Confession: we both love writing. It brings us joy on a personal level, and it’s kind of one of our special missions to bring that love (or at least fluency) to our students as well. 

But the way we teach writing is probably pretty different than how you were taught, and probably pretty different from the way it is being taught in your school right now. This process is an amalgamation of many of the ways we learned to write (1:1 conferences, intensive feedback) and methods we’ve found to help students along the Writing Path. 

For most students, the Five Paragraph Essay (FPE) has loomed as the dominant force in their experience with writing.  You can argue that is a bad thing or a good thing, but it is a thing; and for our students, it is a thing that we try to push beyond.  Whether you love it or you hate it, students who rely on the formula for the FPE end up writing something that is 90% structure and 10% content.  And often, that 10% content is parroted back from whatever the teacher has said about the issue or text in class.  And yet, students leave high school believing they are good writers, only to have their first college professor or employer disabuse them of that notion pretty quickly.

Clearly, the way we teach writing has to change.  

Like any buzzword, "student-centred pedagogy" is easy to throw around and more difficult to actually define.  Since we use the term a lot, here is the way Andrew & I think about being student-centred:

A student-centred classroom is one in which students have authentic voice and choice over what and how they learn.  Instructional decisions are made by the teacher until students are ready in a gradual release of responsibility model; once students are prepared for that responsibility, they are allowed far greater freedom to shape their education in collaboration with their peers and their teacher.

We get asked about our classroom workflow and technology a lot, and since the last posts I've done about technology are out of date (for example, we no longer use any LMS whatsoever), I thought I'd try again.

So Andrew has occasional access to class sets of Chromebooks (last year he ended up with 3-4 days a week, actually), but no open BYOD network for students.  I am moving from a school with a barely-functional BYOD network (and a paucity of decent student devices) to a school where we are 1:1 with MacBooks and many (if not most) students will also have their own smartphones that can be used on the school wifi.  Seriously.  I know, I'm ridiculously blessed in this regard.

However, none of that is going to change the basics for us.  Before I go into the tools we use, here are a few of the principles we operate under:

• Everything should play nice with Google sign-ins.  We are both at GAFE schools, but have had students use outside accounts to bypass the ownership/sharing issues with GAFE.
• There should be as few tools as possible. Keep it simple.
• It's okay if we're not experts on the tool or tech.  It's good to admit to students that you're learning alongside them.
• Everything we use should be as functional for the students as it is for organising course content.  

So here are the tools we use in our class.  I've divided them into lesson design and management and student major and minor players.

1. gmail and google drive for collaboration, communication, storing documents, uploading and sharing videos and creating drawings. We also use google hangout to collaborate and connect with others, and google presentations (both for ourselves and for students)
2. the tmiclass website (created on Weebly), where students can find course assignments and project resources.  Each of us embed our google calendar of assignments and have links to every assignment
3. lessonpaths, where we have playlists to host all the assignments in every unit in order. Students also use lessonpaths to create portfolios of assignments or to upload assignments
4. video making, editing and storage tools are a little trickier. These are more fluid because of a few factors. We host most of our videos on YouTube, though we do use ShowMe for others, particularly reading videos.  To make simple videos we use ShowMe or Playback (this is new to us, but is really cool because you can also have your face in the video and it's all done from an IWB app on the iPad)
5. for any video that requires editing (which is most for us), we use Camtasia for Mac.  For real simple screencaptures that don't require editing, we'll use Snagit sometimes too. This video was for a conference but it gives you some information about those apps
6. for students, we have them use Splice for iOS (make sure you search for iPhone, not iPad apps) and WeVideo for Android/PC (it's also available for iOS) because they are free and pretty easy to learn
7. remind (formerly remind101) to send texts to students with updates and announcements
8. bitly to give our students shortened links so students can find the assignments quickly, especially on mobile devices
9. on our website, we embed a google form that runs with the help of a script called autocrat.  Every time a student submits the form, it creates a document and emails a link to the student so they can have editing access, but it's owned and organised in our google drive.  The link above is to a walkthrough I did for how to set it up
10. grammarly to have students proofread their own writing. Here's a video I did about it

So some of those are lesson design or management tools, and some are used by our students to create or share their work.  In order to make the workflow more clear, let's take a sample assignment and work it through what it looks like in the classroom.  

Andrew and I make a video using Google Hangout  and Camtasia, then load it on YouTube.  We then show it in class, while students take notes on their own device or paper.  We give them a shortened link to the video so they can watch it later, and we add it to the course calendar and lessonpaths playlist so they can access it there too.  We add an article to the playlist and students read that on paper or their device.

Then we ask them to write a short essay on something related to the video and article, so they go to tmiclass and fill out the form for their class.  They then check their gmail or google drive and open the file.  It is already titled and shared correctly and has the standard heading on the top of the document, so they don't need to worry about any of that.

Then we ask students to collaborate by reading each other's work.  The students exchange gmail addresses and add their partner to the sharing permission for the document.  They use the comment feature so we can see their work.  We then ask them to run it through grammarly to check for mechanics issues, and they work with their partner to get it up to the level we require. [alternately, they could post it on a blog and them comment as well, although we did not use blogs last year at all]

The next day, we ask them to turn their two essays into a collaborative video blog so they write a script and use their mobile devices to film it.  They edit it on Splice or WeVideo and then either email it to us or upload it to google drive or add it to their playlist.  Where it goes depends on the purpose of the assignment and whether it was a first or second or final draft - we tend to ask for drafts on drive or email and final drafts on YouTube and/or lessonpaths.  That way, they are only making the final product sharable, but we are able to keep them accountable for the drafts.  When the final product is due, we send a remind text to students telling them to upload it to their portfolio playlist and when it needs to be completed.

We then make a lessonpaths playlist of all the videos and create a bitly so we can ask students to see what their classmates created.  We have them on a single collaborative document filling out a rubric for each video based on the criteria in the assignment.

All of that is archived on our website in the assignments calendar and in the embedded lessonpaths playlist.

In our classroom, much like in every other classroom, nothing ever runs this smoothly or is as ideal as it’s written here.  We don’t use every tool in every assignment, but it should give you a picture of what it’s like to be a student in our class.  

Because we don’t use an LMS like Edmodo or Moodle, a lot of these systems are built so that it’s easy for us and easy for our students to find all of the things.  You may find that using an LMS suits you better, but for us, we have been hit by so many changes in school or in technology supported by the district that we have found it useful to have an independent website that stands alone.  It also makes everything open source and collaborative, and easily adaptable to any instructional context.

But fundamentally, it works for us.  And what works for us probably won’t entirely work for you, because we’ve designed this around the way we teach and our technology preferences.  And that’s okay.  The bottom line with using technology in the classroom is that is has to work for you and work for your students.  

We also know that there are probably better ways to do some of these things, and that with the introduction of Google Classroom we might be changing...but that’s just how it goes with technology.  We just get used to something and it disappears forever.  Or it becomes a paid app.  Or our district blocks it for no apparent reason.  So we adapt, and as we adapt, we keep pushing towards a model that makes our classroom work better for us and our kids.

What do you use in your classroom?

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.