Week 13 - Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.

I felt a bit like Mercutio when Romeo said, "Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much."  Today I had my students share about their progress so far, about 10 weeks into the project.  I was anticipating that today was going to rough.  Students ill prepared.  Students having done no work.  Students just skating by doing the minimum.  On the most part, I was actually really encouraged by the effort and the types of things my students are doing.

 Each group had to create a Google Presentation to share with the class.  For me the genesis of this project came from Kevin Brookhouser's session on 20 Percent Time at the CA GAFE Summit.  From his hour session I was sold and decided to implement the project this school year.

There have been some difficult times and I've questioned myself about whether or not this time we are spending, is time well spent.  Last night I browsed how some other people have implemented the project and I read over Kate Petty's Google Presentation that she shared at the same conference (Kate Petty's 20 Time in Education).  Although there are some common themes between the two presenters and how they ran the project, Ms. Petty incorporates the notion of "Genius Hour" for the first quarter of her class.  Students use this time to brainstorm, explore, and present their findings on topics that they always had questions about.

I gave my students a couple of weeks to figure out a project that they wanted to do, but I never really gave them time to research the projects that they were taking on.  I wanted students to just jump into the project, but in my haste, I didn't build in time for them to become experts or even somewhat versed in the area they are toiling in to prepare themselves.  I think that the really good students did this instinctively, but I know that some have only scratched the surface of research.

After Thanksgiving break, we will spend some time on research and figuring out how to make our projects better.  Students that are doing reviews on restaurants and movies could surely benefit from looking at reviews on Yelp or Rotten Tomatoes.  Students creating videos could learn from watching Youtube videos on editing, shooting, adding effects.

Ms. Petty also dedicates a quarter to becoming a "Presentation Ninja."  This is a thorough exercise in studying what makes someone a good presenter.

I give a two-minute lesson on not reading from the projector screen, but instead address the audience.  I tell them to not have your body all clammed up and look awkward.  I tell them to not write giant paragraphs on their slides, but instead use bullets.

I suppose speaking is one of the four parts of the common core and language in general and after seeing some poor presentations, this will be something that I'm going to address as we move forward not only during our 20 Percent Time.  I think it will be well worth the time, because being able to speak well and communicate verbally, with your body movements, and gestures will open the doors to a lot of things.

Returning to the students' presentations, I was mostly impressed.  The 11th graders did a far better job presenting.  One year of experience in high school is like 5 regular years.  They are so much more mature and responsible than my 10th graders.

One group is creating a Role Playing Game.  When the student presented, she talked about learning to code so that she can create the game to become a computer game.  What???  I had no idea some students were going to these lengths to work on their projects.  I've included their presentation below.
Making an RPG

Finally, this blog has been so helpful for me to reflect on not only what my students are doing for this project, but what I'm doing.

Hope you're finding this helpful.  Thanks for reading.

Week 12 - You don't burn out from going too fast, but being bored going so slow

You don't burn out from going too fast. You burn out from going too slow and getting bored.
Cliff Burton 

So in searching quotes about fast and slow, feeling like that is how my students are working on the project I found the quote above.  I think it captures the essence of how the students approach the project.

The students that are passionate about their project work, collaborate, discuss, and create.  The students not working are the ones that are bored with their project, not fired up, or just plain apathetic.  The funny thing about it though is that they chose their own projects.

One group launched their letter writing campaign by delivering letters to teachers asking them to share with their students to write a Christmas letter to soldiers abroad.  They are teaming up with a group called A Million Thanks.  

Another group created a Google Form and asked me to have my classes fill out the survey so they can have some data about the students and their health here at Savanna.

The projects got me thinking about where students should be in relation to other students.  One student is working on restoring an antique rifle.  That is a project that is going to take sometime, the finished product being the restored rifle.  Some groups have taken on projects where they review, music, food, and movies.  This is an on-going project.  So I'm wondering what the end products will be when groups are doing such disparate things.

Perhaps next week's presentations on their progress will uncover the answers that I'm seeking.

One housekeeping note, I walked all of my students using Blogger to choose "No" in "Show word verification."  I've commented on every blog this year at least once I've had to put in those cryptic codes to prove I'm not a robot.  I'm pretty sure I'm not a robot.  This will save me a lot of time and will keep what little patience I have in tact.

Thanks for reading.  Until next time.

Week 11 - Learning Can Be Messy

A couple of weeks ago I had my students go outside to do talking or conversation cards.  My student teacher and I thought that it went wonderfully.  All students were talking, listening, and getting a chance to interact with students they don't normally work with.  Since my classroom is so small, I had half of the students outside.

One of the teachers comes out and said they were a little loud.  I emailed everyone in the English quad to apologize.  One teacher wrote, "No biggie.  Sometimes learning can be loud."  That really stuck with me.  Now I'm realizing that learning can be messy as well.  I like to have things in order and neat, but sometimes you just have to let it go and just roll.

On Wednesdays my classroom looks like a computer cart exploded--wires and computers everywhere.  It doesn't look great, but it's neat seeing students working.  My 5th period class actually finished earlier than I would've liked, but they get right on their computers and start pumping out their blogs.  I don't know if they are doing it because they enjoy doing or because they have to, but whatever the reason is, I like they're writing.

Today I worked with a group that is going to illicit help from all the English teachers on campus.  They are starting a letter writing campaign for our troops.  They have found an organization called, A Million Thanks.  This organization sends letters to our troops to encourage them, especially during the holidays.  We just missed the deadline for Thanksgiving, but the pair of girls will talk to all the English teachers and they are going to ask them to read a letter that they have written to their students to raise up more letter writers here on campus.

What a great way to use that 20 percent time.  Will update on how many students actually write letters to our military.  Whatever the number, 2 or 200, it's that many more than what was written before this project.  Below are the links to the girls' blogs.

Letters to Troops Blog

Jenny's Letter to Troops Blog

Week 10 - Giving a nudge

A lot of groups are stuck.  They don't know what the next step needs to be in order to move their projects forward.  One student was fired up about going to Venice Beach to interview street performers as well as the motley cast of characters there to find out why they do what they do.

His genuine curiosity about the characters at Venice is wonderful, but I wondered how this was going to become a year long project.  I didn't want to discourage him though.  Anaheim is 39 miles from Venice Beach.  He said he was going to get out there and do the interviews, but since he hasn't, he spends a whole lot of time doing nothing during our 20 Percent days.

In his timeline, he wasn't concrete about when he would go saying, "I'll go on a weekend in October and November."  I commented on his paper that, he needs to plan out his dates better.  We are two days away from November and he has not made his first visit.

I'm going to have him prepare all of his questions in advance and figure how he is going to approach them, ask them questions/conduct the interview, and film all of this at the same time.  Even though he hasn't been there, doesn't mean that he can't use his time wisely.

To give all the students a nudge, I've given them a progress report assignment.  On the Google Presentation I've attached at the bottom, I gave them an assignment to present for 2 minutes max what their project is, what they have done so far, and what the next step will be.

Resources
20 Percent Progress Presentation

I think that presenting what they've done so far and seeing where their peers or at might be the push they need to break through and get some real work done.

On a different note, one of the real world skills that I see that students need to develop or use is communicating with people.  One group called different organizations to see if they could volunteer, but no one answers or they don't know who to talk to get what they need.

One girl asked me to call for her.  I told her to say, "Hi, my name is ******** and I'm a student at Savanna High School.  I was calling to see if you had any volunteer opportunities for me and some of my classmates."  I also said, "If the person you talked to can't help you, ask them for the name and number of the person that can help."

This student and her group members were almost stunned because it never occurred to them what they should say when they called.

Finally, I must stress that you need to be walking around and monitoring the students as they work.  Sadly, not all students make the best use of their time, but if you get around the classroom, their less likely to wander away to inappropriate content on the Internet.

These 20 Percent Days are the most tiring as I'm helping students throughout the whole time, troubleshooting technology issues, keeping kids on task, and offering suggestions about their project.

I'll leave you with a video of an 11th grade student explaining how she was using some of her time today researching examples of how to draw characters for her RPG she and her partner are creating.

Week 9 - A potpourri of progress

This is the last week of our first quarter of school and this was the last 20 Percent Day that we had for the quarter.  Ideally students should have completed 4 blogs for each week they've been working since I showed them how to blog, but most students had 3 while others had none, so I changed the required number of blogs for the first quarter from 4 to 3.

Instead of a fourth blog from everyone, I created a Google Form I had everyone fill called, "First Quarter Survey."    My thinking was that I could quickly read the responses and get a sense of where they are at.  I included questions about how like "How would rate how your project is going so far?" and "What do you need help with or are having trouble with?"

My goal  is to meet with the groups that need help or having a problem with something.  The final question I put on the form was optional and it allowed students to just add a question or a comment about the project.  Most of the students left it blank, but here is one student's answers for what they need help in and their comment.

Some groups need no help, some need a push, and some need some tweaking.  Next week I'm going to introduce the progress presentation they need to start next week they'll be preparing for their peers.  My thinking is that by sharing what they've done so far, they'll either not they are on the right track or they need to crank up it some.

Resources

Here is the link to the form I created. www.bit.ly/20timeform1

Week 8 - A break

Week 8 - Somewhat of a break

This week our school administered the PSAT to all of our 10th grade students during our 20 Percent Day.  No one consulted me about how it might conflict with my schedule, but that's how life goes.  I did not have my 2nd, 3rd, or 4th periods yesterday so I just wrote it off as a break for the students.  I was thinking about a break as well, but I wanted to keep my weekly habit going.  I also worked on grading the blogs.  The requirements were 150 words per week with a picture.

It's really neat to read their blogs and to comment on them.  I'm trying to leave encouraging remarks while moving them towards progress.  I must admit that this is quite a task to go in and comment on every students blog.  And when you leave a comment, you have to put in those dreaded, "Please prove you're not a robot" words and number combination.


One of the biggest problems that I've encountered with this project is having the kids blogging about what they are doing on a weekly basis.  I understand that some students don't have Internet access, but we've had computers in class weekly as well as accessing their blogs form the mobile app on their phones.  If they really wanted to do it, they could have done it.

About half of the kids have setup their blogs and are putting in good efforts. So students had a week from Wednesday to Wednesday to do a blog post to show their progress, but what do you when you don't meet on that day?  Some students are behind, and so what do they do?  Some students have not even started blogging, when they finally begin, where will they begin?

I think that I'll just give students the number of the blog they are on, on the Google Calendar I have on my website.  I'll just tell them so that I can grade the blog based on the week they do it, rather than when they do it.  For example, a student that sets up and begins his blog during this week 3 will not write "Blog Week 1" rather they will just write, "Blog Week 3."

I think I'll have my TAs grade that they are posting, and I'll go through and comment a class a week perhaps, maybe two if I can get to it.  It's too bad that viewing other people's blogs on Blogger is blocked, because I think that it would be neat for the kids to comment on each other's blog and develop a real audience.

I'm going to have to figure out how to get people to start commenting on the students' blogs so that they can take pride in writing the posts and the satisfaction of seeing that their project is of interest to someone out there on the World Wide Web.

Week 7 - Gaining Momentum

As we continue to work on our 20 Percent Projects, I see many students and groups working autonomously.  What a beautiful thing to see.

Because the students were working so well today, I spent the majority of my time taking students outside to film them talking about their projects.  I simply had them introduce themselves and say what they are doing their projects on.  After a few students were filmed, I noticed that many of the students were not comfortable talking into a camera.  I encouraged them to speak with confidence and look right into the camera.

In the video below, one of the groups had a bit of fun with it and did a great job.

  

This group is working on recreating the hit "Hot dogs or legs" pictures that were sort of big this summer.  I've included a link to one of the student's blog for this assignment.  Please feel free to visit his blog and leave him a comment if you have the time.  I'm sure he'd appreciate it. 

Jeikob's Hot Dog or Legs Blog

Since we are nearing the end of the first quarter, I'm thinking about an assignment or presentation in the second quarter when students come up, maybe two or three per week where students will come up and share the progress they are making.  I am thinking ahead because I'm anticipating that some students will need that motivation to produce something otherwise they may wait until the last minute and will have wasted all these Wednesdays.

Until next time.