Learning is Change

Use a Single Click to Add Your Name, Email Address, and Twitter Handle to a Google Spreadsheet

Alright, you can probably file this under “why on earth would I want to do that”, but I am super excited about this capability and here is why:

  1. Imagine that you are leading a PD session and you want to capture everyone’s info (twitter account, email, and names) without having folks put that info into a form or doc (many clicks and some typing).
  2. Imagine that you wanted to create a contact list for an event, and you wanted to use their Twitter accounts as well as their emails.
  3. Imagine that you wanted to get a list of folks who all needed individual access to a google doc, and you wanted to collect their emails quickly so that you could share directly with them.
  4. Imagine that you wanted to build a coalition/community of folks who were going to engage in a twitter chat or a series of online activism tasks and you needed a quick way of gathering their info and allowing folks to “opt-in”.
  5. Imagine you were running an EdCamp (or a similar unconference model) and wanted to capture everyone’s twitter handles by simply having them click on a link you send them.

For all of those reasons and a few more that I’m sure you can come up with on your own, I was excited about this possibility. Essentially, it breaks down to using a “Lead Generation Card” on Twitter and then hooking it up to a Google Spreadsheet. If you make that spreadsheet public, you are creating an open list for others. The “single click” is when folks who are logged into Twitter click on the call to action from the “Card”. Their info then automatically populates into the spreadsheet, which is kind of awesome.

This is the result of about an hour of work:

If you want to know more about how to do this yourself, here are the things that I used:

  1. I used this page for the instructions to set up the spreadsheet and twitter card that makes this magic happen.
  2. One instruction that was missing from the blog was to make sure you ran the doPost script (in the script editor) to ensure you have enabled all permissions of the script.
  3. Another instruction that I think is valuable is to create two tweets with your card. The first is the tweet you will promote for collecting your info into the spreadsheet, and the second is the tweet that will become your “fallback URL” that tells folks to login to twitter if they don’t see the “card.”
  4. I highly recommend not keeping your list private, as it can be such an amazing collaboration tool. So, once you have your spreadsheet set up, make the link to your spreadsheet the “Desitination URL” for the card. That way, anyone who clicked the “add me” button (or whatever you are calling it in your card) will be able to see the rest of the list.

If none of this makes sense, that is okay. Here is the spreadsheet we are curating for Teachers and Leaders who are interested in Personalized Professional Learning. If you want to add your name to the list, simply click the link in the above tweet!

#C4C15: BYOD, ASAP: A Global Survey – Electricity Usage

An wonderful global project in a High School science classroom:

This is a wonderful project, and I am so glad that you have outlined just how it has worked within your classroom so that others may follow in your footsteps. However, I take issue with this statement: “But for now, the science can wait.” I do not believe that is what you are doing. I believe “the science” is happening throughout this period of connecting the dots and understanding where your data is coming from. You are making “the science” relevant to the students’ every day lives. This is authentic learning, and it is a great example of creating context for your content.

I would encourage you to think about this important work as part of your discipline as a science teacher. Connecting and making meaning are all over the science standards, and you are doing just that. Please don’t let anyone tell you that you need to “get back to the science” when you tell them about this project. Your kids are finding their global reach and voice, and I think it should be celebrated.

via BYOD, ASAP: A Global Survey – Electricity Usage.

#C4C15: Box Breakout: Why I Do What I Do

Keep doing great things. Keep telling kids that they matter and that they are smart enough. Keep giving them opportunities to show what they know and can do:

Thank you for sharing this story and for showing that there are ways of debunking the narrative of “not smart enough” that many kids feel every day.

I had a similar moment in high school. While I didn’t have an internal monologue telling me I wasn’t smart, I had a terrible experience in Middle School and I was still under the impression that nothing I did mattered. When my English teacher recognized me in front of our entire school as the English student of the year for our class, I knew that there was something else I could become. I was validated in a way that I didn’t know that I needed. I was recognized both for my accomplishments and the hope of what I might do next.

I think this is much of what these students were feeling. They feel validated for their work, and they feel empowered to continue to build what comes next. It is clear that you made a difference in these children’s lives. It is clear that their “not smart” narrative no longer makes sense. It is through learning and creating that these things happen, though. It is a natural culmination point, rather than an artificial one that happens every day as points are awarded. I like that.

via Box Breakout: Why I Do What I Do.

#C4C15: Surely You Can't Be Serious: Stories of #PARCC Implementation

Many stories of what is happening in PARCC states:

The way in which you have aggregated all of these comments is really quite compelling as a way of framing your argument. It is pretty clear that your testimony resonated with others.

The part that I would like to focus on, however, is the fact that so many states are coming together with a shared experience. While this shared experience is mostly negative in this regard, I do think it is powerful in that so many people are able to have the same conversation (or similar ones) about the direction we are heading in education.

I do believe that enough folks will rally around many of the words that you (and others) have spoken about their experiences, such that these tests will be rolled back. However, I wonder if we will miss the broader point of what is possible when we all engage in the same conversation. I wonder if we will let this opportunity only be about the things “we don’t want” rather than advocating for the things that we do want.

What if while we are advocating for better use of assessments, we also advocated for more student voice in the classroom? What if while we were asking for less dependence on testing companies, we also asked for a cross-state collaboration space for teachers to share lessons and ideas? What if while we were sharing stories of how the tests were taking valuable instructional time away from kids who need it most, we also shared stories of what great teaching and learning looks like?

Is there room in this testing conversation for those things?

via Surely You Can’t Be Serious: Stories of #PARCC Implementation.

#C4C15: Surely You Can't Be Serious: Stories of #PARCC Implementation

Many stories of what is happening in PARCC states:

The way in which you have aggregated all of these comments is really quite compelling as a way of framing your argument. It is pretty clear that your testimony resonated with others.

The part that I would like to focus on, however, is the fact that so many states are coming together with a shared experience. While this shared experience is mostly negative in this regard, I do think it is powerful in that so many people are able to have the same conversation (or similar ones) about the direction we are heading in education.

I do believe that enough folks will rally around many of the words that you (and others) have spoken about their experiences, such that these tests will be rolled back. However, I wonder if we will miss the broader point of what is possible when we all engage in the same conversation. I wonder if we will let this opportunity only be about the things “we don’t want” rather than advocating for the things that we do want.

What if while we are advocating for better use of assessments, we also advocated for more student voice in the classroom? What if while we were asking for less dependence on testing companies, we also asked for a cross-state collaboration space for teachers to share lessons and ideas? What if while we were sharing stories of how the tests were taking valuable instructional time away from kids who need it most, we also shared stories of what great teaching and learning looks like?

Is there room in this testing conversation for those things?

via Surely You Can’t Be Serious: Stories of #PARCC Implementation.

#C4C15: wwwatanabe: What does it mean to be literate in the 21st century?

A great frame for thinking about 21st century literacies, those things that are truly different about the way we deal with information in our modern learning environments:

I appreciate the way you have approached “new literacies” as something that really does build upon the literacies that come before. The radical departure comes not when you look at the difference between looking at video vs. a novel as text, but rather in the way that we think about information as something that is ever changing.

I liked your point about the way in which the “purpose” of information (and finding it) changes when you can search for anything you might need. We stop thinking about “reading everything you can on a subject” or choosing the “1 book we have access to”. These are literacies of scarcity. The new literacies are about abundance and overload. They are about synthesizing information and creating something new to add to the conversation.

New literacies (for me, at least) include:

1. Owning and managing your data and digital footprint

2. Engaging in online dialogue to further understand curriculum

3. Aggregation and curation of information for a specific purpose

4. Creating and using video for learning outcomes

5. Creating and engaging in a learning network (actually connecting with other people and not just following them)

 

wwwatanabe: What does it mean to be literate in the 21st century?.

#C4C15: The Positive Teacher: #LoveTeaching

The positivity from this blog is infectious:

I really enjoy the #LoveTeaching hashtag. It is is something that we don’t get to say often enough to one another. I think your “lack of boredom” captures teaching very well. We are never going to be bored if we keep exploring.

We will never rest on our laurels or face a new day without knowing that we will do things never done before. It is an immense responsibility and we face it head on. I think your positive outlook is goes a long way to making sure that we don’t get slapped in the face when we do so.

via The Positive Teacher: #LoveTeaching.

#C4C15: The Positive Teacher: #LoveTeaching

The positivity from this blog is infectious:

I really enjoy the #LoveTeaching hashtag. It is is something that we don’t get to say often enough to one another. I think your “lack of boredom” captures teaching very well. We are never going to be bored if we keep exploring.

We will never rest on our laurels or face a new day without knowing that we will do things never done before. It is an immense responsibility and we face it head on. I think your positive outlook is goes a long way to making sure that we don’t get slapped in the face when we do so.

via The Positive Teacher: #LoveTeaching.

#C4C15: Leading for learning: I prefer a 3:1!

Is a 3:1 program asking too much? Well, maybe:

We are connected in more ways than simply through our computers now, and I think it is okay that we accept this so long as we don’t let ourselves think the connections are going to change practice by themselves.

The connection in our pocket should be available and leveraged by everyone who wants it. The screen in front of us should allow for conversations that weren’t previously possible. We should touch the screen as if we were touching the person we are collaborating with, in ways that allow them to know that we are a human on the other side.

I’m okay with a 3:1 program, so long as those 3 devices allow for learning to happen with the other people and not just with the other devices.

Leading for learning: I prefer a 3:1!.

#C4C15: Teachers and Students Leading Professional Learning | Fearless Teacher

Students as professional developers… Brilliant!

I love this idea of students being the ones that end up doing the professional development. They are able to explain educational activities so much better than teachers sometimes because they are the ones who actually experience them.

Please continue to write about the ways in which teachers are modeling innovative practice for one another. It is so rare that teachers feel comfortable asking the questions about what is going on in each others’ classrooms. This is powerful work.

via Teachers and Students Leading Professional Learning | Fearless Teacher.