Since 2006, the K-12 Online Conference has provided outstanding opportunities for free, collaborative, accessible professional learning for educators around the globe. The 2010 conference promises to again provide more exemplary learning opportunities in the same spirit of collaboration and sharing, as together we “Cultivate the Future!” The learning will begin with a pre-conference keynote during the week of October 11, 2010, and this year feature a closing keynote for the first time. We again invite presenters to submit “teaser trailers” for their presentations in advance of the conference.

This year’s fantastic line up of keynote presenters will create an inviting and welcoming introduction in which the sharing of ideas among diverse learners working in diverse contexts continues. Our distinguished keynote speakers will not only extend the conversations, but also invite each of us to stretch and grow as they share their expertise and wisdom in their respective strands. See our post from August 22nd for more information about keynote speakers in each of our 2010 strands.

The selection process for our 2010 conference was challenging as the quality of proposals was outstanding. We thank everyone who submitted a proposal. We are elated to announce the K12 Online 2010 presenters whose creativity, depth of thought, and innovation promise to make K12 Online 2010 exemplary.

The presenters by strand are:

Pre-Conference Week: October 11-15, 2010

Pre-Conference Keynote: Dean Shareski
ideasandthoughts.org
Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan Canada

WEEK 1: October 18-22, 2010

Leading the Change

Keynote: Dolors Reig
www.dreig.eu/caparazon
Barcelona, España (Spain)

Andy Crozier
www.andycrozier.com
Cedar Rapids, IA USA
Don’t Fear the Cloud, Embrace and Leverage It!

David Wells
principalwells.wordpress.com
Montpelier, VT United States
Less Planning and More Doing

Deyanira Castilleja de León
www.maestrossinfronteras.org
Saltillo, Coahuila, México
Maestros Sin Fronteras: Desarrollo Profesional Docente y Tecnología

Julie Lindsay and Kim Cofino
123elearning.blogspot.com, kimcofino.com
Beijing, China and Yokohama, Japan
Create the Future: Think, Learn, Create!

Rodd Lucier
thecleversheep.com
Komoka, Ontario, Canada
Creative Commons: What Every Educator Needs to Know

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
21stcenturycollaborative.com
Virginia Beach, VA USA
Connected Learning and Leading in a Digital Age

Sybil Caballero
grou.ps/redtebas/home
La Victoria, Venezuela
Docentes Ingeniosos 2.0

Tim Tyson
drtimtyson.com/blog
Manhattan Beach, CA USA
The Classroom Teacher As a 21st Century Instructional Leader

Student Voices

Keynote: Colby Ratzlaff
Emporia, KS USA

Ben McNaboe & Ben Nickerson
http://tinyurl.com/bennben
Yarmouth, ME USA
The Ben N Ben Show: Promoting Student Voice through a Student Hosted Webcast

Carol Broos
www.carolbroos.com
Northfield, IL USA
Let me tell MY story

Dolores Gende
journeyintech.blogspot.com
Irving, TX USA
C4: leveraging the power of blogs and wikis in student learning

Julie Lindsay
123elearning.blogspot.com
Beijing, China
Inside ITGS: Cyber-Students Share their Connected Learning

Kathy Cassidy
classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=1337
Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan Canada
Primary Digital Portfolios

Mª Magdalena Galiana
www.radiosolidariamiga.es
Villajoyosa, Alicante, España
Radio Solidaria Amiga la voz de los niños que son solidarios con otros niños

Monika Hardy
redefineschool.wordpress.com
Loveland, CO USA
Students Redefine School

Nicolas Gutkowski
nicolascres.wikispaces.com
Crozet, VA USA
Learning On My Own

Sarah Beeghley
www.civilwarsallie.com
Mechanicsburg, PA US
Creating an Educational Follow Me Project

WEEK 2: October 25-29, 2010

Week in the Classroom

Keynote: Allanah King
allanahk.edublogs.org
Nelson, New Zealand

Britt Gow
brittgow.globalteacher.org.au
Hawkesdale, Victoria, Australia
Teaching Science in the 21st Century

Kelly Hines
keepingkidsfirst.wordpress.com
Sylva, NC USA
Step by Step: Planning & Implementing a STEM mini-unit

Kim Caise
kcaise.wordpress.com
San Antonio, TX USA
Web Conferencing – Can We Chat?

Paula Naugle and Jan Wells
pnaugle.blogspot.com and jeffwest4thgrade.blogspot.com
Metairie, LA, USA  -  Meriden, KS USA
Seeds to Success with Skype

Rebecca Pilver
mrspilver.wikispaces.com, top10.sblc.wikispaces.net, getinthefold.blogspot.com
Willington, CT, USA
The Top Ten Project

Roland Gesthuizen
plakboek.livejournal.com
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Information Technology and Drama

Shelly Terrell
technology4kids.pbworks.com
Stuttgart, Germany
Integrating Online Language Tasks for Young Learners

Tony Vincent
learninginhand.com
Phoenix, AZ, USA
Project Based Learning in Hand

William Vegazo
www.sitehoover.com/aprendamoslasticseneducacion
Lima, Perú
Aplicaciones Di´dacTICas de la web 2.0 Buenas prácTICAs

Kicking it Up A Notch

Keynote: Darren Kuropatwa
adifference.blogspot.com
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Adrianne Stone
web20edu.wordpress.com
Houston, TX, USA
The Classroom Social Network – It’s More than Fun, It’s Fundamental to Modern Learning!

Chris Betcher
www.chrisbetcher.com
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Teaching kids to think using Scratch

Chrissy Hellyer
teachingsagittarian.com
Bangkok, Thailand
Record, Reflect & Share – VoiceThread as a digital Portfolio

Clif Mims
clifmims.com
Memphis, TN USA
Shhh!!! The Students Are Learning: Being an Effective Classroom Facilitator

Jen Deyenberg
trailsoptional.com
East Lothian, Scotland
GPS and Geocaching in the Classroom

Joe Bires
www.edtechleadership.com
Haddonfield, NJ USA
Robo Fusion

Karen Blumberg
karenblumberg.com
Yorkville, NY USA
License to Cull with Creative Commons and yolink

Miguel Mendoza
the-ve-blog.blogspot.com/p/about.html
Caracas, Venezuela
Planning & Designing Online Using Blogs

Richard Beach
digitalwriting.pbworks.com
Minneapolis, MN US
Using Diigo, VoiceThread, and YouTube Annotations to Collaboratively Construct Digital Commonplace Texts

Closing Conference Keynote: David Warlick
davidwarlick.com/2cents
Raleigh, NC USA

cc licensed flickr photo shared by gcouros

What does a principal see everyday?  What are some of the images that inspire me to be better for my students?  The above picture is the first student arriving at school today and very eager to begin (he popped by the school 4 times last week so he was pretty excited when school opened this week).

I decided this morning, right before I pulled into the school, that I was going to take a picture everyday school was on, so I can share a “200 days of school” album at the end of the year.  I know that there are many “365″ projects, but I wanted to start with something that was school focused.

I challenge all educators out there to create a similar album and sharing what they see through the school year.  Your students may already be at school, so start tomorrow.  Let’s show the world how awesome our schools are!

Are you up for the challenge?

(You can follow the set on Flickr here –>  200 days of school)

• September 1, 2010 -- “I miss the noise”
• August 29, 2010 -- The Difference A School Made
• August 28, 2010 -- Shift
• August 26, 2010 -- You Should Read…(August 25, 2010)
• August 24, 2010 -- The Impact of Awards
• August 22, 2010 -- SmartBoard Implementation Program
• August 21, 2010 -- The Responsibility of the Open School
• August 20, 2010 -- Cyberbullying; What If?
• August 18, 2010 -- You Should Read…(August 18, 2010)
• August 18, 2010 -- The Reform Symposium Podcast (Identity Day) #rscon10

Alexander Hotz is a freelance multimedia journalist and public radio junkie based in New York City. Currently he teaches digital media at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Follow Alex on Twitter at @hotzington.

With another long hot American summer coming to a close, many students are scrambling to get back into “learning mode” before school starts. One of the simplest ways to ease that transition is with podcasts. Whether your passion is American History or Algebra, there’s probably an educational podcast out there for you.

While these programs probably won’t mirror your lesson plan, they will explore topics covered in class. Below is a sampling of some of the exceptional podcasts that both teach and entertain. Best of all – they’re free. Read on for your “2010 Downloading Curriculum.”

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Science

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Radiolab investigates some of world’s most intriguing scientific questions in a unique conversational format. Recent episodes have examined the importance of words in human development and time. First time listeners will probably notice that the show also just sounds different.

Before becoming a radio producer, Jab Abumrad, one of Radiolab’s creators, was as an experimental musician. Abumrad’s passion for ProTools is apparent in the show’s textured soundscape, which is layered with a variety of sound effects and quick edits. Perhaps the show’s only downside is its frequency. There are only a handful of episodes every season because one Radiolab episode requires months to produce.

Outlet: WNYC, New York City’s Public Radio Station
Time: An Hour
Frequency: 5-6 every season

Additional Listening: The Naked Scientists Podcast

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History

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In Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History, Carlin, a veteran journalist turned podcaster, dissects the textbook version of events. In shows that often run over an hour, the host passionately retells some of history’s best stories.

Hardcore History has become one of the most downloaded podcasts on iTunes, and Carlin’s widespread appeal can also be attributed to his insight. One podcast asked, “Could widespread child abuse in earlier eras explain some of history’s brutality?” Another show was based off the question, “Does the toughness of peoples play any role in history?” Don’t let the name fool you; all material is appropriate for younger listeners.

Outlet: Dan Carlin
Time: 1 – 1 1/2 hours
Frequency: 5-6 every year

Additional Listening: Stuff You Missed in History Class

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Economics

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Planet Money is NPR’s podcast on global economics and business. Initially created by veteran public radio reporters Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson to explain the recent financial crisis, the show quickly became one of the most popular and praised podcasts available.

Planet Money’s success lies in how it tackles complex subjects with great storytelling. A financial instrument like a Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO) may sound impossibly boring, but Planet Money routinely makes these types of things the heart of a thrilling narrative. The team continues to explore the financial collapse, but they’ve expanded their scope to include all aspects of the global economy.

Outlet: NPR
Time: 15-30 minutes
Frequency: Twice a week

Additional Listening: Freakanomics Radio

Disclosure: The author interned at NPR.

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English

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For those of us who couldn’t make it through Wuthering Heights, Cliff Notes Cramcast would have been a lifesaver. This free podcast reviews some of the stuff you need to know for the big test and does it in three to four minutes. Of course, these podcasts can’t cover every detail. To do that, you would — you know — need to read the book.

Outlet: Cliff Notes
Time: 15-30 minutes
Frequency: Twice a week

Additional Listening: Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips

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Foreign Language

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The Internet is full of podcasts that cater to students learning foreign languages. For those interested in the major European languages, Radio Lingua is a good bet. Another reliable hub is Open University, which in addition to the European languages also has a set of Mandarin podcasts. These outlets are mainly for beginners or students who need a quick review. Both are rated highly on iTunes by users.

Outlets: Radio Lingua and Open University
Time: 15-30 minutes
Frequency: Lesson plan

Additional Listening: Other reliable podcasts include Discover Spanish and Learn French.

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Math

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For those of us who struggle to calculate a 15% tip, The Math Dude’s podcast is a must-listen. Every week, affable nerd Jason Marshall explains basic concepts like how to calculate the area of an object or how to add faster. When Marshall isn’t podcasting, he researches “infrared light emitted by starburst galaxies and quasars” at Caltech, which just means his left-brain knows what’s up.

Outlet: Quick and Dirty Tips
Time: About 7 minutes
Frequency: Weekly

Additional Listening: Mathgrad.

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Current Events

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Every Sunday, comedians Andy Zaltzman and John Oliver recap the week’s events in The Bugle, a satirical podcast that is easily one of the funniest listens on the Internet. Think an audio version of The Daily Show, where Oliver is also a regular. The Bugle’s focus tends to be on the biggest international news, but the duo’s separate locations – Zaltzman in London and Oliver in New York City – ensure a focus on the English-speaking world’s antics. Although the pair has a leftward slant, there are no sacred cows. The Bugle even takes aim at itself in its tagline: “An audio newspaper for a visual world.”

Outlet: The Times (UK)
Time: 30 minutes
Frequency: Weekly

Additional Listening: NPR News, BBC World Service

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More Educational Resources from Mashable:

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- 10 iPhone Apps to Get You Back to School
- Why Online Education Needs to Get Social
- 5 Innovative Tech Camps for Kids and Teens
- 5 Organizations Helping Women Get Ahead in Tech
- 5 Fun Ways to Help Your Kids Learn Math Online

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, mattjeacock

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Reviews: Internet, iStockphoto, iTunes

More About: back to school, cliff notes cramcast, current events, dan carlin, economics, education, english, foreign language, history, itunes, math, planet money, podcast, podcasts, radio lingua, radiolab, Science, the bugle, the math dude

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[Updated at 1:05 p.m.] Mariner Energy, owner of the production platform, said in a press release that no hydrocarbon spill has been reported after an initial flyover of the incident.

"Mariner has notified and is working with regulatory authorities in response to this incident," the statement said. "The cause is not known, and an investigation will be undertaken. During the last week of August 2010, production from this facility averaged approximately 9.2 million cubic feet of natural gas per day and 1,400 barrels of oil and condensate."

The company also said no injuries have been reported.

[Updated at 12:48 p.m.] David Reed, a paramedic on board the Rowan Gorilla II oil rig located 14 miles from the platform that exploded told submitted an iReport saying he saw all thirteen workers rescued from the water.

“We were up here in the radio room and all of sudden we saw a whole bunch of smoke coming from the platform," Reed said. "Shortly after all the radios started lighting up like a Christmas tree. They called any helicopters in the area, any boats in the area to respond, they were saying there were people in the water. There were multiple people in the water.”

See Reed's iReport of what he witnessed

WWL: Coast Guard reporting production platform incident

WDSU: Production platform explodes in Gulf

iReport: Did you see the explosion? Share images

[Updated at 12:32 p.m.] White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday that the federal government has "assets ready" to respond to any environmental problems resulting from the explosion of an oil platform off the coast of Louisiana.

[Updated at 12:31 p.m.] All thirteen people aboard a production platform that exploded in the Gulf are accounted for and safely on a commercial vessel according to initial information, the U.S. Coast Guard said in a statement.

"We continue to gather information as we respond with full force, and have oil spill response assets ready for immediate deployment should we receive any reports of pollution," the statement said.

[Updated at 11:53 a.m.] U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Bill Colclough tells CNN that 12 people from the production platform are in water immersion suits as they await rescue.

Colclough told CNN there are reports the production platform, which is for both oil and natural gas, is still on fire.

"We don't know what caused the rig to catch on fire," he told CNN, noting the incident is under investigation.

Asked about concerns regarding oil leaks or pollution, Colclough said "there are reports the rig was not actively producing any product, so we don't know if there's any risk of pollution."

Mariner Energy is a leading independent oil and gas exploration and production company in the Gulf of Mexico. About 85 percent of the company's production comes from offshore assets, with a growing share of that coming from deepwater developments.

The explosion comes nearly five months after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded April 20, killing 11 people and causing oil to gush into
the Gulf of Mexico, leading to one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history.

[Updated at 11:43 a.m.] U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Bill Colclough tells CNN that all 13 workers involved in the production platform explosion are accounted for, but one person is injured.

Coast Guard Choppers are on the way to the site 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay.

[Posted at 11:33 a.m.] An oil production platform has exploded 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana, with 12 people overboard and one missing, the Coast Guard said Thursday morning.

Rescue attempts are under way for at least 12 people, Coast Guard spokesman John Edwards told CNN. 13 people were on board the production platform total, Edwards said, noting 12 have been accounted for, but one person was missing.

The accident took place 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana on the Vermilion Oil production platform 380, which is owned by Houston-based Mariner Energy.

The Coast Guard has multiple helicopters, an airplane and several Coast Guard cutters en route. It's unknown if there are any injuries.

Some excellent educational content can be found on YouTube. However, many teachers cannot access YouTube in their classrooms. That is why I originally wrote what became one of the most popular posts to ever appear on Free Technology for Teachers, 30+ Alternatives to YouTube. That post is now fourteen months old and I've come across more alternatives in that time. Also in that time span some of the resources on the list have shut down. So it's time to update the list.

1. School Tube is a website dedicated to the sharing of videos created by students and teachers. School Tube allows teachers and schools to create their own channels for sharing their students' works. School Tube also provides excellent how-to resources, copyright-friendly media, and lesson plans for using video in the classroom.

2. Teacher Tube has been around for a while now, but I still run into teachers who have not heard of it. Teacher Tube provides user generated videos for teachers by teachers. Many of the videos on Teacher Tube have teachers sharing lesson plans in action. Some videos on Teacher Tube are simply inspirational. And other videos don't have teachers or students in them, but contain educational lessons none the less.

3. Teachers.tv is a UK- based website of videos for teachers and about teaching. Teachers.tv provides hundreds of videos available for free download. On Teachers.tv there are videos for all grade levels and content areas. Teachers.tv also has videos about teaching methods and practices.

4. Next Vista is a nonprofit, advertising-free video sharing site run by Google Certified Teacher Rushton Hurley. Next Vista has three video categories. The Light Bulbs category is for videos that teach you how to do something and or provides an explanation of a topic. The Global Views video category contains videos created to promote understanding of cultures around the world. The Seeing Service video category highlights the work of people who are working to make a difference in the lives of others. Watch this interview I did with Rushton to learn more about Next Vista.

5. Academic Earth is a video depot for individual lectures and entire courses from some of the top universities in the United States. Visitors to Academic Earth will find lectures and courses from Yale, MIT, Berkeley, Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford.

6. Snag Films and its companion site Snag Learning are great places to watch full length documentaries from producers like National Geographic for free. Snag Learning provides a catalog of educational films that are accompanied by classroom discussion questions.

7. How Stuff Works is a video site that I have spent hours exploring at times because I was sucked in by the quality of the educational content.

8. Viddler is a service that I enjoy using because of its integrated in-video commenting system. Viddler also allows you to record videos directly to the site through your webcam. I use Viddler to post messages to my students on my classroom blow when I know that I'm going to be out of the classroom.

9. One of the first things you'll notice about Vimeo is the image quality of the videos. The image and sound quality of the videos on Vimeo is far superior to many of those found on YouTube. Vimeo has all of the sharing options found on YouTube, but in a much cleaner and easier to use interface.

10. Blip.tv aims to provide video creators with a high-quality service for sharing their web shows. The content on Blip.tv tends not to include "cat" videos and "hey, Mom, watch this!" content.

11. Dot Sub is full of user generated content that is subtitled into many different languages. I had a hearing impaired student a couple of years ago and Dot Sub was very useful for both of us.

12. CNN Student News is a daily web show highlighting a handful of stories. The stories covered by CNN Student News range from traditional serious news topics to how-to stories appealing mostly to students to light and fun stories. As a social studies teacher every week I find at least a couple of stories from CNN Student News that I can work into my curriculum. CNN Student News provides printable maps and a daily news quiz to go along with each episode.

13. If you're interested in showing your students the inner workings of Congressional proceedings, visit the C-Span video library.

14. To give my students a little more global perspective on the news than CNN Student News provides, I will use Reuters Video Index.

15. Hulu, a joint venture of NBC and News Corps, offers high quality video of television shows, movies, and old news broadcasts. In the past I've featured Hulu collections of NOVA programming and NBC News Time Capsules.

16. TED Talks are a great source of inspirational, thought-provoking, educational, and entertaining presentations given by some of the world's leading experts on a wide variety of topics. Check out this list of 15 TED Talks for Teachers.

17. Big Think is a video website containing expert commentary on a wide range of issues and ideas. The experts featured on Big Think really are experts in their fields. Harvard Professors, editors of major news publications, politicians, and other recognized authorities offer their commentary on various issues and ideas. Registered users of Big Think can comment on and discuss the videos or post an idea to have others discuss.

18. Untamed Science offers a collection of videos and podcasts about biology and Earth science topics.

19. FORA.tv is similar to Big Think in that it presents videos relevant to topics in the news and in the public conscious today. The videos feature well known personalities and experts talking about the important issues of the day. You will also videos of debates, press conferences, and public meetings.

20. PopTech is a conference similar to TED that features leading experts from a variety of fields sharing their knowledge and passions. Videos of the presentations can be found on the PopTech website.

21. iCue, presented by NBC News, features videos about history and current events. There is a capability to connect with other students to discuss topics and learn together. There are also quizzes and learning activities associated with many of the videos.

22. Current TV, the cable network started in part by Al Gore, features user generated content about a diverse array of cultural and current news topics.

23. PBS Video offers videos from the most popular shows including Frontline, NOVA, Nature, and American Experience. For the younger crowd, PBS Kids offers videos as well. If you're not sure what you're looking for, but you think PBS has an appropriate video you can search the PBS Video center by topic.

24 & 25. The History Channel and the Discovery Channel both offer a lot of content similar to and, in some cases, identical to that which is found on their respective television networks.

26. In addition to resources for learning languages, LangMedia offers a section called Culture Talk. LangMedia Culture Talk is a collection of video clips of interviews and discussions with people from many different countries, of different ages and from different walks of life. The videos are intended to give viewers insight into the cultures of peoples around the globe. Some of the videos feature English speakers while other videos do not. Those videos that are not in English are accompanied by a written English transcript.

27. The USGS Multimedia Gallery contains large collections of educational videos, animations, podcasts, and image galleries. You can search each collection by topic and or keyword tags. RSS feeds are available for each gallery.

28. PupilTube is a source of user-generated how-to videos. PupilTube hosts videos in thirteen categories. Some of the videos visitors to PupilTube can find include how to calculate compound interest, how to learn common Spanish phrases, and how to protect yourself from credit card fraud.

29. MonkeeSee.com is a collection of videos featuring experts sharing knowledge and how-to tips about the topic of their fields of expertise. MonkeySee.com, like many other video websites, has channels or categories. The channel most useful to teachers and students is the Careers & Education channel.

30. Europa Film Treasures is an online archive of classic European films. The films in the archive can be viewed for free on Europa Film Treasures. You can search the archives by dates, genre, country of origin, production method, and director. Along with each film in the collection Europa Film Treasures provides some background information such as production method, storyline, director's bio, and information about the the people appearing on camera.

31. Clip Syndicate is a provider of professionally produced news videos from television stations and other media outlets around the United States. Clip Syndicate also provides videos from the Associated Press. All of the videos on Clip Syndicate are categorized into 86 different channels. Users of Clip Syndicate can embed into their blogs one video or an entire channel of videos.

32. Explore.org produces and hosts high-quality documentary films and photographs. The films and images focus on exploring the world and the work of non-profit organizations around the world. The films and images are organized by location and by charitable and or environmental cause. Explore.org is funded in part by the Annenburg Foundation.

33. 22 Frames is a service that provides a central location for locating captioned videos for learning English and for Internet users who have hearing impairments. 22 Frames provides more than just captioned videos. For each video 22 Frames provides a list of idioms, slang words, and commonly mispronounced words in each video. 22 Frames tells viewers where each use of idioms, slang, and commonly mispronounced words appears in each video. Viewers can click on any of the words in the lists provided by 22 Frames to find a definition for each word and to find pronunciation tips.

34. I like websites whose names say exactly what they offers. Free Video Lectures is one of those sites. Free Video Lectures is a library of more than 18,000 video lectures from more than 700 courses offered by some of the world's top colleges and universities. The library of videos can be searched by subject and or university. The video sources are a mix of YouTube and other providers. Many of the videos are available for free download.

35. Kids Tube is a video sharing hosting and sharing site designed for hosting content produced by kids and content about kids. Kids Tube monitors all submissions and monitors comments left on videos. To encourage students to develop their videography skills, Kids Tube holds weekly videos submission contests. The contests are arranged around a theme and one winner is selected by the Kids Tube team.

36. ESL Basics is a site that provides short video vocabulary lessons for beginning and advanced ESL students. For teachers, ESL Basics has a small collection of suggestions and ideas for teaching ESL. ESL Basics is adding new content on a regular basis.

37. FedFlix, hosted by the Internet Archive, is a collection of nearly 2000 films produced by the US government during the 20th Century. The topics of these films range from presidential speeches to agricultural practices to public health and safety. Some films are instructional in nature, for example there is a film for police officers on how to arrest someone. Other films are more informative in nature and some films are flat-out propaganda films. All of the FedFlix films are in the public domain so feel free to reuse and remix them as you and your students desire. The films can be downloaded or viewed online. Films can also be embedded into your blog or website.

38. Art Babble is a video website designed and maintained by the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The purpose of Art Babble is to provide a place for people to learn about the creation of art, artists, and collections through quality video productions. Visitors to Art Babble will find videos related to many forms of and formats for art. Browse the video channels and you'll find videos covering a wide array of topics including abstract art, European Art and Design, African Art, graphic design, glass, sculpture, surrealism, and much more.

39. Math A Tube is a compilation of videos from a variety of users and other websites. Videos are categorized by mathematics topics and sub-topics. The videos demonstrate everything from basic addition through Geometry. The videos on Math A Tube are user-generated so some videos are better than others.

40. The Kids Know It Network is full of educational interactive games and movies intended for elementary school students. The Kids Know It Network hosts a number of animated videos explaining and demonstrating concepts from math, science, geography, and English. Each video starts with an introduction to a topic and is followed by a quiz. If a student gets less than 80% of the items correct they are prompted to start the video again.

41. The Futures Channel has come to the rescue of Math teachers who are constantly asked the question, "when are we ever going to use this?" On the Futures Channel there are many lesson plans and lesson ideas relating math (and other subjects) to current "real life" situations. And by "real life" the Futures Channel doesn't mean just converting recipes like my high school Algebra book did. Check out the Futures Channel today and stop answering the question, "when are we ever going to use this?" The Futures Channel isn't limited to just mathematics videos, you will also find videos for science, music, art, business, sports, and more.

42. The Biology Department at Davidson College has a large collection of videos and animations of cell biology processes. Most of the videos are in QuickTime format while most of the animations are GIF animations. The collection is divided into five categories; Movies of Cells, Movies of Cellular Calcium, Movies of Molecular Methods, Molecular Movies, and a miscellaneous category.

43. Wired Science has hundreds of videos addressing a variety of science and technology topics. In addition to the library of videos, Wired Science, has great articles and lists of science resources.

44. Test Toob is a free website where science teachers and science students can share videos of the experiments they conduct. The service is designed for use by middle schools and high schools. In addition to providing video sharing services, Test Toob offers suggestions for experiments that students can conduct.

45. Math TV offers an extensive collection of high quality mathematics tutorials. Math TV's video lessons cover basic mathematics and Algebra. Math TV videos are not easily embedded in other websites, but they are free and you can create your own individualized playlists.

46. Brightstorm is a provider of online study materials for mathematics as well as ACT and SAT preparation. The ACT and SAT preparation materials are not free, but the mathematics tutorials are free. The mathematics tutorials are videos featuring mathematics teachers explaining and demonstrating how to solve mathematics problems. There are tutorial videos covering Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, and Calculus.

47. The Week in Rap is produced by the same people that produce Flocabulary. Each Friday The Week In Rap posts a weekly news summary in the form of a rap music video. The videos cover stories from national and international politics as well as sports and entertainment news.

48. Please add your suggestions in the comments.

And if you are fortunate enough to work in a school that allows you to use YouTube, you still might want to use View Pure or Safe Share to prevent the accidental display of inappropriate "related" videos or advertisements.

The following is an open letter that was also sent electronically to the following recipients:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

Members of the California Board of Education

Bonnie Reiss, Secretary of Education

Senator Gloria Romero, Chair of the California Senate Education Committee

Assemblymember Julia Brownley, Chair of the California Assembly Education Committee

Dear California Education Policy Leader,

As the new school year begins, students and their families always deal with changes – new schools, new classes and teachers, and a whole array of questions about what the new year holds in store.  More than in most years, teachers find themselves uncertain about what to expect, in part due to the swelling general and political interest in teacher evaluation.  While most of us would welcome improved teacher evaluations that actually help us do our jobs better, our fear is that politics and expediency will lead us towards the misuse of state test scores in teacher evaluation.

Even the advocates of so-called “value-added” measurements concede the existence of variables known and unknown, and offer up various attempts to control for those factors.  They concede that sample sizes present a challenge.  Then, they typically offer all sorts of mathematical formulas and ignore the longstanding warning from the three leading educational research bodies that advise against using test scores for teacher evaluation.

I’d like to take this opportunity to inquire about a more personal matter, however: my teaching evaluation.  You see, this year will bring with it considerable changes at my school, many of which I believe will impact my teaching and my students.  If you are willing to consider using student test scores in my future evaluations, I believe that I deserve to know how you view the relevance of these factors as they affect those test scores.  As you read on, please realize that I am not talking about hypothetical situations (with one exception at the very end), and  not exaggerating for rhetorical effect.  Each listed item is a real change occurring at my school this year, and each change has the potential to affect test scores you might suggest using to compare students, teachers, or changes in teacher performance over multiple years.

1.  New principal – According to an Urban Institute study (Damon, et. al., 2009) the experience level of a principal has an effect of student performance.  “An important finding to emerge from our analysis is the positive impact of principal experience, particularly over the first few years of principals’ careers. … [T]his implies that new, inexperienced principals will, on average, hurt school performance.”  In fact, authors of the study refer to that particular information as their “clearest finding.”  How do you propose to control for the effects of a rookie principal before evaluating me with test scores?  What formula should be used for each successive year of our principal’s time at our school?

2.  One additional administrator in the school – According to this study from New Jersey, administrative support does seem to have effects on student performance, but studies can be used to argue for both improved and diminished student performance.  When do you propose that my school make a determination about the effects of adding an administrative position, and once they report their findings, what model do you propose to use in value-added measurements that will be used in my evaluation.

3.  New class scheduling  - my school will, for the first time, use block schedules for four days per week (compared to prior use of block schedules two days per week).  According to C.W. Lewis, et. al., (NASSP Bulletin, Dec. 2005) block scheduling has a positive effect on student performance on standardized tests.  How will this change be factored into my score-based evaluation?  If some teachers at my school have more training and experience than others in relation to teaching in block schedules, would you propose that the test-score portion of teacher evaluations include different expectations for different teachers?

4.  Later start time – this year, our school day will begin at 8:15 a.m.  Last year, about 75% of our school days began at 7:50 a.m.  According to many studies, including this one reported in the Wall Street Journal, a later start time has a positive effect on adolescent learners.  How much of an effect will be expected in our test scores?

5.  My own teaching schedule - last year I taught two morning classes and two afternoon classes.  This year, all my classes are in the morning.  So, if you plan to use my students’ test scores for evaluation, please consider this report:  ”Research indicates that many high school students do their best learning in the afternoon. One study found that afternoon reading instruction produced the greatest increase in reading scores as compared to morning instruction.”  Since half of my classes are now in the morning instead of the afternoon, please suggest a formula for the expected change in my effectiveness as measured on student tests.  Also, I am teaching one new course this year compared to last, and it’s a course that I haven’t taught in the past five years.  Am I expected to produce the same gains when teaching different courses?  Will my “value-added” be compared to other teachers of this grade level, or other teachers of this course?

5.  New tutorial period – our new school schedule will include sixty-five minutes per week for students to receive additional support.   Some schools and districts in my state (Whittier, Irvine, and many others,) are finding that tutorial periods provide valuable academic support that has a positive impact on student performance.  There is also some research support (PDF) for that idea.   However, students will be allowed to make their own choices from a wide variety of tutorial offerings each week.  Will the state fund any additional data analysis in order to see how my students used that extra tutorial time?  If they tend to spend that time with less effective teachers, or teachers of other subjects, will test scores be adjusted prior to their inclusion in my evaluation?  If students usually spend that time with me, will I need to produce even higher test scores, and if so, how much higher?  What if students need to use tutorial time in ways that won’t produce higher test scores?  Are you creating a conflict of interest between me and my students?

6.  New school data management system – we’ll be switching over to a new web-based program that should improve communication between school and home, regarding attendance and grades.  That changeover will take up many hours of teachers’ time, due in part to training, as well as a lag time as we adjust to the new system and transfer information from other systems.  Adequate planning time affects teacher performance (PDF), so this change will have a potentially negative effect on our staff.  However, we should end up with improved communication with parents and caregivers, and school-home communication has a positive effect on student performance.  So, this new system will potentially lower and raise test scores.  Will the state help us measure with effect is larger, and how should that effect be factored into test scores prior to my evaluation?

7.  New colleagues – according to a study published in American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, “a teacher’s students have larger achievement gains in math and reading when she has more effective colleagues (based on estimated value-added from an out-of-sample pre-period). Spillovers are strongest for less experienced teachers and persist over time, and historical peer quality explains away about 20 percent of the own-teacher effect, results that suggest peer learning.”  This year, I will be teaching with a different combination of teachers.  Prior to my next evaluation, will the state help fund the data collection and analysis necessary to determine which teachers are having a “spillover effect” on the others?  It seems only fair.  I also know that teachers in other subject areas have been teaching some of “my” standards.  For example, I’m supposed to teach students how to understand and analyze non-fiction texts, and my colleagues in history and science courses are doing the same thing with my students all the time.  I’m supposed to teach grammatical concepts and my students are learning those same concepts in other languages at the same time.  My students have dozens of combinations of courses and teachers.  Please tell me how to separate the effects of each teacher on tests scores so that my evaluation will truly reflect my teaching.

8.  New construction – we are expecting to break ground on two new buildings this school year.  One of these buildings will go up within one-hundred feet of my classroom.  I could not find a study that examined the effects of campus construction on student performance, so I will defer to your judgment: to what extent do you think construction noise disrupts learning?  Should we keep data on the actual number of days of construction, and the decibel levels of the noise?  If we have the data, will there be any adjustment to value-added measurements prior to my evaluation?  Many of my colleagues teach on the opposite side of the building, away from the construction site, so I will advise them to measure the decibel levels in their classrooms for comparison.

9.  Furloughs - we don’t have any furlough days yet in my district, but if we do, will the state (prior to my next evaluation) devise a formula indicating how many furlough days can occur before test scores are affected, and the significance of the effects after crossing that threshold?

Looking over that list of changes for this school year, I have many, many questions about what the next ten months will be like on my campus.  I can say from past experience that this is an unprecedented amount of change.  So, as a final question for you, I would like to know: do you believe that the combined effects of this much change can be measured?  That is not just a rhetorical question, because I imagine this year’s data will be compared to other years, and if some people have their way, those scores will be part of my evaluation.  My future job security may be affected by your answers.

As you have certainly surmised, I am adamantly opposed to the idea of using state test scores in teacher evaluations.  I have argued that point repeatedly in various ways, in various publications, but in this letter, I have focused on the entirely real situation in which I find myself this year.

We may disagree about the issues.  I expect that if you disagree, you can support your position by answering my questions.  If you cannot, then I hope you intend to come up with the answers and share them before supporting or enacting policies that are sure to fail if we cannot answer those questions.

You have it in your power to exert great influence on students’ lives, through your influence on my work, and the work of hundreds of thousands of my fellow teachers.  You are also occupying an office entrusted to you to serve the common good.  You assumed that office more recently than I began teaching, and I will continue teaching when you have left that office.  As a professional with the utmost commitment to my students and community, and the utmost desire to teach well, I request a reply from you that will be of some practical guidance in our shared mission to serve students.  I trust that your reply will reflect your commitment to crafting and implementing wise policies that will actually work within complex realities of our schools.

Sincerely,

David B. Cohen

Filed under: Assessment and Testing, Education Reform, Politics and Budget Tagged: California, evaluation, letter, politicians, testing, vam

The teacher’s role in an inquiry-centered classroom is absolutely critical.  It takes practice.  It takes patience.  It requires a willingness to try new things, fail, reflect, revise, redeem and repeat.  In roughly chronological order (within an investigation), here are 10 things that will allow constructive inquiry to flourish.

A teacher in an inquiry-centered classroom must:

1. Introduce challenging, engaging ideas that inspire student questions. Honor those student questions and allow them to guide the path of the class.  Help them to identify the questions most worth pursuing and to hone them into strong investigative questions.
2. Find a happy medium between giving your students too much direction and too little. This is a fine line.  If the students have freedom and choice and choose to do nothing, you need to diagnose that problem and work with them to fix it.
3. Establish routines and structures in your classroom that support inquiry. Kids need to know when and how to have whole class discussions, small group discussions, team meetings, workshops, etc.  They need to know when, where and how to obtain materials.  They need to have a method for planning, monitoring and assessing the progress of their investigations.
4. Engage in frequent conversations with your students to keep them moving forward with inquiry while assessing their current understanding.  Use open-ended, high-level questioning strategies that help students to come to conclusions on their own.  Challenge student misconceptions in a caring, respectful way.  Mentor them in a productive direction when they get stuck and can’t move forward on their own.
5. Focus students on generating arguments based on evidence.  Don’t let them simply regurgitate information – challenge them to provide explanations.  On the flip side of that coin, don’t let them pose arguments based strictly upon opinion or unsupported inference.  Teach them to respectfully challenge each other’s assertions – and yours.
6. Provide opportunities for students to choose how they will demonstrate their learning.  Inquiry doesn’t work when you put it in a box and tell students you are going to assess their knowledge with a teacher (or test generator) designed test at the end.  At least not one that is graded.
7. Connect students with experts in fields relevant to their inquiry and facilitate their conversations.  Seek out local university resources – both professors and graduate students.  Seek out local experts working in fields relevant to the students’ investigations.  Find resources among local community members.  Connect the students to these people, in person or virtually (email, Skype, etc.).
8. Teach skills and processes that students need to know in order to engage in effective inquiry.  Don’t put their inquiry in a box with a rigid set of steps or “scientific method.”  However, give them structures and tools to help them move forward.  More scaffolding will obviously be needed early on.  You may provide planning forms for students to complete prior to investigations, monitoring forms for them to use to track their progress, and peer/self assessment guides, among others.
9. Provide time for reflection and metacognition within the structure of learning cycles.  Reflection is when students really make meaning of new information, assimilate it, and make it their own.  It’s when they learn from successes and failures and consider how to improve for future investigations.
10. Have fun with your students! Demonstrate genuine love of inquiry, of learning, and of your content area (if applicable).  Inquiry should be fun – if it’s not, you’re doing it wrong.

A new study by email software purveyor Xobni confirms what we bloggers know to be true, there’s actually no such thing as a day off in the Internet age (Want more visceral proof than an email study? Check out the timestamp of this post).

Information anxiety has pretty much put the kibosh on “time off” as two out of three Americans and Brits check their email outside of regular business hours (ha) and half of Americans email while on vacation (double ha).

The Xobni study, an online survey of 2,200 British and American adults conducted in August, holds that the traditional 9-5 work day has gone the way of the Dodo, due to the fact that Americans and Brits can’t stop checking their email. Apparently we sneak a peak at out inboxes while on vacation, weekends, sick days and even when we are (gasp!) in bed.

The press release blames this behavior on the down economy and the iPhone, but I blame it on the fact that we now live most of our lives online, and we feel compelled to check our email/Facebook/Twitter because that’s where most of the exciting stuff is happening anyways.

More highlights from the study/the life we have chosen:

* The 9-5 work day has gone the way of the Dodo. 72% of Americans and 68% of Brits say they regularly check their email on vacations, sick days, and at home in bed.

* Yes, IN BED. Conveniently for Xobni, work email in bed is apparently, you know, like a thing, with 1 in 5 Americans checking email as the first thing they do in the morning or the last thing they do at night before falling asleep (Again I can personally vouch for this).

According to Xobni, email has become an addiction, and like most addictions it is fueled by peer pressure:

* 27% check email outside of regular working hours because they feel it is expected.

* 26% of Americans feel they can’t handle/overwhelmed by the number of emails they receive during vacation.

Everyone in the world agrees that managing email has become a challenge to our sanity. And various companies are scrambling towards solutions including Google with its recent Gmail Priority Inbox launch and Xobni, obviously. My favorite low-fi way to deal with the bottleneck is a service called Sentenc.es which makes it clear to your email reader that you are limited to short responses.

Even though I’m not sure how well that will work, in bed.

Video, vaguely related.

Email overload image above: Ario_

It’s not about the computer; it’s about the learning.  Our students today both want and need to be active, engaged, collaborative, on-line, vigorous, empowered, creative,  solvers of real-world problems.   They need to be skilled and informed to do so, but they need to be challenged, motivated, and engaged in doing so.

The best learning has always been, since we were chimps, about practicing, experimenting, mistake-making, and overcoming obstacles as we have used the finest tools available in doing so.  Aristotle wrote that we learn best by doing, and it has always been true.

Yes, it is wonderful sometimes for students to listen to a compelling lecture told with passion and perceptive insight and compelling interpretation and anecdote and a story. Yes it is dynamite for kids to participate in intellectual discourse and debate, sharing and discusing ideas and appreciating fine dialogue.   And yes, there are fine pieces of writing that can still happen on paper. We don’t need to end, abolish, or abandon any of these things.

But as our “digital generation” comes to school, entirely familiarized with the use of digital tools on a daily basis to communicate, research, collaborate, plan, organize, investigate, create and publish, how dare we say to them they cannot use these same tools in school as they use outside of it?  Just as importantly, knowing that in their college and adult careers they will be expected to do so in nearly every work-place, how can we deprive them of developing mastery in their skilled use of these tools?

It’s not about the computer, it’s about the learning.   Harvard doesn’t want students to be listeners and responders; it insists now that its students be digitally empowered active participants in their own learning who are problem-finders and problem-solvers.

From Levin and Howland’s fine article,  Here and Now in the School of the Future:

Send to Twitter

Paper.li is a service that pulls tweet links and compiles them into newspaper format. The benefit to using these is that it brings relevant content to your users, as well as mentioning 2 – 3 users in each paper. These papers can be a good way to keep up on the latest news on Twitter, all on one page on a daily basis.

To use it, simply sign into your Twitter account, and then sign into Paper.li using the oAuth system. Then create your first newspaper. You can have up to 10 using a mixture of your own user account, Twitter lists, or favorite #hashtags. The user interface to create papers is extremely simple, and the actual paper generation (assuming it is new) usually takes about 1 – 2 minutes.

Once you have created a paper, you will have the option to promote it. This means that every day, Paper.li will push a tweet out of your account daily for the following paper types.

1. Followers of a Particular User

Which leads to The Stephen Fry Daily.

2. People in a Twitter List

Which leads to The Vertical Measures’ Content Marketing Daily.

3. Tweets Using a Specific #Hashtag

Which leads to The #linkbuilding Daily.

Paper Management

You can see all of the papers you have created using the My Paper.li link, and also manage which ones get tweeted on a daily basis. Papers are normally tweeted around noon.

What Types of Content Does Paper.li Pull?

Paper.li selects specific types of tweet to generate content for a paper. First and foremost, it is looking for tweets with links, as the title of each “story” on the paper will link directly to the page, blog post, article, etc.

If there are any images on the page, blog post, article, etc., it will sometimes pull those as a thumbnail for the news story.

It also pulls tweets with links to videos from YouTube, BrightCove, and other popular video sharing sites for the media section. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a link directly to the video, however. Some videos are pulled from blog posts with an embedded video.

How Does Paper.li Organize Content?

Each paper has different sections – a full paper usually consists of the main headlining stories, and ones that have been filed under other categories such as Arts & Entertainment, Health, Education, Business, and related #hashtags.

There is also a real time streaming box that shows the latest updates for the paper’s source, so you can follow it on Twitter as well.

How Does Paper.li Choose Content?

This one is a mystery to me. I thought it *might* be based on tweet popularity until I saw that some of the tweets added to the paper had been the first tweet for a link done within an hour of the paper’s creation. It could be based on the influence of the Twitter users in the list, but I’ve seen some users with little authority get their tweets listed as well. So essentially,it’s completely random.

Getting the Right Content for Your Audience

This means that getting content on a particular topic based on a user or a Twitter list may not be as easy as you think. Not only may some members of your following or Twitter list not stick to tweeting about one topic, but some members may tweet something that gets misinterpreted by the paper, as seen below.

So how do you ensure your papers have the right content for your audience? There really is no guarantee. I would say that out of the three options for paper creation, hashtags seem the way to go, although some tags are overly abused, such as #linkbuilding gets repeated by the same users over and over and sometimes for services, not useful content. So use Paper.li at your own risk!

Top Paper.li Papers for Online Marketing

The following are some good papers to get you started, and see good (and bad) content that comes through.

• #blogging Daily
• #socialmedia Daily
• #linkbuilding Daily
• #seo Daily
• #sem Daily
• #internetmarketing Daily
• #onlinemarketing Daily
• #makemoney Daily

Your Paper.li Experience

Do you use Paper.li in your tweets? What has been your experience in terms of getting relevant content to your followers? What are your favorite papers?

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With the wonderful small, but high quality, Flip Video cameras (and similar brands), it has become affordable (around US$ 150) to bring video production into the classroom.

The camera is light, handy AND sturdy that even a Kindergartener can use it to show the world their perspective.

A great way of making students part of a learning community, giving them ownership, creating and providing digital output to share “the inside of the classroom” with the world is by giving kids regular jobs, such as being the “official” videographer.

We have started handing the Flip camera increasingly over to the students, making it a specific classroom job to record Skype calls, record content tutorials or film a skit, presentation or story. After the footage was recorded, I usually took the raw material and started to edit, upload and share a final movie. Although I enjoy editing and creating these final movies, it takes a LOOOOOONG time.

Alan November’s question “Do you want your students to work more than you do?” rings in my ear. We need to start handing over the film editing job to our students.

Not only do we want them taking more ownership and learning the tech skills of editing, in addition to summarizing and reviewing content.

I recently edited an hour Skype recording between our faculty and Heidi Hayes Jacobs down to under 20 minutes. The experience, although it took me many hours to complete, contributed in many ways to a deeper learning than simply having “attended” and participated in the live conference call. I reviewed, summarized, decided which parts to cut, and which parts would be included in the final clip. Why not give students the same opportunity of creating learning?

Mathew Needleman, in the  a K12 Online 2008 Presentation Film School for Video Podcasters, also points out other benefits of involving students in movie production

• including decision making skills about shots and composition
• making our students aware how others are using them to make a point.

He talks about kids having to learn to understand the media messages that are being thrown at them.  Critical thinking evolves out of figuring out why other have chosen to use certain shots and compositions to make their point and why.

Here are a few tips & tricks for your students as they take over being the film directors in your classroom:

1. Hold the camera with two hands to keep it steady
   1. You might want to lean against a wall, desk or chair
   2. Slow paning (movement or rotation of the camera)
2. Wait a few seconds after pressing the “record” button to start speaking.
3. The microphone is on the camera.
   1. Stay close to the source of the sound.
   2. Be conscious of the noise going on in the background.
4. Take short clips
   1. Avoid running the camera for several minutes at a time.
   2. Try to have “logical” breaks between clips: a new question, new topic
5. Take both close ups as well as “panorama” shots.
   1. Move in and out to achieve close ups and far away shots.
   2. Try not to use the zoom, it makes the footage look fuzzy.
6. Don’t film against a sunny window
7. Know what is in your background
   1. Make sure there are no other groups of students shooting in your background
   2. Don’t film a distracting background
8. Don’t include students who do not have media release permission.
9. Don’t identify students by filming something with their first and last name on it.

We are hoping to connect with lots of different schools right across Australia for our topic work this term.

This will help our children to really understand what life is like today for their peers throughout Australia.

But for an old fashioned pen-pal style idea we welcome your postcards, because after all there is still something special about receiving mail – the physical kind!

If you are an Australian teacher or educator we would love to have you and your class send us a card. The postcard could be about your town, city or state or even a famous landmark you are close to.

We have two classes doing the Australia topic so if you could please send 2 cards one addressed to Mr Barrett’s Class and the other to Mrs Bartholomew’s Class.

John Davies Primary School
Barker Street,
Huthwaite,
Sutton-in-Ashfield,
Nottinghamshire,
England.
NG17 2LH

As we gather your cards we will photograph them and update your location on a Google Map. Don’t forget to add your class blog address if you have one – our Year 5/6 classes will be starting their own soon.

Please let us know if you can help and we look forward to seeing your cards in the post!

__

Pic: Wish You Were Here by H4NUM4N

(This was originally posted on my blog on August 24th.  Whether you agree with awards or not, this is definitely something we have to open the conversation on.  As administrators, we must continuously revisit what our schools do and accept that ‘tradition’ is not a good enough reason to continue on with practice.)

I had the fantastic opportunity to talk with a parent today on why we did not give students an award certificate at the end of the year.  Every time I have one of these opportunities to chat with a member of our school community, it really gives me a chance to reflect on the practice of our school.

As my first year in the school, we did not do a big awards ceremony or give it out individual academic awards.  If you would have asked me this question five years ago, I would have thought that any school that did not give “awards” was all about the fluff.  After some more experience, there are several reasons why I don’t believe in rewards or awards in the classroom.

The Basics

To start with, here is a quote from Alfie Kohn:

In short, good values have to be grown from the inside out. Attempts to short-circuit this process by dangling rewards in front of children are at best ineffective, and at worst counterproductive. Children are likely to become enthusiastic, lifelong learners as a result of being provided with an engaging curriculum; a safe, caring community in which to discover and create; and a significant degree of choice about what (and how and why) they are learning. Rewards–like punishments–are unnecessary when these things are present, and are ultimately destructive in any case. (Alfie Kohn, The Risk of Rewards)

Now I have heard the argument about how students love getting rewards in the classroom and they work towards this.  This is definitely easier in elementary grades.  It is important though as educators that although it may work in the earlier grades, our vision as teachers in the classroom should be long past the year students are with us. What do we want from our students?  To be good grade 2 or 3 students, or to become lifelong learners?  I know what I want to provide in the long term for our students.  If you take opportunities to learn about your students, find their passion, and make connections to their world, you will not need rewards or awards to motivate them.

Awards eventually lose their luster to students that get them, while often hurting the self-esteem and pride of those who don’t.

Creating an awards system in school; there is no right way.

Have you ever been in a meeting with your colleagues discussing how awards should be given out?  Should the average be 85% or 80%.  What subjects should it include?  Should it only be the “core” subjects?  There are so many things that are not right with this process.

First of all, there is no perfect grading system or mark structure (I will talk about grades in another post).  It doesn’t exist.  So if the students gets a grade of 79% on a subject that knocks them out of the “award” process, what are you going to do?  Will you bump them up to an 80% or leave them at a 79%, or even worse (to some) move them for a 75%?  We all know that educators are not perfect and your system of grading is not perfect.  There is no right answer with this because to me, it doesn’t make sense.  Students should know where there strengths are and what they need to work on, not how they fit in our magical grading system.

Secondly, if you believe that we need to find students passions, leaving subjects out like the Fine Arts  (Ken Robinson might have something to say about this) does nothing but tell everyone that those subjects are not important.  Imagine how this feels to the student who wants to become a dancer?  “Hey kid, that is nice you can dance, but since you can’t list our last 5 Prime Ministers, you don’t get an award today because your Social Studies mark got bumped to a 78%.” This does not show my belief that we need to build upon students’ passions.

School as family.

I have shown my belief that we want to create a family environment in our school. I do not have my own kids, but I do not remember my mom and dad annually or semi-annually recognizing our achievements as their children (it would be so easy to make a brother joke here but I am going to refrain).  As parents, it is important to let your kids know when you are seeing good things from your kids, WHEN you are seeing them.  I also do not remember my mom and dad sorting us by who did what better in our family.  We each had our own unique gifts as kids in my family, and we were recognized for that.  Should it not be the same in a school?  Does the term “caring and safe” match with “ranking and sorting”?  Awards definitely lend to the latter and do nothing to create that caring and safe environment.

When I discussed at parent council this year about us removing awards, one of the parents shared how she was so glad that her child would not go through what she did as a child. She talked about how every year her sister (who was the more academic) always got an award while she sat in the audience and watched others get called up.  Do you think that this may have lead to some resentment in their own family? You may not believe that schools should be “like a family”, but I can guarantee that you do not want to cause rifts in one either.

The team environment

An essential 21st century skill is being able to collaborate.  No matter what awards system you use, you are promoting individuals as opposed to the efforts of working together.  Now at this point, you still may be convinced as an educator that awards are still good for kids so I will ask you this.  As a school, how would the environment feel if we had awards for the “best” teachers on staff?  Every member of my staff makes a contribution to our school environment, just like every child does.  I try my best to ensure that I let every staff member know how I have seen their contributions throughout the year, just as I try to let our kids know how important they are to our environment.  If I continue to say our schools works together, why would their be individual awards?  It seems to separate the team.

One of the things that I took from my days of coaching basketball and following the work of Lakers’ coach Phil Jackson (love or hate him, he has the most championships of any coach), is that every person on a team has a role they play.  As a leader (coach) you need to find them their role that will contribute to the success of the team.  I want to recognize everyone in our school as a contributor to our success.

Effort vs. Academic Intelligence

Take two students.  One from a home that is well off with both parents supportive and able to help their child.  The other from a single parent family where the parent has to work considerably to make ends meet.  Although both families love their children with all of their heart, one has more advantages in their life.  The “privileged” child is not really engaged in academics, does not work hard, but is able to easily meet all the “rubric” requirements for the year.  The other child works their butt off their entire year, has little support at home, does whatever they can, but pulls off a 70% average.  Who would you give the award too?

My own award story

I loved basketball with all my heart.  I also really liked football.  I played both and did very well in the sports during high school.  In grade 12, the most coveted “award” for many was the “Male Athlete of the Year” award.  There was no criteria set out, but the general belief amongst students was it would go to the student that played the most sports.  In my grade 12 year, I played football, volleyball, basketball, badminton, and track.  I only liked two of those sports but played the others to get the award.

At the end of the year, I ended up tearing my ACL in both my knees and my doctor told me because it was because I put too much constant stress on my body.  I also did not get the award and was crushed.  Within one year, with aspirations of playing university sports in either basketball or football, I went from not being able to play anymore while also feeling crushed that I was not given the award.  Before my grade 12 year, I did not play those other sports and did not care about awards because they were not given to athletes other than grade 12.  In grade 12, I became more focused on the award than I did on my passion.  How many times has this happened in our schools and we have not known about the impact it has had on our students later on in their lives?

The alternative

So what about putting an “academic certificate” in the report card at the end of the year instead of having an awards ceremony?  If you have ever been around students in a school when they get their report card, they often compare with their friends, and although something that was meant to be private turns public really quick.  Here is something that was so effective and meant so much to me when I was a child.

One teacher that made a HUGE difference in my life was Miss Butler when I was in grade 4.  She was a fantastic and loving teacher and I really enjoyed being in her class.  She did something that year that I still remember to this day and still affects what I do as an educator.  In our report card, Miss Butler took a cut out of a smurf (one of my favourite things when I was a child – cue embarrassing moment here) and wrote to me on it how I impacted her that year, and what some of her favourite memories were of me.  She wrote how much she loved how positive I was and my sense of humour with others.

The thing was, she did this with everyone.  I did get an award that year for academics, but what I remember most is that card and how it made me feel. I remember the classroom BUZZING at the end of the year and everyone went home feeling like THEY were an amazing person that impacted that classroom.  It was not that I was the “smartest” or the “best recycler” (you know, the award for the kid that doesn’t fit into any of the “categories”), but I was a person that was special.

Schools are not about ranking and sorting. They are about learning and creativity in a safe and caring environment.  They are about empowering all students, not just the ones that are strong at the core subjects. If I continuously tell our students that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM is important to our school, I do not see how awards align with this belief.  Do you?

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