The Choices Teens Make

One of the blogs I read regularly, Webware, posted an article that I thought was interesting, titled “Survey: Teens ’sext’ and post personal info.” It sums up a recent study of teenagers and digital behavior, particularly focused on cyberbullying and sexting. Some of the data quoted in the article that caught my attention:

59 percent of the teens say that posting personal information or photos on public blogs or social-networking sites is either “somewhat unsafe” or “very unsafe.” Only 7 percent say it’s “very safe,” while 34 percent say it’s “somewhat safe.” Yet, when asked about their own behavior, 62 percent of the kids post photos of themselves, 50 percent share their real age, 45 percent the name of their school, and 41 percent the city where they live. When it comes to more private information, only 4 percent post their address, 9 percent “places where you typically go,” and 14 percent post their cell phone number.

The study’s executive summary explains, “Though they are aware of the risks, many teens expose personal information about themselves online anyway.” [emphasis added]

Unfortunately, the article fails to really delve into this issue. Yes, it’s alarming that kids are posting information about themselves. Yes, it’s alarming that 20% of students are somehow involved in cyberbullying. Yes, it’s alarming that 20% of teens have sent or received a “sext.” What I don’t believe is that we are not more worried that kids are making choices that they know are bad ones. They understand that there might be a lot of negative consequences, but they choose to do these things anyway.

Has this kind of behavior from teens been going on for a while? Of course. Kids smoke and drink in spite of knowing both legal and physical consequences. Kids have sex despite knowing all the potential consequences. This has been going on for a very long time. What I don’t understand is why we are so alarmed about cyberbullying or sexting – why aren’t we worried about the underlying causes instead?

We can force kids to take health classes and tell them all about the dangers of smoking, drinking, and sex. We can force kids to take digital citizenship classes and tell them about the dangers of cyberbullying and sexting and sharing too much information. However, in spite of all this instruction, kids are going to choose those things anyway.

The question, then, must then become a deeper one: how do we teach kids to make good choices? We all have students that make bad choices. Some use drugs, some sleep around, some don’t turn in their work, some don’t study for tests. What is it that we can do as educators to move our students towards better decision making?

Normally, this is where I would start answering these questions. The problem is, I don’t have an answer. If I knew how to convince teenagers to make better choices, you would be reading my book and watching my lecture DVDs right now. But I wonder what thoughts others have on this difficult issue. How do we even begin to address this herculean problem?

Ideas for Next Year…Already?

The end of the school year brings a lot of things for teachers: frantic efforts to help students pass, piles of grading, the ritualistic cleansing of the classroom, and of course, a couple of days off before we start preparing for next year.

Of course, for the obsessive among us, we have already begun planning, plotting, and prepping brilliant activities and assessments for next year. I’m no different – I’ve already begun hatching maniacal schemes that I can inflict on students from Day 1 next year.

I thought I’d share a couple of those ideas and, hopefully, get some feedback from more experienced, battle-hardened educators.

1. iGoogle. On day 1, I am planning to introduce students to the world of Google by having them create a Google account and an iGoogle page. I have a lot of reasons for this, not the least of which is that students can use Reader to subscribe to their teachers’ websites. Other connected ideas including using Google Docs (and Forms), shared calendars, to-do lists, bookmarks, and a host of other potentially useful and productive tools. My thinking is that, once it’s been created, this is something students should use every day outside of school (and can customize to include some “fun” stuff, as well.

2. Documenting Standards. We have a host of standards we expect students to meet over the course of the year – reading targets, writing targets, district outcomes and indicators, even the NETS. We try to document students meeting those standards by creating good assessments, but the students still feel like they don’t learn anything.

My plan is to give them standards worksheets at the start of the year, and over the course of the school year, they will accumulate “evidence” (read: assignments) that document how they have met each standard over the course of the year. For each standard, they will also write a short reflection, explaining how this proves that they met that standard.

I’m still not sure what standards I’ll be including, but I’ll definitely include reading and writing targets and our outcomes and indicators. In addition, I could include the Habits of Mind, thinking skills, NETS, and who knows what else, but all of that might be too much work. What I really want to do with this is minimize the environmental impact by doing it all digitally. Unfortunately, I’m not sure we have the access for that quite yet.

3. Digital Turn-In / Paperless Grading. I’m thinking about having students submit essays either via email, through Google Docs, or through a wiki. I’m still not sure if this is a good idea. I know Word has some great features for editing and commenting, so that might be the best option. Anyone with experience doing this? I’d love to hear how you set it up. I already use “Track Changes,” and I’ve read some stuff on using macros for common mistakes/comments, as well as some Word add-ons that look pretty cool. I’d love to take it a step further and do this all the time.

These are just a couple of the ideas I’m already getting jazzed about for next school year. How about you? What are you already planning to do differently?

txt ur discussion ?s now

"Sneaky Messages," by Tommy Huynh (on flickr)

As one of our building’s tech nerds, I get the privilege of trying out some new ideas that utilize technology in the classroom. Right now, I’m working on a pretty significant experiment in my classes: using cell phones, specifically texting, as a sort of formative assessment.

This is a particularly big deal for me, because I’m not a big fan of cell phones. I find them to be a big distraction, both for my students and myself. The privacy and anonymity is also kind of worrisome, as we see time and time again with the “sexting” issue that has been making headlines. Because of this, I’m pretty crack-down on cell phones – I have a wooden coffin and play the funeral march when I confiscate one, just to make a theatrical point.

At its core, the cell phone experiment hinges on getting instantaneous feedback from students. In my first experiment, I used it to get two types of feedback from 3 of my 5 9th grade English classes. First, I asked students to text their group discussion questions to this board on Poll Everywhere, and those questions appeared on the overhead. We worked our way through the discussion questions and, eventually, I asked them to participate in this poll using their cell phones, again using Poll Everywhere.

In short, the first round of the experiment was inconclusive. I experienced all of the problems a teacher would expect – students misusing their phones and texting other people, inappropriate comments being texted to the discussion questions board, and even one student taking my picture (which I am told appeared on his MySpace that evening). All these issues, which most teachers would use as reasons to avoid the cell phone entirely, bother me as well. I seriously considered stopping there.

Instead, however, I am planning on trying again, this time in all of my classes. While there were very obvious and frustrating problems, there were also some big positives: normally disengaged students coming up with discussion questions, groups working intently together to come up with questions, and a generally positive vibe during the actual discussion. So while there were certainly negatives, there were definitely positives to balance those out, as well.

As I try this next experiment, I want to do a comparison between the two groups: a group that has done it before, and a group to whom this is a novel idea. I am hoping to see if the students who have done it before have gotten the novelty out of their system and can actually buckle down and use the tool properly. I am hoping that they were just so intrigued that they had to “experiment” themselves, but aren’t mature enough to do that in a constructive way. I am hoping that the students will begin to recognize their phones as potentially educational tools. I am sure it will be an interesting comparison between the veterans and the n00bs.

This second round will ask the students to vote for which character(s) should be punished at the end of Romeo & Juliet, and I’m going to try two different types of response displays: a multiple choice poll and a text response. I plan on using the results of this poll to have another short discussion.

Eventually, I will experiment for a third time, hopefully with a completely different idea (rather than just collecting answers/responses). The problem is I am not sure what else to do. If you have any suggestions, I would love to try them out. If not, I’d love to hear your thoughts on some of this stuff, whether you love cell phones or hate them.

A Little Error

A pitfall of maintaining multiple blogs simultaneously that I hadn’t discovered: accidentally posting something to the wrong blog. Subscribers may have received a post meant for my baseball team blog on Edumacation. My bad.

Just a quick note on that, though: I’m finding that a team blog is a really effective way to communicate with parents quickly and efficiently, particularly if they know how to use RSS feeds. So far I’ve used our team blog to communicate practice schedules, picture information, important team documents (like spirit wear order forms), and now schedule changes.

I’m starting to think that, in addition to our normal class websites, a class blog might be a neat way for parents to get a regular glimpse into our classroom.

Excel for Educators

"ilustra-construindo-macro-excel" by FelipeArte (on flickr)

I’ve been working on several projects lately and am really engaged in one particular project: Excel for Educators.

In my role as a technology teacher leader, I have been trying to find some training/learning opportunities that teachers can truly benefit from. The lack of attendance at prescribed trainings and the poor response to topics like “Web 2.0 Apps” and “Making Learning Visual” is moving me towards more specific trainings with tools that we already have but may not know how to use.

After polling a number of teachers, I found that learning how to use Excel is one such learning opportunity. As a result, I’ve been working on an Excel for Educators training – looking for ways that teachers can maximize Excel’s more powerful features (you know, on top of making neat, clean tables). In doing this, I’ve been putting together a list of basic functions, basic formulas, and some intermediate formulas that teachers can use for practical, every-day stuff. For example, I’m including how to use formulas like AVERAGE and MIN, or for the more advanced users, using the IF formulas.

I’m wondering, though, what else people are using Excel for in their classrooms, either as a teacher tool or with students. If you have suggestions for teachers using Excel, I would love to hear them.

One additional FYI: As I finish up materials like this Excel for Educators training, I will be creating additional pages to house them, so be on the lookout for some new pages on Edumacation.

Finding More Hours in the Day

"The Passage of Time," by ToniVC (on flickr)

The last several weeks have been absolutely hectic for me. It all started when I got sick and had to take my first sick day, but much of by busyness has little to do with my health. I’ve found myself overwhelmed with meetings, grading, baseball, football meetings (already!), and the stress of being a young teacher as our district considers RIFs. All told, I’m happy I’ve been able to stay afloat. But time continues to be fleeting in my life.

Obviously, as a result, blogging has taken a bit of a hit. Though I want to post, any small amount of time I have has been spent doing something else - catching up with my wife, sleeping, obtaining parts for my new PC, etc. On top of all of this, I’m trying to work on several personal projects that I’ll have to share later.

All of this has raised two questions that I want to pose to anyone out there interested in sharing (right now, I’m particularly interested in the second):

1. For the bloggers who might be reading this, what do you do to make time to blog? Do you set aside a regular time in your day to compose posts? Do you wait for the muses to deliver inspiration? I’m curious what sort of strategies others are engaged in.

2. I’m already in the process of finding a solution to this question, but I pose it to others for additional input: what strategies do you use to make yourself more efficient, both at work and at home?Are there any theories/systems/tools that you use that help you create more time in your day for things like blogging?

A New Philosophy of Blogging

"Rodin's Thinker" by steven n fettig, on flickr

As mentioned a while ago, I’ve been giving some thought to a redesign – both in terms of the appearance/layout of the blog and the thinking behind why I’m doing this. If you’ve visited the site recently, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve hit the appearance/layout redesign and I’m pretty happy with it.
As for the philosophical thought process, I’ve given a lot of thought to how and why I do what I do on this blog. I thought it would be a good time to share my thought processes.

Why do I blog?

This was the starting point for me in redesign. Initially, I think it was purely to get involved in the onlne conversation and try to put in my two bits. Last year, I learned about RSS feeds and started subscribing to blogs, but I felt like I couldn’t share my side of the conversation. Essentially, it was a way for me to make my voice heard. Blogging was a chance to use technology, assess its value, and share information. As I have done so, I’ve become convinced of the power of blogging – the empowerment of having a voice, the encouragement of being heard, and the value of online PLCs.

As I’ve continued to blog, I think my purpose for doing so has evolved. At this point in my blogging life, I think there are three purposes for maintaining this blog:

1. To ask questions and seek feedback regarding teaching, technology, and/or education in general.
2. To share stories, links, and other resources that might benefit other educators.

How Do I Blog?

In rethinking what I do here at Edumacation, this was a more difficult question for me to ponder. When looking initially at successful blogs and “blogging tips” websites, there one consistent message that I heard: posting frequently is vital. In fact, I believed this to such a degree that I wore myself down trying to post at least a couple of times a week. Amidst planning, grading, coaching, mentoring, and everything else I had on my plate, I was forcing myself to crank out good content every couple of days.

As I’ve read more and written more, however, I have come to one significant realization: posting frequently is not a necessity. Very simply, it’s the old adage of “quality over quantity” that makes a blog successful. As an exemplar of this, I point to one of my favorite blogs to read – Smart Football. At times, I get very frustrated with this blog – Chris, the blogger, posts fantastic content, but posts are infrequent and sometimes sporadic. But here’s the thing: I am almost craving his next post, simply because all of his other posts are of such high quality. I find myself checking my reader regularly, hoping that his next post will be up. The quality of his posts become far more important to me than the quantity. Does this mean I post once a month? I certainly hope not. I think, as a practical goal, I want to post at least once a week. But it makes sense to me that, if I don’t have any good resources to share or questions to ask, posting for the sake of posting seems silly.

The Upshot

This seems pretty simple to me – write fewer, higher quality posts. In my mind, “high quality” posts are those that meet one or both of my purposes for blogging (see above), particularly #2 – sharing resources that benefit educators. It is with this in mind that I am going to be posting less frequently, but focusing my efforts on bigger “project” posts. An example would be this post – something I spend a couple of hours composing and refining. Another example is a resource page and corresponding post I am working on (something for all the busy teachers out there to look forward to).

So there you have it – a little explanation of what you’ll be seeing here at Edumacation for the forseeable future. If you have suggestions or would like to see something, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment – I’ll be sure to respond to everyone’s comments. Thanks for reading.

Filter Hack: Winamp Remote

I’m still up in the air on how I feel about this particular technology, but I thought it worth sharing with the education audience for one reason: filter hack.

Winamp - a free, downloadable media player – has developed a great tool for those teachers who are trapped behind internet filters at school. We all know that media – music and video, in particular, is a powerful education tool. Unfortunately, sites like YouTube are blocked even to teachers in many places.

The Winamp Remote feature may be a solution to that problem. Remote is a feature in the Winamp player that allows the user to create an account and access media on their home computer from any location. For example, if I want to show students a particular YouTube video, I can download it to my home computer (using a free online tool like KeepVid, for example) and access it through Winamp Remote. Hopefully, this resource can help if you need to get around those web filters to share useful photos, music, and videos.

And for those who are interested, Winamp Remote also works on the Wii Internet browser.

Twitter Hits the Mainstream

A recent report from Bob Condotta on the Seattle Times’ Husky Football Blog notes that

Steve Sarkisian’s “Twitter” page had an announcement from him that a new wide receivers coach had been hired.

[...] I’m told today that [Twitter] is officially his way of passing on news to the Husky nation.

If Twitter had not already hit the mainstream consciousness in this country, events like this are certain to make it bigger.

I’ve continued to put off joining Twitter – I feel like I’m already trying to keep up with enough stuff as is – my blog, wikis, keeping up with my barrage of RSS feeds…oh, and there’s that whole “teaching” thing, as well. Do you think this is reason enough to sign up? Why are some of you on Twitter?

Standards-Based Grading with Traditional Grading Scales

I’m slowly becoming a big believer in the concept of standards-based grading, particularly as it applies to writing. Throughout my own education (which wasn’t all that long ago), I often had no idea what went into the grading of my essays. Though I was an honors/AP student, essay grading often seemed subjective and, while I learned a lot from the comments, I didn’t know what separated an “A” paper from a “B” paper.

When I started working in my current job, our department used a standards-based rubric to score essays. At the time, we used a 10-point scale to grade the essays, which was quite simple. As we have progressed in our movement towards more standards-based grading, we have evolved into using a 4-point scale, which is simpler and easier to understand.

The inherent problem with this shift is that a 4-point grading scale does not convert neatly to a 100-point grading system like that used in our school. One of my biggest stressors over the last year has been trying to figure out how to solve this problem – how to convert the 4-point rubric to a 100-point grade. For example, if a student earns a 3 on our rubric  – which we label as meeting standard – she earns a 75%, which in our normal grading scale is a C. A student who does not quite meet the standard and earns a 2 has just failed with a 50%. Even a student who worked hard on the paper but simply lacks the proficiency to do well on an essay will fail miserably by getting a 1, as that is only a 25%. The problem is obvious to anyone who looks at it, and we’re not even dealing with the dreaded zero (for more on that, check out “The Case Against the Zero,” by Doublas B. Reeves - it’s something of an eye-opener).

Lately, I’ve been working on finding an adequate solution for this problem that is both fair to the students and easy for the teachers. Obviously whatever we do will add some work for the teacher, as we have to convert one scale to the other. But the methodology we choose could minimize that work or make it daunting. After doing a little online research, I came up with a couple of ideas, all of which employed Excel.

1. Create a spreadsheet for the entire class that allows me to input the scores from each writing category (content, organization, word choice, etc.) and have it calculate the 100-point grades. This seemed to be an effective, but also somewhat time-consuming choice.
2. Create a table (to print out) that converts a total score on our 4-point, 6-trait scale (basically a 24 point scale) into a number that can be entered as a percentage. While this seems to be the most efficient way, it also lacks the ability to weight categories or eliminate categories – basically we’d have to have a scale for every imaginable situation.
3. Create a grade adjustment calculator that gets used and reused. Have spaces to input the scores for each trait on the rubric, weight those scores, and have the spreadsheet calculate the adjusted point total for an accurate percentage. This seems, to me, the best balance of efficiency and effectiveness. It acts like a calculator, only you have to switch between windows (unless you’re using dual monitors…*drool*).

As I’m continuing to ponder/debate this difficult issue, I’m hoping for input on a couple of things. If you’d like to provide some feedback, please click a response in one of the two polls below, letting the me the world know which of the above options is best, and what grade you think a 3 (meets standard) should earn . I’d also, obviously love to hear comments on what you’re already doing or what you think might work. Looking forward to seeing some ideas bandied about.