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Saturday, October 1, 2016

On Real Innovation: What Digital Literacy Brings Us #immooc

Posted by Amazing People, on 6:23 AM
"I'm defining innovation as a way of thinking that creates something new and better."    ------ George Couros, The Innovator's Mindset (loc 374)
For the next six weeks, I've decided to join the community conversation around The Innovator's Mindset:  Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity by George Couros.  This conversation is being led by George and Katie Martin.  You can join the conversation at the #immooc event hub, the Twitter #immooc hashtag, or the Facebook group.  

 Recently I was gathered around a table of educators discussing our district's move toward 1:1 in our elementary schools.  I'm continually reminded how fortunate I am to work in a district that values this shift toward new opportunities for our students.  We have always had people working toward the vision of growing the possibilities afforded through digital technologies.  There has been careful planning of devices, applications, and professional development, complemented by the side-by-side support of technology coaches to help us through these new steps.

As I've moved from building to building in conversations around these blended learning opportunities, there is a mix of excitement and caution as we take these new steps.  Many are excited about the new possibilities that 1:1 will allow our students, but I also sense a bit of caution as educators try to balance this possibility with pedagogy.  As I dig deeper into the shift toward digital learning, I realize that it is less about the tools and more about our instructional practices and the opportunities students have as a result of these new tools.  Couros reminds us, "Technology can be crucial in the development of innovative organizations, but innovation is less about the tools like computers, tablets, social media, and the Internet, and more about how we use those things."

As educators, we work to do what is best for the children that sit beside us each day.  It's the how (his emphasis) that I've been thinking a lot about lately.  For me, this shift isn't as much about digital learning as it is about digital literacy.  It isn't as much about completing tasks, as it is about intentional decision making.  It isn't as much about working independently as it is about connecting to other learners, growing your community beyond your classroom, and having a voice today.  It isn't as much about using digital tools as it is about purposefully selecting from a variety of tools, digital or otherwise, to intentionally create and compose a message.  It isn't as much about learning how to work digitally as it is about learning to live in the new culture created by the availability of digital technologies.  It isn't as much about being a student as it is about becoming a global citizen.  It isn't about schooling; it's about education.

These two tweets were among my favorites this week for showing how students can own their learning process and make intentional decisions (note the digital and print decisions):



 Shifting Our Thinking 
The how requires a shift in our thinking.  I'm going to push Couros's definition for innovation in education one step further by saying that innovation creates "something new and better" and raises the level of learning for students - they own it.  Technology allows us to do all kinds of new and better things, but not all of those are best practices.  One of my friends has a new saying, "Just because they can, doesn't mean mean we should."  If the innovation isn't growing the opportunities and understandings of our learners, if it isn't developmentally appropriate, if it doesn't take our learning to new levels, if it doesn't connect us, then perhaps we need to push ourselves to go deeper.

One of my favorite quotes about change is from Troy Hicks in The Digital Writing Workshop, "When we simply bring a traditional mindset to literacy practices, and not a mind-set that understands new literacies into the process of digital writing, we cannot make the substantive changes to our teaching that need to happen in order to embrace the full potential of collaboration and design that digital writing offers (p.2)."  As we move toward 1:1 learning environments we need to be patient with ourselves in this journey, but we also need to ask ourselves the hard question, "What could be different?".




Expanding our definition of literacy to include digital texts, tools, and networks, is one step toward innovative change.  However, it is also requires us to work in "new and better" ways that lift the level of learning.  Perhaps innovation is quite simple.  Perhaps it is just about turning the decision making over to students.  Perhaps it is just about valuing questions over answers.  Perhaps it is about connecting learning communities.  Perhaps it just about being willing to take the first steps.


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Thursday, October 8, 2015

Creating a Reading History Archive

Posted by Amazing People, on 8:30 AM
Some readers are already starting
to add response to their digital archives.
Talking About Our Reading Lives
Last year as parent-teacher conferences rolled around, I decided I wanted parents to be able to hear from their children.  Using Evernote presentation mode, I collected snapshots of work samples (more here) and began to create a story of these young literacy learners.  I wanted parents to be able to hear from their readers so I decided to voice record a few discussion topics for parents.  I had three basic topics of conversations with students that I recorded for parents:


  1. Tell me about yourself as a reader.
  2. What are your strengths as a reader?
  3. What are you working to improve as a reader?


I was quite surprised at how hard it was for my students to speak to these topics.  When asked to talk about themselves as readers they didn�t really know how to begin.  I would have to stop the recording to explain they could tell me anything:  books they enjoyed, authors they loved, favorite spaces to read, topics they liked to read about, where they liked to get books, who read to them - anything.  There were so many possible answers, but still they struggled to respond.  Strengths and goals came easier as we talked about these in our reading time each day.  It was at this time that I knew I needed to do a better job of helping my students to see themselves as readers and to begin to think about their reading lives.


Our Reading Lives
This is my second year working as a reading specialist supporting primary readers.  These young readers receive intervention to help them make quick gains.  Of course, this work requires teaching of many aspects of the reading process, but the part that is equally important is often the first part that gets lost in busy schedules:  developing a reading life.  Readers receiving support often have less time than peers for real reading.  It�s not uncommon for them to spend more time in groups and be given the books they are to read at home.  This leaves little time for them to find themselves as readers.


As a classroom teacher, there are so many more opportunities to support conversations around our literate lives than in the thirty minutes I have with students each day.  When I was a classroom teacher, my students kept track of the books they took home each evening.  While this helped us when books were temporarily misplaced, I found its greatest purpose was in talking about our choices in our reading lives.  Since students chose their own book to take home each evening, it became a place to begin our conversations about reading choices.  By looking at the recorded titles we could discuss the types of books selected.  Did students have favorite authors, topics, genres, or other interests?  We could also discuss the level of challenge of selections.  Were students selecting books of appropropriate challenge?  The record allowed us to look for patterns and push ourselves to grow past our places of comfort.  In reading intervention, I needed to find a way to create these same opportunities in smaller windows of time.


Rewind to my first year in reading intervention.  Families were used to a calendar that was to be initialed each evening to show students had read.  As I didn't want my students to be discouraged by the cumbersome work of writing titles, I decided to continue the practice of a calendar signature.  It wasn't long, however, until I was missing the benefits of archiving our reading history.  Without keeping track of the titles students had read, I couldn't consider their choices.  We couldn't talk about favorite titles or books that didn't really work.  We couldn't push past our places of comfort.  Most of all, I don�t think students realized how much reading they were really doing.  They weren�t seeing themselves as they readers they were becoming.  I knew I needed to find a better way to help students get to know themselves and archiving their reading life seemed a good place to start.  


Archiving Our Reading History 
There is much debate about keeping reading logs, and I am not talking about a logging system.  In an extensive search I could find little written to support their use in a classroom.  I think this is because often logs are used as a measure of accountability.  Students are given a particular system, often parents are expected to sign and enforce, and parameters are placed on reading.  This is really the opposite of what we hope to accomplish.  We really hope our systems will ignite a fire in our readers, yet this rarely happens.  Unintentionally we seem to discourage our real readers and frustrate those we are trying to bring on board. We hope our systems will:


  • encourage student ownership of reading
  • provide opportunities for choice and self-selection
  • connect home and school reading
  • help readers connect with other readers
  • open a world of reading opportunity for our students
  • begin conversations around reading with peers and in our reading communities
  • help students to grow into different types of reading
  • shift students toward intentional decision making
  • make students more metacognitive about their reading lives
  • most of all, fall in love with reading


This year I wrestled for weeks about archiving reading.  There are systems available through sites like Bookopolis and Biblionasium.  There are possibilities for keeping track of reading in writing or using Google docs.  I didn't want a cumbersome system, but I did want to be able to talk about choices.  I don�t think the vehicle matters as much as the purpose.  

I did want these readers to realize how much reading they were doing across a year.  I wanted them to begin to see themselves as the readers I knew they were.  I wanted them to be able to talk about the books they were choosing.  I wanted them to tell me about favorite books, authors, and genres.  I knew I wasn�t concerned about the parent signature.  Yes, I needed to get parents to help support reading at home, but it seemed to me I needed something better than a signature on a calendar.  Honestly, I knew I had students the previous year who hadn�t read, but had signed calendars and those that had read in which calendars remained unsigned.  I decided to help these readers grow their reading lives I needed to start with them.  I needed to help them own their lives as readers, connect with others, and learn to talk about books.  


To accomplish this, it seemed I needed to start with two changes.  First of all, I felt I needed to work within classroom take home systems.  Many of the students I work with are able to self-select books so I helping them to learn to make smart choices seems something I shouldn�t overlook.  Secondly, I wanted a way they could archive their reading so that they could reflect on their reading lives.


Our Reading Walls
After much consideration I decided to create reading walls for each student on Padlet.  There are many ways I could have accomplished having a reading archive, but I wanted something students would be able to own and would have continuous access. Padlet seemed an easy way to keep track of the books we were reading. We could take pictures of our books to add to our wall and easily add text or links as well.

  • Each student has their own digital reading wall.
  • Students have a QR code that will take them directly to their wall attached to their reading bags. This goes home with them each evening and is in the classroom during the day.
  • Students just snap a picture of their book selection and place it on their wall.
  • This creates a reading archive or record of some of the reading they have been doing and provides a starting point for continued conversation about our reading lives.


Growing Our Walls
I would never want a system that makes students not want to read.  The ease of this system should make it seamless.  We will only be adding the books students are selecting for home reading.  Using Padlet will allow students to grow their walls in new ways if they choose to do so.  For me, it is important they are able to make the choices about how they will use their wall. Some ways I envision readers might want to grow their wall:

  • adding books read in class
  • adding books read beyond the school day
  • staging pictures of books read in favorite spaces
  • adding comments about books
  • including a personal written book recommendation
  • adding links to more information about the book
  • writing reflections on paper or in digital spaces and link them to the wall

If our goal is to truly help readers to develop their reading lives, we have to ask hard questions about our systems for home reading.  Who is choosing the books?  Are students required to do certain reading?  How are students keeping track of reading?  Are our systems cumbersome for students?  Do our systems free students up to read or distract from our intent? I'm hoping I've found an authentic way for students to archive their reading histories to allow for purposeful conversation about the choices we make in our reading lives.
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