Padlet in Year 10 English

The plan. Utilise Padlet - the web tool formerly known as Wallwisher - to engage year 10 students in a meaningful discussion about youth justice. Basically, with Padlet, you can create a 'wall' upon which you can post things.

At the end of the lesson, the teacher and her students will have created a number of discussion 'walls'. Students will have participated in on-line discussions on the causes of, and possible solutions to, youth homelessness. They will have shared their own opinions, as well as considering, and responding to, a variety of views from their fellow students.

Prior to the lesson, I'd played around on Padlet so I'd be confident with the tool. In class, we'd also discussed various issues concerning youth justice and had just watched the harrowing Oasis documentary. I'd prepared a few questions to promote discussion. (By the way, if you haven't yet seen it, the Oasis documentary is essential viewing.)

As a background to all this, I've done some school based professional development using Padlet. This involved participating in an educational on-line discussion with my school colleagues. We pasted a particular URL into our browsers then responded to a question. The 'wall' quickly filled with thoughtful, earnest remarks. It was the first day of the new year and the principal who facilitated looked pleased with the outcome. I think he mentioned something about aiming to be a paperless school somewhere down the track.

You see, we're in the 'one to one' age now. Every student from years 9 to 12 has been given, gratis, courtesy of the federal government, a netbook computer. What's more, we've been urged to use these computers, especially since the school is expecting years 7 and 8 students to buy their own. We don't want the older students telling the younger ones that the computers aren't being used, do we? That wasn't a question. It was a directive from an AP. Parents Will Complain.

So what happened in my classes today?

First, I had to send several students back to their lockers to get their computers. The government may have funded these computers to make our students the smartest in the world - whatever - but that doesn't mean the kids are going to charge them up overnight, or even bring them to school. (It's a discipline thing and we're working on it.)

Second, I recapped our previous lesson about youth homelessness to remind students of the gravity of the issue.

I gave them the URL for our first 'wall' and made a couple of rules. No anonymous comments. No profanity.

As if. (My favourite phrase.)

The wall was instantly and hilariously covered in totally inappropriate, often misspelled, sexually explicit posts. Students quickly discovered that they could also take photos of themselves and other students and tag them.

In nano-seconds I had a wall plastered in posts that had the students in hysterics. The comments were posted faster than I could delete them - it was my wall so I had some editing control for all the good that did me.

I suppose at least they were all engaged in the activity.

Seriously, I'd like to know what really happens in other teachers' classes when they do these activities.You know, teachers who work, like me, in western suburbs state secondary schools. During the PD session, this activity was presented as a highly effective teaching and learning tool and of course I can see its potential. But if kids can write anonymous comments - and get away with it because it's impossible to monitor - how does this occur?

Will it get better if I persist, once the novelty wears off?

Help.

Seriously, comment below. I really want to know.

PD workshop worked; Edmodo, Wallwisher and Changing the Paradigms

Even though the business of education is teaching kids, I find it a relief when they aren't actually in the school.

Not that I don't generally enjoy teaching.  It's just that one never knows how much stress - ie. shit - one is likely to incur in each 75 minute period.  So Thursday, the day before a pupil free day, felt like a Friday, and Friday, Curriculum Day, felt like a gift; a junket.

First mid-year curriculum day we've had for a while, like most Victorian state schools. For the last four years, under a different state government, the curriculum days had all been bunched up at the start of the school year.  I've found that arrangement wanting.  Lots of time wasting for various reasons.  And I'm quite cynical too, in case you hadn't noticed.  Most of the PD offerings at school have seemed to me to be 'under-graduate' and I'm too long in the tooth for that.  There have been exceptions, of course.  

Today's focus was ICT.  Given all our year 9s and 10s have been issued with notebook computers, this was timely.  As I've said, I'm keen to use the computers with my year 10s more effectively, even if it does mean assessing student work on-line.  

The day began inauspiciously when 80 plus of us crammed into the learning centre.  The principal had made a powerpoint.  The screen was so low as to prevent all bar those in its immediate vicinity from being able to see it.  I struggle with my eyesight at the best of times so that first half hour was literally a blur with me twisting, squinting and craning to see between the heads and shoulders of my colleagues.  Something about how we're no longer preparing students for one life-long career; things have changed.  To be honest, I don't remember much other than writing a note to my mate asking her if she thought I'd had my hair cut too short.  I did notice a student teacher opposite earnestly taking notes with a fountain pen.  Or perhaps she's already learned my trick of 'journaling' whilst feigning interest in the proceedings.  Just keep that brow furrowed, nod occasionally and incline your head in the direction of the speaker.

Next hour for me was a KLA - Key Learning Area, ie. Faculty - meeting.  More of the same, but not too bad now I'm not the coordinator.  Time to 'booklist' texts for next year.  Same old discussion.  Basically, the sixteen or so members of the English KLA have divergent tastes for various reasons. What some want to teach others want to drop and vice versa.  I no longer care.  I can 'teach' anything unlike some of my colleagues who fear setting a new text that may not have a prepared assignment.  Sheesh.

During the next part of the program we'd elected to attend one of three ICT sessions.  Unfortunately, before we could get started we all had to herd into the learning centre again for a useless ten minutes of the curriculum coordinator needlessly providing a summary of the contents of all three workshops.  Why? Why not just send us our separate ways so we can get on with it? Power trip?

 Happily, after this my day picked up.  My workshop was led by three male science teachers, two of whom don't ordinarily lead.  That was refreshing; different.  One is my vintage and one of my friends on staff.  So good to see someone who's seen it all, with 30 years of teaching experience, rolling creatively with the changes.  The second speaker is probably in his forties but is still a 'beginning' teacher.  (I could be doing this guy a disservice.  I'm estimating his age based on his bald head and a five o' clock shadow that developed into a full beard during a two hour session.  Yes, I know.  Irrelevant, but nonetheless remarkable.)  The third presenter is probably around 30 with perhaps four years teaching under his belt. 

Basically, the three of them prompted in me a storm of emotions and ideas concerning the way I teach.  I felt variously like an absolute beginner, an anachronism, borderline redundant and, happily, capable of changing and improving the way I teach some of my students.  (Not all.)

They began their session with a short film, Changing the Paradigms.  (Perhaps you've seen this RSA Animate film already.  Perhaps I'm the only teacher in Australia that hasn't seen it.  Highly recommended.)  It made a lot of sense.  Based on a lecture by Sir Ken Robinson, it's one of those powerful, assertive pieces that seduces the viewer with its matter-of-fact confident tone.  We didn't discuss the assertions in the film; it wasn't that sort of a workshop.  But it's something I wouldn't mind doing in the future. 

One thing posited in the film was the alleged 'epidemic' of ADHD and the consequential anaesthetising, with Ritalin and the like, of so many kids.  Robinson suggested, I think, a link between the hyper-stimulation of the 21st century and the phenomenon of ADHD.  Not so sure.  Those hyper-active easily distracted disruptive boys - usually - were certainly around, unmedicated, when I began teaching in the late 1970s.  I also remember how savagely they were beaten back in primary school in the 1960s, subduing all but the most extreme by my high school days in the late 60s and early 70s.  Those boys continued to get 'the cuts' regularly, administered by the principal, who strode around our western suburbs school in his academic gown.  Think it's more a case of some parents these days needing to 'pathologise' their kids' unorthodox behaviour and having the means to do so, given the willingness of medicos to prescribe Ritalin etc.  (I say this knowing my own son would have been beaten to a pulp by those strap and cane wielding school masters of my youth had he been born a generation earlier.)

The point? This film made me think about things, rather than sitting cynically feeling my time was being wasted, and it led appropriately into learning about what seem to be potentially more effective ways of teaching my year 10s.

I'd chosen this particular workshop because it was about using Edmodo, an educational Facebook of sorts.  But I also learned about Wallwisher, a web program that could enhance the way note-making occurs during discussions with year 10s. 

Love it when I learn something new, but I especially love it when presenters recognise that we're all teachers already and they take it to the next level.  All three presenters spoke efficiently - I could learn something there!  They didn't jaw on for the love of the sounds of their own voices; no time wasting.  They showed us the programs and got started.  It was easy to access the on-line tutorials and videos they'd prepared to explore the media.  Meanwhile, they modelled effective teaching by roving and assisting as required.  

It was very good, so much so that I, and many of my colleagues, turned up early after lunch for the second part of the workshop so we could get on with it.

Now to develop a bit of expertise and put it all into practice.  That just might help my year 10s.  My year 8s?  Na-ah.  That's a whole nother blog.

BTW, I hadn't heard of the brilliant Sir Ken Robinson.  It was worth going to school yesterday for that pleasure alone.

Reflections on my Saturday at the VATE conference

I didn’t get much out of the 2007 VATE conference.

Perhaps it’s best to examine it in context.

Let me go back a day.

I didn’t attend the Friday session of the VATE conference for a couple of reasons. First, it’s so bleeding expensive now it’s almost extortionate. I’m the English coordinator at my school and funding is scarce. To send teachers to the conference, not only must we pay for registration but we must also pay for CRTs to replace the staff who attend. Second, I would miss double year 12 English and it didn’t seem right to leave them just so I could have a PD day. So I sent two of my colleagues and satisfied myself with attending only the Saturday session.

When my year 12s told me on Thursday – the day before the VATE conference – that they would be away on a careers expo the next day I was a bit put out. The two replacement classes I was given didn’t help. But this is the teaching life, isn’t it?

Last period Friday is Year 10 English. Even on a good day, most of my year 10s are inclined to hyperactive bestiality. They can’t help it. And it’s not my fault. They were like that before I met them. Actually, after the occasional morning session with them, when I’ve put the chair and the whip down, I almost feel that I’ve made some slight progress with them, even after Swearing Emo Girl has effed and c-eed her way through the lesson and Fart Boy has punctuated every five minutes with his effluent wind section ejaculations.

But Friday, they were insane. Not worth describing. My strategy for coping with such behaviour is to tell myself that even if they’ve learnt nothing they will not leave the room until the floor is tidy and the chairs are put up on desks. Pathetic, but it generally retrieves some of my sanity at the day’s end. It almost happened according to plan, but when that bell sounded I was rushed at the door. I managed to intercept two students to make them finish off the job with the chairs.

Blonde Boy was compliant and even wished me a good weekend as he cheerfully left the room.

However, Aggro Girl was not so compliant and tried to barge through me in the doorway. Unfortunately, I have an inclination to resist such students. I caught her by the wrist as she pushed past me and ordered her back to clean up her area.

“Don’t touch me,” she snarled. Of course, I let go of her wrist.

“Because you are not an animal,” said I, “you will go back and pick up your chair.” (Sounds so pathetic when you write this stuff down, doesn’t it? In the scheme of life it’s less than crap.)

Anyway, she complied. I thanked her and wished her a good weekend. Honestly.

So imagine my surprise when fifteen minutes later I’m summoned to the AP’s office because an irate father has demanded to know why the English teacher has assaulted his daughter.

Dad is livid. “It takes a lot to make my daughter cry,” snarls this parent – an imposing dust covered bearded lumberjack of sorts. Aggro Girl is looking smug but won’t meet my eyes. There’s this other kid in there as well, who turns out to be the younger sister. She, too, says her piece, without looking at me. “She ad no right ta touch er!” Who are you? I’m thinking, and why has my esteemed leader allowed you to be present at the interview?

Finally, Dad is satisfied with my recount of events and my assurance that I had intended no physical or emotional assault on his daughter. But it left a nasty taste and made me realize how vulnerable I am – we all are – as teachers. We are at the mercy of such students. And how I wish I had a dollar for every parent who has said to me over the years that his or her son or daughter does not lie, when clearly kids do.

And for this I gave up the VATE conference? Perhaps though, it was a good reminder. Never touch a student. (Let’s face it, I shouldn’t have grabbed her wrist.) And students have no loyalty. But I’m sure that the next time one student starts smashing into another in the canteen queue I will still grab them both by the shirt front and march them to the coordinator’s office. Do you let them beat each other senseless while you stand back vainly blowing your whistle?

So sandwiched between that and a four hour pile of marking today, I had VATE on Saturday.

I felt dissatisfied with my VATE experience this year, apart from Ross Huggard’s presentation on Year 12 Creating and Presenting. He never fails to deliver. However, just one day didn’t do it for me this year, and the negatives obsessed me. I am utterly sick of those delegates in the audience who feel they have to contribute their own anecdotes whenever they get an opportunity; who hijack. I was in a small room with about twenty people and really wanted to hear what Susan La Marca and Pam McIntyre had to say about their new book, Knowing Readers. Yet I was surprised when Dr McIntyre spent too much time reading two picture books aloud to us like she was auditioning for Play School. I found the subsequent class activity twee and useless. It would have been enough to quickly relate Aidan Chambers theory from his book Tell Me, and trust that we’d be able to apply it in our own classrooms. But it took up time. As did three persistent audience members who felt they had to contribute their unoriginal thoughts on everything that was said. Unfortunately, both presenters happily listened, even encouraged these interjectors who were contributing such wisdoms as ‘kids say that they don’t like writing book reports’ or ‘it helps if you share your own love for books with your students’. Well, hello.

The presenters didn’t get through all their material, but three old teachers left the room feeling good about themselves and their invaluable contributions. I wasn’t one of them.

The forum, “Good English for Good Citizenship” was stimulating and one speaker, Mark Lopez, was provocative. I’m paraphrasing, but he said something which suggested that some students feel that they can’t confidently express their traditional, conservative or politically incorrect views to their English teachers, who are PC and left leaning. This was based on his experience as a tutor. It was infuriating to listen to, knowing how I’ve been shouted down by racist, homophobic students who think because there are more of them than me that they are right. He certainly stimulated responses, if not applause.

But the chair of the forum irritated me intensely, especially when the woman next to me mustered the courage to walk to the microphone to make a contribution and he made her stand there waiting while he told his own pompous little anecdote. And then I was trapped while the same chair received his life membership of VATE and I was forced to endure the accolades and his acceptance speech.

Just my opinion, of course. But VATE – and I know how much good tireless work this organization does – often seems to me like an exclusive little self-congratulatory Sunday afternoon club to which I’m certain I wouldn’t want to belong.

Next year, I expect I’ll return to the conference, but I’ll attempt to go for full immersion, instead of one day. If I survive the year 10s.