1. I was most proud this year when…my students took charge and moderated an interview with author producer Alex Kotlowitz.  What a day of student empowerment.  This is definitely a direction I'd like to venture into at least once per year.  Skype has a lot of possibilities when it comes to connecting people; I'm happy to see Skype, as a brand, recognizing their value in education and providing means for more teachers to connect each other's classrooms.

2. At the start of the year I thought…technology was a big motivator and tool for engagement but now I know… that being organized online doesn't promote productivity for students and being plugged in at all hours of the day can be pretty dehumanizing.  Authenticity has been a much better selling point than many of the new, cool, technology tools I've introduced this year.  When there is more on the line (impressions that students will leave for local leaders or national figures), students step up to the plate.  Also, I wonder if there is less wonder about using laptops/computers/gadgets now that kids are so connected.  I used to think kids would access the Web at home, now I get more and more complaining about not having access to features, etc on their phones.  What a mobile world we are entering...

3. If I could go back in time I would…spend more time on culture-building than on getting students seated and signed into a computer at the beginning of the year.  Also, I was surprised at the number of activities that just worked better on pen and paper.  Plagiarism is less rampant on assignments that require some pre-planning and thought are less rushed... I've been toying around with the idea of creating a project driven by the question: "Can we still identify as New Tech without the 'tech'?"  I know what my vision for our New Tech classroom was, but I'm not sure that my young group will leave this year with a shared vision for how things should have been.  (What is the old saying?  Never assume; it makes an....)    I'm afraid that many students are focused too much on other benefits (listening to music, talking, etc) and don't see the process or culture we try to build.  While that starts with me, it also must be seeded in them somehow.  I'll be spending a lot of time this summer pondering the next steps...

4. If I could wave a magic wand for next year…I would rebuild the technical aspects of my teaching space and tools I'm using.  Sometimes, it's not a bad thing to sit in a cubicle to plow through some work; I do this (and even look forward to it) every Sunday when I go to the library.  With the room setup and alternatives I have at my disposal, I still don't feel I am providing a good space for my students who need to be distraction-free (i.e. not facing friends, not being surrounded by other tables, etc) to get even quick writing or reading done.  Oh, how could I forget air conditioning?  (I don't know how a double-block class plus laptops doesn't have some sort of air circulation...)  In all seriousness, though, there are some times where I feel our space and our table setup (even the tables themselves!) aren't conducive to giving directions, etc.  While we have a big room, spreading isn't necessarily the answer; that can make the room even louder sometimes as students who "have to"(?) talk with another group will do it any way they can.  When it comes to tools, I can't even keep track of the number of times when students wanted a paper book instead of accessing an online/electronic copy... and how many times our school resources came up short on books!

5.  In addition to rest and relaxation, one thing I hope to do this summer is…write.  As much time and thought as I put into posts, I certainly don't write often enough.  I'm happy to be joining the Illinois Writing Project this summer.  I've already been jolted out of my creative writing hibernation just in the first preliminary meetings/interviews I've had.  I saw a teachers-only fiction writing context pop up, and I hope I can put something together for that.  Oh, and I want a Kindle, too, because reading for enjoyment is a term I haven't felt connected to in a while.

Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him.
~ John Locke

At my school, I began providing some professional development on reading skills and strategies that were familiar to me (skills and strategies that I had used as a reading interventionist for my last school.  Little did I know that some great work was happening behind the scenes at New Tech Network to develop very useful tools and resources that would really change the process through which I would develop reading and writing tasks...) I struggled providing professional development using some of the methods I was accustomed to as a traditional teacher.  It's not to say that they weren't relevant anymore, but it's more that they were entirely different ways of scaffolding tasks that were hard to translate into a 1:1 environment.  In PBL, we still use graphics organizers; we still scaffold reading; but perhaps we don't isolate the reading/content from the writing as much, which is a realization I had only too late in the year.  What I know now from reflection on this practical experience is what good theory and research has told us for years.  When it comes to authentic literacy, there is a great "role for writing: as an effective tool for improving students’ reading."

Since the initial professional development I provided, I've spent a lot of time going back to what's been provided by our parent organization, New Tech Network.  It's the first year of a great literacy initiative, and one that has resulting in a plethora of resources.  However, I just got buried.  I'm not one to set five minutes away each day to learn something.  If I get a window, I barrel through and single-task until I teach myself new.  So, one day after school, I started taking notes on the process of how New Tech was expecting teacher/facilitators to use a new module called the Literacy Task.  With so much text flying around and so many Chrome tabs open, I had my own troubles 'reading and comprehending' (so to speak) the resources.

So, I did what I've done for years when I get into a processing slump... I mapped out what was going on in my head.  I started making sense of why the steps and resources were put where they were.  And then our school-wide Common Core curriculum meetings started sneaking back into my head, and wham!  Lightbulb moment...all of which was too precious to document in scribbled pencil on the blank side of an abandoned printout from earlier in the day.  So, I made a Gliffy, which turned into a resource I've had great success with in better focusing my writing tasks and getting students to interact with content.  The process of narrowing the purpose and targeting only specific skills at a time has really made the tasks richer.  My writing task prompts from the first three quarters of the year always resulted in questions from students, but I, so far (fingers crossed), have had fewer questions and much better writing as a result of this new approach to writing a Literacy Task.  What's great is that it does make the Common Core cross-curricular literacy expectations easy to plan for and execute.

Below are just a sampling of some of the tasks that I've seen student growth in so far:

I will definitely be pursuing face-to-face interviews more in the future in order to encourage field research on topics.  I found it a great community outreach opportunity.  I designed a scaffolding activity that asked students to engage in a mock phone call to set up interviews; it really helped to ease some of (to be expected) worries about sending young students into the community to do research.  During that activity / oral communication quiz, students really got a kick out of being able to call my desk phone using their cell phones, too.

It's worth noting, too, that I did get an opportunity to teach a couple students how to make infographics using Illustrator, as per one of my original goals for this project.  The infographic was part of the Advanced column on our project rubrics, with other advanced graphs an option as well.  (If students did a demographic study within a particular survey question... say, breaking down results from males vs. females... then they, too, could earn Advanced credit without the extra tech skills.)  I'm pleased to present one of the infographics that I have uploaded with the student's permission.  Their group surveyed students on teen self-image, collected open-ended responses as well as data from closed responses.  The student I worked with on this infographic more or less taught (him/her)self after I walked through a step-by-step tutorial from Vector Tuts Plus with (him/her).  Check out the student work sample below.

My added twist to this previously-successful project was to bring in more 21st century skills.  Sure, we're going to eventually write a definition / position paper, but along the way, I might get them to first critically analyze their data with a focus on how to visualize it.  We are consuming more and more information visually, so I'm hoping that some production/constructivism will add a new level of understanding to the students as not just researchers but also presenters.

Infographics have become a recent special interest of mine since I became a Wired magazine fan.  There are few periodicals that I read cover-to-cover, and Wired is the one I read cover-to-cover most regularly.  They have a number of great infographics in their printed magazine.  Some are even a series, such as the decision-making page that guides you on how to make the best of your nerd dollars, time or space.  If there's one feature that I'd probably cherish on an iPad, it would be the interactions that could be allowed on Wired's mobile app.

Anyway, I've added infographics as a tease into the rubric.  Previously, graphs were required for each of the survey questions, but those can be so...erm... "Excel".  Now that many of my sophomores have gone through our Digital Portfolio class, I hope they will take the bait and run with the idea of using Illustrator or Photoshop to draw their audience into their field research.  I plan on using examples that I draw form coolinfographics.com or infographicsarchive.com.  With any luck, some Tweets might even attract their attention so I can have them run a Skype workshop on how to best build infographics (fingers crossed).