Classroots.org

[Editor's note: this one goes out to Shelly Blake-Plock of TeachPaperless and is a kind of meta-testament to the power of a widely distributed PLN to effect classroom reform for authentic engagement.]

The classroom is up and running, and we’ve been through three weeks of shake-out. In the interests of sharing and transparent teaching, I want to take a moment and share the systems we’ve developed together as students and teachers.

Our classroom is uncommonly technology-rich this year due to a combination of design and grant spending deadlines. I recognize how fortunate we are, but would like also to suggest that what follows is one blueprint for a “21st Century” classroom – by which I mean a classroom that values problem-solving, social learning and multiple communications technologies that decentralize the position and role of the teacher.

Campfire by eskimoblood

We work in a technology lab that has been repurposed as a classroom. Because the classroom was a technology lab, it is large. Both the layout of the room and its work-station-furnishing discourage the traditional arrangement of desks in a classroom. Therefore, we have adopted the workstations and have created three distinct learning areas, as well as a smaller alcove for individual conferencing. Our learning areas are each specially purposed. By the door we have our campfire, an area for daily floor meetings during which we share out the story of the day’s class and our goals for it on a SmartBoard. This area also has a bull-pen of five drafting tables for students producing original art for class projects – we’re heavy into original IP and legal use of others’ work. Around the campfire, against the walls, nestled in work-stations, we have our watering holes – social learning stations built around media-production computers. Typically, three students work per station; two use 1:1 laptops to collaborate on the research and resource gathering necessary to produce media on the desktop computer, which the third student “drives.”  In the “back” of the room is our cave, an area for individuals to use when they need to meet a deadline without distraction or to regroup emotionally before working with others.

I think there are two design lessons here. First, new schools should be built with classrooms that provide ample, differentiated space, so teachers explore new ways of orienting themselves and their instruction to students. If you want teachers and students to think outside the box, don’t put them in one. Second, in existing classrooms – especially secondary ones – teachers should design multiple spaces with explicit and consistent purposes to provide spatial and kinesthetic reinforcement to transitions from task to task. Imagine a daily routine that tapped into the strengths of centers, stations, and jig-saw activities. The benefits of building such a culture of purpose and use is worth time taken to establish it.

Apart from a printed work plan designed and followed to build students’ accountability and alleviate their anxiety about what comes next (or when class ends), we compose and submit work on the computers – mostly on-line. The work plan acts as checklist and cheat sheet for students’ FAQ about class activities – what are we doing? What comes next? Can I work with a friend? Can I work on the computer? By providing the work plan to individual students and referring them to it, I hope to help them develop better executive function.  Over time, students learn to organize their work around the plan and take responsibility for checking off completed tasks without prompting from an adult.  In addition to monitoring students’ use of the plans during class, I audit a small sample of the work plans semi-nightly and give private, goal-oriented feedback to students about next steps either in organization (like maintaining an accurate work-plan) or work habits (like making better seating choices).  That feedback, like many of our learning activities and projects, is largely delivered online and then referenced in F2F dicussions during class.

Flat Classroom Skype by superkimbo_in_BKK

While I continue to struggle with finding the right mix of linguistic and non-linguistic differentiation, I think we have made the transition from a paper-based classroom to a nearly paperless one in much less time than I would have anticipated. Sometime in August, after following @teachpaperless for a few weeks on Twitter, I decided to take the plunge and began thinking about which tools fit which purposes in class. Instead of designing a traditional curriculum map shuffling around content, I tried to envision a structure for learning, sharing, and producing new work. I knew in August that if things went well in a division pilot, both Google Apps and Office Live domains would be available for my students by the end of the first marking period. In the meantime, I needed to find existing tools that would protect students’ online IDs without unnecessarily limiting their use of the Internet for learning from others.

Here’s where we are:

• I use Google Docs to generate forms and collect work from students via embeds in a class blog hosted by Blogger.
• The class blog also embeds and links to off-site instructional materials.
• I deliver feedback to students on their work via Edmodo, which we also use to share research links and trade files. For example, a student might make a song on one of our media production machines and then send it to me via Edmodo for me to download to iTunes for assessment.
• We also have a class wiki – hosted by Wikispaces – on which groups of students maintain pages for the work of their documentary production companies and on which I post media production tutorials.
• Different pieces of the system are shared out to coaches who work with students on history, production value, usability, and writing rubrics for their documentary work.
• Student use other applications, like iMovie, Final Cut Express, or Garage Band, as their work warrants.

This week I’ll print out interim reports to send home with students; apart from work plans, those interims will be the first paper products I’ve made for class this year. Going paperless has been easier than I thought it would be, and I feel organized like never before while enjoying access to student work from any web-capable device. I wholeheartedly recommend taking whatever part of the plunge you can in your work. Moving away from paper is a step toward the reinvention of school-work, as is moving away from a traditionally shaped or oriented classroom. Maybe you can sign out a lab for a week or grab a laptop cart every Friday for a month. Maybe a local school technology consortium can loan out computers to one of your class projects. Maybe enough of your students have cell phones to snap pictures on a school field trip so that they can return to class and serve others by stitching together a virtual trip for those less fortunate or further away.  Or maybe your step away from paper can pursue another avenue of authentic engagement apart from classroom technology.  Whichever step you take, as with every step into the future, you have to decide to take it.

My students have adapted to the point where they no longer say the computer doesn’t work when a web page fails to load. Instead they ask an adult to proof-read the student-typed address for them. While this is not the zenith of authentic engagement we’re building towards, requests like that reflect a profound shift in students’ attitudes toward technology. Technology is no longer to be feared or blamed, it’s something to be used for learning and the assessment of students’ work.

I’m eager to see what student produce from their learning this year and hopeful that our community and relationships will develop enough so that each student finishes with an impassioned and amazing project, online or off.

If you’re interested in learning more, please begin with the class blog.  Also feel free to write chad@classroots.org.