NCTE Move Toward a Definition of 21st Century Literacies

I have seen these posted on a few other blogs (here and here) and I believe our learning community needs to take a look at them. The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Executive Committee has adopted the following:

Literacy has always been a collection of cultural and communicative practices shared among members of particular groups. As society and technology change, so does literacy. Because technology has increased the intensity and complexity of literate environments, the twenty-first century demands that a literate person possess a wide range of abilities and competencies, many literacies. These literacies—from reading online newspapers to participating in virtual classrooms—are multiple, dynamic, and malleable. As in thepast, they are inextricably linked with particular histories, life possibilities and social trajectories of individuals and groups. Twenty-first century readers and writers need to:
• Develop proficiency with the tools of technology
• Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems
collaboratively and cross-culturally
• Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes
• Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of
simultaneous information
• Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts
• Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments

I had someone ask me the other day about having my thoughts stuck too far into the future. I fumbled with an answer for them at the time, but now have a response...My thoughts are not stuck in the future, education is stuck in the past!

A Little Tech Humor

You will need to turn up the sound! I thought this was funny!

More on an effective high school

Earlier this month I posted about my thoughts on an effective high school. I promised to follow up with more details.....so to continue the conversation..........



An effective high school will challenge students to communicate:
Technology is changing the way schools need to engage their students. A school that challenges its students for the 21st century must make connections to the outside world. Besides bringing in local experts, we must make use of available connectivity to link students to sources from around the world to broaden their perspectives and enhance their communication skills. The Internet has made it possible to expand the classroom experience beyond the school and local learning opportunities.

An effective high school will challenge students to collaborate:
We must get beyond teaching students in separate periods of time. Our structure today has students taking as many as seven....(next year eight) different classes. A typical day has a student moving from one class to the next making very few connections between them. Students must be given challenges in which they must use skills that are developed in all classes. They must have opportunities to collaborate with each other as well as resources from from outside of school to explore creative ways to approach problems and develop strategies to solve complex issues.

to be continued........

A provocative commencement speech

Teachers here at PHS can view this at school. Students you will have to log in to youtube somewhere else. What are your reactions to Steven Jobs thoughts?

Quote to ponder......

"In a world where information was scarce, schools operated as kind of a repository of that precious resource. But now information is abundant. A school doesn’t have to harvest and distribute this scarce resource. It has to serve some other kind of function." -Daniel Pink

We must define those new functions! What thoughts do you have?

Thanks for the memories......

O.K. I am really going to date myself here, but whenever I hear the song "Thanks for the Memories", Bob Hope's theme song, I feel a warm wave calmness come over me. It brings strong memories of a childhood being brought up in a home where no Bob Hope special went unwatched. Those memories are blended with emotions of happy times spent with parents and grandparents. Even though those days are long gone, the memories and visceral feelings are as strong as ever.
Ask yourself what are the aspects of your day that are really memorable? When you reflect about the past year on a personal level, what are the things that stand out? Take few moments right now and think about the things that really stand out, the great memories you have in your lifetime. What do they have in common? Emotions! Winning a championship, participating in a play, getting married, witnessing the birth of a child, spending time with loved ones, these are the events bring back memories charged with emotion. Memories of the people and the relationships we had with those people are what truly make an event meaningful. Do you remember the first great grade you earned on a test or do you remember how people reacted to it? You especially remember the reactions of those people about which you cared about and wanted them to think positively about you. Bad memories are made of emotions too. Being left out, feeling unwanted, not being noticed, having your flaws endlessly put on display. Emotions have a way of etching events into our memories so strongly that we cannot forget them even if we try...(and in the case of severe trauma, the opposite, we can't remember even if we try).
You may now ask yourself where I am going with this....my point is that a truly effective classroom builds strong, positive, professional relationships between students and their teacher. An environment of shared respect and genuine caring will help foster a strong learning experience. As I think back on my education certain memories remain strong and most of them involve mainly how the teachers helped me feel worthy of their time. The most effective teachers I can remember combined high expectations, a "we can do it" attitude and a real rapport with their class. Teachers like Mrs. Eicher and her game of scrabble, Mrs. Gardner and a great Spanish class, Mr. Pigg and his cousins in a blanket, Mr. Tyndle and his undying love of science, and Dr. Bev Findley and her unequalled enthusiasm are the teachers that made great learning experiences and memories for me. What kind of memories are you creating for your students?

Trying a new Google Docs function

Google docs allows people to use productivity software differently. It has basic word procesessor, spreadsheet, and presentation functions. You can upload Office documents, spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations into it. It allows for collaboration and instant access from any Internet capable computer. With the function I am trying today, you can collect data from anyone who is willing to give you input. Please go to this page , to fill in my silly form. The questions might not apply to you....but fill it out for fun if you have time.

My vision for an effective high school

(Broadstrokes version....details to follow......)
An effective high school is staffed by:

• Professionals who care about students first, student growth second, and their subject matter with the time they have left.
• Professionals that are willing to take risks, willing to admit they do not have all the answers and never lose the yearning to keep learning.
• Professionals who are willing to look in the mirror when there is a problem as opposed to out the window.

An effective high school is willing to:

• Consider each student individually and help each student find their PASSION.
• Build an educational plan and career plan for each student based on their needs and their PASSION.
• Throw away conventional methodology when it no longer works and do what it takes to affect, engage, and change students to meet individual and societal needs.

An effective high school will:

• Reach out to parents to help them keep their student(s) engaged in and ready for school.
• Seek resources and start conversations to affect change in the community that will bring about more support for education.
• Continually seek out best practices, use current research, and always believe that education can get better.

Please share your ideas!......"We get what we will settle for!"