Blogger in the Classroom

(I really wish that Katy ISD would let students use Blogger in the classroom---hint hint)

 I have had a blog for quite some time. It is useful to be able to direct students to a blog post to be able to direct them to any data, videos, or media you would like them to view. It is also useful for posting daily assignments if you are not using a LMS. I used to do this quite a bit in the last district I worked. Here is an example of a screen shot showing directions of how to sign up to use Poster My Wall, a website I often use for digital poster creation.

How a 7th grade girl takes a 1 1/2 hour final exam

Greetings! As many of you know, this is my first year to teach middle school, therefore, my first experience with middle school final exams. Middle School is a different life altogether, made up of strange and wonderful 12, 13, and 14 year olds. The male version coats itself in Axe, runs around and punches people, and makes farting noises repeatedly. This I understand since I raised two of these. It's the girls I don't quite get yet. Excerpts from real, final exam taking experiences from the past two days: 8:30--Enter classroom. Hug all other girls in class since they are your "BFF's". Hug teacher and say "I love this class". Sigh loudly and ask when this class period will be over. Pick up copy of final exam. 8:35--Sigh loudly and dramatically whine "This is too hard." "I can't do this". "This is stupid". Mention that you think the teacher's sweater is cute. Mention that you think the teacher's hair is ugly. Ask what time we get out of this class. 8:45--Do not work on final opting to Google One Direction. Sigh loudly when told to work on final. In a dramatic voice state "You are so mean to me". When told by the teacher that you will be moved to another chair state that it is against the law and you will call an attorney (no really--I had that happen this morning). 9:00--Braid your hair. Unbraid your hair. Braid it again. Poke the neighbor next to you and ask if she thinks your hair is cute. Google hairstyles. Sigh repeatedly when told to work on final exam. Tell teacher to "Chill because we have PLENTY of time to finish the final". 9:05--Put on lip gloss, attempt to paint nails and accuse teacher of being mean when she takes the nail polish away (nope--had that one happen this morning too). Repeatedly ask to see the counselor due to emotional trauma of having your nail polish taken away. When request is denied, loudly exclaim "You are so mean". 9:15--Begin working on final. Complain that you don't possibly have enough time to do all this. Whine that you are hungry. Ask to use the restroom. Ask when this class is over. Mention that this is your least favorite class. Stamp foot on ground in frustration when the teacher won't "Help" you on the final. Put head down on desk. 9:30--Really work on the final. Race through questions, calling the answers out and asking "does anyone know number 10?" Ask how many minutes we have left. Ask if you can use the restroom. Ask what you want for Christmas. Sharpen pencil. After being reminded that the final is on the computer and doesn't require a pencil say dramatically "I KNOW" and roll your eyes. 9:45--15 minute warning is given. Everyone is finished but you. Loudly complain that the teacher is unfair. Stamp feet. 10:00--Bell rings. When told by teacher that you are not leaving until you submit your work, cry. 10:05--Final submitted. On way out door, draw a smiley face on the board. Middle School is so fun.....

Weird Kids

For a long time I have wanted to write a blog post about weird kids. Growing up, I was a weird kid. My family moved around a lot and I was always kind of an outlier. I look back and realize I was Sue Heck (for those of you that watch The Middle). Always optimistic, but just goofy. Also, my place to hang out in high school was the Science Resource Center. No, really.

So last year at school I met, sort of, Weird Girl. We all know Weird Girl; every school has one. My particular Weird Girl spent the early morning before school started walking around the halls not really talking or interacting with anyone. I always saw her and said hello, but she never said hello back. Sometimes she almost smiled, though. I kind of worried about Weird Girl not having any friends so I always made it a point to LOOK for her everyday and by the end of the year she was actually making eye contact. this year, I didn't see her the first few weeks--then I realized why. Weird Girl has friends! She found her place in the vastness of our 3000 student high school. Today, I saw her walking home with 3 other people, talking, laughing--it was awesome to see.

Weird Girl was replaced this year by Weird Boy. Weird Boy spends his early mornings sitting on the end of a bench outside my hallway reading a book by himself. One day I stopped and asked Weird Boy what he was reading and he almost jumped out of his skin. Guess no one had asked him that before. Last week I began to notice--Weird Boy is sharing his bench with others, who all sit and silently read books. They have found a home and each other. They have found their place.

We are all looking for our "place" in the world. Maybe it is just a bench of like minded people, but it is a "place". Help somebody find their "place". Maybe you'll make friend in the process! But please, public schools, KEEP those programs that ALLOW all us to find our true place. Fine Arts, Career Prep, and Computer classes are always on the chopping block. If not for them, I wouldn't have found my "place" :)

Module 5-Choices and Creation

I admit I read this one and felt the brain juices begin to flow. I am excited about creating CHOICES for students, especially in projects. What interests one student does not interest another. I tried to keep this in mind when I wrote my capstone project for Digital Media last year. See an example at http://dimm1.wikispaces.com Of course, with this project I was trying to assess ALL of the different softwares I had taught last year, so it was easy to find something for everyone. But looking back at it, I see that I really didn't give them a lot of creative license in how they completed the project. In fact, I was pretty darn specific, down to the order that everything needed to be in. So I am now working at retooling that one for this year. Sigh. I am a control freak and a rules follower. Choices will not be easy.

I think the main issue with giving choices on how students demonstrate the skills we are assessing (that is the point-right?) just boils down to plain old TIME. Okay, time is a valuable commodity that seems to be scarce in my life right now. It is so much easier to give ONE choice because that means there is ONE right way to do it! Maybe. But not right. And certainly not right for every student. Also, there is a certain amount of pressure towards "standarization" of, well EVERYTHING rather than differentiation. I admit I am blessed that I do not teach a core subject and am therefore allowed a few more liberties than my English and Math teaching peers.

I have just struggled through two days of Power Point presentations with a group of 11th and 12th graders. I say "struggled" becaue they all know the mechanics behind a Power Point presentation at this point, but few of them actually give GOOD presentations. Why? Do we give them TOO MUCH guidance--or not enough? I agree that a teacher must allow students the ability to express themselves by giving them choices so that all types of learners will benefit--but that seems to often backfire as the students I teach are not USED to having to think on their own. It is so frustrating to have students scared or unwilling to exhbit any sort of creativity because they have LEARNED that that is not what is expected in our overly standardized environment.

So the grand experiment will be...a project giving CHOICES of how it is completed to my Global Business class at the end of this chapter on..Worldwide Political Systems :) Still under constructiion-I will report back with an update and let you know how it goes!

Module 4-Receive, Read, Respond

This week's topic focused on Contribution and Collaboration in group projects, shortened to "Receive, Read, and Respond". It is important for our students participating in global projects to understand this. I have had many students in my five experiences with FCP's disappointed because they felt they were the "only ones" doing any work. Don't we, as teachers, become upset when we feel that no one is responding to us in the classroom? Receiving and Reading is not enough. The response is critical to the collaboration process.

Many times the fault lies with the student. There is always that "overachiever" student who goes in, does a lot of initial work, but doesn't feel the need to accept any criticism or do any actual collaboration. These are the students used to "doing all the work themselves" through learned experiences with group projects in the past. These are also usually the students highly concerned about their grade on the project over all else. These are the students who, when they discover that someone has come and editted their work and made changes, will come complain to their teacher that "someone has gone in and completely ruined the project". Also-there is the reverse. This is the student, through learned experiences with group projects, who sits back and LETS everyone else do all the work. These are the ones who don't respond, since they fell like their opinions won't ultimately matter or someone else will just pick up the slack.

Sometimes the fault lies with the teacher. Sorry guys, I will pick on you. There is always a teacher or two in the project who just doesn't "get" the project. They are more focused on the research and knowledge aspect of the project than on learning collaboration and Web 2.o skills. These are the teachers who will encourage their students NOT to collaborate, because they are convinced the REST of the teachers don't "get" that this is a research project and the collaboration come second to the topic learning. Also-we have the teachers who are 3-4 weeks behind everyone else and are then upset when they feel work has gone on without their classes. this is where shared calendars and timelines become very, very important.

I will share a couple of interesting stories that have happened while my classes have been working on wiki collaboration projects. Last year, when I asked for reflections after a Flat Classroom project had been completed, I had several students mention that they were very surprised at the motivation level of some of their peers at other schools. "Ms. Clayton-these kids actually CARED about doing a good job and learning something" one said. The attitude rubbed off on some of my students; unfortunately, some of my students still thought these "other kids" were a little crazy. Note that I did this project in a classroom of kid who were mostly low level learners from who little had been expected before. Hmm. There is a lesson there.

The second also happened in the same classroom with a girl who found out that another student she was working with, who was now living in the Middle East, had spent some time living in Houston. They discussed The Galleria, a high end shopping mall, that the student living in the Middle East dearly missed. These two students decided to collaborate with each other on the end of project video by providing outsourcing clips of each other at a shopping mall in their respective cities. Because they had bonded, they collaborated without anyone pushing them!

Challenges this week were to participate in a group wiki project, and to also assess. I have each class I teach work on wikis form the beginning so that when we do collaboration projects, they are already very familiar with the process.

Here is my very first effort http://whswega.wikispaces.com which was a wiki dictionary of vocabulary needed for the Digiteen project. Here is an example of a class wiki for one of my "Rock Band" capstone projects for Digital Media last year http://dimm1.wikispaces.com . Here is one currrently in process for my Global Business Class http://whsglobalbiz.wikispaces.com I have come a long way with these! Students seem to have no problem grasping the concept of a wiki and why we use them. However, I did have a current student, when asked to add new content to her wiki this week, ask if she was supposed to erase all of the old work. No, I explained, we add to it all year and then we have one BIG project at the end. You mean-she asked-can I go back and change stuff I didn't understand at first but now I do? YES! Smiles.

As for assessing--boy, this has been a tough one for me. I HATE assessing wikis. The rubrics have helped. But here is till the "if you tell them they must write 250 word they will write 249 words" issue--it almost represents a paradigm shift in grading that unfortunately the rest of my colleagues have not yet caught up with and kids don't quite buy into. any ideas would be great!

The Family Tree Assignment

Sometimes the best assignments are created by accident. Global Business is a new class for me this year. We were studying a chaper on culture, and how our nuclear and extended family shapes the values and beliefs that are then extended into the business environment. Kind of as a "what should we do today" assignment I asked all my students to create family trees going back to their grandparents. I asked them to include education and occupations of their relatives, and also asked them to write a paragraph sharing a "story" that had been passed down in their family.

Several of my students didn't seem to know how to begin. A few came up and talked to me in private. "Ms. Clayton-I don't know my father" one began. Another shared "I haven't had any contact with my mother since I was 2-can I put my stepmother?" I calmed some nerves, and told them to include as much as they knew, and told them the point wasn't to make anyone uncomfortable--it was to show there was no "typical family" unit. I also gave them the weekend to go home and ask their family questions.

The real surprise came when it was time to present the projects to the class. I shared mine first. I mentioned I had an aunt that had been married 7 times and all of her children had different fathers. I saw several heads nod. They understood this.

A girl I was call "A" stood up to begin. "This is my Uncle Buttface. No one knows his real name. Everyone calls him Uncle Buttface. This is my aunt. She is a prostitute and on drugs. This is my other uncle. My dad said to write his occupation down as "mooch". Trust me--this girl was not trying to be funny. This was her real family. She closed with "there are some people in my family I am not proud of. But they are still my family and I want to talk about them."

It was awesome she went first. Hands waved in the air to talk. Even my shyest students spoke. Here are some priceless excerpts:

"I never knew until this project that my grandfather wrote poetry. He wrote me a poem when I was a baby before he died. My mother found it and gave it to me. It made me cry"--JT

"My parents met when they both worked at Old San Francisco Steakhouse as waiters. A cool thing about my family is three of my aunts were the girls that rode on the swing and rang the bells. My whole family was sad when they tore it down and built a Target"--ES

"I don't know who my dad is--I have never met him. That makes me sad but when I told my mom I wanted to know his name for this project she told it to me. That is the first time I heard his first name is the same as mine. It makes me feel I know him even though I don't."--HA

"I am from China and my parents were only allowed to have one child-me. Some relatives told my parents to give me away because I was a girl but they didn't-I am so happy they liked girls as well as boys"--XW

" None of the people on my mothers side of the family have gone to college. There is a lot of pressure on me because of that. I hope I will make my family proud."--DN

"My grandfather was a train engineer. He died 10 years ago. Now, when anyone in the family sees a train they honk their car horn to remember my grandfather"--MG

How priceless, and what a wonderful experience for both my students and their families. Talk to your children. Share your family stories, even if they aren't pretty. It is what makes us all unique.

Module 3

So my homework this week is to reflect on Digital Citizenship. For this one I want to share my personal expereince in working with 9th graders (age 14) in a Digiteen project several years ago. I will quote them "Why are we even learning this? It is all common sense." Hence, the difference between a digital citizen, or one who has grown up with access to technology, and a digital immigrant, or a person my age who has "immigrated" to the world of the internet. Or how about my mother in law, age 80, who still believes EVERY e-mail she gets from Nigeria is legitimate. I don't think she is even an immigrant yet.

I see 2 year olds playing with I-Pads in restaurants now and some of the fasting growing software programs are targeted to preschoolers! However, the same group of kids that claimed "this is all common sense" fell for the "Dihydrogen Monoxide" website scam page and even clicked to order t-shirts and send money! I use this assignment to prove to kids that not everything you read on the internet is true and you have to KNOW who you are talking to.

While I was involved in the Digiteen project, our school had a Facebook "scare" where a student posted a message on somone elses FB page that a bomb was going to be set off. The school took this very seriously, especially since it had been posted from--get this--a computer teacher's class through a proxy (we don't have access to FB in our school district--but every kids knows how to access it anyway). Parents were very concerned and we had the FBI at our school for two days investigating. That SAME WEEK a student in my class who was involved in the Digiteen project found another classmates Ning page open and typed "Sebastian is a homo" on that student's Ning page. It made me angry, but it was a teachable moment. Our so called digital citizens, tech savvy students, still don't always behave in a responsible manner.

Our district has mandatory "internet security" training for each student, but it involves our principal reading a script over the announcements and having them take home a handout about internet security. This is a start, but not enough. We must teach responsible digital citizenship from very young.

I resolve to: continue to teach responsible digital citizenship, even when my high school students who "know everything" claim it is "all common sense" :)

Module 2-Communication

The task this week was to discover communciation, and how we can effectively use communication as a learning tool.

Boy are high schoolers good at communicating--just not neccessarily at appropriate times or in the manner that you are trying to get them to communicate! It got me thinking about whether I am using communication effectively myself.

I use Facebook, Twitter, Google groups, a blog, wikis, e-mail, and texting to communicate in writing already. I also now have an RSS reader which is helping to filter "spam" communication.

I have incorporated wikis in every class I teach--see an example of my wiki for Global Business at http://whsglobalbiz.wikispaces.com . I have found that students are much more engaged in group projects when they can be completed using a wiki and there is less instance of that kid that just sits and doesn't participate when they know I can "check" to see what contnet has been editted.

I admit that I am still a big believer in synchronous communication and I am that teacher who will walk down the hall to talk face to face to a colleague rather than send an e-mail. However, I hat the telephone. I have never been ver comfortable using the telephone--not sure why. So asynchronous communication methods such as e-mail are a lifesaver for me! We are beginning to teach more and more asynchronously--podcasts are big. Will classroom teachers be replaced by 24/7 "lectures on demand"? There are those that say yes. I say we will still need to have some method of synchronous communication.

So today in Global Business I practiced. I had students communicate with me via an asynchronous method--send me an e-mail for a warm-up (yes, I sometimes do this even though they are sitting in the same room with me). Then we had a face to face discussion about the same question. I found the face to face discussion generated more legitimate responses than the warm-up e-mail (several IDK's, this is stupid, etc.). I think students feel like no one is really "listening" if they respond in an asynchronous world. Hmm. How do we get over this? Students need to understand there is someone on the other end, even if response is not immediate.

A mobile tool I have used for educational purposes this week is www.pollseverywhere.com I used this for vocabulary review in my Digital Media classes. It worked! I can't say Photoshop vocabular review is the most interesting subject in the world but everyone was engaged and no sleepers!

An even fresher start

Wow-Over a year since I created a blog post. There is actually a reason why. I got scared off by all of the publicity last year of a teacher being fired over comments she made in a blog post about her students.

This fall I am participating in the Flat Classroom Teacher Certification; back to blogging I go. I promise not trash my administration, my school, or my students. Actually, Challenge #2 involves talking to administration about any rules or conduct for professional blogs. I admit I have never thought about this, but it is a conversation I will have with my principal. What I HAVE thought about is interaction between teachers and students on social networks. I make it a policy not to friend my students on Facebook, but tell them I will be happy to after they graduate. but I am not aware that my school district has any rules regarding this and would be happy to hear other feelings on this matter.

Anyway-Challenge #1 was to set up an RSS Reader-I chose igoogle for it's simplicity and the fact that I already had a Google account. I will freeely admit that I had never used on before--but wow! I really was wasting a lot of time reading blog posts that I really didn't care about. I was getting most of my PLN communication from Facebook, from Twitter, on my cell phone, read only when I had time. An RSS reader is so much more efficient AND faster.

I am all about efficiency and not wasting useless time this year. Case in point--I have just never seen what all of the fuss was about Google docs. Never used them until I figured out this year that all of those parent contact forms that I have students fill out and then input into a spreadhseet could be done FOR me by having the students complete an online form that fed into a Google doc. HELLO-why did I not think of this before. How else do you save time? I would love to know!

A Fresh Start

So here we are, several weeks now into the summer break, and I am beginning to prepare for NEXT year. Don't ever let anyone tell you teachers don't work in the summer. Next school year will bring with it a change in the classes I teach. The State of Texas in their infinite wisdom has just redone all of the TEKS, which are the standards or skills we need to teach, for all of the Career and Technology courses. With the redo also comes new NAMES for all of the classes. No course was spared.

Have you ever noticed that all educators speak in acronyms? I just told you what TEKS are, not to be confused with TAKS and the new EOC's (both tests). The Career and Technology(CTE) courses for high school in Texas are no exception. Last year I taught BCIS--that is Business Computer Information Systems, which everyone just called by the acronym. BCIS has now gone away replaced by either PIT or BIM, which stand for Principles of Information Technolgy and Business Information Management respectively. I know-this is highly thrilling information. Next year I have been assigned to teach Digital Interactive Media, you guessed it, DIM, and I think I will rename it "Digital Interactive Media With Integrated Technology" because I have always dreamed of teaching a class called DIMWIT. But I digress.

Turns out DIM is basically a year of Photoshop. Just one problem--I have never used Photoshop. So I am spending the summer taking classes in Photoshop so I can at least have a basic understanding of it before I get to teach it (and my district wonders why we have so many ineffective teachers). Luckily, I am open to change and I like to learn new software and evidently I am the lucky guinea pig.

So I have started my summer Photoshop class, which is online and self paced, which means I can look like an idiot and yell at my computer in the privacy of my own home. This class is not hard--it is Level 1 so basically we spent the whole first lesson opening and closing files and changing the Views. Zzzz. I learn about pixels and vector versus raster graphics and I vaguely recall having learned this to pass one of my certification tests. All the technical stuff--no problem. Then we get to the design stuff. Let me mention that I was the art student who was always put into the "slow" group and had to draw and redraw still lifes of branches. Let me also mention that I am the auction volunteer that sets up a table, and then has to have someone else come behind her to "style" the table. I have absolutely no sense of design or artistic talent. I begin to get very worried. I should also mention that this is a career preparation course I am teaching--meaning we get to talk about careers as a graphic designer, photographer, advertiser, and animator, evidently. Have I EVER mentioned my background is in BANKING???? I do spreadsheets. This is so far outside the box for me that it is in the next state. Sigh. I am afraid for Lesson 4. Colorwheels.

My only saving grace--the other teacher that teaches DIM is a graphic designer, is a master at what he does, and can teach this in his sleep. I have been given the advice "just let him take the lead and do whatever he tells you to do". Well-I am very good at following directions. Just not so good at being told what to do! So this coming year promises to be a challenge for me. Something new--a fresh start! I hope I am ready for the challenge.

The Year Is Over!

My first full year of teaching is over and I helped line up and march through our 640graduates on sunday afternoon. I could tell you it has been a fun and easy year but it hasn't. New superintendent, new principal, new everything this year it seems made for a very stressful year. But I made it! I've spent a lot of time griping about the bad things and talking about the problems. So I will dedicate THIS post to the successes!

My Junior Achievement group in 5th period--oh how I will miss you! You are the group I got to practice on, like my first baby. Boy, how it paid off. A trophy at Trade Fair and the big Company of the Year Award at the banquet a few weeks ago. Achiever of the year Award too! Watching you take you practical final, where you had to form a company, create a product, and produce an annual report all in an hour and a half was priceless. Sunday I watched Soroush, Fount, Mona, Jenny, Sandra and Kim get their diplomas. I cried because they are all MY children now.

A few BCIS students will always stick in my mind. Carolina--you may have been shy and never talked, but you always gave 110% and it paid off with a perfect 100 the second semester! Trevor--you always kept me honest and corrected me when I was wrong, at least once a class period. Mikel-you will make a great engineer. Thank you for your curiosity, and your daily updates about the top stories on CNN when you were supposed to be working on your classwork. "Zach and Cody"--nicknamed such because he strongly resembles those twins on "The Suite Life of Zach and Cody"--I inherited you because you were a problem in someone elses classroom. The real problem was you were smarter than the teacher! Thank you for ALWAYS keeping me on my toes! My sweet, sweet ESL class 6th period--I finally gave in and let you do your final presentations mostly in Spanish about your home countries. I will never forget Emma from Nigeria, in full Nigerian dress, explaining about the horrors she left in her home country and her immigration to the United States. I will never take my life for granted again. And Mel-oh Mel. I didn't think you were going to make it, Mel. A Katrina kid with so many hardships. Problems containing yourself in class all year. You stuck in out, you passed, and you gave me a big hug the last day and said "I love you Mrs. Clayton" and made me cry.

And to Damian, Damian the flirt who asked me to dance at Prom, Damian the cheerful pill in the classroom, Damian who discovered last Friday that he would not walk in graduation with his class due to a missing science credit. Damian who I sat with my arm around consoling while his class was rehearsing for graduation. Damian--I will be there in August when you DO make it like I promised you. Don't let me down.

My first children--you have grown up and flown the nest! I have learned from you and you have made me a better teacher! Have a great summer all!

The Nonteaching parts of being a Teacher, or We just want to have FUN!

It is a rough time to be a teacher in the United States. You can not turn on the news without hearing about teacher layoffs somewhere. California, Illinois, Texas. Our district has a new superintendent and with a new superintendent comes changes. We are now in the middle of some major reorganization and the dreaded "RIF" or reduction in force. Also, not a day goes by that our district is not on the local news. Just part of working for the largest urban district in the nation I guess.

All of these changes have come at a cost. Employee morale is not good. Everyone is frustrated. Rumors abound.

This does not sound unlike the banking world I left two years ago :)

Today was not a good day. If I have a bad day, it is almost always on a Thursday. My Thursday starts with two meetings and it is a block schedule day and I do not have an off period. I have after school duty. Today I left school immediately from duty to go to a 2 hour inservice at the district headquarters. So my school day was 12 hours long. I was in a bad mood and snapped at the students all day long. Nodobdy wanted to do their work because it wasn't FUN. I understand--it is very hard to make a computerized training module to prepare for a Microsoft Certification FUN. Where in the world have students gotten this idea that EVERYTHING should be fun? I spent 20 years in banking and MOST of it wasn't fun!

By the time I got to my inservice I was also not having fun. Grumble grumble I did NOT get into teaching to go to meetings! I like the FUN part of teaching--which is the TEACHING. Oh--and the students. The inservice was happening on the same evening as the monthly school board meeting. Really heavy controversial stuff on the agenda tonight so a crowded parking lot and every TV station in town.

So I got home and did something I have NEVER EVER done--I turned on the school district channel (yes you from small towns--we have our own TV channel)and WATCHED the end of the board meeting. After all the business at the very end the public can come and make comments about ANYTHING for 3 minutes. Tonight--there were four speakers about Pop Tarts for breakfast (all against). Who knew there was such public interest in Pop Tarts? But what did catch my interest among all the politics were the very real parents, students, and employees who obviously care so much about our educational system to come and sit for 4 hours to have their three minutes. Not a one of them spoke about having fun. They all have real world, serious BORING issues to deal with. If you call bullying, losing jobs, and the state of school cafeteria food boring. Not fun at all.

My lesson today wasn't fun and I wasn't fun and I wasn't even a very good teacher today. My students, parents, and co-workers deserve better. But I think that the expectation that somehow the schools are NOT the real world and we as teachers should be blamed if our lessons aren't always "fun" is incorrect. The real world is not always fun. How are we teaching our students to cope with real world challenges if the expectation is that there is never conflict or boredom? How do we better prepare our secondary students for life beyond the school walls? What happens the first time they put down their heads down and take a nap on the job because "I don't want to do this--it is boring". Maybe we should start with our own behavior first!

Hurry, Hurry, STOP

Hurried, hurried rushed day.

Let me start by saying--this was actually a good day. Except for 7th period. By 7th period, I am tired. My off period is 1st. This is not a good off period for a morning person. My 7th period class is also , shall we say CHALLENGING. No, lets face it--they are slightly MORE than challenging. Every seat full when everyone is there. Today--everyone was there. And today in BCIS we are doing one of the hardest lessons of the year--Excel formulas and functions, and explaining absolute and relative cell references. We have about 12 pages in the book to get through in 45 minutes.

All is going well in the land of formulas and functions. It is one of those days when we are blowing and going EVERY period right up until the bell rings. Let me also explain--because I am off 1st period, I spend 2nd period "practicing" my lesson. Poor 2nd period. I get better in 3rd. I am amazing by 4th. Then I have lunch and a different class all together for 5th, so I get out of my groove. 6th period--bless them, requires me to slow down to snail speed. We never quite get done in 6th period! Grr--I want to get done! So here comes 7th. Loud, noisy, BIG 7th. And I am really tired of teaching formulas and functions by now.

7th period decides we will have one of those days when we just question EVERYTHING. LOUDLY. Without raising hands. We also think we already KNOW everything there is to know about formulas and functions, because after all, we talked about that FRIDAY (for 5 minutes). Mrs. Clayton is getting more and more fed up by the minute, especially when she has a limited amount of time to get through everything. Hurry, hurry. Mrs. Clayton looks at the clock and realizes she has 5 more minutes and two more concepts to get through before the bell rings. Unfortunately, her class also realizes there is 5 more minutes and instead of listening and following along, begins to log off the computers and shut their books. And talk to their neighbors. LOUDLY. All oblivious to the fact that Mrs. Clayton is still teaching an AWESOME lesson about formulas and functions! So Mrs. Clayton gets angry, throws a teacher hissy fit, and refuses to let them out of the classroom when the bell rings. She actually stands in front of the door so they can't leave until they do what she has asked them to do (put away books in proper location, pick up papers, save their work). In reality, she releases them approximately 1 minute late. This after being told by one student that it was his "constitutional right" to leave when the bell rang (same student who felt it was his "constitutional right" to attend a pep rally despite being told "no" earlier in the year). NOWHERE in the Consitution does it mention bells OR pep rallies, so I think I am pretty safe in the assumption that I am within my rights. So when Mrs. Clayton finally DOES let her angry 7th period out of the classroom Mrs. Clayton is ALSO angry and not in the mood to see any more of her darling students any more today!

Enter one of said darling students from 6th period-bless them. She is here to take a make up test after school. She is sweet, shy, special needs, and trying to graduate on time. I am the final class she has to pass to graduate. She is not passing. After spending a long time staring at the test, she asks me if she can come another day--this is too hard and she doesn't understand it. No-she has to take the test today--the grading period ended and I must have the grade in for report cards Wednesday. I am a little short with her since I have had such a bad 7th period, see above. Also, I am in a hurry. I have been in hurry mode ALL DAY, and I want her to HURRY and finish her test so I can get it in the gradebook!

I look up and see her face. It is bewildered. She spends a lot of time looking bewildered. I breathe. I stop. So for the next hour and a half--yes, hour and a half--I go and sit right next to her, read her the test out loud, and coax her through it. She KNOWS how to do the test. She just does not have confidence that she knows how to do it and is afraid to do something wrong. She gets a 91! By this time--I am almost in tears--her face lights up when I show her the grade--and she says I NEVER GOT A 91 ON A TEST BEFORE!

I kind of forgot about 7th period now.

Who else is sitting in my classroom that never got a 91 on a test before because she didn't think she could? Who else am I writing off because he has never passed, and I think he never will? What am I missing be being in a hurry? What are my students missing?

Tomorrow--another day......I think we'll slow down :)

Distractions

It has been a week-actually several weeks-of "distractions". The distractions began with possibly the BIGGEST distraction-our principal left very suddenly (overnight)leading to rumors, anger, more rumors, sadness, more rumors, meetings, happy hours to say goodbye, meet and greets to say hello (new principal). Just exhausting. Oh-and yes, I still teach there AND have a child who is a student there so I got to be exhausted as a staff member and exhausted as a parent. Distractions.

Distraction number two which has nothing to do with my professional life-I was fired via e-mail from a volunteer job. Then I was unfired. Then I think, but I'm not sure, I was fired again. Maybe. LONG story, still ongoing. Rumors. "I heard that..." phone calls. Trying to explain things to deaf ears. Having decisions made that have an effect on me, without my input. Distractions.

Distraction numbers three through six-a controversy. An investigation. A paranoid parent. Having to explain myself and being cautioned "NOT" to explain myself. Being a teacher is a hard job? You betcha!

So we have all had weeks like this.

In the middle of all of these distractions--I take a look at my students. Now-anyone who has EVER been a teenager knows that being a teenager is a series of distractions. Who is wearing what, who is going out with who, who broke up with who, who said something about you, where is the rumored fight going to be, can I get a ride to the fight, what is for lunch, is the new principal going to make us wear uniforms. Some have even more serious distractions-an ill parent, having to work at two jobs after school to support a family, someone in the family going to jail. So amidst ALL of these distractions, they have a job to do, which is go to school and do their work and learn something. And teachers EXPECT this to occur in spite of all of these distractions. Being a high school student is a hard job? You betcha!

So we are all the same. The distractions will always be there. What to do? How to cope? I don't have the answers. But it has helped me to see that I am going to have successes in the classroom and failures that have to do with outside forces beyond my control. Change is inevitable. Distractions are inevitable. It is how I react to those changes and cope with all of those distractions that influences my teaching. Learning, still learning........

The Ones You Can't Help

As a teacher, I have had to face the fact that there are just those kids you can't help. You can try, get sad, get mad, try more, and get intervention. So these are my failures:

The kid who two weeks ago threatened to "shoot me between the eyes like he did his neighbor's dog" if I did not pass him. This kid is 15. He had a 48 in my class at the time. A peek at his grades showed he was failing almost every class. This kid has pestered, called me names, called his classmates names, and generally been a pill, besaides not doing his work. The sad thing to me is: just the week before, he had come up to my desk and asked if I could give hime "easier work" because these assignments were "too hard". I asked why he thought they were too hard and it boiled down to he couldn't really read. I went through a project step by step with him, he did it, and he got an 80. This kid isn't coded learning disabled, and he is in 10th grade and couldn't read me simple directions. Then the next week he threatens me. I wrote him up, cops came and took him away, and I haven't seen him again. Today I got his withdraw notice. Did I just doom this kid? Did I help this kid? I don't know. I may not ever know. That's a failure.

The girl, smart girl, with the lip piercings, tatoos, and gutter mouth that I have vowed to turn into a lady if it kills me. It may yet kill me. Today I had a substitute and she made the very young substitute cry because she was trying to help her and the girl called her a bitch. If I leave them with a substitute and they turn into animals, what does that say about me as a teacher? A failure.

The boy who won't do any work. Ever. He got a 5% in my class last six weeks. You have to try very hard not to do any work to get a 5%. He can spend an entire class period doing nothing. I have six pages of notes on him that basically say "nothing works". How can he get to be 16 years old and sit for hours in a class and do nothing? I have 27 other kids in that class and can't give this kid the one on one attention he needs to do his work. That's a failure.

So, today my team mates and I spent the whole day doing curriculum planning while our classes had subs. 8 hours of arguing and arguing more and actually getting SOMETHING accomplished, but when you are in a team of four, there is always some discord. At 3:15 I go back to my now empty room and read the notes from the sub about how LITTLE my students had actually done today. Okay, in all fairness--4 out of the 6 classes actually worked. The other two acted like idiots. This is enough to make anyone depressed. So at 4:00 (early for me) I have decided I had enough and troop downstairs to sign out. I am greated by the Principal and School Improvement Facilitator. Remember, I am depressed and I am a failure this week.

The principal writes a Monday newsletter to staff, which curiously we get on Tuesdays, but is still called the Monday newsletter by all. The Monday/Tuesday Newsletter this week mentioned a teacher who, when faced with a student who did not turn ina major project, said "we both missed the boat here" interpretted to mean when my students don't turn in projects, I AM TO BLAME. Remember--I am a FAILURE.
Therefore, I mention to the principal that he had added another degree of guilt to my already heightened degree of FAILURE. He got very quiet. Then I asked him for help on suggestions for getting students MOTIVATED, see story of "boy who will do no work" above, to actually do projects.

Thirty minutes later, I was still in his office. Actually, I was getting a lesson on how to teach English and break a research report into managable steps instead of just assigning "write a research a paper". But in the midst of that, I finally realized--I am NOT a failure. I am NOT the only teacher these kids have ever or will ever have. I will NOT always have good teaching days. Some days I will be a FAILURE. I am not a good teacher unless I have those failures and change because of it, and learn from others. I can't do this if I don't continually change and learn from my mistakes.

So tomorrow, I will sign that withdraw notice and try not to dwell, I will still try to turn Ms. Lip Piercing/Tatoo/Gutter Mouth into a lady, and MAYBE that "I won't do anything" boy will come back from being suspended yet again and miraciously sit down and do some work. Or maybe he won't. But I will still keep trying.

Connections in High School-or how important they still are 30 years later

Wow-has it really been August 9 since I last posted? Time flies when you are having fun, or in my case, when you roldest leaves for college, your youngest starts driving, and you begin your first full year of teaching and SIX CLASSES that are your own, from start to finish. One of them I would like to trade in, but that is for another post.

I was inspired this week by another event--my birthday. What was so unusual--maybe not so anymore--I received only ONE birthday card in the mail and TWO phone calls (my mother and my mother in law); TWO e-cards.....and FIFTY-SEVEN birthday wishes on Facebook! Wow-I've never ever received fifty seven birthday cards. But 57 people stopped to tell me happy birthday on Facebook! Some of them I haven't even seen for 30 years--since high school.

This got me thinking--the relationships we form in high school are so important to us that we are now 30 years later "friending" them on Facebook. So the students sitting in my classroom fliritng with the cute girl acroos from them while I am trying to teach and making them BE QUIET will maybe in 30 years still be communicating with each other--on some sequel to Facebook; probably something implanted in their ears.

At the six week mark this year I decided my students were getting a little TOO comfortable with their seatmates and switched everyone around. Okay teachers--we really know this is so you can move the bad kids right up next to you, but you have to move EVERYONE to make it fair.

Today I did my first group assignment in a while and let them choose a partner or a group of three. Almost without fail, they all went BACK to their original seats and whomever was sitting next to them at the start of school. Hmm. Should I have left them? Evidently they formed a bond.

So I look at my Facebook friend list--specifically the growing group from my high school days. Oh yes--I sat next to him in Geometry. And I sat next to her in English-10th grade. Meistersingers--the singing group I was in 11th and 12th--don't even get me started. I can still tell you who sat on BOTH sides of me, both years. All boys(maybe that is why I remember). Two of them--still my good buddies today (Kelly and Chester)--and my Facebook friends!

So here's to ALL of the people we sit next to in high school, who 30 years later remember to tell us Happy Birthday. Maybe I won't move my kids around so much!

Thing 11.5 Evaluation

Wow-I am all done and have learned some amazing new tools for my classroom. I have enjoyed "playing" with all of you in this exercise and have gained valuable insight from the other blog posts I have read and all your experiences. As an HISD teacher, there are so many resources that are out there that I don't have access to, and I am so happy to find some alternatives that I that will work in my classroom.

The one tool I will put to immediate use is Screencasting. This was by far my favorite "Thing" and I was thinking last night how I could use this with my ESL students who need visuals to fully understand many of the concepts I teach in BCIS.
Second Life still intimidates me of all of the "Things" I have learned, but I guess one out of 11 isn't too bad!

Thing #11 Digital Citizenship

The last, and possibily the easiest, THING for me to do!

I taught an entire until on Digital Citizenship last year and own the book. I also had two classrooms of ninth graders participate in the Digiteen Project which is an online collaboration project with 20 schools all over the world participating in a study of digital citizenship.

So here is a SHORT synopsis of my unit, as taught to 9th grade:

-Introduction to the idea of Video Citizenship by watching Frontline PBS Special "Growing Up Online" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kidsonline/

-Look at website and discover 9 elements of digital citizenship http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/Nine_Elements.html

-Creating a Wiki Dictionary with digital citizenship vocabulary http://whswega.wikispaces.com

-Powerpoint Presentations on one vocabulary word of their choice

-Ongoing participation in Digiteen Project (this was a 6 week project), which was the "meat" of the unit

-"Elluminate" discussion with author Mike Ribble (yes, we really got to speak to him virtually).

This was by far the coolest unit I taught last Spring, but it got an interesting reaction from my students. Because they are all digital citizens and I am a digital immigrant, they thought all of this was "just common sense". Their parents, on the other hand, were pretty amazed--I actually had a mother come in for a conference so I could give her a hands on demonstration of a wiki, which she was trying to learn at work!

Thing #10 Second Life

I have a 16 year old son who is a major gamer. When I told him this assignment was to create an avatar and explore Second Life he rolled his eyes at me. Mom--it is a VIDEO GAME-and you HATE VIDEO GAMES. So I trudged in expecting to hate it!

It is now 5 hours later and I can't stop exploring. Weirdly, my name is Dean Jestyr. I tried to pick my real first name and it told me all the last names are taken (lot of Kims, I guess). Don't tell anybody but Dean is my high school boyfriend's name. Then it gave me a list of last names I could pick!

I initially had a difficult time with the commands and I am still pretty slow with it. So I have not had a lot of communication with others in Second Life today because I am still figuring it out. Mostly have been a passive observer, which is not the point, but a good start. I am enjoying reading others postings about this expereince, becasue htere is so much to see and do--and I need to figure out how to find it all! There is an amazing body of work out there, and I can see endless possibilities for the classroom. I go back to work tomorrow--I am assumming Second Life is blocked like everything else so I am going ot have to try and figure out how I can use it.

Thing #9 Slideshare

Here is a slideshow I created to introduce myself to my classes at the beginning of the year:

All About Me

View more presentations from kaclayton1.

Once you upload your slideshow to Slideshare, you can then make it into a Slidecast by adding an mp3 file. I tried this, but had technical difficulties with the mp3 file. For one; slideshare does not host audio files, so you have to upload your audio file from somewhere else. I think it would make it much easier if slideshare hosted audio files or allowed you to create one right from its website.



Here is one I created last year to market our Westside Engineering and Geosciences program to 8th graders who might be interested in applying:

Westside Engineering And Geosciences Academy

View more presentations from kaclayton1.

I think this is another very useful way for students to share their Powerpoint Presentations without having to actually insert them into an e-mail, and a good teaching tool for presentations in general. This is also useful as a research site if students and teachers are looking for examples of presentation to use for a particular topic. Like YouTube and video sources, you can organize and search by tagwords and by category.