Promise Not To Tell?

I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I really like my class. I like how they respect each other, listen to each other, work with each other and communicate with each other. They communicate mostly in person and also through their blogs. They have tackled projects that I had never done before, and they have done a beautiful job. They have embraced what we have explored and created in a way that makes me proud as their teacher and hopeful as a person. I cannot believe that summer is here already.

Don't get me wrong. This year has been a lot of work (just don't ask the non-teachers that think we have it made for some!). We work our 'butts' off for 10 months and then spend the better half of the other 2 months either planning for, thinking about or trying not to think about the 10 that are coming next. I have a summer full of my own learning, family vacation and maybe even some sleeping late (if my kids can accommodate Dad's wishes). I am also finishing my graduate studies in Educational Technology (yay me!)

I just gave my class their digital yearbooks today. I have been doing them for every class for each of my 5 years of teaching. They are multimedia movies of our experiences in fourth grade. As a result of my own explorations and technical growth, each successive year has a "better" yearbook. They also tend to get longer. This year's video contains images and video with audio that I created by myself. I played with mixing and changing the speed. I am proud of it, and my kids absolutely loved it. Giving the yearbooks away is bittersweet for me. On one hand, they enjoy it and they cheer as they watch and relive our fourth grade memories. On the other hand, it means that the school year is really coming to a close and we must say farewell.

We all know 'those kids' that drive you totally nuts sometimes, but you would never trade them away. I have had quite a few, and I have a few this year. Today, I recieved something from a student that just totally blew me away. It was a note. It was a note in which this student expressed gratitude and happiness for the fourth grade experience that they had. It was so deeply anchored; it wasn't a "Hey Mr. D You Rock!" note. I read it a few times to myself, and I even shared it with a colleague. It wasn't to brag; lord knows I despise bragging... it was to share the fundamental joy that it brings to see a child appreciate what they were a part of. I am not a rarity in my school either. There are so many wonderful teachers in my school that go so far beyond the call of duty that perhaps students don't stop and think "Wow. My classroom really is a special place!" Not all of my teachers were so wonderful, but I will never forget those teachers that really played a role in my life. Thank you Mrs. Josell, my first grade teacher. Thank you Mrs. Rumore, my high school Spanish teacher. Thank you Professor Mandel, my college marketing teacher. This student wrote "I have another spot in my heart for you!". Wow... is there any accolade higher than that? Who knows... maybe one day this student will be blogging a similar article writing "Thank you Mr. Dugger, my fourth grade teacher."

I can only hope. Have a great summer everyone.

What's The Matter With Kids These Days?

What do you visualize when you think of that line? For me, I envision three older gentlemen sitting on something like a park bench or waiting in a barber shop. We all know it goes. Every generation says that it had it tougher than the one that comes after. We know how our parents walked uphill 10 miles to school both ways. We know how you didn't have more than one pencil so you made it last the whole year. We also know how you didn't waste one piece of food since children in other parts of the world were starving.

All too often, I hear adults speaking about how kids don't care about the world around them. Kids today and their "instant gratification" resources, video games that glamourize violence and crime and they can't do any real work because everything is handed to them. They don't care about anything or anyone but themselves. Ironically, the very people that now fight so much to "save the world" or whatever aspect of it they are on a crusade to protect is more than likely part of the generation that was responsible for its destruction or degradation. Our children should be educated on the issues that face the world, as they will truly inherit them.

I first watched this video by Don Tapscotta few months ago. It really got me thinking:

A few weeks ago, a classmate from my EdTech program that teaches middle school social studies showed me the following video. You may have seen it:

This "Lost Generation" movie really touched me. Watch the first half and you will be depressed, but at the end of the whole video you will be hopeful or at least a bit more optimistic than before.

I wanted to show "Lost Generation" to my class, but I was wondering if it might be over their collective heads. I opened a discussion about their concerns. After we spoke about general classroom concerns, I asked them to think about the world around them. They spoke of the economy, the price of gas, the price of college now and when they will be attending, the war in Iraq, and global warming to name a few. I understand that their concers might echo those of their parents, but I would wager than the fact that they are "hyperconnected" (it might have been Will Richardson that I heard use that term) contributes much to their knowledge. When I was 9 or 10, my biggest concerns were my bicycle, where my friends would be after school, and maybe a math test looming on the horizon. I don't remember being concerned too about the world around me, at least not the world immediately local to me.

Knowing that my students were aware of issues "out there", I began by defining vocabulary that they might not know. I then started the the video. I watched their faces as they watched, and I paused it right at the middle when the woman's voice says "It is foolish to think that there is hope."

The lights went back on, and we spoke about how it made then feel. They said how pessimistic it seemed, and how they felt angry, depressing and sad.

Lights went back off, and we watched the rest of the video. I was impressed at how my class reacted. A few sentences in, and I heard a chorus of "oh!"s, "wow"s, and "cool"s. They really got it. I told them how they will be taking over the decision making and the direction choosing. I told them how they must be informed with good information, and most importantly, to remain hopeful and empowered.

I think of my own children, the problems they will inherit, and the resources that they might have available to them. They use media that is available to them that I rarely even came into contact with as a child. There is nothing the matter with kids these days, but I wonder if my classroom is uphill in both directions in the hallway...

Notes From The Other Side

"Here are some suggestions to help you do your best." Ask any of my students what that means, and more than likely they will tell "that's Mr. Dugger's spiel" (pronounced shpeel). When I administer the New York State assessments to my class, I tell them that NYS requires me to read a certain amount of text to them since it is a standardized test. When we do practice questions, I sometimes do "the spiel" as a way of getting them used to what they can expect to hear on the actual test day. By the time the test arrives, my "here are some suggestions" speaking part actually relaxes them a bit as they are used to it. Having said that, it is me, their very own teacher that knows them both as students and as individuals that is reading to them. It is me, their very own teacher that is personally invested in their collected and respective successes that is reading to them.

Today I found myself on the other side of the testing table. Here I was at a college that I had never been to waiting to take the New York State Educational Technology Specialist certification exam. I was sitting with other teachers (and teacher-to-bes) taking some incarnation of a certification exam.

I looked at the proctor. She was a woman who I had never before met. She did not know me from any of the other people in that room. I did not have the familiarity with my protcor that my students were afforded, yet I was just about to read her version of "the spiel" given to her by New York State as well.

90 multiple choice questions and one extended response essay later, I stepped out of the college with my fingers and toes crossed. There were questions about hardware, software, technology incorporation, and collaboration. I hope that I did my best.

Can 21st Century Skills Replace 19th Century Skills?

I am very fortunate as an educator. I work in a school where the individual passions and strengths of a teacher are respected and utilized in such a way to benefit the students that we serve. We don't have a cookie-cutter system of teaching that we must conform to. We are not only allowed, but urged to develop our craft and become the best we can be. We all do things differently, but we achieve the same goals, meet the same standards, and all of that.

I aws speaking to my Library Media Specialist the other day about 21st century learning. We spoke about how the skills that will be necessary for the world of tomorrow will soon drive the learning in our classrooms. This begs the question... "What are the skills they need?"

While we don't know for sure what they are, we do have ideas and a general direction. Students need to be active learners. They need to be critical thinkers. They need to think "outside of the box". I believe that they need to be taught HOW TO, not taught WHAT.

A simpler analogy that I can refer to is the dreaded choral clap. Many teachers use this method to get student attention. This is especially useful in the lower grades (I guess, or at least that's how it appears). To me, that is more akin to training monkeys or seals than children. Are we Pavlovian training them to react to a sound or are we trying to help them to gauge the appropriateness of their actions and self-correct? The world doesn't clap when you do something wrong. It hits hard. Having students more autonomous and accountable to themselves without constant reminders and redirection from others.. that's what I hope for my students.

Back to the 21st century. There are things that many teachers do that I don't. They simply don't lend themselves to my style and my passions. If I had to assign weekly book reports to my kids, I think I'd jump out of a window (even thought I'm on the first floor). While book reports make me cringe, I have no problems asking my students to blog their thoughts. I would not want to read through pages upon pages of structured responses, but I gladly look through 25-50 blogs each week online and quite a few comments. I don't want to create scrapbooks and dioramas, but I love for my students to put on plays, create movies, and digitally tell stories.

Textbooks tell a story, but I want my kids to experience the story. I want them to feel the fight for independence as if they were alongside the Patriots at the Boston Tea Party, not look at it as an isolated, disonnected and irrelevant part of history. I want them to empathize with the characters in a book, not look on as a casual observer. It's nice to tackle transformative projects, but at what point will 21st century skills actually replace those that are "outdated"? How can we figure out what has become outdated?

On a probability test I gave my class about a month ago, I asked the following question:

A box contains 6 red tiles and 4 blue tiles. Sammy chooses a tile without looking. She wins if the tile is red. Cara wins if the tile is blue. What can you change in order to make this game fair for both players?

What do you think? The standard answers....
1) Remove 2 red tiles
2) Add 2 blue tiles



I had a student write the following on that test...
"Take one red tile and paint it blue"

I will not take credit for that student's thinking. I will tell you that I did say "WOW!" when I was grading it. That's not outside the box.. that's blowing it up.

Blogging Breeds Web Developing Skills

As my students are using classblogmeister (created by David Warlick), I am noticing an additional side benefit. No... this has nothing to do with a digital voice that transcends the classroom. No, it is not technology as a positive force of communication. This is something new and unexpected. My students are becoming web developers! While they might not be creating html and server side scripts, they are learning about how to change the look of text on the web and the purposes of doing so.


It all started earlier this year, when one of my students started playing with the "graphical style" text editor that David rolled out this year. Instead of simple text input for their entries, students are greeted with a familiar MS Word-ish interface with font faces, styles, weight, sizes, alignments etc. I remember seeing the first student use a different color. It became the talk of the class. Soon thereafter texts became larger, smaller and brighter and duller. Smileys invaded blogs, but it was used in the interest of personalization. I told my kids that as long as it was 'readable', meaning bright yellow was out, I was okay with it.


About a month ago, a girl in my class changed the text face color, but this time it was in a specific way and for a specific reason. She made the text white. Why, you might ask? She did this because white text with a white background means invisible text. She left a note to the reader to "Scroll over with your cursor slowely to see the hidden message below." Genius!


Soon, news of this new feature spread. Who's side would I be on the French and Indian War? Scroll over to see! Matching text color to background color! I do the same thing in hiding things on my SMARTboard, but here 9 and 10 year olds are doing the same with excitement! Is this cool or what? Yes, it is! It sure is!


And then? One of my kids the other day, in a blog letter to King George, wrote the following:





By putting something as simple as a "strikethrough", one of my students was able to voice his opinion on King George without even writing it! I was very excited to see this kind of thinking. It wouldn't be possible without technology. I often hear that 'words on a screen' lack emotion without the physical traits of the speaker's voice and actions (emoticons aside), so is this a good way to overcome this alleged shortcoming?
What's next??? I don't know! ;-)

What's the Story With Daniel Pink?

Last year we were asked to read "A Whole New Mind" by Daniel Pink. I am always skeptical when reading the latest educational theories and research, but this one looked promising. To be honest, I was barely able to put it down and I read it, or rather digested it, in only a few short readings. Wow! It surely touched a nerve with me. In my previous life in the business world, I felt much like a hamster on a wheel. Sure I was "moving" but was I making progress? I was a marketing analyst, a technical support specialist and a database administrator. My last effort to remain in the corporate world was my position as a web developments specialist and team manager. I was able to work on projects and infuse a certain amount of creativity within the guidelines and constraints of brand identity and corporate direction.
When I finally decided to take the leap of faith into the world of education, I was immediately greeted by a world that not only allows independent creation and direction, but it fosters it. When I read Pink's book I did immediately think of my own personal voyage into creating my own classroom and myself as an educator.

One of the six essential senses that Pink speaks about is "Story". Story refers to the art of narrating information. Instead of merely retelling facts in a mindless list, using them in a story offers a much greater impact. He speaks of how commercial advertising has embraced this as a strategy for selling products to consumers. Technology is a natural for this sense, as it offers students a means of telling a story to get facts or information across to their audience. Since their audience can be the entire world for the sake of argument, the tools need to be powerful and outreaching, but given the user they cannot be overwhelming, cumbersome or overcomplicated.

Digital storytelling, blogs, and video logs are just a few of the tools that are at our fingertips. Twenty or even ten years ago, to make a movie and make it available to the whole world took a great deal of technical knowledge, high level hardware and a network of people "in the business". Of course, let's not forget the bank account that usually accompanies those with the last names of Spielberg, Lucas, Tarantino and the like.

This evening, I decided to revisit Daniel Pink's own site (http://www.danpink.com/), and I found a most interesting video. It was created by Tomas Nilson, and he used infographics to tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood. It is so dry and riddled with facts. It lacks story, but it does paint a very interesting picture of how important story can be. Imagine how difficult it would be to understand what was happening if you didn't already know the story. It is quite entertaining though.

Is that not a huge example of the importance of story? As an educator, I strive to use story to create meaning in my classroom. In addition to simply reading about events in history, we sometimes act them out. We view movies based on history with characters that tell the story. We create silly stories to help students to memorize concepts in math. Of course, literature allows us to use story all of the time.

On the other hand, students can be creators themselves and use stories to demonstrate competency. On my most recent social networking history site, my students are creating blog entries as if they were that historical person using information gathered from research and their own creativity. They are writing autobiographies from the first person point of view. Instead of regurgitating facts and dates, they create meaning and connect themselves to the lives and experiences of that person.

What a journey this has all been, but that's a whole other story...

When Social Networking Becomes Social Studies...

In a moment of pure insanity, I decided to tackle a new project with my students this year. I found in "Instructor" magazine the idea of starting a social network for students using people that would be studied in history. How cool would it be to have Thomas Jefferson "befriend" John Hancock, post pictures of himself and some biographical info, just like Myspace and Facebook? So, with the idea, some motivation and a whole lot of optimism, I decided to embark on "MyHistorySpace".

My class studies the Golden Age of Exploration and the people that saught fame and fortune to find the new world. People like Christopher Columbus, Ponce DeLeon, and Ferdinand Magellan might have a lot to say if given the opportunity to be part of a social network.

My library media specialist provided the students with a myriad of web sites that they could start out with. We spoke about the suffixes at the end of web sites and what they mean (.com, .net, .gov, .edu, etc.). We spoke about how those suffixes have an impact on whether or not you should 'trust' the information that you find. It went very well, and we knew that we were ready to move on.

I started with our class wiki. It became a data warehouse or a knowledge base of sorts. Using questions that asked for various biographical information, students scoured the web. They saved images that they found on a network drive. Things were moving along, but what next?

I had played with animated avatars at www.gizmoz.com before. They were quick and relatively easy... so I had my kids write "status quote" type sentences with authentic information about their explorer. They then animated a head shot picture and recorded their voices saying their quote. Of course, I had them speak (or attempt to speak) in the accent of the country that the explorer was born in.

After searching and researching, I decided to use a ning. That's where we are now. Today I formally introduced "Social Networking", the Ning and how to use it. Today, they embedded their avatars, uploaded profile pictures (of their explorer, not themselves), and they have started to write their blog entries. This class is amazing. They take it and run, and their 'tech-savviness' is wonderful. They have managed to become bloggers, wiki collaborators, multimedia producers, social networker and digital researchers. I am so proud of them! Pity the school year is coming to a close very soon.

Is this the end of the traditional biography report? I doubt it, but perhaps it is "natural progression." I'll let you know how the rest of the project goes! Feel free to check us out at http://myhistoryspace.ning.com