wasn’t but wanted to be..

I’ve been working for the last few months on a digital piece but not really engaged in it. I want to be but something has been holding me back…but the piece hangs on in the back of my head, torturing me, making me feel guilty when I procrastinate over a round of Bookworm on my iPad or iPhone… But after reading that chapter yesterday, Robinson describes the rich focus and concentration and excitement when you are creating in your zone. I want to be back in there and so last night after more thinking during the latest Mission Impossible, I opened my computer and wrote into my latest revision and I didn’t allow myself to shut down until I had something to share with Tuvia…

YES! So it’s Sunday morning and I could be reading more Robinson or I could be working on my digital piece or I could be watching Meet the Press… all great options…

Happy Holidays.

Dover First and then Family Chanukah: 12-23-2011

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What a perfect blending of a day!

First, no snow so travel was without reservation.  Yes it was a bit gray outside and so it was hard to smile especially with the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack  creating an atmosphere of melancholy…

But the road was free for me and I arrived at Dover after two weeks  away to meet with our teacher team and student tech team. It was good to begin in Jack’s warm classroom as students worked on their revisions and shared a few. What a comfortable atmosphere for growing.

And then time with a smaller  number of teachers than we had originally planned, we scrapped our original plan  and moved to work on the calendar, planning student projects.  Seems like this version of the IC is back lean and mean and off to an amazing start even if it is beginning in the middle of the school year.

Then the kids arrived, all 10 and on time and we had their work ready to look at.  They began with some writing about process with some complaints…some kids came without paper and soon they were all writing about their process, but this is a challenge… They are not used to writing about process. More modeling on our part.

They we watched their 5 story pieces.  The creator moved the images and a member of the team narrated what he saw.  It was a challenge to keep them focused and because Jack and I are also new to this approach to the start of storytelling our cues were not as precise as they could have been.  Most pieces were demonstrations… step-by-steps… but a few created a story. Mine, hmmm.. I wasn’t so satisfied with it… I need to revise. Make it clearer.

And the kids are challenge to write text for their next story of 5 frames with text that is not describing the image… I think we might show my dad piece.

What a great challenge! Jack and I work well together and we kept them positive.  Jack took on a strong piece to model for the kids when we meant.  Not easy for him either.

On my way out I stopped to meet with Ann, who is taking on the high school tech course and she has great new toys to play with and a wonderful film lover who does do amazing work.  I saw a short piece. Wonderful!

And then I was back in my car and off to Ellenville for family time.  It was still gray outside but the trip was very familiar and easy.  And I arrived earlier than expected.

But soon the wheels of preparation were in motion.  I spent time with my parents, snoozing along with my mom and then off to the larger event.

These family events are usually better than I expect and this one fit that model.  Everyone was on best behavior and it was glorious for Chanukah, Day 3.

And then one last ride home, back to Tuvia at the end of the evening.  Unplanned…spontaneous… and welcomed.. and now…

What movie to we see first?