Secret Ways : Character Building

It always makes me smile to walk into the classrooms of kindergarten children with spaces set up for learning and discovery, interactive writing hanging on the walls, as well as tools of learning placed carefully in areas for our youngest students.  These classrooms are always filled with math manipulatives to solve problems.  There are picture books around the room to help students take their first steps into our literate world.  These classrooms are full of markers, crayons, pens and a variety of styles of paper for our youngest learners to draw and write to tell their stories.  In addition, you'll find a variety of other tools for students to use to grow as learners.  Our youngest learners benefit from these concrete experiences, from being able to physically hold items and move them, from being able to test out their hypotheses, and from opportunities to learn beside friends.
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"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):

Ss connected what they read about pumpkin seeds to place and value! They were so excited to share. @AltonDarby pic.twitter.com/1yiERHFdas

� Meredith Kleman (@adekleman) September 29, 2016

Slides, iMovie, posters, models - V & C in sharing abt Civil War, Gold Rush, Chinese Architecture & English lang.! @BRN_Elementary @hernonch pic.twitter.com/k1F5SizLUG

� Kay Richardson (@KRichardson177) September 29, 2016

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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It's DigiLit Sunday.  Today I'm pondering screen time...

Recently I was leading a session around technology in the classroom when a teacher inquired, "Don't you worry about screen time?"  It's a smart question.  One I think a lot about.  However, I'm not sure the question is "How much screen time?" instead I wonder if we should be asking, "What kind of screen time?"  For example, yesterday was a day with a lot of 'screen time' for me.  I woke up early and wrote a post for this blog, read a book on my phone as my husband drove us to Bowling Green, and spent time creating a list of meals for break.  The reading and writing I could have done in paper formats, but I prefer to do both digitally.

As a classroom teacher I think there are different kinds of screen time.  Even pediatricians are rethinking screen times as our world changes.  When I see students work to make video book trailers, digital responses to their reading, or share their process in solving a math problem, I see that as a different kind of screen time.  When students are creating a digital composition, reading an eBook, or connecting with experts around the world, I see that as a different kind of screen time.  In my mind, tasks that could be done on paper and pencil, but the learner has chosen to work digitally as they learn, are a smart use of screen time.  Digital tools create new opportunities for us to create, connect, collaborate and work purposefully in new ways.

When I'm asked this question, "What about screen time?" I do pause.  What about it?  Recently someone forwarded an article about student learning which included an image of every student working on an iPad at the same time.  I wondered about choice when I saw the photo.  These were young children, and while there may be times everyone is on a device, I couldn't help but wonder:  What were they doing?  Was everyone completing the same task?  How long did they spend each day on devices?   Did they have opportunities to work with paper, markers, scissors, and paints?  Did they have choice between a variety of tools across their day?  Did they have time to collaborate and talk together about their learning?

I'm excited about new digital possibilities.  As someone who uses digital tools to create, learn, collaborate, and connect, I continually find new ways to work purposefully that weren't possible years ago.  However, I want digital tools to remain a choice.  I hope to create opportunities in which students can determine their purpose, choose their tool, and work with intention.  However, I'm thinking the question is less about "How much screen time?" and more about creating balanced learning opportunities for our students.  When thinking about technology use with my students I think about:

• Who is deciding when technology will be used?
• Is technology one choice among other tools in the classroom?  
• Are students using technology to work in ways that weren't possible before?
• Are students working with intention as they make choices about their learning?
• Are students using technology to connect with others and create new learning opportunities?
• Is technology growing their learning community?  
• Are students using technology to amplify their voice? 
• Are students using technology to create and grow their thinking?  
• Who is doing more work:  the device or the learner?  In other words, who owns the learning:  the teacher, the application, or the student?
• Is technology balanced with realtime conversation, play, and other activities necessary for continued growth and development?  

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Debate Continues as to How Much 'Screen Time' Kids Should Have with Devices

As I work with primary students it seems most of the digital tools they use independently are for creation.  Where would we be without tools like Padlet, Pixie, Educreations, Voicethread or Kidblog?   Among other things, these tools allow students to share their thinking in reading, publish their writing in ways we can share with the world, and build thinking around topics.  Digital composing is a part of our literacy workshops.

Finding sites for primary digital readers is something of greater challenge.  Many of the sites we use work well for shared reading.  Some of these sites students can return to, but for emergent and early readers many digital reading sites are too challenging.  Just as in reading print books, I do work to find digital texts that students will be able to engage in independently.  This is a much greater challenge when we are talking about our youngest readers.  Since participating in the #cyberPD conversation around Digital Reading:  What's Essential by Franki Sibberson and Bill Bass, I've been working to build the possibilities for the young readers I support to experience digital texts.  Here are a few of my favorites sites for emergent and early readers:

Tumble Books:  Tumble Books is a "read to me" site.  I have been a fan of this site for beginning readers for years as it has a wide variety of books available.  Many digital sites have books created specifically by developers for their sites, but Tumble Books has many of the popular picture books and early chapter books students might check out at their library available.  The only challenge of Tumble Books is that it is a paid site, but it can be accessed through many libraries including our local Columbus Metropolitan Library Tumblebooks site.

National Geographic Kids Young Explorer Magazine  Looking for informational text for young readers?  National Geographic has really kept up with needs of student readers.  No matter their product, print or digital, students enjoy finding out more with National Geographic.  The Young Explorer digital site allows readers to view and/or listen to past National Geographic magazines.  There are two versions available for reading:  Scout and Voyager.  Of course, a stop by the National Geographic Kids website can always provide additional digital material for students.

The Poem Farm with Amy Ludwig VanDerwater  It's true, I'm a bit of a poetry fan so I like to make sure digital readers have the opportunity to experience poetry.  Amy LV's site is the perfect stop for teachers as she shares so much about her writing process.  Honestly, Amy's site is one of my favorite stops for digital writing mentor texts.  You'll find her site to be helpful in planning for poetry mini lessons.  You can look up poems by topic and technique making it a great stop for shared reading as well.  However, this post is about digital reading for kids so I digress.  The reason I like this site for our youngest readers is that Amy always includes a SoundCloud version of her poem.  Students can revisit poetry and listen to her read it!  There's nothing quite like hearing a poet read her own poetry.

Storyline Online Beginning readers need to hear the sounds of books.  There's something about those wondrous words whispering in their ears through read aloud.  Storyline Online has many titles available to listen to as they are read by readers you just might know.

Unite for Literacy  This website is a must see for young readers.  Displayed as a digital bookshelf, readers may click on a title of choice.  Students can read the book independently or have a narrated voice read for them.  Words are not highlighted and the narration is a bit choppy, but this is an excellent stop for finding digital books.  Additionally, you can adjust the language to have different different languages read.  When I switched the narration I was still viewing the English text, but with the other language narration.

eBooks with Narration  Recently I noticed in my library's Overdrive site that digital titles are becoming available "with narration."  In a recent stop to Overdrive, I discovered that books are becoming available with narration.  This allows readers to view the text WHILE listening to the story being read to them.  Game changer for younger readers!  I've tried to find out more about this, but haven't been able to really get to the heart of what is available and if it will be sustainable shift in children's books.  Anyone know anything more?  Check out your library's digital reading section to see if titles are available.

Digital books with narration. Columbus Metropolitan Library

You can see how I have been able to locate titles available with narration.

I'm hoping to grow the list of sites available for my youngest readers.  I'd love your recommendations.

Here are some other favorite digital sites (not all are for beginning readers):

Follow Mrs. Cathy's board Reading Websites on Pinterest.

Trying out Sway. #wabtr @tara_smith5 @CathyMere @cvarsalona @MuellerHolly @jarhartz @Jreaderwriter @jffahey9 https://t.co/g3stCVORjQ

� Margaret Simon (@MargaretGSimon) September 20, 2015

Hmmmm.  Sway.  It wasn't the first time I had heard of it.  I had been wanting to play around with Sway since I heard Randall Sampson talking about a few weeks ago (here's his Personalized PD Sway).  I just hadn't found the time and then Lori Green was talking about it too.  So when I saw Margaret's tweet, I had to pop over to her blog to see what she had to say about Sway.  On her blog, Reflections on the Tech�, she shared creations from Dot Day using Sway.  Stop over and check them out.  

What I needed to do seemed obvious.  It was time to play with Sway.  I returned to a post from Thursday, Why Digital Literacy?, that I shared on the #cyberPD blog discussing key considerations for digital literacy.  I decided to use the bullet points for content and give Sway a try.  Here's my first attempt: 



I'm looking forward to playing around a bit more with Sway.  I liked the ability to add photos, video, and links to the Sway.  The movement makes the presentation more appealing.  I could see myself using it in much the same way I use Smore for sharing information in user friendly ways.  I'm adding Sway to my go-to list of presentation applications.  Thanks, Margaret, for pushing me that one extra step.  


Today's post connects to a post I shared Thursday on the #cyberPD blog on Thursday, September 17th.  The blog was established to provide a space for #cyberPD community members to share their discoveries about last July's featured study title, Digital Reading:  What's Essential by Franki Sibberson and Bill Bass.  The site is currently looking for participants interested in posting for October.   On Tuesday, October 6th, at 8PM EST the community will be chatting on Twitter about their first steps in launching their workshops with a digital lens.  Hope you can join us!

As part of a continuous collaboration among educators interested in digital learning, Margaret Simon hosts a weekly Digital Learning round-up on her blog:  DigiLit Sunday.  Stop by Reflections on the Teche.  

"We have found that when our students have lots of ways and reasons to connect, their stance as learners begins to change (p. 72)." Sibberson & Bass 

When the school year ended I had good intentions to stay connected with my students.  I had brought parents in for a discussion around keeping students reading across the summer, updated our reading hub, and talked with students about summer reading plans.  As the calendar turned from June to July, I was struggling to connect with readers I had served in intervention.  My students are too young to have their own accounts so all correspondence goes through their parents.  They don't see my updates on Twitter.  They don't read my emails.  The only way I stand a chance is if they stop by our hub, but that didn't seem to be happening.

Where did I go wrong?

As the calendar turns from July to August, I'm still finding it difficult to connect with these readers.  I'm hoping they're still reading, but I miss hearing about the books they are discovering.  I miss hearing them make recommendations to one another.  When I had my own classroom we spent time together in digital spaces across our year.  We had a class Shelfari account.  We posted together in our class blog space.  We continually visited our Kidblog account to write, read, and respond.  We posted together using our class Twitter account.  We used our Symbaloo spaces to connect to sites for our learning.  Digital tools were embedded in the learning we did across our day.

Building Digital Habits
In thinking back to my last year working as an intervention teacher, I hadn't really developed those same digital habits in my students.  I had tried to incorporate greater use of digital tools.  We responded to reading using Pixie, Educreations, and Explain Everything.  We set goals and talked about our reading lives in Evernote.  We participated in the global read aloud.  We commented on the reading hub blog periodically.  The problem, as I think back, was that we didn't do anything regularly or in routine.  We didn't really talk through the purposes of digital work.  Digital work wasn't consistently an option for my students.  Limited time added to the challenge.  I found it easier to work with students digitally if their classrooms had set digital spaces and digital work was just part of the way they learned.

Having just finished Digital Reading:  What's Essential by Franki Sibberson and Bill Bass, I'm finding myself thinking more and more about the work I do supporting readers in classrooms.  As I step back into my role in August I know I want to be building habits that will help my students to grow as readers, both in traditional and digital ways.  I know that I want to find ways to make digital opportunities an intentional part of our lessons.  I know I want to grow their connectedness with their reading communities, books, and authors.  Most of all, I know I want to find ways for parents and students to be [digital] readers TOGETHER.

What changes will I make?

• Build My Awareness:  Instead of creating new spaces, I want to work within classroom systems where they exist.  I want to be more aware of digital spaces students are using in their classrooms and weave these spaces into the work we are doing.  Students don't always need to respond in their notebooks.  I'm going to need to be more intentional about helping them to find times they want to share their response/thinking with others beyond our group.  If students have digital space to collect important work, I want to utilize this space more as a part of our normal routine.
• Use Digital Spaces:  When students do not have digital opportunities in their classrooms, I need to be ready to grow spaces we can use.  Finding opportunities to use our community blog space, create spaces for personal blogging/response for students who do not have them, and taking them back to our hub to connect/link to spaces that support our learning as part of our routine will be essential.
• Connect Parents to Our Learning:  I've spent a lot of time building our community hub. I need to find ways to bring parents into this space with greater intention.  I'm not sure yet how I will accomplish this. I think it will be combination of working to improve the content so parents want to go there, continually updating and reminding parents of information here through emails or consistent posting, and getting students to help guide parents into this space may be a start.  
• Intentionally Embed Digital Possibilities:  Last year I had some students who would light up when digital tools/reading sites were used during our lessons.  I need to figure out who those students are early and provide them with opportunities that might help grow their interest in literacy.  I also need to make more of an effort to balance digital possibilities with traditional print possibilities in both reading and writing.  
• Document Our Reading Stories:  Right now, I use Evernote to document our reading stories.  I'd like to find ways to turn this over to students.  One place I'd like to begin is in keeping track of the books we read (more on this in an upcoming post).  I'm also playing around with Seesaw, Google, and our new Canvas LMS to figure out how to make this work.