Should you like to see my efforts, visit my wiki.

When I first heard the word wiki I laughed. It rhymes with icky, sticky, picky, tricky, and Vicky (my sister). I laugh when I say most of those words. And wiki is the silliest of the group. When I learned more about wikis by creating one and exploring on my own, I was still laughing. I wasn’t laughing at the word, now I was laughing at how much fun this would be. I was raising an adopted Wiki! I didn’t name him or really give birth to him, but Wiki was mine and if he was going to grow up, I had to feed him, clothe him, and make him do his homework. God knows if I was passing out names, I would choose anything but Wiki.

Since I take parenting seriously, I decided to help Wiki adjust to life as a school teacher’s child. Of course, I filled him full of important information. And if his little brain couldn’t hold all of the lessons I had for him, I made a note for him of where to find it. I taught him to make friends easily and initiate conversations with his new friends. We spent lots of late nights looking around the world for the most stylish clothes and popular possessions. (It’s important for kids to feel like they fit in. They need to know that others think they are cool. Wiki’s friends think he is pretty cool.) Somehow, Wiki and I have successfully made it through adolescence. He was completely unorganized, lacked focus and direction, and seemed to be in a permanent state of rebellion. Miraculously, he has grown into a fairly mature young man. Don’t get me wrong, Wiki looks like a strapping young lad on the outside, but has lots of growing up left to do!

Wiki is growing up so fast and has changed so much since I adopted him. He’s so popular with his friends that I’m seeing some changes in him. He doesn’t stick so close to mom anymore; he wants to go out on his own. Wiki is always bugging me to get him the most flashy videos, the newest music, and the coolest gadgets (he calls them widgets…kids!) He tells me that his friends have actually started expecting him to have the best stuff. I guess Wiki doesn’t want to disappoint his friends. And I don’t want to see Wiki fail to realize his potential. Just like with Jackson and John David, I am willing to make some sacrifices to make sure Wiki is raised with plenty of attention, genuine affection, and thoughtful guidance.

This parenting adventure has been such an unexpected pleasure. It’s a real rush that my husband and I are parents to two great kids and that I’m a single parent to a precious adopted child. I have a serious desire to raise my actual children with a desire to impact this world. I hope I am raising my virtual child with the same hopes. When I agreed to adopt Wiki I didn’t think I could get used to his name. Since he’s a pretty cool kid, it turns out that I don’t mind saying his name every day at all!

Visit my adopted child at FHS Wolves Den

John David’s struggles have prompted me to think about why being big is desired by so many. Isn’t this the great American goal? Big portfolios, bigger salaries, the biggest toys, the most myspace friends, the most prestigious awards, the most hits, the greatest influence. Being small has never really captured the imagination of most Americans. Bigger is better. And the biggest must be the best.

So, is this bad? Is it simply a collective American fault, a bad seed planted in the proverbial evil garden causing us to chase the wind? Maybe. And maybe not. Maybe being big is the point of it all and the undiscovered purpose for unfulfilled dreamers. Growing is as natural as desiring, indulging, and seeking to make ourselves laugh. Somehow John David knew being big would bring greater rewards. Who wouldn’t want the reward now. I agree with him. Why wait?

Now, what about other kinds of growth? Few adults seek growth with the passion of a child. And most of us clearly understand the rewards of personal growth. Teachers acknowledge the necessity of professional development, but lack passion for it. We are quick to point out the obstacles to our growth. When others encourage our development by designing opportunities for us we complain. They ask too much. They don’t challenge me enough. They, they, they. We rarely take responsibility for our own growth and create our own opportunities and situations. We just sit back and expect others to “grow” us, like we are a plant being watered with air.

And then there are others who love to grow. I love these folks. I call them Jolly Green Giants. They are always trying on pants every place they go. And most of the time the pants they find are Jiminy Cricket’s. But they keep searching for big pants to wear. Big pants. That’s what I want to wear and I want them to fit. So while John David works his way out of a car seat and water wings, I’ll work my way out of Jiminy Cricket’s breeches and into some suited for a giant.

Yesterday the Alabama Best Practices Center held its first face to face meeting of the year for the schools involved in its 21st Century Learners project. Five people from twenty Alabama schools convened in Alabaster to prepare for a year of professional technological growth in the third year of the program. I don’t remember being served a Jolt or Vault cola, but somehow an energy source was poured into me and many of the other teachers present. This energy could be found everywhere. You could feel it in the messages each educator left to another on our networking site, Ning. You could hear the energy in the noisy conversations. You can see the energy on the abpc wiki, in the emails to each other, and in today’s conversations in the halls among the teachers who attended. And it hasn’t even been 24 hours since it ended.

The day was loaded full of instruction for meaningful uses of technology in our classrooms. All of this can be seen by the world at the abpc wiki. The leaders of the project, Cathy Gassenhieimer and Sheryl Nussbaum Beach, can be counted on to thoroughly plan a meaningful experience for teachers. This kind of attention to detail provides the motivation to engage the message and transfer to practice. Today, the transferring began.

But what made the F2F (Face to Face) launch such a great jolt into this professional learning year was how the group felt about the project. It is our mission to prepare our students for this century. We no longer need to teach kids how to work on the railroad, we must teach them how to adapt and work on things we haven’t yet conceived. Not only does everyone believe in this mission, 21st Century Learner teams refused to make excuses for failing to carry out that mission. It’s exciting to be a part such a trailblazing group of educators.

I am looking forward to so many things during this next year. Deeper connections to other “mission-minded” educators is somewhere near the top of my list. Sharing, talking, and blogging will be great fun in 2007-08. I’m even feeling pretty good about failing when I try something that doesn’t work. Basically, it’s a year to take risks, reflect, and learn from taking risks. And none of us have to do that alone. A supportive structure for learning is not easy to create. But this has been accomplished over the last couple of years by the hard work of lots of teachers and their leaders at the ABPC.

Jolt and Vault promote themselves as energy in a bottle. Trying to bottle and sell what is happening in Alabama might really be worth a venture capitalist’s efforts. Our 21st Century Learners project doesn’t have an official energy drink as its corporate sponsor. Now that I think about it, maybe it should!

Where to begin?

Participating in Microsoft’s Innovative Teacher’s Forum in late September continues to cause me severe pain. My enlarged brain is now so full, I’m sure it will blow any time now. Trying to figure out how to organize my many thoughts is almost as painful as trying to make space for all the new stuff I have in there now.

Some of the greatest lessons in life are the simple and unexpected discoveries we make about ourselves. I went to Seattle hoping for the best, but secretly worried that I had little to offer others. Being wrong never felt so good. It was a wonderful experience realizing that I need to speak up, take more action, push harder for the changes I know need to take place. So, one of the best things I got from the Innovative Teachers Forum was realization that I am a truly innovative teacher.

Collaboration. I like that word. It’s a great word. It brings lots of positive things to mind and makes me feel sort of like I used to feel when I travelled the world with Up With People almost 20 years ago – hopeful, global, neighborly. It takes a village to …… well, you get the idea.
But I understand it differently now. It’s less about the process (which brings back that loving feeling), it’s actually about the product. Everyone gets something from collaboration. The networking concept is not new to me. Collaboration is not new either. But talking to strangers about common interests and goals is new to me. And I’m sold on its effectiveness. I can’t wait to make this a common daily practice.

Time deserves respect. I need to change my attitude about time. For some reason I have been working really hard to “beat” it as if it were an opposing team, the plague, or the Crimson Tide football team. I can’t remember ever trying to work with it as if it were my trusted friend. If I’ve learned anything over the last couple of amazing weeks about time it’s this: I’d like more time in my day than everyone else has and I can have it. Yes, I can have more time for what I really want to do. I have just given myself permission to take what I need. If it means a little less sleep, cutting corners on other things, or removing some things altogether, I can do that. I hear so many teachers tell me that they don’t have time for this or for that. Actually what they are really saying is, “I don’t care enough about this or that to do it.” It’s simple. We do whatever we really want to do. I really want to dig, learn, collaborate, grow, explore, and use all I learn to become a better teacher. So, that’s what I am going to do. I am so excited that MY spare time is actually going to be MINE!

The last couple of weeks have been full of new opportunities for me as well. I may soon be writing for the Teacher Leader Network. There is just no better way to find your voice than to exercise your hands. Thinking on the most pressing issues facing teachers and other educators is a challenge I’m excited to accept. Moreover, I’m beginning an amazing journey in the study of engaging instruction. Working with gifted professionals from the Alabama Best Practices Center in Montgomery, I am thrilled help plan special training for teachers AND students in designing and implementing engaging 21st century curriculum. There are many other interesting projects on the horizon for me in Talladega County as well. These opportunities offer me the professional validation I need to spur me toward all that awaits me on the horizon.

Before setting out to win favor with the seletion committee for Microsoft’s Innovative Teachers Forum in Redmond, Washington, I knew it would take a lot of work. I never dreamed that after returning from the forum that I’d want to work ten times harder to win favor with myself. Now that’s the kind of professional experience I’d like to bottle and give to every teacher on the planet.

The “K12 Online Conference” is for teachers, administrators and educators around the world interested in the use of Web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice! The 2007 conference is scheduled to be held over two weeks, October 15-19 and October 22-26 of 2007, and will include a preconference keynote during the week of October 8. The conference theme is “Playing with Boundaries.”

I am techno-toddler trying to grow up too fast. My serious efforts to use technology in my classroom began under a year ago. Yet, I want so much to be a grown-up blogger, podcaster, wiki wizard, and web tool handyman. I find so many inspiring examples of teachers doing all sorts of amazing things that I figure I should be among them. That passionate urge to be the “best in show” settled deep within me such a long time ago. But that urge to be patient with myself never took root in me. So, I find myself more frustrated than anything – just like my students writing essays about conflict.

So, I must take my own words to heart. The process of discovery and understanding takes time. It is essential that I grow through techno-adolescence and beyond at a slow, reflective pace. With a clearer perspective of tech methods, I can better serve my students and other teachers. The process of becoming “best in show” is much more important than the final product presented in the show itself.

Sometimes the teacher actually says something worth remembering.

Even though I created a wiki last year on how to create a wiki, I thought I’d look around and see if anyone had one better than mine. As I expected, most were better than mine. I found lots of different things that will help the teachers at my school and I added the links and descriptions to my wikihelp page. But what I found in the process made my day!

A wonderful little wiki called walthamhigh on wikispaces caught my eye. It is an attractive, easy to follow help page for teachers at a school, evidently Waltham High School. I read the author’s list of reasons for creating wikis, directions on how to go about it, and the list of resources for helping teachers along the way. Then, I saw it. She listed my class wiki as an example of a good class wiki! WOW! How cool that the same author that I was busy admiring, admired me!

This web 2.0 thing never ceases to amaze me. We tell our students that people are always watching us, always judging our work. “Always, do your best. You never know who might notice.” I wonder if we teachers realize the power of our words. Many of us who have jumped at the opportunity to use web tools in the classroom must be mindful of our example. Our unconvinced colleagues are constantly evaluating our methods, messages, and effectiveness. We can’t be sloppy. Since this happened, I have been busy cleaning up the messy spots I hope my admirer missed. We all know that you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

This time, I was lucky enough to stumble upon someone who noticed something good about my work. Next time, who knows?
http://walthamhigh.wikispaces.com/

Students are not the same kinds of learners that teachers once were. Their world is drastically different from what we knew as students. And that changes so much about teaching. It changes techniques, tools, methods, and even content, to an extent. But, the most important thing that must change is our attitude. If we hang on to our learning styles of decades past, our audience will see our teaching as a less that classic black -n- white show with nothing that seems to interest or apply to a student of the modern world.

What do today’s audiences demand from us? How can we deliver?