Privacy in classrooms

This is real and not a hoax .... something worth noting for sure:

Reuters is reporting... Canadians find vast computer spy network...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Canadian researchers have uncovered a vast electronic spying operation that infiltrated computers and stole documents from government and private offices around the world, including those of the Dalai Lama, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

The alarming part of this article for me is that spying can take place in a room from a computer......
"The network they found possessed remarkable "Big Brother-style" capabilities, allowing it, among other things, to turn on the camera and audio-recording functions of infected computers for potential in-room monitoring, the report said."

Teachers and students now have a another level of privacy concerns in classes around the globe.

Caio, Steu

K12 means cloud computing and smart objects?

The New Horizon Project (2009) was released ....

It was full buzz concepts like ....
.......Collaboration environments (increasing since professionals are expected to work across geographic and cultural boundaries)
....Cloud Computing ...the emergence of large-scale “data farms”)
....Mobiles (cell phones)
....Geo-stiff.(good ole GPS)
.....the Personal Web. ( desire to reorganize online content rather than simply viewing it)
.....Smart Objects. (aA smart object “knows” something about itself — where and how it was made, what it is for, where it should be, or who owns it, for example — and something about its environment.)

But the only this I really can apply to a k12 class that I ever taught were the challenges identified ....

...There is a growing need for formal instruction in key new skills, including information literacy, visual literacy, and technological literacy.
....Schools are still using materials developed decades ago, but today’s students come to school with very different experiences than those of 20 or 30 years ago, and think and work very differently as well.
....Teachers are expected, especially in public education, to measure and prove through formal assessment that our students are learning, including collecting and measuring data. But, exiting systems are not capable of managing and interpreting real time information flows on the scale that is anticipated.

The challenges I can relate to 100%. I also get that collaboration environments (Project Based Learning) work to help students assimilate knowledge ... but I don't see the other technology trends impacting K12 classes .... do you?

Cheers Jack

PS - read the report here: http://www.educationreporting.com/2009-Horizon-Report-K12.pdf

Learning Games - thousands of K12 games in all content areas

Ed Tool Directory

Earn Extra Cash - Help K12 Education - work from home part time

Green Education Resources - resources for ecology and project learning

Radio show - looking for teachers

Hello,

I am hosting s radio show discussing innovative ideas being used in K12 classrooms around service learning and project based learning.

More specifically, I want to interview some K12 teachers or organizations that work with K12 teachers/campuses in those two approaches.

I'm eager to meet a few folks who can donate 10-15 minutes being interviewed over the phone for the show episodes.

Personally, I'm a big believer in service and project learning since I used them when I was a teacher so I'm hoping to find current K-12 teachers who can volunteer a few minutes to spread the word (your successes) - you'll be helping other K12 teachers! :-)

If interested, please go to this link (click here) ... complete the (confidential) form and I'll call you.

Wishing you the best life has to offer, Jack

--
Jack Harrington
research: http://www.educationreporting.com/

Teaching is supposed to be fun....

..... where has all the fun gone in teaching?

My classes were rigorous .... I had the students working.

....today these digital kids have so much energy ... I figured ou tthe hard way I have to use energy to my advantage or else they're a fast moving train that's 'bout to run me over.

I was talking to a teacher friend the other day and we were reminiscing ...... we had both been reading and talking to other folks .... all we were hearing ....from many different sources .....was about the pain of teaching ......

This fella and I have similar tastes in learning ... we made the kids do the work. We like to be a guide for students .....

...being the sage in class just doesn't work for us.... apparently it's not working for a lot of teachers nowadays.

I want my students leaving class exhausted ... so I use every tidbit of conversation to fire up critical thinking ... once that fire is burning ....

...all I have to do is stoke it with questions.

Students will get to the learning opportunity with the appropriate guidance.

...and when I'm giving that kinda guidance .... teaching is fun!

If you want some free scoop (research and step-by-step guide) on an effective critical thinking technique then click this link ....

http://www.educationreporting.com/edtools/free-offer.htm

Wishing you the best life has to offer,
Jack

Classroom WIP

Several weeks ago when I introduced teacher WIP, I got a bunch of emails telling me some interesting stories about classroom projects, some good and some scary ones too.

Teaching, my opinion, is a conundrum.

There is no recipe that fits all teachers or every classroom of a certain subject. When I read some of the efforts underway to improve education, they strike me as efforts to homogenize classes not improve scores ….. or better yet improve learning.

For me, WIP is the one global aspect of every classroom, because classes have work in progress.
Here are two excellent WIP examples…

- teacher presentation
When I’m delivering a lesson I tweak it from class to class. No presentation is perfect and being aware of what didn’t work in last class period, can bring a lot more learning to this class period.

- teacher tools
When I first started teaching the older, experienced teachers brought me lots of worksheets and paper resources. AS time and classes went by, I found out how much student attention rebels with those so I had to expand my horizons on resources to produce more effective lessons.

…..more on WIP later.

Wishing you the best life has to offer, Jack

Ed Tools Directory

Education Learning Games

Green Education Resources

Two ideas to enhance your success

….. through a stroke of synchronicity, a few weeks ago, I reconnected with Greg Nath whom I met while getting my Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction. He is making the offer to fatten your wallet possible! I like his idea because while you earn some extra cash, you are also helping improve K-12 education. Nope, he’s not asking you to purchase anything and there are no hidden fees.

The second idea is for enterprising folks who want to put their product or service to K-12 teachers, K-12 administrators, K-12 students, or K-12 students.

Check it out at http://cli.gs/Jg3QsB.

Happy Friday, Jack

Successful Teaching Tools &Techniques For 21st Century Students

San Diego, CA (ER) March 10, 2009 – Statistics show that more than 50% of new K-12 teachers are leaving the profession in their first five years. One contributing factor is student behavior. Teachers without the materials and classroom management skills necessary to sustain engaging lessons end up with classes full of behavior problems. Teachers want to make a difference not babysit students. ER offers a substantial remedy with its’ Education Rebel ezine.

Read the entire press release.

Accelerating Class Participation

I want you to have the scoop on the importance of building classroom collaboration.

In my classes collaboration fueled learning and definitely helped improve test scores.

Professional Learning Communities (PLC) are the proven method for teachers to share knowledge, so it figures that students can learn the same way we adults do …… with proper classroom management techniques …… you agree?

Collaboration can be used in two ways: class activities and group projects. My goal is to give you some tools that will boost your lesson building skills so they include more student participation. We all know when students are engaged the opportunity for learning is exponential.

…..many of you already acquired my FREE Orchestrating Classroom Participation ebook, now I have another goodie for your classroom…

…..my well respected Education Rebel ezine subscription (12 months) is now only $49.95.

You gain 100% access to my 15 years of expertise and research to 21st century education research, lesson accent material, and experts that rocket your understanding of helping students learn. Yep, I do the behind the scenes work and serve it to you in my online ezine every month…. you’re definitely not going to find this quality resource anywhere else.

With my ezine you have a one stop data mine with scores of video clip resources, professional development resources, content specific web sites, and much more.

The last time you visited Education Rebel the annual ezine subscription was $99.

My special offer to you today is a 50% price reduction!

That’s right, you’ll receive 12 months for one dollar and some pennies per week.

When you subscribe in the next 24 hours I’ll send you - absolutely free - Building Learning Successful Environments. This top notch ebook has the templates, detailed instructions, and comprehensive techniques to fuel student curiosity and explode class participation.

Wishing you the best life has to offer, Jack

Click here to subscribe

PS: I have only a limited supply of Building Learning Successful Environments to offer so act today to receive yours now.

Education Rebel web site

Elephant in the classroom

One overlooked and always present variable in classrooms is peer pressure.

Every student has a lot of attention and concern on what other students think or perceive of him/her. Yes, it was that way for me too when I was younger.Why not put that concern of what others think about you to good use in learning? Every day I do some sort of activity where students are working in small groups, and they’re not always the same groups. After two months, all the students have worked together at one time or another.

Current research proves it and I have heard it from the mouths of students, students learn a tremendous amount from each other when they work together.

Teachers, your job in this type of activity is to be a facilitator. Make sure students: 1) understand the tasks before starting and 2) stay on task. There is a caveat, digital kids today are for the most part good multi-taskers. They can talk about what is going on after school and do their work too. Give students plenty of room to participate with each other and you’ll see their concept understanding grow.

Parents, find out from your teachers how much group activities they do in your child’s class. If all that is going on is reading textbooks and doing worksheets – then I don’t blame the students for acting up or being disinterested. Better yet, ask your child what kind of activity they do in class and compare their answers to the what the teacher reports.

Putting the power of peer participation to use in K-12 classes is an essential ingredient for learning.

Wishing you the best life has to offer, Jack

Checkout my research here.
Teachers, get my free ebook here.

Measuring Curriculum Checklist

We know that every school and classroom has a curriculum, but how can you measure it?

Everyone will agree, both parents and teachers want the curriculum to develop students.

Traditionally, curriculum will focus on academics. With all the high stakes testing taking place, which starts in middle school, it makes logical sense to focus daily lessons on testing material students will see. I know, I did that when I was teaching.

As a parent, I want my kids to develop the skills to be a progressive thinker. Ya know, be able to think a situation through by examining the circumstances from different perspectives and considering the different variables/outcomes. Then, use that information as a foundation for the choice being made.

Let’s be honest, all us grownups can remember at least one or two bad choices we made. I’m not saying it’s impossible to stop making bad choices, I just want my kids to be equipped with the thinking skills to reduce bad choice making.

I have developed two methods; one for teachers and one for parents to measure curriculum for their unique education requirements. Teachers can use it for developing and delivering more potent lessons. Parents can use it to evaluate classes and student performance, discussions in teacher-parent conferences, or in choosing a school.

I’ll be talking about my methods here for a few weeks. If you want me to send you a free five point Curriculum Measuring Checklist (CMC) send me an email:

Teachers, get your free CMC by sending an email to: edrebelteducators@gmail.com.

Parents, get your free CMC by sending an email to: edrebelparents@gmail.com.

I have already done the classroom work and education research. The way to a better world is by educating our future leaders today, and that is what I have: the nitty gritty on what it takes to develop students. My information drill downs into the core of what works and doesn’t work in educating the whole child during the K-12 years.

Wishing you the best life has to offer, Jack

Visit my education research site here.

Best and Worst Jobs - 2009

Hey, what's the best way to point kids in the direction for life after school?

Tell 'em that the work today is preparing them for that all essential and necessary "career" ....

Click here to see the top 10 careers and worst 10 careers.

Education Guiding Principles: Diversity

One thing I heard over and over during my elementary school was that this country is a melting pot. We have cultures and ideas from around the world that all contribute to making this the great country it is. And, even though I grew up in an inner city neighborhood in the Midwest, looking around my classes all I saw were pretty much other white kids.

Now, so many years later, when I talk to my students about what they learn in their Social Studies classes, they don’t hear about that melting pot, but just look around any class and you’ll see it.

Diversity is here to stay in our culture, which includes our classrooms. As a teacher, it takes on a new aspect in the effort of learning. Why? Because students have different moods and behaviors each day. Because students have different learning skill sets. Because students have different emotional needs. Because students have different perspectives….. and so on and so forth until, as a teacher, I realized the most important ingredient about my classes is the diversity of the students. With the appropriate teacher effort, the diversity of students in class can provide students with real life examples of "the outside world" every day during studies..... aka building social skills while building also building academic skills.

So why am I carrying on about diversity as a teacher? I think the national curriculum we are promoting in schools, even though no one officially calls it such, is pushing teachers to homogenize classes and lessons. This is our 21st century response to better education - mass producing students using a test gauntlet that begins in middle school. Nurturing student diversity, thus classroom diversity, is a key to enhancing the learning skills and social skills of students.

The Blue School is an example of very naturally including diversity in learning. If you get a chance to review their mission statement and results you’ll be amazed, like I am, at what the concentrated effort of a few people can produce.

Happy 2009! Jack

PS: Wanna start the new year with an excellent teacher read? Try Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto who is an an award winning teacher In New York.

Teachers Collecting $125 For Sharing Their Wisdom

None.
Nada.
Zippo.
Zero.

.... that's how much wisdom teachers sent me.

.....without any entries submitted there won't be a list of winners to provide.

Jack

Education Guiding Principles: Responsibility

Typically one might consider responsibility to be “towing the line” or doing behaviors that are expected under certain circumstances. In education responsibility is more a compilation of ownership, right action, and congeniality. I think educational experiences come in all shapes and sizes but the deeper they resound the more organized chaos is present.

Students must own the effort they make, which in the end will translate into the knowledge they acquire from the activity exercise during class: what they learned. The easiest way this I’ve accomplished this is using relevant lessons – a lesson that relates what is being taught in class as somehow enhancing student life skills or enhancing the quality of student life outside of school.

While working in a class activity there is certain action that is beneficial to obtaining learning. For example, if Johnny and Anita are chatting it up – not working on the activity tasks: working with other students to investigate, collect information, and make educated guesses, then there isn’t really much hope they are acquiring the necessary info to learn anything. But, just nudging them to focus on the tasks while they continue chatting it up will transform a wasted activity into a contribution to their acquiring necessary info in the goal of completing class work. Digital students can multi-task better than I and many other “adults.”

Every situation has some form of decorum and class decorum is set forth in classroom management polices and activity guidelines. A class without some guidelines is unorganized chaos. The line separating unorganized chaos and organized chaos is very fine, but the difference is organized chaos has the existence of assimilating learning above and beyond survival skills. For example, at the K-12 level, telling students they need to use the supplies and their notes to make a poster explaining XYZ has less learning potential then enhancing those instructions by asking students to include specific information in the poster: title, theme, illustration of cause and effect.

When students are expressing responsibility they are producing a context that naturally builds life skills. In these situations a “ teacher” moves out of the traditional role of being the classroom “expert” dispelling wisdom, instead she/he is a facilitator – a resource for students – that guides the learning taking place.

Jack

Education Guiding Principles: Curiosity

Learning is active - right?

....that would translate into I'm going to have to want/do/know "something" in order for my "education" to occur.

For example, how did I learn about the raging new social network games: Pet Society and Kidnap!?

I logged in and accepted the invite from a friend and began playing them, one game at a time. Sure, I'm pretty slow at picking them up but I'm making progress day by day and discovering the features of the games.

My "education" of social networking games expands ....not in a class or formal setting ..... instead it happens as I bang around around on my computer - driven by my own curiosity.

I'm not a big gift buyer during the holidays, but I enjoy going to the store and exploring the toys and games. How? I pick them up and read the boxes and talk it over with myself (quietly) or with my shopping buddy. Again, my own curiosity is the driving force that creates this opportunity for my "education" on holiday gifts.

In traditional schools, a classroom with out some activity that will fire up student curiosity has a degrading potential for learning. And, this is one of those teacher qualities - the ability to peak and maintain student curiosity - they don't teach you in pre-service programs that churn out thousands of new teachers a year.

One bright spot in school "education" where curiosity is harnessed by design is Sudbury Schools, http://www.sudval.org, where students learn at their own pace, imbibe responsibility and experience education. When you take a few minutes to read about how they have setup "education" you'll be amazed and surprised.

Jack

2008 Top Three Education Innovations

Three creative and innovative education ideas in 2008 include the following:

1. Pay-To-Behave Program Debuts In D.C. Schools

2. Open Book Exam: Prepare Kids for Life or for Exams?

3. Service Learning As A Tool For Reducing High School Dropout Rates

…and then there is always the Quality Counts Report full of various measurements….

Have a happy 2009!

Jack

Teachers Collect $125 - Share Your Wisdom

……that is correct, you can put a hundred and twenty-five bucks in your pocket for talking about your class ….. or your teaching.

Here is how it works…..

I am looking for K-12 teachers (any grade or content area) to write at least 1,000 words to describe their teaching. Why? I want to print your teacher wisdom in my ezine starting In January when I roll out a brand new ezine format. That is correct, I want to share your wisdom with other teachers so they can apply it with their classes.

The key points…..

A. Your entry must be sent to me by midnight on December 30th, 2008.

B. Every entry will receive a free subscription to my Education Rebel Ezine and 50 of those entries will be selected to receive $125 in cash.

C. The cash award winners will be posted on this blog by January 12, 2009 and payments will be mailed to those winners by January 9, 2009.

These are the two pieces of information your entry, a minimum of 1,000 words, must include:
1. A brief introduction about your teaching background and class (one paragraph maximum).

2. Discuss one of the following:
- what works in your teaching style to encourage students to learn?
- explain professional development work that has improved your teaching.
- describe a project based learning activity in your class and the learning
results.
- describe a service learning activity in your class and the learning results or impact on campus or community.

Entries must be sent in a Word document or a Google document.
Each entry must include your name, email address, school name, and your mailing address (where the check will be sent). Entries must be received at educationrebel@gmail.com no later than midnight on December 30th. The cash award winners will be notified by email on or before January 5, 2009 and their payments will be mailed to them by January 9, 2009. All entries will receive a free one year subscription to Education Rebel Ezine. When you submit your entry you’re giving me the rights to print it in my ezine for unlimited issues along with your name, grade, and state. I will not share any other information you provide with any other organization because I respect your privacy.

If you have any questions you can send them to me at educationrebel@gmail.com.

I know you’ll have time over the holiday break to share your teacher wisdom with me and I’m paying you to do it.

A beautiful sunny day today, Jack

Effective Teachers Have WILL

…..was looking over what has helped me the most in my teaching to reach my “getting organized” goal for 2008 and thought I’d blog it.

It’s fair to say that it takes a special type of person …. a certain chemistry … to be a teacher. Not everyone has it or is willing to make the effort to obtain it. I’m all for keeping the effective teachers and helping the ineffective ones, but from what I’ve seen and heard, usually the ineffective teachers don’t know the slide they’re on or won’t agree to being supported - they’re just doing a J.O.B..

I detailed my thoughts about teacher chemistry in the TeacherHandbook (free) that you can pick up at www.educationrebel.com so I’m not going to carry on about it here.

What is WILL? Very simply, it’s Whole children Influenced by Living Learning. I have being doing lessons with a WILL focus for years and I’ve been helping other teachers do them - because they saw the positive results in my classes. WILL starts with a martixed lesson using an OPTIMUM design which is easy to put together and implement.

There are two phases of this OPTIMUM design. The first phase is that a least 40% of your students must be familiar with working in student groups …. plus ….. your students need to be familiar with doing certain critical thinking exercises that are consistently woven into your lesson activities.

A matrixed lesson is built using Objectives, Activities and Resources. Activities are a part of almost every lesson in my classes. Students working in groups have opportunities to flex their social skill learning muscles. I use different “comparing” exercises to get them comfortable with looking at similarities and differences between things - thus building their analytical skills - and building those critical thinking skills too. Once you have 40% of your students familiar with working in groups you are on your way!

One “comparing” example is having students examine completed white boards (posters, models, pictures, reports, and so forth). The goal is to have them describe similarities and differences between whatever they are comparing. I like the completed white boards since students work on them in groups after I give all the groups the same prompts for a specific set of questions or challenge or scenario. There is never a wrong answer, make sure you always use student comments and work as a contribution to the learning objective, or a contribution to their critical thinking skill, or just a plain ole “good work” comment.

Note I didn’t say that 40% of your students are “comfortable” with working in groups. I’m not a believer in comfort zones in class. On the other hand, students need to be familiar or confident with working in groups. When 40% have reached that point they’ll pull the rest of the class with ‘em.

BTW, If you trust me enough to talk with your teacher friends then I’ll instantly give you three of my highly rated classroom resources. Click here to learn more.

The critical thinking skills develop as we educators help students ask better questions. While they are comparing the boards I always do a two minute talk about the constant comparing every one does all day:

- why did you wear those clothes today (you compared them to other clothes)
- when you go to the store, why do you buy some tomatoes and not the others? (you compared them to other tomatoes)
- why do you hang out with Anita and not Sally? (you compared their characteristics and choose one over the other)

This kinda conversation qualifies this “comparing” exercise as relevant to students. When kids see the link to class work and life “outside” they will participate. Bottom line is, we all compare stuff constantly without everything thinking about doing it. As a teacher, bringing the “comparing” activity to the surface is a potent relevancy tool for your arsenal.

Traditional education got students used to memorizing: the development of thinking skills that recognize the value of patterns, self-questioning, associations, and mental pictures ….. and you can use that as a starting point during “comparing” exercises. The more of these exercises you do in class the better worn the path becomes in the direction of boosting the core-thinking processes that naturally induce metacognition.

BTW, if you’re interested in some easy reading material about critical thinking to get 2009 started in a fresh direction take a look at my handbook. (Click here for free copy)

Enjoying a winter rain and wind storm, Jack

PS: After the holidays I’ll be detailing phase two about using WILL with classes.

Teacher Creativity Opens Learning Potential

Checking the net for education stuff this morning I found an amazing (and true) story of a couple of teachers at Woodland Park HS in CO ……..

They came up with a redesigned lesson idea….. put it to work ….. and everyone wins! The teachers have more individualized time with students, students can learn in ways that work for them, plus the test scores are improving!

What did they do? They stopped lecturing in class for 45 minutes everyday, gave students a DVD of the lecture to take home, and then used class time to work individually with students on problems. Check out the news interview here.

Staying warm, Jack

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Teacher WIP UP

Today the WIP UP (unlimited potential) is all about curriculum…….

…..this global village connection was established in 1997, it’s a treasure trove with thousands and thousands of pages of covering opportunities across the curriculum and it’s all free.(the site)

…… Wiki, wiki, who has a wiki? ….. I bet you’re gonna see the need for this in your arsenal too. (watch and learn)

….. news flash here, this fella is outta the box, when the school budget was exhausted and he needed money to print his math tests for students …. he sold advertising on the exams to make ends meet. (read more)

……Generation Yes site ….. worth a read and tell your students about the global project (age 10-13) they can run with. (read more)

…….the Teacher Domain has media resources galore for any content area …. they are even have tempting professional development media too…… yes, yes they are free. (the site)

Cruising again, Jack

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