Juvenile Justice

this video

When you embed a link in sentence, it's important to keep what you say relevant. When you talk about how to blog, you should include links that show how to do it as you go.

Why Should Students Blog?

Why should students blog, you ask? Good question. There are several reasons students should blog.

1. Blogging requires students to be aware that they have an audience. Alan November makes mention of the value of authentic audiences in this TED talk. When they blog, students never know who might read or comment on what they've written, so they have to write like they mean what they're saying. The last thing a teenager wants is to find him- or her- self being criticized in a reply because they didn't write like they meant it. And the best thing that can happen to a teenager is to have somebody they don't already know provide positive feedback. Everyone likes to feel like their ideas are appreciated.
2. It invites students to embed research into their writing in a meaningful way. Having problems getting them to incorporate the work of others into their writing? Try having them blog about the topic and tell them to include outside sources. They have to know what they're linking to and why it's relevant (as well as explain it a little) in order to effectively tackle the request. Check out this page about getting started with a blog and look at how many links the author includes. She didn't have to spell out everything that the links said; she had to know enough about what they said to give them context, then pass along the relevant information and the link. It's a little like writing a research paper and using quotes, (usually) minus the quotes.
3. The comments that students get on blogs can provide them with an opportunity to rethink or defend their original post, elaborate on the topic if they were less than thorough in the original post, or reflect on what they have written. This blog post talks about the benefits of blogging; I particularly think the last point is particularly important with high school students.
4. It provides the potential to have the entire class become involved in the discussion, but in a way that requires them to think about what they're saying. Here's a website that covers the basics of how to set up a class blog. And here's a blog from a teacher in the trenches, blogging about what she's learned about effective blogging in the classroom. There are a ton of other resources out there about how to blog with a class, but these are two good places to start. Following their links will take you further down the rabbit hole... 
5. This one's probably obvious, but it gets them writing! And thinking about what they've learned! And generating their own ideas on topics! (Can you tell I find this part exciting?)

While this list is not a complete list of all the reasons I think students should blog, I'm hoping that it at least makes an argument for why teachers should consider it... and maybe even give it a try.

One final thought on blogging: it's not just for students. Teachers can benefit from blogging, too. Here's a resource that talks about why teachers should blog, including providing additional background information and advice on setting up, and here's an article on how blogging helps build stronger teachers. Blogging provides teachers with a chance to reflect on our practices, while at the same time providing a chance to hone our own writing skills. Here's one more post about blogging in the classroom; it says a lot of what I've already said, but in different ways, and with different resources. The power of blogging, at your fingertips.

The bottom line on blogging is this: we want students to write. In fact, we want them to write well. Blogging invites students to write for an audience, to think about not just what they're saying, but how they're saying it (think... style), and to synthesize complex ideas into meaningful writing. Students who blog are students who are reflecting on their learning, improving their writing, and discovering that they, too, can add to the global discussion on any topic. 

Now that is powerful learning.

Check out this Flipboard magazine I put together with resources about the topic.

21st Century Problems

Meeting the needs of today's students can be a daunting task, for new and experienced educators alike. Today's students are digital natives, having grown up in a world where technology is not only in nearly every household, but also in nearly every pocket. Despite the fact that our students are digital natives, the majority of them lack experience in using technology in ways that are explicitly educational. The paradox of students who grew up using technology, but can't really use technology is one that educators today find themselves facing. Add to that the plethora of standards demanding that our students be "digitally literate" and "college and career ready" with "21st Century skills," and the ability to "communicate and collaborate," and it's enough to make any teacher want to throw his or her hands in the air and ask, "How the heck am I supposed to do all of that?"

Fortunately, it might not be as impossible as it seems. It will, however, take patience, a willingness to step outside of established ways of doing things, and thoughtful planning (plus the ability to improvise when things suddenly take a turn you didn't expect). 

Providing students with a well-designed, thoughtfully-produced project to complete in collaboration with other students is one way to help meet the demands of 21st-century learning (see P21 for a breakdown), as well as a plethora of standards, including Common Core Literacy Standards and ISTE-Student Standards.

All of these standards have common themes running through them that can be summed up with the 4 C's (Communication, Collaboration, Creativity, and Critical Thinking). For the sake of expedience, I will focus on the ISTE-Student Standards (formerly NETS-S) as an example. The ISTE-Student Standards have six areas of focus, and each of them can be supported through a thoughtfully produced project. Here is a breakdown of how one project can help students meet a the ISTE-Student standards:

• Standard 1: Creativity and innovation 
• A well-thought out project will provide students with an opportunity to learn more about a topic and generate an original solution to a problem. Students have a chance to learn about solutions that already exist, explore alternatives, and create their own solutions.
• Standard 2: Communication and collaboration
• Students can use technology to communicate and collaborate in a variety of ways to achieve the objectives of a project. Students may need to collaborate with each other online in order to complete projects when they don't have time to meet face-to-face. They may also use technology to help them find experts to consult to learn more about the problem they are trying to solve, or to collaborate with experts to help find a solution.
• Standard 3: Research and information fluency
• When students are given an open-ended problem to solve, they have to figure out where to start. Often, this starts as a question in the Google search bar, but students rapidly figure out (sometimes with the gentle-- or not-so-gentle-- guidance of a teacher) that they must learn how to frame both their questions and their searches in a way that directs them to the information they are looking for. 
• This is where the art of designing the project comes in: a project that is too broad may make it difficult to for students to learn where to look, but a project that is too narrow or prescriptive may limit students' opportunity to learn from their own successes and failures.
• Standard 4: Critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making 
• When students are faced with solving an appropriately challenging problem, they must learn to make decisions about everything: what information is relevant? Is it from a trustworthy source? How does what I learned relate to the project I'm working on? How do I manage my time to make sure I complete the assignment? How do I deal with problems I didn't anticipate?
• Students who successfully complete a project that has required them to address these types of questions are students who have taken a significant step toward meeting Standard 4. 
• Standard 5: Digital citizenship
• Students who engage in a successful project must learn to navigate the Web as a place where others live. They must learn the etiquette of online interaction and realize that there are people on the other side of their screen. Engaging in a project in which students collaborate with classmates and consult with experts in a digital environment makes the idea of the people behind the screen real in a way that few other experiences can.
• The other key component of digital citizenship is giving credit where it's due. The process of citing sources and obtaining appropriate permission before sharing another person's work as part of the project reinforces the importance of ethical use of digital content. 
• Standard 6: Technology operations and concepts
• As part of a project that incorporates 21st Century learning goals, students need to be able to publish and share their work on a global scale. They have the opportunity to select the medium that is most important for sharing their work with its intended audience, and they have the responsibility of learning how to make their choice work. Web 2.0 applications provide students with an abundance of choices for publishing their work in an engaging and original way.

While this is just a brief breakdown, I hope it illustrates how a single project can help address a number of standards (I didn't even get into the other standards that overlap the ISTE-Students Standards). 

A project that is thoughtfully designed, with a clear learning outcome in mind, is a project that invites students to create their own learning experience. 

That, my fellow educators, is what learning is really all about.

Week 1: Introduction to Project-Based Learning

What do playing with worms, designing schools, and monitoring monarch migration have in common? It turns out that they're all excellent ways to help students learn through project-based learning. Each of these projects involve students in an experience that allows them to construct knowledge about a topic, apply classroom learning to a real-world challenge, and explore facets of the topic that spark their curiosity. Simply put, these projects give students an opportunity to make their education meaningful to them, and in the process, they are encoding their learning in a way that will keep that knowledge fresh and relevant for a long time to come.

With each of these projects, the teachers who developed them were seeking ways to make learning more meaningful for students. Although all three projects were targeted at audiences of different ages, they maintained some important similarities:

1. Each project involved real-world application of knowledge,
2. Projects were relevant to students and student interests,
3. The projects evolved over time to their current state; most started out with a single activity and expanded outward as the process became more familiar,
4. Thoughtful planning was a hallmark of all the projects; teachers knew what they wanted students to learn, and they worked to make sure student experiences in the project would ensure that students walked away with the desired knowledge, and
5. Teachers were willing to be flexible in order to meet the needs of the students.

The commonalities among the projects indicate that a teacher who wishes to successfully implement project-based learning, regardless of the topic or content area, should be willing to:

1. Find ways to connect subject-area content to real-world application, or look for connections between curricular areas and places where they come together in the real world,
2. Consider the interests of the students in order to make the project meaningful to them,
3. Build from successes and failures alike, but keep going with the understanding that the project will probably take on a life of its own,
4. Spend significant amounts of time planning the project to make sure it will provide students the opportunity to gain the depth of knowledge the project was designed to elicit, and
5. Be flexible, be wrong, be creative, and listen to student feedback.

Project-based learning puts students in the driver's seat, and it puts teachers in the role of planners and facilitators. While it is uncomfortable for both teachers and students who are accustomed to the "sage on the stage" model of teaching and learning, there is a growing body of evidence to support the idea that student-directed learning is the most meaningful form of learning (see this article for a discussion of the topic); project-based learning is just one form of student-centered learning. It is imperative for teachers who want to provide students with engaging, meaningful education to understand that the role of the classroom teacher is changing. It is no longer good enough to to simply be an expert in the field and impart knowledge to the next generation; we have to remember how we have collected knowledge over the years, and constructed meaning for ourselves, and then find ways to help our students duplicate the process for themselves in an environment that is designed to guide them to the knowledge we want them to have.

When students have worked together and generated questions, explored a topic, found answers, generated further questions, solved problems, and shared their knowledge, they have had an educational experience that will remain with them for a long time. These students were challenged, they were successful, and they had an opportunity to explore how learning works in the real world: it's no longer learn, then do, it's learn by doing. Students understand the content because they have constructed the knowledge themselves in a way that is meaningful to them. How can students be anything but engaged when challenged with a problem that is relevant to them? And how much more meaningful is it for a student to be able to say that they worked on a team to research a topic and solve a real problem, rather than to say they got an A on a test?

The face of education is changing, and project-based learning is one of its many new looks.

For further thoughts on the importance of changing education, check out these videos from Alan November and Sir Ken Robinson.

Sources:

Armstrong, S. (February 11, 2002). Geometry students angle into architecture through project learning. Edutopia.      Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/geometry-real-world-students-architects

Curtis, D. (June 6, 2002). March of the monarchs: students follow the butterflies' migration. Edutopia. Retrieved       from http://www.edutopia.org/march-monarchs

Curtis, D. (October 1, 2001). More fun that a barrel of... worms?! Edutopia. Retrieved      from http://www.edutopia.org/more-fun-barrel-worms

November, A. (March 5, 2011). Alan November: Who owns the learning? [Video file]. Retrieved from                         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebJHzpEy4bE

Robinson, K. (2006, February). Ken Robinson: How Schools Kill Creativity[Video file]. Retrieved                               from http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity?language=en

Schwartz, K. (February 21, 2013). Alan November: how teachers and tech can let students take control. KQED: 
     MindShift. Retrieved from http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/02/alan-november-how-teachers-and-tech-can-      let-students-take-control/