#TreadmillPD

Last Boxing Day weekend, after months of feeling bloated, I decided to take action.  I wasn't motivated to go to the gym anymore, so I bought a treadmill for my home.  And, much to the surprise of all those who said it would be a clothes hanger in two months, I have been diligently using it ever since.  The mill (as I affectionately call it) was especially wonderful in our long Ontario winter.

The first few months I binged watched some TV shows and listened to music.  I quickly got bored; moreover, I started to feel like I didn't have time to do everything I wanted to do professionally.  Then one night it hit me: why did these activities have to be mutually exclusive? And thus #TreadmillPD was born. (Little did I know the great Matt Miller had already coined the phrase and created the hashtag on Twitter as explain in this blog post.)

I began using my time on the treadmill to learn.  It was great for the body and mind.  During the day I would pin article and videos I came across but did not have time to explore in depth to a professional Pinterest board (my board is here if you want to follow me).  In the evening, I would go back and explore what I had posted.  If I hadn't pinned something I would explore Twitter (such a rich resource for PD), or listen to a podcast (which I have blogged about before here).  I was learning so much and loving it.  I looked forward to my learning time every night.  I felt mentally healthy since I no longer felt pulled to get exercise or learn - I could do both.


When I tell people about my #TreadmillPD they are often in awe..."How can you run and read?!"  Let's be clear....I am a brisk walker.  I am sure with practice I could do both - I have run two 5km races in the past, and I would LOVE to be a "real" runner, but for now, this is what works.

Also, don't get me wrong, some days I still binge some TV, or watch the Toronto Blue Jays games, but most of my time is on PD and I find it so fulfilling.

OSSEMOOC – were have you been all my life?!

Why am I just learning about this blog?!?!?  

Over the last few days I have been exploring the OSSEMOOC blog.  

One word: WOW!

It is a great resource for Ontario Educators who have any interest and experience in EdTech. There is no username or password to remember.  It is just a wonderfully curated resource of blogs, live sessions, book chats, and 10 minutes learning modules by teachers, consultants, system leaders and other stakeholders in Ontario education.  I feel like Alice down the rabbit hole...only I don’t have a lot of interest in finding my way home.  There is so much to explore.

What I love most about OSSEMOOC is the mandate.  About 6 years ago I joined Dr. Mary Kooy at OISEUoT for a study funded by a $250,000 grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.  It was entitled: Teacher Learning that  Matters: Expanding a Longitudinal Study into a Technology-Mediated Professional Community. (If you are interested, here is a great 3 minute audio file highlighting what we got out of the experience compiled by Mimi Masson -@mimi_masson.) [audio mp3="https://virtualgiff.edublogs.org/files/2016/07/Storytellers-SSHRC-Mimi-Masson-1rheu40.mp3"][/audio]

Through our exploration in this project we came up with a list of what makes great PD - and it is virtually the same:

• considers all learning preferences.
• allows for all levels of readiness.
• provides numerous entry points.
• is flexible.
• allows choice.
• respects limitations of time.
• supports a variety of learner interests.
• promotes the development of connections and connected learning.

If this could be the mandate of ALL PD imagine where we could take the profession! Indulge me while I share a few things that struck me in my (very surface) first few days of exploration.

1. 10 Minute Learning Sessions.  They offer 30 days of learning to get your feet wet (or wetter) with technology.  The first session: Day 1 - Dedicating Time is a great place to start if you think you are reticent toward or "too busy" for tech.  
2. Use Flipagram as Promotion! - For their Innovators Mindsets Book Club they created this Flipagram to share on social media.  I would normally do a slide deck and hope it moved forward an/or looped.  This is a simple, yet genius, little hack.
3. Use LiveBinders to curate websites!  I used this about a decade ago and forgot how useful it can be.  OSSEMOOC has a Live Binder linking to over 100 blogs by Ontario Educators...what a resource for quick, easy, as you need it PD!  It is also a great classroom tool (like Symbaloo) for a one stop site for web links.
4. Free Books! Who doesn’t love a free book.  I can’t wait to get into  It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens by Danah Boyd.  Maybe I will even start a book chat with other high school teachers interested in Social Media and the Teenage experience.
5. #PicAndPost!  What a great idea for annotating and sharing text.  OSSEEMOOC ran a activity wherein they asked community members to identify one thing they read that resonated with them.  They were to grab a screenshot, annotate it with a sentence or two, and send it to OSSEMOOC via gmail. Selected pictures were shared and discussed.  HUGE classroom implications here.
6. Blogs are Still Important!  My husband and I had a chat last night and he said “but haven’t blogs gone the way of the dodo bird?!”.  Two days I may have agreed with him but then I read a great blog on OSSEMOOC about why writing and reading blogs is so important; short answer - blogs get around big corporation/capitalism/consumerism and allows for real voice.  It struck me so much that I had started a blog for my kids to “write” (with thanks from a tool called EasyBlogger Jr I found on one of the blogs by a primary teacher in the LiveBinder that I failed to note - sorry!)

Remember, you can learn anything - as the Khan Academy reminds us in this video (which, by the way is a FABULOUS video to share on the first day of school) So what are you waiting for?  Start exploring!

Looking for good PD…try Podcasts

 

 I have loved Twitter as a PD medium for some time now.  I love hearing voices from around the world and clicking through links for great resources and innovative ideas.  That said, it is a resource I can only use when I am at my computer or on my phone.  On top of that, I am an avid audio book listener.  Since having my first son it is my go to way to "read" books.  On my commute to and from work, I almost always listen to a book over the radio or other media. 

 A couple of months ago I accepted a new job in my district...it means tripling my commute time (don't feel bad for me - my current commute is only 10-12 minutes).  When I realised this, I decided, given my car listening habits and MANY recommendations from friends and colleagues, to give podcasts a try.

 Well, I am hooked.

  It all started with Serial.  You may have heard of it...the narrator tries to uncover the truth behind a 1999 murder of a 17-year-old girl allegedly committed by her boyfriend.  It got so much attention that Adnan Syed, the boyfriend, has been granted a new trial.  Basically, think Making a Murderer as a podcast.  Great listen with interesting twists and turns.

 I got to thinking, if I enjoyed this so much, maybe I could find some good podcasts.  After a quick iTunes search for EdTech I found a TON! Things I have loved about podcasts include:

1. More people to follow on Twitter: I have loved hearing so many great EdTech voices and started following dozens of new peoples.  I have even had a number of them follow back!
2. Quick Ideas and Tips: I've learned more about makerspaces, voxer (which is mentioned in about 75% of the podcasts I listen to), tools like raspberry pi, and how to stop second guessing yourself as an educator.
3. Deep thought to get me work ready: One day I listened to this great podcast about moral licensing.  It really made me think..and I couldn't stop talking about it.

Some of my favourites to date have included:

1. House of #EdTech:  hosted by Christopher J. Nesi, it explores how technology is changing the way teachers teach and the impact that technology is having in education.
2. Every Classroom Matters With Cool Cat Teacher: A candid, look at the new big ideas that are transforming classrooms everywhere from a practising teacher's point of view.  These are quick tidbits...but I do find her voice to be a little irritating.
3. Techlandia:  The mission statement of Techlandia Radio is simple, great educational content without taking things so seriously. Learn and laugh on your commute to work with Techlandia Radio. But skip their Grumpy Old Teachers episodes.

To be honest, I do not only listen to podcasts for PD purposes, I also really enjoy Jesse Brown's Canadaland, and Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History.

Are you a podcast listener?  Do you have any to suggest for me?  Please comment below.  Oh....and I am looking for a new podcast player.  I find the integrated on on my iPhone a bit clunky...ideas?

Breaking Out of the Essay Box

“I can’t write.”  “I am not a ‘good’ writer.”  “I hate writing.” 
The first steps to stopping the madness.

Arguably your generation “does more writing[,] documenting[,] annotating[,] and narrating than any other generation”  (Skallerup Bessette, 2014).  Instead of making phone calls you text.  Instead of sharing ideas with a group you tweet or Snapchat or Instagram.  Instead of being a peer tutor you post tutorial videos on YouTube.  You can write.  You are good writers.  

You, unbeknownst to yourselves, love writing.  Your writing has “a purpose, an audience, a form, and publishing format. It has norms. It is not all glowing prose, but consider it one long [terrible] first draft that can be shaped and trimmed and revised and put through the process that all writers do in order to improve their prose, their words” (Skallerup Bessette, 2014).  

In good writing process, writers receive feedback and use this feedback to improve the next draft - be it on the same topic of a different one. In your daily social media interactions “[you] learn... teach...offer...feedback...fail, and...try again” (Skallerup Bessette, 2014). It is time for schools to stop making you unlearn these behaviours.  

For years now you have been taught to use the five-paragraph essay model: introduction, three supporting claims, three pieces of evidence to back each claim, and a conclusion wherein you reiterate everything you just said in different words and more concisely.   Essay are taught in this format for a few reasons:

1. For students to have a structure in which to work while they hone their writing skills;
2. To allow the reader (generally only the course teacher, although sometimes a peer editor) to follow the argument with ease;
3. To pass the many standardized tests which require this form of writing.  While there is a long debate about the efficacy and benefits of standardized testing...you all need to pass that Gr. 10 Literacy Test so we have a duty to show you how to do that; and
4. It is a (poor) adaptation from Aristotle’s (one of the godfather of rhetoric) theory of rhetoric….(rhetoric, by the way is the “fancy” word for the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing)

But let’s think for a minute: How many times have you picked up a something to read and it fit that five paragraph essay format?  How often have you had a conversation that followed the structure?  How many times, on those social media interactions, do you go back to this, tried, tested and true form?  I’m going to guess almost NEVER. As Ray Salazar (2012), an American English teacher in Chicago (who, by the way, created Maple HS's thesis algorithm) says:  The five-paragraph essay is rudimentary, unengaging, and useless. As writers you should not only examine three aspects of an argument.

Quite simply there are not always only three reasons to prove your point. Arguing a point is not about fitting into a schema; it is about starting at the top and working to the bottom. As Salazar (2012) states, the 5-paragraph essay seems to have been devised as a watered down, easier, convenient version of Aristotle's 5 PARTS to effective writing and speaking.  They are intended to be parts, not paragraphs.   The parts of argument are:

1. What inspired my argumentative response?
2. What preceded my argument and / or what needs to be clarified?
3. What supports my argument?
4. What challenges my argument?
5. What are the benefits of accepting my argument?

They do not need to come in a specific order.  They do not need to be a specific length.  They just need to be explored to effectively make your point. Morevoer, to ensure your writing is effective you do not need little boxes, you need to have effective delivery of your argument. Aristotle relied on three rhetoric appeal (strategies to make writing/speaking effective).  You likely rely on these in your everyday speaking and writing without realising it.  The appeals are:

1. “Logos (the appeal to reason) relies on logic or reason. Logos often depends on the use of inductive or deductive reasoning;  
2. Ethos (the ethical appeal) is based on the character, credibility, or reliability of the writer; and
3. Pathos (or emotional appeal) appeals to an audience's needs, values, and emotional sensibilities.” (Weida & Stolley, 2013)

These appeals improve argument and convince your audience.  They do not, however, have to appear in this, or any, order. If you can ensure your argument is well developed (in that it contains all of Aristotle’s parts) and convincingly argued (in that you maximize rhetorical appeal) then you are almost ready to go...just a few caveats before your breakout beings:

1. Breaking out the box does NOT mean abandoning rules of grammar, spelling, and punctuation.  These are important, after all, when proving a point it is important to sound well educated - people believe smart people!
2. Breaking out of the box does not mean you can just ramble a stream of consciousness that anyone but you would have trouble following.  You still need a focus and you still need flow - it just might not have to fit into five paragraphs.
3. This kind of writing is for persuasion.  Don’t try to write a business or science report this way - that is a whole different kind of writing.

Educational agencies worldwide are insisting the modern learner needs to show competencies in critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation.  The five paragraph essay allows for little practice in these areas.  You have had plenty of time to hone your writing skills, it is now time to write without sounding like your ideas are passing through a robot...it is time to break out of the five-paragraph essay box.  It is time to reclaim your voice and prove what you have to say is worth hearing.

References
Salazar, R. (2012, May 10). If You Teach or Write 5-Paragraph Essays--Stop It! Retrieved May 02, 2016, from http://www.chicagonow.com/white-rhino/2012/05/if-you-teach-or-write-5-paragraph-essays-stop-it/
Skallerup Bessette, L. (2014, April 10). This Is Not An Essay. Retrieved May 02, 2016, from https://modernlearners.com/this-is-not-an-essay/
Weida, S., & Stolley, K. (2013, March 11). Using Rhetorical Strategies for Persuasion. Retrieved May 02, 2016, from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/588/04/