The next new skill was mastering the caulking gun. One of our history teachers gave me a quick lesson and I managed to wield it without covering too much of the floor in Liquid Nails®. ​

As my colleagues and administrators can attest, I skew a bit on the enthusiastic side. When I learn something new, am asked for help, or am excited about a lesson I tend to come in full speed, guns a-blazing. But as I’ve learned, when you’re trying to get folks to come along with you, sometimes a gentle nudge works better than a giant push.
 
Case in point:
Last March, I was fortunate enough to have been selected with 51 other teachers to attend the PBS Digital Summit which took place last weekend. A quick summary of my two days there:

• Meeting the other PBS Lead Digital Innovators and forging new friendships
• Hearing Michael Gorman present to us on “What Would Dewey Do?”
• Learning and laughing with Leslie Fisher as she shared all sorts of tech tools
• Dinner, chatter, and music at Howl at the Moon Denver
• A-MAZING panel discussion with Shelly Fryer, Michael Gorman, MJ Moore, Patricia Brown, and Jaime Casap
• Presentation on sharing student work with Wesley Fryer
• Edcamp afternoon facilitated by Hadley Ferguson
• SWAG!

 
And this was before the day that we spent at ISTE.
 
Needless to say that with introduction to new tech tools, dozens of ideas I’d heard, and connections I’d made with other like-minded teachers - I was completely amped up. I had a million and one thoughts about how all of this could benefit our students back home. Look out LMS teachers, Marcia has been at a conference and she’s coming for you!
 
Thankfully, that didn’t happen.

According to Grammarist: “To drink the Kool-Aid is to become a firm believer in something or a passionate follower of a philosophy or movement.”
​
As a teacher, one of the most gratifying things in my day is watching a student take something I’ve taught them and run with it; taking whatever I’ve offered up and carrying it to another level. It never ceases to thrill me. Many times, the student will come back to me and teach me something they’ve discovered while playing with that knowledge.
 
With colleagues, it’s a bit different. It takes persuasion and some sleight of hand at times to get them to get on board with something new. I’ve learned over the years that when getting folks to try something new, less is more if I want them to “drink the Kool-Aid”, but sometimes my enthusiasm gets the better of me and I overload them.
 
Last year, I was working with a colleague on piloting Google Apps for Education for our school. I chose this particular teacher to work with for several reasons: we work well together, she had a unit that was a curricular fit with what we were to pilot, and she was NOT usually one of the first people to try new technology.

That may sound counter to conventional wisdom, but think about it… Early adopters are going to try it because it’s new, technophobes are not going to try it because their chalk works just fine thank you, which leaves those in the middle. I figured that this teacher would have many questions, a little trepidation, and would give me a sense of how the majority of our staff would approach this new technology.
 
In our debriefing after the first student lesson, I showed the teacher all kinds of tricks for organization because I was excited. Oops. I went home and thought, “I’ve blown it. I’ve overloaded her, I did too much at once and she’ll feel overwhelmed and not want to continue.”
 
The next morning, as soon as I arrived I saw my colleague coming toward me, laptop in hand. “LOOK! Look what I did last night! I love this! It’s so easy and now the kids are going to be better writers because I can help them right away! I already told the principal how awesome this is!”
 
At that moment, I honestly think I felt more excited than she did.
 
Sometimes, despite our best efforts, folks won’t drink the Kool-Aid. The reason to not give up:  sometimes they drink it all, go home and make more. 

​For two days last week, while I was teaching in-text citations to 7th graders, my classroom looked like this:

​Oh. My. Goodness. Where are the computers? Where are the tablets? The SMART board is off? Why am I not integrating technology in my “21st century” classroom?
 
As a teacher, it is my charge to:

• Align my teaching with the standards
• Select and/or create materials to utilize for instruction
• Use formative feedback to shape my instruction
• Provide descriptive feedback to my students utilizing data from formative assessments
• Adapt lessons for a variety of learning levels and styles, providing modified materials where necessary
• Thoughtfully integrate technology

 
As I plan my lessons, I consider how students will best acquire knowledge and demonstrate their learning. Thoughtfully. According to Merriam-Webster, technology is “a manner of accomplishing a task.” Technology can be a computer, a white board, a camera, or a pencil and paper.
 
In this particular lesson, my aims were for students to understand what an in-text citation is, why they are used, and how to correctly create and insert an in-text citation using MLA format. At the point in the lesson pictured, where they were independently creating citations and writing sentences with in-text attribution, students needed support materials: MLA citation rules, exemplars, and a piece of text. Having all of these materials visible at the same time was paramount to their success, and opening up 3 or 4 separate windows on a 13” laptop screen would have been cumbersome and confusing. I knew this was a task that most of them would grapple with intellectually, why muddle it even further by forcing them to grapple with technology as well?
 
I’ve been grappling with the term “21st Century Skills” for the past several months. I was attending Brian Miller’s session online at Global EdCamp this past summer and he said that instead of “21st Century Skills”, we should refer to what our children must know as “Essential Skills.” I agree as I feel the term “21st century” connotes utilizing electronic tools. It is essential for children to utilize computers, apps, tablets, and the like; but it is also essential for them to know that in some cases a piece of paper and a pencil are the correct choice. Our job is to give our students the complete toolbox, as well as demonstrate when to use which tool.
 
As my students worked through the activity, their English teacher and I circulated - looking over shoulders, providing feedback, asking questions, and answering others so that they didn’t stray too far in the wrong direction. Anyone walking into the media center during these lessons would have seen the students utilizing the support materials not only for themselves, but to help one another:  comparing their work with the exemplars, consulting the MLA format rules, talking with their neighbors about the different ways to reference a source. They were thinking about what they were writing and internalizing it, not worrying about locating letters and symbols on a keyboard or rearranging tabs and windows. Their focus was on the task not the tool. No matter what the century, that is an essential skill.

In the Neverland areas of my mind, a brand new box of crayons is a magical thing. One whiff from an open box of Crayolas® and I am transported. There is something so hopeful in the bright colors and crisp sharpness of new crayons standing at attention in their neatly tucked rows of eight. The coloring trend over the past year is no mystery to me. Coloring is soothing and calming, a release of sorts from the bonds of work and worries.

Our Makerspace has an array of crayons and coloring supplies, so this past Thursday – in celebration of National Crayon day - I offered passes to 20 6th graders, on a first-come first-served basis, to come eat lunch and color in the media center. After announcements only two students stopped by to secure passes and I thought that perhaps I’d had a misfire with this idea; but later, as 300 6th graders streamed past the library on their way to lunch, I was mobbed.

 Much like our 7th grade jigsaw puzzle lunches, crayon day was a noisy affair. There was much laughter and jumping up to go find exactly the right color or admire someone else’s work.  As students left, I was handed a few completed works to display and many of them asked if they could have a few extra pages to take home. Throughout the afternoon several small groups of students stopped by to see me. They hadn’t been able to procure a pass for lunch, but heard I had “lots of coloring pages”, could they possibly have some?

According to my students, being a 6th grader can be stressful and coloring is a great way to “just have fun like a little kid.”
​
I guess we all have a bit of Neverland in us.

On April 12th, author Beverly Cleary will celebrate her 100th birthday. Cleary’s characters Henry Huggins, Ribsy, Beezus and Ramona, Ellen Tebbits, Jane Purdy, and Ralph S. Mouse are so vivid and relatable, that as a child I could not read enough about them. Ribsy coated in pink powder, Ramona naming her doll Chevrolet, Susan’s “boingy” curls, Beezus’ eternal angst, Ellen Tebbits’ droopy ballet costume… the stories are timeless in that even 60 years after their initial publication they have the power to make children laugh out loud. But as unlikely as it may seem, it is Otis Spofford for whom I am most grateful.

My second year of teaching, I had a group of 30 fourth graders in a self-contained classroom. I could not have dreamed up a more diverse group of learners. I had one child reading T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, another who could only write the letters of the alphabet that were in her name, and everything in-between. It was an incredible challenge trying to give all of them what they needed, but with a little creativity and patience, we managed to get quite a bit done.

Then came the spitballs.

With a little sleuthing I fingered the culprit, had him in during recess for a chat, made a phone call home, and thought that would be the end of it. And it was… for about 2 days. When the spitballs made their reappearance, I realized that my original transgressor had at least one partner-in-crime. High-pitched squealing accompanied by exclamations of “Eww!” from the girls in the class signaled that things were about to get out of hand. I was frantic. Obviously my teacher tactics had not worked and now I had to contend with a team of spitballers. What to do?

On the ride home, as I tried to parse out how to deal with the problem without having to admit to my principal that there was a spitball revolution occurring in my room (good-bye tenure), I remembered Otis Spofford. When I got home, I grabbed my copy off the shelf and there it was: Chapter 2 - Otis vs. Mrs. Gitler. Beverly Cleary to the rescue.

The next day after recess, I told the class that I was going to read aloud to them from one of my favorite books. The children were riveted as Otis’ teacher, Mrs. Gitler, told him that he could throw as many spitballs as he wanted, in fact – she wanted him to spit all day long. Their expressions of enraptured glee turned to looks of concern as Otis lost the attention of his peers while sitting in the back of the room, aiming his spitballs at the trash can again and again. Creases of worry appeared and meaningful glances - “Would our teacher actually do that?” shot across my classroom as Otis’ mouth dried out and Mrs. Gitler would not allow him to use the water fountain. At the end of the chapter I closed the book and started my math lesson.

I never saw another spitball that year.

Happy Birthday and many thanks dear Beverly Cleary - author, centenarian, and brilliant classroom tactician.

I am a teacher. For the majority of my professional life Sunday has usually involved planning on some level. Planning time includes my plan book, laptop, iPad, pens/pencils/colored markers, a caffeinated beverage, and Pandora on Disney or Maroon 5. Planning lessons also now includes a SAMR grid to help me think about how I'm integrating technology: How am I using it? How and why am I expecting my students to utilize it?

The SAMR model classifies technology use in four ways: Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition.  This model, in truth, is not about technology… it’s about advancing student learning and the content through thoughtful use of technology. The goal is to have the majority of your tech integration fall in the upper tiers of the SAMR model to take students’ learning new places. That said, the model leaves room for times when using technology as a substitute might be appropriate, such as when introducing new content.

Throughout the project outlined below, note that the focus of the learning is on the task, not the technology. In the later stages of the project, some instruction on use of the tools may be needed, but would be integrated within the context of the project, not lessons created just to utilize technology. I’ve completed a sample research project unit plan in the SAMR planning grid I designed (grid was inspired by an infographic created by Megan Moore aka @mmooresjc). In the plan, I wrote answers for the “think about” questions to show the thought process behind the decisions for each piece. A blank template is linked at the end of the post, feel free to use and share it.

This past week, one of our English/Language Arts teachers wanted me to teach her students how to give a book talk for a multimedia project they are working on. The lesson included a discussion of the elements of a good book talk, a rubric with the success criteria that would show mastery, and me doing a couple of book talks as exemplars. The students were able to recognize and assess the required elements within my book talks, but how could they quickly demonstrate application of what they had learned?
 
Enter picture books.
 
Students were grouped at tables, so I gave each table a picture book. The groups had 5 minutes to read and discuss the story, then 5 minutes to devise a book talk about it.
 
The looks on students' faces when I handed out the books? Utter joy. Pandemonium ensued as they all tried to read aloud the stories to each other, but it was an awesome, productive noise where everyone was completely engaged. Each group was able to complete the task and, in most cases, meet the success criteria on a high level.

Some days, magic happens.
 
That day when the technology works, the lesson goes well, the children are completely engaged, and your fellow teachers come sign out technology so that they may take the lesson to the next level.
 
Friday was such a day.
 
Each Friday, I have one grade in for a brief lesson and a checkout. Two classes each period times six class periods. I get the students for 20 minutes -10 of which are for book checkout, so the lessons must be compact and include some sort of enticement to check out a new book.
 
Last week, I had the idea that I needed more information about each class to help tailor my book talks to the students in front of me. Our school has recently implemented Google Apps for Education (GAFE), so I wanted to include some aspect of technology in my lesson.
 

• I began the lesson with a brief story about my son, who does not like to read, finding a book that interested him and how describing it to me helped me find other books he liked.

• Prior to the lesson, I created a Google Form that necessitated each student logging into his or her GAFE account to complete. The Google Form asked each student to list three words that would describe books they would be interested in reading.

• iPads for each student were on the tables and I gave them 5 minutes to complete the survey

• For spelling help and modification purposes, I had a list of 99 adjectives that described books for each student. (Thank you Laura Candler  - http://www.lauracandler.com/)

• Once the results were in, I opened the results spreadsheet on the SMART board (modeling how Google Forms work to students – CHECK!)

• I copied and pasted the results into the Create box on wordle.net and created a word cloud, explaining that the more times a word occurred, the larger it would appear

• Using the word cloud, gave a quick book talk on some titles that fit the class profile

 
The students loved seeing which words were the most popular, they got a chance to practice logging in to their new GAFE accounts, and I now have waitlists for almost every book I talked about.
 
The teachers loved seeing their classes' word clouds – most of them asked if I could email them the results. One of them is now creating a Google Form as part of an assessment, something she had not done before, and two others are incorporating Wordle into lessons. It was a great way to end a long and stressful week.
 
Some days, magic happens.

Every year since I began my teaching career, I have spent the first meeting of each class going over the class rules and expectations.  I started my career in elementary school, advanced to 8th grade U.S. history, and eventually ended up in the media center 13 years ago. In all those years and all those venues, it’s never failed – as soon as I finished reviewing the classroom rules a hand would shoot up and its owner would inquire, “Well, what if (insert possible scenario here)?” That one question would invariably beget others, starting a veritable firestorm of possible exceptions to the rules.

Every year. Without fail.

This year, I was almost dreading 6th grade library orientation day with its 12 classes worth of “What If” scenarios. As I prepared the lesson and tried to mentally gird myself for the inevitable, I asked myself - down deep, what are my basic expectations for student behavior in the media center?

Friday morning, the first group arrived. I introduced myself, told them that our plan for the lesson was to go over my rules and procedures, orient everyone to the media center, and have checkout time. Then I called an audible. I looked at all those bright, shiny faces and said:

“I know that you've heard the school rules and have reviewed them in all of your classes, but in here you just have two things to remember: 1)Treat everyone with respect and 2) Don’t do dumb stuff. If you follow those two rules, we’ll be good.” This was followed by silence. There were several nods, some smiles, and several shocked looks. But there were no hands and no questions.

Not one. All day.

And through twelve classes, we had the smoothest 6th grade first checkout day ever.

As teachers we often feel the need to be eloquent and model the use of elevated vocabulary. But we also need to remember that sometimes there is something to be said for keeping it simple.