Prezi: David Warlick Was Right.

I know that many people have blogged about Prezi, the cloud based presentation tool. I first learned about it from David Warlick, back in May 2009. I must admit, it has been life changing (well, at least classroom changing).

I just wanted to post a presentation that I recently completed for my grad class. The topic was any multicultural issue that we wanted to address. So, I made one up... [Un]education - or, the lack of worldwide education. Enjoy, and be sure to check out Prezi.

[Un]education on Prezi

Bad Habit

So, I am still trying to decide if having the ClustrMaps widget on my blog is a good idea. I have formed a terrible habit of checking it regularly (more than once a day even though I know it only updates once every 24 hours, yikes!).

However, I then refer to the likes of Andrew B Watt (998 visits this month and counting...); Shelly Blake-Plock over at TeachPaperless (59,077 hits since May 09... what!?); nashworld and his great commentary (7,378 in just under one year); and one of my faves David Warlick and his 2 cents (30,143, don't know since when, but something to shoot for nonetheless!)...

... and it is hard not to compare. My meager blog rings in at a whopping 366 visits since Sep 2009. So, is this a bad habit, or just motivation? I'm still trying to sort it out.

More to come...

Mike Meechin, M.Ed.
mike.meechin@gmail.com
twitter.com/innovateed

What's the Answer?

That's the question left in my mind after reading two great pieces today. First, my dilemma... the technology people in my district are battling the use of any classroom 2.0 technology they cannot control. 

This leads me to the piece written by Karl Fisch over at the Fischbowl, Google Apps for Education: Is It the Right Choice for Our Students? He questions whether school control over technology applications is the answer, and brings up some great points while doing so. 

"If we want them to be safe, effective and ethical users of the Internet, let's not create a semi-walled (and only temporary) garden that limits their ability to learn, create, publish, distribute and interact. How about instead of spending all this time and effort setting up and managing Google Apps for Education, we spend it teaching our students how to responsibly use the full suite of Google Apps themselves?"

Fisch brings up what I believe is the answer - hold ourselves responsible and educate ours students on the proper ways to use and manage these new technologies. This is what they'll be doing - or are doing in the real world anyhow.

What I envision is giving our students limitless free web 2.0 technologies and teaching them how to use them responsibly in productive manners. This would lead to them being able to create without the walls that Fisch discusses. After all, I think that we are all outside-the-box educators.

A great example of what is going on that I envy is Shelly Blake-Plock's work with his 9th grade students. Shelly writes TeachPaperless, and blogged about his new project here. You can find his class blog, called the Western Civ Project here.

So... back to my question - what is the answer?

In the next week I will be meeting with the head of our county's technology initiatives (hoping to influence an answer) and I would love some more thoughts... any ideas? I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

More to come...

Mike Meechin

mike.meechin@gmail.com

twitter.com/innovateed

flickr photo by Max F. Williams

Researching 2.0

A few weeks ago, Richard Byrne over at Free Tech for Teachers, posted a great piece [Textbooks, Wikipedia, and Primary Source Research] on the use, reliability and validity of Wikipedia. I was inspired  by the post and replicated the activity in my classroom this past week. I presented the lesson as a challenge to the students. I am a teach-against-the-textbook educator anyhow, and challenged them to challenge the text. We also explored the validity of the Wikipedia articles they were researching.

I also took Byrne's advice and followed up with a GoogleDocs assignment. Using GoogleDocs Forms the assignment was so easy to assess. This truly was a great piece of web 2.0 technology to bring into the classroom.

The assignment turned out amazing. We discussed how my student's teachers were slamming Wikipedia in their classes. I was surprised at how their teachers were telling them no Wikipedia, but giving them no direction on where else to go on the Internet. This is where I know that I fall behind other educators. Often we assume that our students (especially high school level) know how to research. However, when we take away one of the best pieces of information, at least a starting point for research, where will they go? This is a question that so many of my fellow bloggers are addressing with new classroom 2.0 technologies.

What's your answer for where students should go to research?
----
Click here to link to the Google Form that I used to assess my students on this activity.

More to come...

Mike Meechin
www.innovateeducation.com
mike.meechin@gmail.com

Standardi-Nation: When Enough is Enough

Standardization. Enough is enough.

This is a personal tale about my life as a high school teacher in Central Florida. It is based on a true story.

Recently, our administrative team came to my department with another "hand-me-down" from the school district personnel and the state DOE. This time the topic was: board configuration. Yes, as in whiteboard... the standardization of whiteboard configuration. (Whew! That was a mouthful.)

The district and DOE now want the educators in our school to configure their boards in exactly the same way. They have outlined in a nifty PowerPoint exactly how this is to be done. The reasoning I am guessing is to ensure that inadequate educators do what quality educators do in their own way. The problem is that they are sucking the education and creativity right out the door. I can only take so much, as I mentioned in my post titled, I Have a Dream.

The DOE has outlined nine criteria that are supposed to be on our boards in their configuration for the secondary level. The worst part is that I teach in a classroom that has an LCD, SmartBoard, SmartReview clickers, I blog, use Twitter and yet the DOE is obsessed with me delivering content through the good ole' fashioned... whiteboard. So much for classroom 2.0!

Thanks for letting me vent.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this issue and what you are encountering in your classroom.

More to come...

Mike Meechin

www.innovateeducation.com

mike.meechin@gmail.com

I Have a Dream...

With the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. tomorrow I figured that the title was fitting. Just as MLK did 60 years ago, I too have a dream.

My dream comes from my failure to believe in the system of public education any further. I blogged about several examples in 2009 of factors that are leading to the demise of our public education system (What Are We Doing; Chivalry is Dead). Now, I have hit the end of the road in my belief in the system I have taught in for seven years.

In my post Traversing the Information Gap, I wrote:

"My fear is for my high school students post-graduation. Where will they ever get this information that they have missed? Our schools are not designed as a whole to produce independent critical thinkers..."

The answer to my question is not in our current school systems. Albeit, some schools do a good job with traditional education, others can not even handle that. However, I have a dream...

I discussed at the beginning of 2010 that I would look for Direction. I believe through my dream that I have finally found my direction. The answer to the question that I posed is what Chris Lehmann discusses in School 2.0... the next generation of school in the United States and all over the world. The fact that there are these innovate educators going outside the standard schooling is so exciting to me. You can find Lehmann's blog at his Pratical Theory. Chris is the founding principal of the Science and Leadership Academy in Philly. SLA is doing some exciting things right now in the world of School 2.0...

I no longer believe in the system. The next step for me in professional journey is to create an alternative solution to standard schooling. Along the way I will bring my struggles, questions, and ideas here to this forum to share with you in addition, to my educational and technology contributions.

This is my dream. This is my direction.

More to come...

Mike Meechin

www.innovateeducation.com

mike.meechin@gmail.com

Delivering Meaning

I recently had a conversation... well, several conversations with other educational professionals about homework. In fact, homework has been a topic of PLCs at my school several times this year.

We always end up in the same place with the same question. What is MEANINGFUL homework? However, this is not the debate I want to have. You can debate that question with your own colleagues. This question did make me think though. It made me think about how all of these classroom 2.0 technologies can help us to deliver meaning with our homework assignments.

I think that we all can agree that the days of worksheet and "busy" homework are over (and if you don't agree you may want to reconsider reading this blog). Through the use of classroom 2.0 tech we can create many meaningful homework assignments for our students. Today we have the ability to have our students embrace technology to collaborate with each other using GoogleDocs. Students can work to create "living" posters with Glogster. Students can access any type of information they need... and it is all right at their fingertips.

Well I guess I will get into the debate a little...

Educators must embrace these classroom 2.0 technologies to create meaningful homework for their students. Delivering meaning is a key ingredient that we sometimes miss in the madness of "standardization". We must use these technologies to create homework that allows our students to think, create, write and... well, the sky is the limit. Our students need this... they need us to deliver meaning more than ever!

So, I challenge you. I challenge you to deliver meaning.

Notes:

If you need a place to begin your quest, any of the links on my blogroll can help you out tremendously. Also check out my post about #edchat or head on over to Twitter and check out the #edchat hashtag. This is an educational technology buffet.

I plan to create a place where educators can share their meaningful homework assignments. Follow me on Twitter to find out when.

More to come...

Mike Meechin

www.innovateeducation.com

mike.meechin@gmail.com

#EdChat

I wanted to share with you something that I stumbled upon over my two week break from the classroom. A group of educators connect with each other on Tuesdays through Twitter... this event is known as #edchat. The name of the group is also the twitter hashtag [click here to find out what a hashtag is] for this group.

You can join the discussion that occurs on Tuesdays at 12pm EDT and 7pm EDT. Usually a day or two prior they will post a poll where you are able to vote on the topic for that particular week. You can follow @web20classroom on Twitter to find the link to the #edchat poll each week, or just to find out other great information about Web 2.0.

This week I am going to participate in my first #edchat and am hoping this week's topic will be classroom management techniques - ones that work and others that do not. Which brings me to the other point... a great read! Over the past two weeks I have had the pleasure of reading "What Great Teachers Do Differently", and it has been a great refresher about what being a great educator is all about. I would highly recommend this read for any educator whether your first day or twentieth year.

I want to thank Sean Nash over at nashworld, for mentioning this book in one of his blog posts. [You should check his blog out - some great food for thought.]

After reading Whitaker's work I have some great discussion points that I want to put to use... hopefully on Tuesday in #edchat. I hope that you check out the blog, the book and most importantly... the #edchat.

More to come...

Mike Meechin

www.innovateeducation.com

mike.meechin@gmail.com

Direction.

Happy New Year.

It has been some time since I have posted to my blog. In October life got busy and it took some time to play catch up. That is why I have decided to title my first post of 2010, Direction.

While trying to figure out my professional new year resolutions, I tried to focus on a direction. Here are my resolutions for the new year:

• Build a readership of education professionals that are interested in outside the box education
• Share my ideas, experiences and reflections with fellow educators around the world
• Focus on Classroom 2.0 technologies and their integration into our classrooms
• Find a direction for my writing and contribute regularly to this blog

These are just a few professional goals that I hope to work on in 2010. In addition I am launching my consulting company, Innovate Education, LLC. I will be contributing to this blog weekly, most likely with a regular post on Sundays. Please join me on this journey in 2010 as I explore education and my direction.

More to come.

Mike Meechin, M.Ed.

www.innovateeducation.com

mike.meechin@gmail.com

Respect.

You know. When asked by most people what I do for a career, the response I most often get when telling them I am a school teacher is... "Man, you must really love those summers off!?"

Really. Is this what we have come to think of the public educator?

Ten years ago, when I was a senior in high school I decided to commit my life to education. Not just any kind of education either, but rather education for change. (I swear I thought of it before Obama.) I sat in my classes and thought to myself, as millions of other students do now, what are they teaching me? How does this way of education prepare me for life following high school, college, and beyond?

I am a twenty eight year old public educator who has been at the same school for going on six years now. I try to push the envelope in the classroom on a daily basis, integrating as many classroom 2.0 technologies as I can, and preparing MY students for life after.

My confession: we are failing our students because we refuse as a society to respect the field of public education. A field that our students futures hang on - we lack respect for.

My district recently pushed for a "curriculum guide" [aka "big brother"] in American History. The people who build the curriculum at the district handed out the guide to teachers the Thursday prior to the start of school on the following Monday. How can we allow something like this to happen, in a country where we push accountability?

The fact is that we do many things in the education field, but we do none of them well. The system is failing our students, our educators, our communities, and our society. It is because of a lack of respect.

The time for change is now. We must begin with giving respect to the system... respecting it enough to be willing to change it. Respecting the education system to admit that standardization is not the answer. Respecting it enough to ask the professional educators which direction to head in. Respecting it enough to incorporate and explore new technologies that surround our students in the world in which they live.

Respecting it enough to not ask an educator how great it must be to have summers off, but rather thank them.

Until we respect the system, we can not change the system.

Copy this into an email and send it to an educator that you know.

It's good to be back! More to come...

Mike Meechin
www.innovateeducation.com
mike.meechin@gmail.com

flickr photo by gwaar