As I finish the teacher leadership course, I am struck by my position. By that I mean that I am always one of the people in my building who speaks out about change, new initiatives, good learning, new ideas. I have participated on the textbook adoption committee and on the curriculum committees. Yet, I don't feel like I've really spoken out about the changes that I feel are most important for students in the new era. Maybe it's because I didn't feel like I knew much about these coming changes before this program, but I feel like I have been treading water. For example, I know that I am a believer in curriculum reform. We teach essentially the same English curriculum every year, and in the style of the Sabertooth Curriculum, we add layers of complexity to the same ideas. This doesn't serve the students of tomorrow very well. Nor does our current AP initiative, which pushes students to take highly advanced curriculum work in unrelated areas to their fields of interest, with the hope of getting into elusive "dream schools."

If this change starts somewhere, I am working to make it start with me. I am going to develop a new kind of instructional delivery for my course this summer and show that it can be done; that students can learn in an online or blended format, that they can use analytical writing in courses other than English, that the curriculum for yearbook requires as much intensity in thinking skills and software skills as the curriculum for their fourth year of high school English.

The Ultimate Offload

Jason got me turned on to the Khan Academy idea. While I haven't tried it out yet, as he has, I was impressed with Sal Khan in the 60 minute piece for a few reasons. First, the guy has no background in education, yet he seemed to understand a lot about effective teaching: scaffolding, prioritizing, self-paced instruction, a guide on the side.

Second, the idea that some pilot programs have students learning the concept from the Academy at home and the practice is being done in the classroom with a teacher is not really his goal, but it is a better approach if you are using this instructional format. It allows the teacher the ability to see who is struggling and provide immediate assistance. Third, I like how he emphasized that this is all about freeing up the teacher for better use of his or her time. No more do we have to devote half of the period to lecturing, but instead can provide small group or individual assistance and develop other activities, such as authentic problems, to situate the learning. By offloading the concept delivery, it frees up teachers to do some of the million other things we have to do in a classroom.

Web 2.0

Interactive Internet... funny, it was just a few years ago that I was begging the county to let the students put the newspaper online. They were nervous about the instant publishing and the freedom that students have with Internet publishing. Now, we use blogs and wikis all the time, and running the newspaper articles through three levels of editors seems like complete overkill.

There is something engaging about publishing your work on the Internet, even if it's only a retweeted quote. Our TRT says that it speaks to our need to feel important. Interesting theory. At any rate, there are a number of tools that make it very easy. Blogspot, which is free and very easy to use, is one example, and the one we are using right here. Tumblr has really taken off, and the compelling thing about this tool is that everything is seamless: e-mails, tweeting, posting, photos all can be easily stored and posted, and even sorted into private and public files.

These are the kinds of tools that our students are growing up using, and they won't find their use in the classroom novel. Instead, they may find these kinds of activities an extension of their lives. Hmmmm, sounds like authentic learning.

Frailty, thy name is YouTube Access

We have been suffering from withdrawal. YouTube was given to us, and then, for the last three weeks, YouTube was taken away. I'm still not clear why; it had something to do with testing. I use YouTube almost every day. I look at the latest clips from the news, as I am the journalism teacher, and share them with my class. My husband, the Bluegrass Club adviser, shows students how to play songs. We watch videos of how to do things in Photoshop that we can't figure out in yearbook class. Teachers use YouTube for excellent short videos that engage students better than a talking teacher in front of the classroom, and usually in a shorter amount of time.

I heard that higher ups were not particularly concerned about our loss of YouTube. There is a general feeling in certain circles that YouTube isn't really useful in the classroom, and that teachers use it to avoid teaching. Hard to believe, in this day and age, that there are those who would dismiss the power of visual learning, or of immediate access to information. And best of all, it's FREE! It doesn't cost them a dime! unlike all of the movies that teachers used to show, which typically cost about $20 a pop.

It's high time teachers spoke out about the benefits of resources like YouTube. I use it so that the information comes from the source, and I am not pushing a political agenda. Other teachers use it for instruction that is seamless in their classrooms. It shouldn't be looked at as something that teachers use because they are "lazy."

We got YouTube back on Friday. Smiles throughout the building. It truly is the little things that make us all happy.