How Long Would It Take You to Read "War and Peace?"

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I just stumbled across this reading test that assesses how fast you read at your normal pace. (My score was 369 WPM - 48% faster than the national average.) The free test includes a just a few comprehension questions and in all will only take a few minutes. 

The most interesting part comes after you get your results. You are then presented with a list of books (Harry Potter, War and Peace, etc.) and info on how long it would take you to complete these books. It also tells you how many books you can read on a variety of devices before losing battery life. This is a great resource for reluctant readers to get the idea that some books really are not out of their league. 

What do you think?

Source: Staples eReader Department

A Great Prize Opportunity

You may know that I've been involved in judging some contests where teachers are able to show what they are doing in the classroom and potentially win an award. Since I'm all about recognizing good teaching, I couldn't say, "No" when
Alfred Thompson,  K-12 Computer Science Academic Relations manager for Microsoft, asked me to share the exciting news of the contest below. If you are, or know of, an innovative teacher who is making a difference for girls and women in the areas of math, computing or engineering, please encourage them to apply.

The A. Richard Newton Educator Award recognizes teaching practices, techniques or innovative and new education approaches that attract girls and women to math, computing, and engineering. The award recognizes the educators (either individuals or teams) as well as the practices in K12 or undergraduate education. The award carries a $5,000 prize and will be presented at the 2012 Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing awards celebration on October 4, 2012 in Baltimore, Maryland. I know that many people on this list are engaged in these practices, and I hope you consider nominating your deserving colleagues for this award! More information, including details on how to submit a nomination, can be found at http://anitaborg.org/initiatives/awards/a-richard-newton-educator-award/

The deadline is May 15, 2012.

Dear Will Richardson

Thank you for writing your recent Huffington Post article. It motivated me to write this passionate post. Just so you know, I like and respect you very much and wish we had time to chat in person when we were both in D.C. Some day, I hope to sit with you and have this conversation in person. 


I hope you read this, Will, and please don't take this personally; on the hand, please take it personally.

In response to your post, I want to tell you that I agree with almost everything you said, but I think you (once again) lost sight of what it's like to be in the trenches. You and many other educational (motivational) speakers and PD experts would do well to take a one/two year hiatus from the awesome (yes, awesome) stuff you/they are currently doing, and spend some time in an FCAT tested grade in a public school. There are many who could use to spend a year dealing with this head-on; rather than writing or lecturing about it and making teachers feel poorly about the instructional choices they are forced to make every day. It would make you and these other folks even more awesome.


I mean it; return to the classroom. You can do it... I did. If you've been out of the classroom more than five to ten years; don't say you know how it is. It's changed that much in such a short time.


A few years ago, I willingly took a $20K hit to return to teaching, but have since returned to district administration. I left teaching because as a classroom teacher, I felt terrible about the choices I was forced to make, and after successfully teaching for 25+ years, I suddenly felt incompetent. I'm not the only one. The current environment has made too many great teachers (with experience, sharp instincts and a real passion for teaching and learning) feel like they suddenly don't know what they're doing. Listening to well-known educational experts (and so many who are in my PLN and who I respect) tell me I was doing it all wrong, didn't help. You do have a tendency to do this, Will. Whether you mean to or not.

I admire all of those teachers who CAN make it work. There are plenty who can; but not me. By returning to the classroom and (attempting to) practice what I was preaching, my perspective shifted tremendously and now I believe that new perspective makes me a more thoughtful leader where I am now. And if you and some others tried it, they just may WILL see a  shift in their perspective as well.


In all fairness, Will, you do state that you're not picking on any teachers in particular. You say, "...I am, however, picking on a culture of schooling that feels the need to pump up students for test-taking with chanting and dancing that, on some level, makes me actually shudder as a parent."


But I still can't help feeling that, although you're not calling out specific teachers, you are calling out teachers in general. That's the part where I think teachers start to feel really crumby about themselves; because there are so many who (rightly so) really value your thoughts.

I'd like to make it clear that I'm really not picking specifically on you either. I've challenged this approach before and some excellent discussion ensued in the comments. Many people pushed back in the comments (and some who actually agreed with me) and I also received many private Twitter messages and emails thanking me for writing what they were thinking (but were hesitant to express themselves publicly). 

Again, it's not only you, Will, but all of the folks who stand in judgment of others who are dealing with the pain of helping students not become victims of the testing madness.

I commend Melanie Sutherland Holtsman on her comment (below) at your post and I thank her and all those teachers who help our kids get through the state testing (and the many simulations throughout the year) with less stress. A big "thank you" to those teachers who hardly mention the test but instead prepare the students to show what they know daily through sharing and collaborating and building knowledge so when students do share their knowledge it feels natural to them; to those who avoid scare-tactics, "magic" objects or "anti-stress pills" that will miraculously help kids do better on the tests: and to those who know they still have to answer to their principals and so they MAKE IT WORK. It is these teachers, like Melanie, who work in other ways to make changes, but know that overtly bucking the system (with the unintended consequence of using the students as pawns) is not the way to go.

From Melanie:

“I agree with everything you are saying, can't fault you for any of it. And as much as it saddens me to be a part of a district that is in a state where that "test" really matters (FCAT - FL) we feel the need to do spirit week, pep rallys, encouragement treats not so much so the kids will get that high score. But because we hate the fact that the kids have to take it and don't want them to have any anxiety about those testing days, so we try to make it fun. It doesn't drive what we teach, our standards do, and it just another test like all the others. We want the kids to feel loved like all the other days of the year and we want to quickly move past it to the real learning of our other school days.
I just felt the need to add my 2 cents about rallys and the things we do as educators that may seem wacky. Not a comment on this particuar rally, but just my point of view. Thanks for your article. Hope it makes others think as well.”

Due to your place in the blogosphere versus mine, this post is likely to be unpopular, but from what I've heard you say, you do encourage people to push-back. 

So here you go.

Respectfully,

Lee


P.S. If anyone else happens to be reading this, I hope you will share your thoughts in the comments here. Although I love getting replies on Twitter, for the sake of conversation, I would appreciate your comments on this post here. (Feel free to leave only 140 characters; it that suits you.)


The topic of my P.S. is fodder for another blogpost. Another time.

Free Robust Messaging for Schools

This came across my email today and thought it worthy of sharing. Have you heard of Celly?

They were named a top ten education technology startup of 2011 by Hack Education. Celly lets people create private communication networks that work really well for situations that other social networks don't and they have a schools specific section. Teachers, students and parents can communicate (while not revealing their phone numbers) via text messaging. They have a rich suite of tools that include: moderated messaging, so students can help each other and ask questions with guidance from the teacher polling for instant evaluation and clicker replacement access from the web, sms, and email phone numbers. Emails and phone numbers are not shared nor exchanged.

To me, these two key features alone make it worthy of checking out:

1. Phone numbers and email addresses are kept private from the users. Which sometimes raises a flag because it allows for anonymous users, BUT...
2. Teachers can moderate all messages before allowing them to go through. -In my opinion, too many companies are digging in their heels about moderation and insisting on not providing that feature. In school districts where the legal dept. has plenty to do (such as mine), something without moderation will have a very difficult time passing the Sniff Test. This holds true for principals who spend too much of their time dealing with social media issues at their schools (even when they happen at home). From my experience, principals trust their teachers very much, but are unlikely to allow their teachers to use something that can't be moderated. 

According to their message to me, "This is a free service that sent over 1 million text messages last month and is growing fast."

Audrey Watters does a great job of summarizing Celly. I suggest you check out her post.

Innovative Teachers Win Big

The following post is a guest post from Rob Bayuk. 


On Monday I was fortunate to visit Palm Beach Co. School District’s annual Technology Conference (see: #sdpbctechconf) which aims to bring educators from across this large district together for professional learning focused on education technology. This year’s event attracted nearly 2,000 educators and staff from across the district. An impressive display for even a large district.

As part of this event, Microsoft had an opportunity to partner with the district to host a Microsoft Partners in Learning 2012 Regional US Forum. I’ve blogged about this global teacher recognition forum, and in the U.S. we host the national forum in Redmond on Microsoft’s worldwide campus attracting top educators from across the country.


The Regional US Forum, hosted by Palm Beach Co. School District, was led under the thoughtful leadership of Lee Kolbert (aka @Teachakidd) and is the first of four regional forums being hosted across the U.S. that provide local educators an opportunity to be invited to the national forum this summer in Redmond (though any educator can apply to the national forum).


It was great to meet and congratulate the four finalists from this forum who have the esteemed acknowledgement of being the first four educators to be invited to the national Microsoft Partners in Learning 2012 US Forum in Redmond this summer. As their projects outline below they are doing incredible work to engage their students thoughtfully, incorporating relevant and practical technology to advance their student’s learning.


So without further adieu, I would like to congratulate the first educators to be accepted to the Microsoft Partners in Learning 2012 US Forum. All are from Palm Beach Co. School District (Palm Beach, FL) teachers are seated, from left to right in the pic: Andy, Todd, Randy and Jamie and here is a little about their projects:

Andy Goldstein, 6-8th Grade Technology Teacher, Omni Middle School
In Andy Goldstein’s class, students became inventors! All inventions begin with a dream, and students create inventions by taking a leap into imagination. For this project, students used Microsoft Word and Windows Movie Maker to explore their imaginations and to encourage team work through collaboration. These tools also helped achieve a highly skilled finished product; the end results being the completed videos that are published to the classroom blog at http://weblogs.pbspaces.com/mrgoldstein/. This project was helpful to gently encourage students to stretch their imaginations, yet to have discipline in completing each step of the design process.

Randy Lavery, K-5 Communication Arts/TV Production Teacher, U.B. Kinsey/Palmview Elementary School
Students worked together to create Microsoft PowerPoint and Photo Story 3 multi-media projects about topics that affect them at home and school. The final products were videos and poster/fliers to post around campus. All students in the class now have a greater understanding of how they can stay healthier and reduce the spread of germs. The final videos will be shown to the school and posters placed around campus to educate the whole school.


Todd LaVogue, 6-7th Grade History Teacher, Roosevelt Community Middle School
In order to help his students gain a better understanding of life in ancient Egypt, Todd LaVogue had his students create a TV show about ancient Egypt. Using Microsoft Word, Internet Explorer and video editing software, his students researched and  created a Today Show style news program with news, weather, sports, cooking, lifestyle, historical, music segments. Students were able to compare and contrast ancient Egypt with today's society very well. In the end, they had a better understanding of what it would have been like to have lived during that time.


Jamie Worrall, 6-8th Grade Math Teacher, Christa McAuliffe Middle School
Using Microsoft PowerPoint, Word and Photo Story 3, Jamie Worrall’s honors algebra students worked in groups to create instructional videos to assist (tutor) other math students through the concepts of relations and functions in a fun and entertaining format. The assignment was for each video to be rich in vocabulary and to include the four ways to represent functions (words, equations, tables/maps and graphs).


If you would like to track the progress of the US Forum follow #pilus and “Like” us on Facebook. The final deadline to apply is May 15th.


Rob (@TeachTec)


See related TeachTec posts:

• Teachers Be Recognized For Your Innovative Ideas
• Guest post: Educator Examines His Teaching, Shares His Learning

A Few Things That Caught My Attention

As I opened my blog, I see that it's been quite awhile since my last post. I've been blogging less for a few reasons, but mostly because I haven't felt like I have much to contribute to the conversation lately. I've also been using Twitter less; for the same reasons. Hopefully, I will reengage soon because I do enjoy that feeling of connectedness and sharing.

I still don't have much to say today, but I wanted to share a few blogposts that caught my attention recently. I urge you to spend a few minutes reading these.

• Videos to Help You Rethink Education, Learning, and School by Garr Reynolds *In this post, Garr Reynolds (Presentation Zen) shares a few excellent videos related to education.
• Don't Fear Failure by Karl Fisch *Thoughtful post about taking risks in learning and sharing.
• Serving or Delivering Does Not Equal Teaching or Learning by Wes Fryer *Wes shares his reaction to the 60 Minutes episode on Khan Academy. Of particular interest are some links and recommendations that Wes shares for further exploration.