Recently, a few of my Twitter friends had an exchange about one way that teachers engage and share ideas online: Teachers Paying Teachers (TpTdotcom)

There are lots of ways to share ideas on the internet, and I recognise that many teachers find the idea of making money on the lessons they've developed in their own classroom appealing.  In fact, there is nothing objectively wrong with it.  No matter what state you teach in, you probably don't get paid what you should be paid to do the work of shaping the minds and hearts of young people.


But there is a fundamental problem, at least in my mind (and I think the boys would agree): We Are What We Share.


In all aspects of culture, I believe in free and open sharing.  My favourite bands all allow their fans to bring in recording equipment and trade the tapes freely.  My favourite software companies are (or have been) open source and have understood that a key part of their culture was bringing in the best possible ideas, even if they didn't exist in the corporate structure.  Many companies, like Google, even give their employees paid time during the day to work on a project that doesn't fit into their job description but is exciting to them....and many of those projects have become the technology we use every day, like gmail.


Turning back to Teachers Paying Teachers, I think the major problem I have is that it turns what we do into a product, rather than something that is a collective endeavour that is better when it is shared in community.


This post didn't start out being a rant about TPT.  In fact, I started writing to talk about something Andrew and I have built into our practice: a weekly Twitter chat.  But the reason I talk about TPT is that it is exactly the antithesis of the #flipclass chat Andrew & I moderate on Monday nights (8 PM EST/5 PM PST).  The chat is built around bringing together smart, passionate teachers who believe in sharing openly and freely.  Ideas are regularly given away and even improved upon through conversation.

The #flipclass chat community is something Andrew and I are very intentional about cultivating, and we have seen somepretty amazing things happen.  But what keeps coming back is that this group of educators believe in giving away their work in order to help other teachers improve their practice, and with the belief that any time you share an idea with someone else, it doesn't return to you void.  

As an example: I came up with the idea of using todaysmeet as a backchannel for discussion as I played a video of me reading the text.  So students were hearing the text, seeing it on their screens (or on the main one) and were able to interact immediately with their peers (and with me).  Having the reading on video meant that I could be far more present with them, but I found that the number of questions I answered actually went down because they were getting answers from their peers too.

So that idea is something I shared on Twitter a lot.  Now, I see lots of variations on that idea from tons of #flipclass teachers.  Did I invent it?  Probably.  But I also know that no invention is truly a work of a "lone genius" or "Eureka moment" and that the #flipclass Twitter community helped me have the idea in the first place, and have made it so much better now that it's been out there for a while and tried in tons of classrooms and blogged about...etc.  

And that's the tragedy of TPT.  That kind of group collaboration and open sharing of ideas just doesn't happen when you're locking your ideas behind a paywall and then taking it back to your classroom...the only one that will be changed by those ideas.  That is depressing. 

I think I'm a great lesson designer, and I bet I could have made tons of money if I had done TPT for the last few years.  But I can't put a price on the ideas I've had improved by my people in the #flipclass chat community.  I can't put a price on the ability I have to share openly and know that others are helped by what's happening in my classroom.  

I can't put a price on a community that has changed my life, my classroom, and the way I think about education.  This community brought me a collaborative partner, a group of teachers who love me and challenge me and support me, and a weekly chat that inspires me and keeps me pushing towards the kind of classroom I want for my students.

That is priceless.

**

Never done a Twitter chat?  Andrew and I made a video about the weekly #flipclass chat and how to get involved.  We hope to see all of you there!

On Monday at about 5:05, I noticed that Andrew and I were getting tons of notifications from Twitter.  He and I had spent the day on collaboration tasks for our upcoming school year - we recorded a bunch of videos, built a slide deck for his TED Talk, and redesigned our course website to build a space to house the workshops we've taught over the last few years.

I looked at him and panicked because we forgot about the Twitter chat we have moderated for almost two years.  But what happened was sort of magical, and reminded us about the values we've worked on building in this community during our time as moderators.  

By the time we arrived on scene, people had created questions and decided on an order for who would ask them.  They had basically built a lesson plan in the first few minutes they were left alone.  Now, we're all teachers, so we are all used to writing lesson plans.  But I've never seen something like this before: when the "teachers" were gone, the students identified their needs, figured out who could help facilitate, and then they went to work.  

This past year, I actually had something like that happen when I had a sub for a few different workshops I was leading.  My students explained the sub plans to the guest teacher, and then they divided up the work and were so efficient that the sub notes were full of praise for their industriousness and for how genuinely nice they all were.  This is a group of 9th graders that mostly have serious behavioural issues and get in trouble in most of their other classes, and have records longer than you could possibly imagine.  And because of the flipped classroom, they took charge of their education to the point that I was made redundant at times.  

And that is an amazing problem to have.  

We wish we had missed the chat on purpose to create this experiment, but it was a total mistake on our parts.  However, just like good flipped class students, the teachers in the chat took over the lesson and made it work for them.  They even ended the chat with suggestions for what to do in our next chat.  

Andrew and I couldn't be more proud of the community we've helped create.  It's one of the best communities on Twitter, and it's a true privilege to call this group of people colleagues. 

If you want to go back and see the chat and how it played out, check out the archive of one of the moderators of the impromptu chat.  And thank you again to all of the amazing teachers who made Monday night a success.

We will see you all next week.  And this time, we'll show up.  

Teachers who advocate the flipped learning model are generally talking about one of two things:

1. Recording the lecture for students to watch at home, freeing up class time for practice and application
2. An asynchronous, self-paced or mastery model where students are responsible for moving through the content at the speed that suits them and still demonstrates mastery of the concepts and skills.

I have tried both of those models; in fact, those two models are the ones I used predominantly for my first year flipped.  However, there is a third model that not many teachers talk about, but that I recommend to flip-curious teachers all the time.

That model is to record the lecture or instructions on video, then show it to the class.  While it doesn't remove that direct instruction from the class period, it does offer several very useful advantages:

1. You can see which students are getting it, and which are not
2. You can teach note-taking in a more explicit way, because you're doing it together.  Students learn to rely on each other to discuss and make meaning of the material, and thus create notes that are far more helpful to them
3. It gives the teacher time to take roll and get organised before beginning an activity.  You could even use the time to enter grades.  If the instruction was in the middle of the period, you could actually enter grades from THAT DAY as they watch, and even give them credit for the notes AS THEY TAKE THEM.  More feedback is always better, and getting instant feedback is important...at least as long as grades are a required part of teaching
4. It effectively clones the teacher - instead of spending 90% of your attention lecturing and 10% managing and supporting, you now have 100% attention to devote to managing behavioural issues, writing passes, taking calls from the office, and even circulating to figure out which students are most in need of 1:1 or small group differentiation.  Then, when the video concludes, those are the students you group together and work with personally.  That allows students who are ready to move more quickly than others
5. Having the video available also means that students who were absent or who have difficulty learning can watch it as many times as they need to.  If you have the devices for it, you can target students who struggle to keep up and have them watch the video on the device while the rest of the class watches on the main screen.  That way they get to control the pace and can therefore avoid the frustration and embarrassment of being the only one not keeping up 
6. Putting direct instruction on video takes what would be 15 minutes of class time and reduces it to 4-8 minutes.  Without interruptions or pausing for questions or to write out notes live for students, the content can be kept brisk.  I have never had a lesson take longer on video than live in class, and frankly, it generally takes less than half of the time as it did live
7. (Maybe this is just me, but...) It forces you to be far more prepared for your direct instruction and to use the best possible examples.  I struggle to talk, write and manage the class all at once, so by recording the lecture on my own, I can focus on the best way to explain it, or find pictures that can help illustrate it, or even add in an easter egg or two to liven it up
8. It allows you to build this into your workflow and create short videos as you go, so that you're flexible in adjusting to students' learning needs
9. This is the most important one to me: it reduces or eliminates the need for homework.  Flipping this way meant that I didn't have to assign homework unless there was something we didn't complete in class time due to off-task behaviour or distractions.

If you don't have the technology to record videos at home, you can do this at school using a SMARTBoard or a document camera, or even just record it on a mobile device.  If you don't think you have the time this year but want to start next year, you could even just record the instruction live in class and go back and edit it later to remove the dead air and replace any bad examples you used or add information using callouts.

Yesterday in #flipclass chat, we did our #teacherconfessions.  But I didn't really get to the heart of mine in the chat.  I could claim that's because the pace was frenetic (and it was) but that would be a lie.

In truth, I am scared.

I am scared that I'm not doing a good enough job. 

I am scared that I've worked for ten years to teach high school students and it ultimately will be meaningless.

I am scared that all of my best ideas were stolen from others or jettisoned at some point along the way.

I am scared that my colleagues judge my class and think that I'm wasting students' time.

That fear is a terrible master.  It continually robs me of joy, of excitement, of passion for my job.  It pushes me to work harder, do better. be better, because I'm always just one step ahead of failure.

That fear causes me to keep back parts of what I do in my class, worried that if anyone sees them, I'll be exposed as the fraud I am.

That fear mocks me when I get up and tell students that what matters most is working hard and not innate talent.  It says that my best isn't good enough, and I just must be stupid.

That fear shuts down my blogging, my tweeting, and even my conversations.  It isolates me.  Whispers things that my harshest critics have said and reminded me that they really did know better than me, and I am kidding myself to think any differently.

I have spent ten years of my professional career trying to figure out how to make it stop.  At several points, I thought that it would be better just to leave the profession, but the fear reminded me that this is the only thing I have really ever done in a professional sense, except for working at Blockbuster Video...and that's hardly a career path.  But the fear controlled me for a long time.

But.  There is a way to start to drown out that fear-voice: by replacing it with people who really do see you and your practice, with all the rough edges and failures and not-good-enoughs, and love and support you anyway.  When those voices start to rise in concert, the fear-voice has less power.

THAT is the power a good PLN has.  I have found people to drown out the fear-voice, and who remind me that who I am matters more than what I do.  That success isn't measured in innate intelligence, but rather in hard work and determination.  It's something I never could have done for myself.  And the primary beneficiary? My students.

And while it's true to say that I am a much better teacher today because of my PLN, what is more true is that I am a better teacher because of my friends.  The people who pushed into my life and refused to accept my fear narrative.  The people who keep reminding me that it's worth it, and that the only failure is to not try.

What does your PLN do for you?

Disclaimer:  I am probably crazy for even considering this.  That's what it feels like as I look out on students preparing right now.

In a week, every 9th grader at East Bay Arts will be delivering a TED-Talk style presentation.  They will get two minutes to talk about something about which they are really passionate.  They have to use a visual of some kind, and have been told DO NOT DO PUBLIC READING. ESPECIALLY FROM A POWERPOINT.  Unless they want to make their teachers cry, that is.

So let's back up.  Every students in 9th grade started the year with a unit on learning, the brain, and education.  The centrepoint of that unit was a series of TED-Talks.  We learned how to take notes and listen attentively.  We talked about passion, and how passion influences people to speak from a place of excitement and power.

Concurrently, they have been working on their very first all-school project.  At EBA, every grade level does one major project per trimester.  For the  first freshmen project, students have traditionally been asked to choose a social issue that is important to them and both write an essay about it and prepare a presentation to be given to a room of their peers and graded by the teacher.

If you read my blog and/or know Andrew and I, we tend to blow things apart and find the pieces in the rubble that work, and then build up the structure around those things.  That's kind of how this project started.  We liked the idea of self-selected topics.  We liked students giving a presentation that means something to them.   We also liked the idea of a project that all their teachers could see, work on with them, and learn from.  

But we also saw problems: most teachers from last year reported there being a ton of speeches on abortion or drug laws.  Having students write a research paper then deliver a persuasive speech seemed like a mismatch, and like too much for first trimester freshmen.  The topics don't necessarily touch the students' lives in a serious way, or in a way that is relatable in a 4-5 minute speech.  Also, the teacher in charge last year pretty much just told the other teachers what to do, and we really wanted to include the rest of the project team on the planning.

So we decided, in collaboration with the other two teachers on the team, to make it a presentation about how they wanted their school to change.  We started gearing up for that when we had a better idea.  Instead of advocating for a change at school, what would happen if we gave them the freedom to share something that made them truly passionate and interested?  What would school be like if every student got to share something they loved for a day?

Wouldn't that be the best day of school ever?  Wouldn't that MAKE the kind of school they would want to attend?

Then the next piece  that fell into place was when we realised that this was basically the structure of a TED Talk.  Since we've watched so many, it was an idea students quickly embraced.  It also has the benefit of being a real-world context for public speaking.  After all, how many people leave high school and ever have to present about a social issue for five minutes on their own?  But sharing an idea with passion and enthusiasm and clarity...that's something EVERYONE has to do.

And the final piece (stolen from Jon Corippo and Minarets): the teachers will not be assessing the students.  Instead, students will judge one another, based on the format of American Idol (the original).  There will be a Simon, a Paula and a Randy.  They will offer feedback based on the rubric categories and will decide the grade...but more importantly, will share what they thought and how it could be improved.

We will be filming the whole thing, and students will vote on which ones to feature on our YouTube channel.  I also told students that this was their chance to show their teachers, their parents, their friends, and the world that they were more than just a "dumb teenager who only cares about stuff posed on Facebook."  This is their chance to prove that they can have 80 9th graders in one room, listening to each other talk about something they love and not fall apart.

I'm writing about it here because I'm very aware that it might fail.  In fact, failure is likely - not of the whole event, but of certain presentations, and certainly technology.  But I'm sharing it so that I am clear going into it that the outcome doesn't matter.  What matters is that we aimed high and worked hard.  And that we learn from whatever failures may come.

In a week, it will all be over.  I'm excited to share what happened.

A few years ago, I thought that using video in class was the lazy way out.  It was for teachers who couldn't figure out how to have a class discussion or didn't want to make copies.

I also thought YouTube was for cat videos and people with too much time.

Boy, was I wrong.

Now, I start class with a short video (under four minutes, generally) every single day.  This unit's playlist has dozens of videos that were shown in class, most of which I didn't make.

So what changed?

A few things.  I started delving into the world of online video and YouTube content creators because of my interest in John Green and his brother, Hank Green.  They have been video blogging (vlogging) on YouTube since 2007, when they went for a year using video instead of any textual communication (emails, texts, etc.).  Since then, they have added over a million subscribers, and have one of the most amazing online communities anywhere on the internet (called Nerdfighteria, with individuals being called Nerdfighters - basically, instead of being made out of flesh and bone, Nerdfighters are made out of pure awesome).

I saw thousands of teenagers interested in music, literature, politics, news stories, and even in helping make the world suck less.  The central tenet the Vlogbrothers and Nerdfighteria promote is that our job as humans is to understand each other complexly.  Humans, especially those growing up in this rapidly changing world, are used to seeing black and white, but often fail to see the much more complex tapestry that makes up human experience.  

As a literature teacher, that idea resonates with me.  I read so that I can understand what it's like to be someone else, living a different life.  I read so that I am connected to people with whom I could never otherwise be connected.  I teach reading so that my students can not be limited by what they see, or what they experience, or even what they are.

Exploring the Vlogbrothers led me to a variety of other channels.  If you're interested, here are some of the other channels I now subscribe to, here are some of my favourites: ViHart, WheezyWaiter, ZeFrank1, ZeFrankenfriends, Schmoyoho, TheGregoryBrothers, CrashCourse, Hankschannel, HankGames, KidPresident, gunnarolla, MentalFloss, Pewdipie, TheArtAssignment, TheLizzieBennettDiaries, TheFineBrothers, CGPGrey, Veritasium, VSauce, SciShow, MinutePhysics, PemberleyDigital.

I subscribe to some of those channels because they are EXTREMELY POPULAR.  For example, Pewdiepie, a Swedish video gamer, is the #1 most subscribed user on YouTube.  If you think that's weird, watch this video of him playing a game called Happy Wheels.  Well, don't watch it if you are offended by swearing.  He does that a lot.  But he also is pretty funny.  And that is what our kids are watching.  I want to be watching what they are.

I may never show his videos in class, but I do think it's important to understanding our students.

Some of those channels make content that is outstanding, like the reimagined Jane Austen stories on Lizzie Bennett Diaries or Pemberley Digital.  Some of them are science content, like V-Sauce, Veritasium, SciShow, and Minute Physics.  And some are just awesome and educational, like Crash Course or Vi Hart (if you hate math, watch this.  And then repent of hating math.  I showed this video months ago, and I still find fractals filled with elephants on papers).

Those videos are the ones I show because it says to my students:

• I care enough about you to understand the world in which you live
• I am interested in a lot of things, and I spend time learning when I'm not in class
• There are amazing things on the internet that can teach you anything you want
• I value other voices and other talent 
• There are people who can explain something or tell a story in a way that I never could match

On the practical side, here's some benefits to the strategy:

• Students hate missing the opening video.  That means they get to class on time
• It gives me time to take attendance, pass out papers, and get everything set for class
• It helps students settle into the routine
• It gives them something to write about in their daily writing warmup

Now, I also use longer content.  For example, in this unit, we have been studying the brain, how we learn, and how education can best meet the structural, psychological, and cultural challenges of adolescence.  I could have learned all of the content in the half dozen TED Talks we watched, and designed lessons with scaffolded note-taking and worksheets, and given multiple choice assessments on that information.

Or I could let the expert talk, and use it as a chance to teach students to monitor their comprehension while listening and how to best handle note-taking.  Plus, it allows me to take my own notes during the video so I can model how to do that best.  And, I take notes every time I watch the video, which shows them how much my notes improve every time I watch the video.  

Now, I don't think that my job is to just teach them how to sit down, shut up, and take notes.  In fact, if that's what education is, then we're failing our students completely.  However, I do think that note-taking is something that everyone needs to learn, and every teacher assumes another teacher has taught already.  Spending this much time taking in content and working on producing notes that accurately capture the information in a way that's useful to the student is totally worth it to me.  It builds the skills they need when they start taking on more responsibility for their own learning.

In this first trimester, the goal is to help them learn how to do all of the things they will need to do when they are more self-directed.  As Andrew and I have learned, throwing students into a self-paced autonomous environment right away is ALWAYS a failure...and especially at schools where the culture is one where spoonfeeding is accepted and expected.  So we teach them the basics.  Kind of like boot camp.  Only more fun.

That's another key to the whole "using video" strategy.  It's fun.  You know what's not fun?  Taking notes.  But when they are learning to do that with engaging content, it doesn't feel as soul-crushing.  Plus, we know that students can't really sit still for the entire hour-long class period.  Having short videos provides frequent breaks so they can help manage their attention and time on-task.  When a student knows that they will get a break in five minutes, they are able to worry less and learn more.

Fundamentally, using videos - both as short warm-ups and as longer content-delivery-systems - comes from the belief that when students see what life is like for something else, they will start caring.  Video gives them a much wider world to explore, and that gives them the opportunity to experience something they never could have on their own.  Literature still have a place, but I think English teachers have an opportunity to use this newer medium to teach many of the same skills and content we do for literature.

And that's pretty awesome.

As a teacher in the flipped learning movement, I sometimes struggle with sharing what I do in class.  Especially when I am running what looks more like a teacher-centred classroom than what I would like.  

However, I've had to come to the realisation that being student-centred is about doing what the students need for where they are in their education and with the content knowledge and academic habits they bring with them.  So sometimes that looks like me being at the "front" (there is no front in my classroom) and everyone engaged in a synchronous activity.  In fact, that's what it looks like most of the time right now.

For both years Andrew and I have team-taught, we started running several minutes before even hitting the ground.  We planned to throw our students into the deep end, and then hope that they could swim as well as we wanted them to.  And yeah, that failed.  Shocking, I know.

After only a few days (it took six weeks last time), we saw that we needed to take a few steps back and build their skills before expecting them to take ownership over their learning in any meaningful way.  Since that's the ultimate goal of any class we teach, it was important enough to change enough that we could get it right.

We were already planning the first unit (for me, the entire first trimester) to be about the brain, how teenagers think, feel, and learn, and to centre around the novel Looking for Alaska, by John Green.  So we started thinking about the skills and knowledge they would need in order to start taking responsibility for their learning.  The short (and nowhere near comprehensive) list came down to:

1. Taking notes, both as annotations while reading and while taking in information from a video or in class
2. Collaborating and having academic conversations with peers
3. Establishing a procedure for writing fluency - writing without stopping or talking for 3-10 mins
4. The basics of patterning - finding patterns in a text, categorising those patterns, and starting to find meaning
5. Using information from sources accurately and effectively
6. How to work productively and independently for a short amount of time without disrupting others
7. Using technology essential to the course - Google Drive, MentorMob, YouTube, Gmail, Blogger
8. What it means to work to mastery, rather than just for completion

We gave ourselves the first trimester or so to teach and assess those skills.

As we started to plan out the unit, we thought about what content we should use for this unit.  Other than Looking for Alaska, we didn't want to use fiction, either short or long-form, or poetry (or at least not predominantly).  So we decided to focus on two things:

1. How the teenage brain operates, and how it learns
2. What the purpose of school is, and how our understanding and decision-making is (or should be) influenced by brain development

So we began to build a unit that would teach our students those concepts; however, the real focus is on the skills.  So we will watch a TED Talk on the adolescent brain, but the actual assessed skill is note-taking.  The question on the open-notes assessment is just a way of checking to make sure students see the utility of good note-taking.  We may do a piece of visual art about one of the videos we watched, but the real skill is in finding patterns and showing the main idea clearly through their art (even if it's stick figures).  All of these skills are things that are required in the Common Core standards, or lead to students becoming more critical readers, writers, and thinkers.  We also believe that regardless of whether these things are in the standards verbatim, they are the skills that literate human beings need for whatever they do after leaving high school.

Everything is leading toward the project students are undertaking that centres around this question:
What is the purpose of a high school, and what can we do to implement one change at our school to make it fit that purpose better?

That question will guide all of our study.  If you want to see what this looks like, here is the MentorMob playlist that has all the videos we're using (we do a video every day at the start of class to get students in their seats on time and focused, and also to give them something to write about if they need a topic for their daily writing warm-up.  We also have used lots of TED Talks about education and the teen brain) and many of the assignments we've created to lead them towards thinking about education and their place in their school community.  I've also started getting in the habit of taking a picture of anything I write, whether it's on the board or my own personal notes about something.  I post these for my students, and many of the steps on the playlist are the notes/instructions that I've modelled and made available for all students.

As with all our curriculum, please take what works for you and use it.  We do ask that you credit us if you take something exactly as-is.  We also acknowledge that NONE of this would be possible without having TED Talks available for free online, and without the work of many of our colleagues, particularly Karl Lindgren-Streicher, who did a version of the "What would you do to make a positive change at our school" project.  We are blessed to have such amazing people share so freely with us, and we'd like to extend the same offer to all of you.

A year ago, we started our YouTube Channel to host our research paper videos.  As we were preparing for our FlipCon12 presentation, we went back and watched those videos for the first time.

Both of us were shocked by how bad they were.  We actually had to stop watching because it made us cringe.

We recognise how revolutionary it was at the time for both of us to be in the same video and to show the process of writing an essay together, live on screen.  But there were lots of reasons why our early videos sucked so much:

1. We didn't know what we were doing
   
2. I didn't know what I was doing with editing
   
3. Neither of us had made enough videos or used them in class to understand what made for a good video
   
4. We were enjoying the process so much that we talked.  Way.  Too.  Much.
   

We didn't end up having a huge need for the video series this year - both of us ended up teaching something different than we had been assigned at the end of the school year, So they kind of sat there on our channel for the last year, and we mostly forgot the existed.

Then when we watched them again, I had an idea.  Now that I know what I'm doing with the editing side, and have some time to kill (yay summer!)I should go back and edit them down from 10-15 minutes to 5-6 minute videos.  So that's been the project that consumes most of my time these days, when I'm not working on our book chapters (PREORDER OUR BOOK HERE!).

I'd love to have some feedback on the updated videos.  I've added the updated video next to the original, just for the sake of comparison.

The old videos are on the left, and the new ones are on the right.  I made the old ones smaller because it made me happy and made the page look better.  The first video is about finding sources.  I've put the videos below the fold because I didn't want them to make the page load slowly for as long as they're on the front page of the blog.  Apologies for the inconvenience.  Please watch them anyway!

This is part three of a series on my collaborative partnership with Andrew Thomasson. 

It seems like every time I write about the mechanics of our collaborative partnership here on the blog, Andrew and I end up fighting.  Not just disagreement fights, where one of us wants to use Batman cartoons, and the other wants to go super arty hipster and use Batman comics...but only in an ironic way.  

No, these are Real Fights.  I guess when we talk about how awesome it is to work together, all that awesome has to be balanced out by some not-awesome.  This fight was about time.  We have about a dozen projects in the works, and we've had trouble finding the time to do any of it.  Even finding time just to be Friends First was tough the past two weeks.  Coming back from FlipCon, where we were used to having as much time together as we wanted, made readjusting to life lived through technology difficult.  

Finding time is probably our biggest problem, either in the school year or the summer, although our summer schedules conflict far more than in the school year.  Without bells to regulate where we are and at what time in a reliable manner, we have to prioritise differently when we do get time together.  There are always more ideas than we have time for.  And there are always more projects than we could finish in years of work.

But you know what?  That's actually a pretty awesome problem.  

We could be sitting there, bored with each other, running on the fumes of what we've already done or trying to reinvent our ideas just a little to make people think they were different.  But we have SO MANY NEW IDEAS that we can't possibly use them all.  Maybe that's why we like blogging and sharing on Twitter.  If we didn't share some of the ideas we have, then no one would ever use them.  

So even when we've seen our ideas on other people's blogs, or shared on Twitter, or in presentations or videos, there's something pretty cool about that.  Sure, we'd like attribution if the idea was taken from us, but we love that our ideas have a life beyond us.  

It's almost like creating more time for our work.  

We may not produce work forever, and it's even possible that we might not stay in a collaborative partnership forever.  But there have been so many cool things we've done, and even more cool things we've seen other people do with help from us or our ideas, that we think our work will last longer than we will.

And none of the good ideas we've had in the last year could have existed outside of our collaborative partnership.  It's the relationship that generates the ideas. 

 Just like in our classroom, it's the relationship that really matters.

Oh yeah, and we're not fighting any more.  When we argue, it tends to burn out quickly and resolve completely within a few hours (or even minutes), assuming we can find time to talk about it.  Conflict is just a part of life, and one of the things I'm proud of in our partnership - that we've learned ways to fight humanely, resolve issues completely, and not allow resentment to build.  As much as it sucks to fight, we've found that even the fighting is worth it.  It helps when you know that no matter what the fight is about, there's no escape hatch.  Neither of us is going to play the, "Forget it. This partnership and friendship is too much work and drama.  I'm out" card.  There's security in that knowledge.

Again, we are really blessed to be working together, even if there are occasional arguments and not nearly enough time for all the awesome we have planned.

There will always be too much awesome to be contained in our CoLab Partnership. 

#CoLabProblems

So much to say.

In the last few days of our time in Minnesota, Andrew and I talked a lot about what the next year will hold for us.  You can watch our 5-5-5-5 video reflection here, but that's really just the Big Picture Overview.

And the first thing you have to do when you look at changing your classroom is take stock of where you've been.  I haven't blogged much since early March, which is for lots of reasons (all of them, I assure you, are Very Good Reasons.  I know that Andrew will write me a note attesting to the veracity of that statement).  Practically, what that means is that all of the work we did in the last two units are completely and utterly unblogged.

So there are several major summer projects on the table for Thomasson Morris Instruction (TMI), but more than anything, we need to start by reflecting on the work we have been too busy working on to blog about.  Here are some of the blog topics/subjects we'll be covering in the near future, either as separate posts or combined in some way:

• Close reading
• Collaborative reading activities
• Student-designed novel unit(s)
• Use of student-made #coflip videos
• Integrating blogging into the 20% project (Blank White Page)
• Integrating blogging into a novel unit
• Going paperless without having 1:1
• The Really Hard (but No Rules) College Test
• Flipping feedback with VoiceComments
• Reading analytically as you go vs. reading entire novel, then analysing it
• Socratic Seminar as part of #CoFlipReads The Fault In Our Stars
• Student-selected literature circle unit (hint: Not A Success)
• Reading journals with a difference (and choice!)
• Student feedback and reflections
• Critical reading --> critical thinking --> critical writing?
• Using new media and YouTube Edutainment to engage students

That's a pretty good list.  And of course, that doesn't include any of our plans for next year, or our extended reflections on #FlipCon13.  We have about two hours of video with Andrew and me IN THE SAME ROOM AT THE SAME TIME and that will eventually be a series of short videos about what we learned and how we plan to use it in our classrooms.

Now, because I believe in adding value, I'll write about one thing in this blog post that's not on the list, but is relevant nonetheless.

Andrew and I are approaching summer much like we would the regular year.  We have a schedule that includes several important projects: short and long-form writing, making and editing instructional videos, planning our courses for next year, etc.  My first administrator told me that if you ever take a summer off from work (he was talking about summer school particularly) that you'll never go back to it because you will be forever spoiled by luxury.  Well, that turns out to not be true in this case.  I took the large majority of last summer off, and this summer, I'm actually MORE excited to work than I have been in a while.  I know the tasks won't all be "fun" but honestly, there have been very few times in the last year (of intense collaboration) where it hasn't been enjoyable.  It feels less like work and more like hanging out with my best friend and co-teacher.

I know inspiration is fleeting, but the excitement I have for our summer work is founded on a few reasons.  First, FlipCon helped to light a fire in me.  I have been so drained and worn down and exhausted that I really limped over the finish line of spring semester.  But now, I have had so many ideas, and feel much more energised and ready to work.  I know it will be difficult, and there will be times we don't feel like continuing on.  But this is more excited than I've been about summer....maybe ever.  And it's not because I get to sleep in until 10 AM every day and watch a lot of Dexter and Wheezy Waiter all day; it's because of work.


Well, it's sort of about work.  Like EVERYTHING we do, it's more about collaboration.  Andrew has made even the most mundane of tasks much more fun.  There is a rumour that we are indeed one person, and sometimes, that doesn't feel so incorrect.  It's pretty difficult to write anything substantial without his #SpecialSkillz in writing and editing and thinking now that I've gotten used to having his help.


But more importantly than a shared brain, is the real reason behind "Better Together": that we know we would have burnt out alone.  Yes, the collaboration gives us new ideas, and it gives us a second brain to help when ours isn't finding the right words.  But more than anything, I have someone invested in my success.  I have someone who believes in me far more than I believe in myself.  I have someone to filter my thoughts and writing so I don't say something stupid on the internet...where NOTHING EVER DIES.  Andrew pushes me to be a better teacher, a better writer, and a better learner.  I know not everyone needs that, but I do.  He knows when I'm doing something half-assedly, and isn't afraid to call me on it, but then also will help me fix it.  I trust his opinion more than my own.

It is totally possible to flip your class on your own, but we sure don't recommend it.  I think the reason our story resonates with people is because most teachers, and nearly all #flipclass teachers, want someone who will help them do a better job for their students.  But the reality for most of us is that there are few colleagues willing to help us do that, or if some are willing, many are pedagogically opposed, or over-scheduled to the point of uselessness.  That's why Andrew and I needed each other - neither of us had colleagues willing to experiment with flipped learning.  Neither of us had the knowledge, the tools, or the experience to know how to flip our class.

So we embarked on this journey together, just three days short of one year ago.  I would not still be blogging, I would not have attended #FlipCon13, I would not have several Very Exciting Offers to consider, and I would not be as happy as I am now.  I don't need Andrew to be a good teacher.  But this way, even with the many, many challenges we face, is So Much Better than anything I ever did on my own.  And I am grateful - ridiculously so - to have a teaching partner and friend like Andrew.

So I'm really looking forward to this summer - there is much to be done, and I am excited to see what crazy ideas we hatch as we dive into our projects. I would love to hear which of the topics you'd like us to write up first, so leave that in comments if you have a preference.  And if you are part of (or starting) a collaborative partnership, please let us know!  Andrew and I love to talk to people who are starting this same journey.  We were lucky enough to meet half a dozen collaborative partnerships at #FlipCon13, and we'd love to add to that list.

Happy start of summer, everyone, and we'll see you all at #flipclass chat Monday night!  All are welcome, 8 EST, to talk about #FlipCon13, #CanFlip, and all other #flipclass summer work and reflections.