A Parable to Start the Year

If any of you know the parable of the sower from Matthew 13 (verses 1-9 and 18-23), you know the focus is typically on the being the good soil so the seed will produce a harvest. Where's your heart? Is it receptive to the gospel presented to you? The sower flung the seed on the path, on rocky soil, in the thorns, but some fell on good soil. You've got to read the parable to understand it (go here for the story). I pray that my heart will be receptive when the gospel is presented to me.

Our pastor presented a different perspective to us this past Sunday. He started by telling us that the sower in the parable must not have been a very good farmer. The seed he sowed had only a 25% chance of making it. You can imagine the scene as the farmer just threw the seeds everywhere! In first century Palestine, this was a waste of valuable resources.

Instead of focusing in on our own hearts and how receptive we are to the gospel, our pastor challenged us to see it from the sower's perspective. And that's the point of the sermon when the teacher side of my brain tuned in. I started thinking not only of my heart, but I began to consider my students that will be walking into my classroom this fall. And I applied the sower's attitude with the seed to my attitude toward the boys and girls who will be walking through my door in 2 weeks.

You know, we are often careful to share our lives with only those people who we're sure will receive us and what we stand for. As teachers, there are often those students who are involved in class, who seem to have a deep desire to learn what we are offering, who stay on top of their homework, and who genuinely listen. It's easy to teach those kids, isn't it? These are the ones who bring you something for Christmas, who write you a thank you note "just because". Don't get me wrong, I have my own children do those things; I have nothing against those students. But do I really go into my school year expecting this from the students, that they are all a part of the "good soil" the parable discusses?

The reality is that we have students who carry a lot of baggage.

The seed along the path:
Some of our students have trouble understanding what we present or the activities that we've delicately prepared for them. Perhaps there's a learning disability or an attention disorder that gets in the way. Whatever it is, the learning is snatched away and seemingly gone forever.

The seed in the rocky soil:
There are students who aim to please and they try to do well. We may even have a wonderful lesson planned that unfolds something for them they've never understood before. They're engaged, but when it comes time for evaluation, we too clearly see that they haven't grasped the concept for the long term; the material was too difficult for them. What appeared to take root never did.

The seed among the thorns:
Still other students have the odds stacked against them. They're intelligent, and we know they have potential, but their home lives challenge them in ways we don't comprehend. These students may have concerns that choke their good intentions out of them. When they're at school, it's fine, but as soon as they leave, the worries return. Where will my next meal come from? When will my mom get home from work? Will my parents or my sister treat me well, or will they yell at me again? When will I find a true friend?

My question is, How can we become more like the sower? Instead of simply focusing on preparing our own hearts to receive, as a farmer would prepare the soil, let's take the attitude of the sower who would extend grace to each and every type of student, even the ones we're unsure will learn a thing from us this year. You will have students who struggle to learn because of a disability. You will have students who struggle because the material is just too hard for them, no matter your methods. You will have students who struggle because of the worries they harbor, concerns you may never fully understand.

If we become like the sower in this parable, though, we will not hesitate to fling the seed in apparent reckless abandon. I say apparent here because others may not understand what we're doing. They may drag us down with excuses like, That kid can't be reached. As teachers, though, we have the highest calling. We must give every student (and I mean every student) our absolute best. I pray that I can do that this year. I pray that you can do that this year.

Perhaps the sower who appeared to know so little about farming knew more than what we give him credit for. What seemed to be reckless abandon on the sower's part in flinging the seeds every which way may have actually been intentional love for every person. No matter our students this year, our highest task is to love each one of them, according to their needs, attempting to reach them, never giving up on them no matter their circumstance.

10 Take-Aways from EdTechTeacher Chromebook Workshop

After using an iPad cart for 2 years and a chromebook cart for half a year, our middle school is heading 1:1 with chromebooks. I jumped on the opportunity to head to the San Francisco Bay Area in June with our tech guy to learn more about chromebook implementation. We were blessed with 2 wonderful presenters from EdTechTeacher, Avra Robinson @avrarachel and Brenda Doucette @doucetteb.

I, of course, wanted to learn how I would be using the chromebooks in my own English and Bible classes (not to mention my computer classes), but I also entered with the perspective to watch out for other subject area ideas that I could bring back to my colleagues for use once school starts in the fall. Suffice it to say, I came back with chromebook overload, but I'm going to attempt to unpack it for others' benefit. Grab it if you want.

C-R-C-D Framework (collect-relate-create-donate)

We didn't dive into philosophy much, but this was a helpful framework to organzie my thoughts into what I want my students to accomplish with their devices. From Professor Ben Shneiderman - Leonardo's Laptop, it focuses in on what we want students to DO. That's one thing I always try to push in my classes - get the students to create something and then share it out.

Evernote

I've used this before to archive information, especially from workshops or other meetings. I think the best description for Evernote would be a digital form of traditional spiral notebooks, except that you can save websites, photos, and even video along with your notes. It's powerful, and I can see students using Evernote to organize their school lives. It can be used across all devices, too. The free basic service works well (unless you want to keep multiple videos which need more storage than the free service provides). Other archiving options given at the ETT workshop were Google Docs and Google Keep.

Google Docs

We spent a significant amount of time, especially on day 1 of the workshop, exploring Google Docs. Not only can students type their "papers" in Google Docs, but they can research while in the document, cite information in different formats, and even edit PDFs. Of course, the collaboration aspect of Google Docs is, in my opinion, the coolest. Being in the same document as somebody else has many advantages, and commenting back and forth is so valuable when it comes to peer (or teacher) editing.

Vocaroo

This is a registration-free space for you to record your voice. Have students record for each other and share the link. It is saved as a link and can get pasted or embedded anywhere. Teachers can share feedback right on a student's Google Doc. I'm definitely using Vocaroo for end of paper summation comments this year.

Thinglink

This one has so many options. Use a photo and tag it with links to other locations. Lisa Johnson @techchef4u is a whiz with Thinglink. Spend some time reading her stuff and be inspired. Get some ideas on how to get started with Thinglink here - make sure to scroll down and see the teacher who used a class picture to create ePortfolios for her students. I've got to study more of her stuff.

Padlet

You can use Padlet in your classroom when you want to gather student input. Imagine having students place thoughts or answers on your whiteboard in front of the classroom, but that whiteboard is on their own chromebook screen and it holds every student's contribution on a collaborative "wall". What could you use this for?

Tackk

Tackk.com is an online space that I would consider a mini-website. Students can use this as an online flyer to share information about a book they've read as a kind of book report. They can link other web pages or videos to it. It scrolls like a web page and can include multiple headings. They can easily change the theme, colors, and fonts. I use something similar as an online home for my soccer team. It's called smore.com and varies just slightly from tackk.com.

Google Classroom

If your school has Google Apps For Education (GAFE), then I would highly advise setting up Google Classroom for your self-contained classroom or for each of the classes you teach. Students can sign up using your class code. You post assignments and resources here, and then students use Google Apps to complete the assigned work. They create and turn in their documents (or forms or drawings, etc.) within your Google Classroom, which transfers ownership to you, then you can give feedback and return their work, which transfers ownership back to them. If you've thought of going "paperless" at your site, then this is the place for you.

PrintFriendly

Sometimes teachers may want to assign an online article or other Internet reading to their students, but they want to adjust it slightly or simply keep it in a more secure location like your own Google Drive. A handy way to do this is to use PrintFriendly to turn the web page into a pdf and then edit some of it down. Using DocHub in conjunction with PrintFriendly allows further editing and even export into Google Drive. Once it's in your Google Drive, you can place it almost anywhere online, but I would suggest putting it in your Google Classroom as an assigned reading.

Google Forms

Google Forms are a super cool way to poll students. If you do it right, students could even poll each other. Creating a form and sending it also creates a spreadsheet with responses, which then allows you to evaluate the responses given. Another way you can use a form is to simply collect links from students. If they have edited their website and you'd like to see it (or grade it), then you could create a quick form for students to post their website page link. Any online work the student completes can be turned into a link that can then be handed in using a quick form you create.

And there you have it, my 10 takeaways from the EdTechTeacher chromebook workshop I attended in Menlo Park in June. Special thanks to Avra Robinson and Brenda Doucette who led a very engaging 3 days!

Is Knowledge Really Power?

I remember watching Saturday morning cartoons as a kid and seeing Schoolhouse Rock in-between shows. Shucks, I still use one of the songs when talking about conjunctions in class. One thing that was often said on Schoolhouse Rock was the statement: Knowledge is Power.

And I ponder if that's really true. Education has changed since those days, and my job as a teacher is not to simply inform students about material that I know and they need to learn. I should have a strong grasp of my field, but I don't have all the answers; in fact, I have way more questions than answers.

So are we here to impart knowledge to the students? And therefore, give them power?

My wife and I took a class at church during the winter, and these questions arose. Questions about knowledge and wisdom. Questions about how our brains function. How we learn, how students are tested. Questions about community. Though standing in front of the class and following the set curriculum is a routine and "easy" teaching method for me, it's important to let the students get their hands dirty and explore new options, to choose their own routes, to expose them to innovative technique, to problem solve at a deeper level.

To share their ideas.

I have often used the line (and I'm sure I'm in good company) "two heads are better than one." When you work with another person or group, it's easier to dive deeper into the topic. Different ideas are shared, new perspectives are explored, alternate problem-solving techniques are employed. That concept was key to our discussion at church--Knowledge is more powerful when it's shared.

I don't fault Schoolhouse Rock's educational catchphrase Knowledge is Power. It's a good motivator for students. We all want to gain knowledge. If there's something I want to know, I will try to figure it out, but the important part is finding a person you can trust who can share some of their answers with you. We can learn from each other.

In many ways our society is driven by individual success. I might think it's important to have a skill set that nobody else does so that I become valuable in my work, powerful, maybe irreplaceable. But that's a dangerous perspective, I think. When we keep the knowledge to ourselves, we may be tempted to lord it over somebody else. And really, that amount of knowledge can only take us so far.

I don't lose anything by sharing my knowledge with somebody else--that knowledge doesn't become less. In fact, it can deepen in a way that it couldn't before the sharing. It can be taken to new levels.

In the classroom, it takes a willingness to trust each other. That trust must develop before true sharing of knowledge can occur. Trust takes time, though, and it must be something in which we invest intentionally.

In our church discussion, we whittled it down to relationships. In order to have the right attitude in sharing and receiving knowledge, we have got to develop strong relationships with each other that allow for mutual trust, a trust between students as well as between the teacher and the student(s).

A teacher must:
-value each student and their situation
-connect meaningfully with students as often as possible
-manage behavior thoughtfully
-make material important to each student
-smile a lot
-share expectations clearly
-forgive often
-ask for forgiveness freely
-model respect and responsibility
-empathize regularly

A student must:
-help others become successful
-listen carefully
-speak strategically
-lead when necessary
-follow appropriately
-forgive and try to forget
-ask for forgiveness
-humble themselves
-respect themselves
-enjoy their classmates (and teacher)
-try hard
-empathize regularly

Working toward a classroom atmosphere of mutual trust, such as the one in which teachers and students have the above defined roles, will allow for a true sharing of knowledge. When we work together and respect each other, then our shared knowledge can be taken to new levels and truer wisdom can be attained.