Educating Body and Mind

Can you sit still and concentrate for more than seven hours? How, when, and where do you do your best thinking and planning?  

How long before your back starts hurting?  An hour?  Two?

Chances are pretty good that your first answer was "Heck, NO!" and your second answer, either through preference or necessity, involved some sort of activity.  I am a high school English teacher, and while I love reading in bed more than I love chocolate, I would not be able to fully concentrate and function for more than seven hours without some kind of physical activity.  I can't even function for more than one hour without moving or stretching. As for where I do my best thinking and planning?  That would be in the middle of a run.

This is EXACTLY how I look when I am planning lessons. . .and finishing a half marathon.

The thing is, if we can't sit still and concentrate for long periods of time, why do we expect our children to do so at school?  Standardized testing is taking over our schools, and strapped school boards are cutting physical education and recess, what many people initially considered "gravy," from their school curricula in order to spend more time with test preparation.  Is this good for kids?  If you asked your students if they’d like to have more P.E. time, do you think they’d say “yes”? Of course, they would! 

This is what schools are losing.

Good news for them – lately, a different kind of “movement,” one that goes beyond a focus on testing and raising academic performance, has been catching on. 

Active learning incorporates strategies like dance and play to help students concentrate better, navigate social situations and practice leadership and patience. 

Teachers and administrators who create the right balance of academics and play report promising results in their classroom. Using this PBS NewsHour video, help students understand why physical activity is important to both the body and the mind. WATCH: http://to.pbs.org/1LLjwsA

Like what you read?  Follow me on Twitter @itibrout!

Teaching Healthy Food Choices in School

As a runner, I'm pretty aware of what I eat and drink.  I try to include as many fruits and vegetables as possible in my diet, and I do track my nutrition on myfitnesspal.com.  

My children at home and my students at school are aware of my eating choices; discussing food and exercise is just a way of life to me.  I try to show them that moderation is the key to healthy eating, and I try to demonstrate eating to fuel my body rather than bingeing to compensate for an emotional need.  

One thing I do with my Blended Rhetoric and Composition class is food blogs.  I demonstrate with my post about making butternut squash quesadillas, and then I bring in the quesadillas to share with the class.  In my blog post, I write about taste, texture, and nutrition.  Sometimes this hits home with the students when it is their turn to write posts and share food, but more often than not, it just gives our class an excuse to eat brownies.

Healthy

Not healthy, but oh, so good!

Different foods provide different kinds of nutrients, and some foods are more nutritious than others. That is the basis of this multi-media lesson from WGBH that teaches your students the fundamentals of nutrition and how essential it is to our health! 

The lesson begins with an activity in which students consider two plates of food – one composed of healthy choices and one composed of “less healthy” choices. Students then watch a video about healthy eating habits, and discuss the role of fruits and vegetables in a wholesome diet. Your class will also investigate snacks and learn about the difference between "everyday" and "sometimes" foods. 

Everyday food

Sometimes food

Finally, they’ll participate in a hands-on activity that challenges them to make healthy choices while preparing a plate of food for a friend. EXPLORE: http://to.pbs.org/1H4azqZ

Like what you read?  Follow me on Twitter @itibrout!

Love from PBS LearningMedia

As a PBS LearningMedia Digital Innovator, I get really cool stuff to share with you each week.  This week the theme is "Backyard Summer."  Each week I will share links and material with you to help you in your lesson planning.  Here is the video for the week of July 6:

Do you like slugs, spiders and beetles? In this video from Wild TV, students learn about many different kinds of insects, and gain a healthy reverence for them. They’ll see that some insects crawl like spiders and centipedes, while others fly, walk on water and even flip and “click.” 

Students will also learn the names of some interesting-looking insects, like the dobsonfly. They will discover how to be safe around dangerous spiders and how some use escape reflexes, like the click beetle. As they listen and watch closely, students will observe how the speakers in the video feel about the various insects by the way they react to and talk about them. WATCH: http://to.pbs.org/1ICx6Jr

Like what you read?  Follow me on Twitter @itibrout.  I will share a new link each day.  Some will be useful for elementary school teachers, some for higher levels.  Enjoy!

I'll Meet You There.

Sometimes teachers who incorporate technology into their teaching can't understand teachers who don't (or administrators who don't encourage technology use in the classroom).  I hear the frustration from teachers who say, "It's a new era of teaching.  Why won't people just give it a try?"  I get it.  We have discovered a new world, one that is both stimulating and frightening, and we want everyone to get on the roller coaster.

But.

Roller coasters can be more than scary; they can be dangerous.  They can make you sick, or at the very least give you a headache.  The key is knowing what you can handle and taking one. tiny. step. beyond that.  Unless you are like me, and you just jump in the front seat and strap yourself in with that flimsy lap belt.  Jump first; panic later--that's my motto.

This is what ed. tech. looks like.  Does it frighten you?

There are times when I talk to my colleagues, and I mention projects I'm doing in my classes, and they are horrified.

"You let the students USE THEIR PHONES?  All the time?  Why would you do that?  They are just texting."

"I couldn't spend all that time putting notes and lessons on Blackboard.  If the students want the notes, they have to pay attention when I present."

"Why should I spend all that time creating an online quiz/game when we all know the site will go down as soon as I need it?"

"What do you mean, you let your students re-do assignments until they have 'mastered' them?  How much grading do you do?  How do you keep students accountable?"

I get it.  I do.  Sometimes I say the same things.

But.

I think those people secretly want to get on the roller coaster.  I think they are afraid of failure, that failure of a lesson means they are failures.  I know this feeling, and my goal is to help my colleagues overcome it.  The question is. . . how?

This month PBS Learning Media informed me that I am a 2015 Lead PBS Digital Innovator.

STEPHANI ITIBROUT

2015 LEAD PBS DIGITAL INNOVATOR

WVIZ/PBS IDEASTREAM
MEDINA HIGH SCHOOL
MEDINA, OHIO

Read the Full Bio

Stephani is an English teacher and blended learning teacher at Medina High School in Medina, Ohio. Stephani knows that learning is messy, and Blended Learning is especially messy. She loves seeing the light bulbs illuminate above her students' heads when a seemingly chaotic project suddenly clicks into place.

Favorite PBS LearningMedia resource: Michael Palin’s Hemingway Adventure: Paris

This means that I am lucky enough to join twenty-nine colleagues who are committed to learning more about effective integration of ed tech in the classroom.

It also means I get to attend the first day of ISTE!

Because I am sure I have impostor syndrome, I have been asking myself why I have the honor of receiving this award.  I went over and over my video and essay submissions, and this is what I have decided:  I am a 2015 PBS Learning Media Lead Digital Innovator not just because I want to share my digital learning discoveries with my students, but also because I desperately want to share the roller coaster fun with my colleagues.  I've figured it out: one tiny step beyond your safety line, that's all it takes to hook you.

I'm going to try to hook you by meeting you where you are, just like I do with my students.  You like to lecture?  Ok, let me show how to backchannel using  Today's Meet, a great way to collect students' questions and reactions during your lesson.  You can archive the whole thing--no risk.  If it doesn't work, dump it.

 Do you like bell work?  Let's talk about Answer Garden; you can poll students online before class and discuss their answers as soon as the bell rings.

My point is this: we "digital innovators" need to realize that baby steps are necessary.  Offer one thing only, and if that one thing works. . .offer another.  Years ago, my very wise department head told me, "Students can only really process one lesson at a time.  Teach them ONE THING.  When they have mastered it, move on."  And so it is with teachers.

Where are you on the path of digital innovation?   I'll meet you there.

Like what you read?  Follow me on Twitter @itibrout!PBS

The "New" Paper

My sophomores finished their persuasive research papers in February, and they presented them as speeches in March.  This took more than a month of preparation: how to research, how to document sources, how to prep a paper, how to edit and revise, and finally how to turn a persuasive paper into a speech for a cause.  It was exhausting for all of us but totally worth it.  I feel confident that my students have practiced good research and writing technique, and I hope they will tap into this process the next time they have to write a formal paper.

But.

Our next composition is a comparison paper, and I thought, "What do students normally compare and why should they care about it?"   The answer is this:  Students are consumers, as any marketing agency knows, and they compare EVERYTHING.  What kinds of research do students do before they make a purchase or use a product?  They read reviews on Amazon, or they watch them on YouTube.  So, I decided to tap into their natural curiosity about the products they consume.  Our comparison paper became a comparison consumer review.

The easy part was teaching them comparison format, and the fun part was showing them embedded YouTube clips of comparisons of fast food.  See James Norton, who used to be Supertaster for Chow.com, review burgers in this clip:





The students loved watching Norton review peanut butter, hot chocolate, you name it.  I loved that we could talk about the structure of his comparisons: Does he use block style or point by point?  How does he remind you of the purpose of his comparisons?

The students also had time to browse written consumer reviews on the web to see what was interesting to them as readers and helpful to them as consumers and what was not.

Then the writing began, and honestly, I thought this would be the easiest part.  Oh, they did a great job with outlines and research, but when it came time to put it all together, they started constructing typical five-paragraph essays.

"Hey!  What are you doing?" I asked the class after seeing students type up neat paragraphs with good topic sentences and quotes from sources to support their points.  "Is this what you would like to read online if you're researching products?"

"Well, no, "they replied, "but isn't this how you write a paper?"

This. Isn't. A. Paper.

It took a class period for me to convince them to support their ideas in other ways than quotes and parenthetical citations.  I reminded them of the pictures and video clips they saw when browsing reviews.  We practiced hyperlinking for the consumer who might want more information.  Finally, I saw some light bulbs going on above students' heads.  Finally, the consumer reviews became relevant to them.

Our next step is publication, but we aren't there yet.  When the editing is done, the students will load their reviews into our Blackboard blog, where they will see all the posts and comment on them.  My hope is that seeing their blog posts online and seeing comments from peers attached to those posts will drive the point home that writing is relevant, and not all writing has to be a formulaic five-paragraph essay--although I'm not knocking formulas or five-paragraph essays; those definitely have their place in the teaching of writing, just not every kind of writing.

Oh, and there is one last benefit to writing comparison consumer reviews:

I don't have to lug these around with me.

Like what you read?  Follow me on Twitter @itibrout!

What I Learned at the Learn 21 Conference

First, let me say that it was going to be so perfect, so relaxing.  Shannon and I had prepared our presentation Teaching in Beta: How Video Killed the Red Pen, and we were going down to Columbus early so we would be fresh and ready to deliver at the Learn 21 Conference the next morning.  This was our agenda:

1. Leave school
2. Go directly to Starbucks (Frappucinos!  Yes!)
3. Drive ninety minutes to Columbus
4. Check into the hotel
5. Go to a nice place for dinner
6. Rehearse the presentation
7. Early bedtime

   

   You know you want it!

When the car behind us on the highway slammed into us and pushed us into a water-filled ditch, we realized that everything would not be going according to our agenda.  Luckily, nobody was hurt, and we live in the age of cell phones, so we were able to get help.  Lots of help.  Three hours, one policeman, one firetruck, one EMS attendant, and two tow trucks worth of help.  This wonderful team made sure we weren’t in danger, reassured us, investigated the situation, protected us from the cars whizzing by on the highway, and finally pulled us out of the ditch.  It took three hours.

Getting in and out of the car was fun.  It was even more fun for the tow truck guy.  Photo credit:  Shannon Conley-Kurjian

Flash forward to the next morning:  We arrived at Ohio State University’s Student Union with plenty of time to spare, and we started to boot up our devices and plug them into the wireless connection.  Between the two of us, we had brought a Dell, a Chromebook, a Macbook, two iPads, and two iPhones, and NONE of them would connect.  I started sweating as I texted Christina, our tech integration coach, to leave her session and come help us, which she promptly did.  Of course she did the same thing I had been doing for ten minutes, but it worked for her.  Grrrr.  

We plugged the working laptop into the thingy with the cord (sorry for the technical jargon), did a test run, and realized that the sound wasn’t working.  Our room started filling up as flop sweat gathered on my upper lip.  Shannon found some help, and once again a team came to our rescue.  

After all that, the presentation went really well. Click here to see our slides about Teaching in Beta.

I started this post with the intention of reviewing the sessions I saw at Learn 21, but now I realize that those sessions weren’t really the focus of what I learned at Learn 21.  Don’t get me wrong; I’m still going to write a post about Gamification, but that will be for another time.  The most important thing I learned from my two days is the importance of a team.  Shannon, Christina, and I are a team, as you can see from reading our previous posts.  Shannon and I supported each other not only through planning the presentation, but also during the car accident and its after effects.  We found a way to laugh at ourselves and our situation when we had to stop to buy duct tape to keep the back end of the car together on the way home.

Classy, right?

We assured each other (and the other driver) that we were very, very lucky.  Christina offered to pick us up off the highway and stayed in touch with us when we said we’d stick with the car.  I’m not going to mention the fact that she was eating a giant cream puff from Schmidt’s while we were standing in the rain by the side of the highway.  Oh wait. . .

I guess I did just mention it.  Photo credit: Christina Hamman.  Ahem.

When we had trouble connecting at the conference, Christina was the first one there to help, and her calm demeanor kept me from gouging out my brain.  

Danielle Tymitz from Learn 21 hooked us up with fabulous chair massages, which honestly kept me from having to go to a doctor after the accident.  All that tension melted away as the massotherapist kneaded my neck and shoulders.  

The teams of people who took care of us before, during, and after the conference (our techie sound-guys, the tow truck drivers, Medina people, Learn 21 people) turned what could have been a frightening situation into a lesson on support.  

We all need a team.  We need to work together to move forward and sometimes just to hold on to each other to keep from slipping backward. How many times have you decided you were going to give up on a project/student/lesson/administrator and someone talked you off the ledge? Living in Beta means taking risks and being uncomfortable. I feel a lot better knowing that I can take risks in my teaching when I have a team at my back.  I’d like to thank all the members of the teams who helped us to realize this at Learn 21.

Like what you read?  Follow me on Twitter  @itibrout!

Digital Storytelling through YouTube Tools

This summer I attended the ISTE conference in Atlanta.  Besides experiencing the Bucket of Love at Sway Restaurant and singing "Love Shack" to hundreds of people, I came back with lots of ideas to try in my classroom.

Believe it or not, this happened BEFORE I sang "Love Shack" in front of hundreds of people.

The most intriguing (and entertaining) hourly session I attended was "Digital Storytelling through YouTube" by Steve Dembo (@teach42).  Steve is an excellent speaker, and he kept the crowd engaged for an hour with his rapid-fire narrative delivery and his videos of goats.  He had me at goats.  Here is one example of what kept my attention: 

I was very excited to try Steve's ideas for digital storytelling through YouTube.  There were so many great projects, but three particularly resonated with me:  Draw My Life, Swede It, and One Minute/One Take.

Anyone who is around children knows about Draw My Life, where an artist draws scenes from the voiceover narrative in fast motion on a whiteboard.  Click here for an example.  Better yet, do what I told my students to do: spend some time browsing YouTube for good and bad examples of Draw My Life.  What made the good examples interesting?  How did they keep your attention?  What were the themes that you took from them?

Swede It is a little more difficult to explain, especially as I am not a Jack Black fan, but here is how I understood it:  There is a movie called Be Kind, Rewind that stars Jack Black, whose character runs a video store.  For some reason the video tapes are damaged, and the owners need some money, so they re-do some of the movies using the cheap materials and equipment they have on hand.  A customer rents Star Wars from them, and upon returning it says that it was the most bizarre version he had ever seen.  Jack Black responds, "It's the Swedish version."  This is a long way to go for a YouTube fad, but there is a Swede It trend where people try to copy scenes from major movies in the same manner (cheaply and probably in a silly manner).

One Minute/One Take condenses major movies into--you guessed it-- one minute done in one take of the camera.  Click here to see one version of Forest Gump.

Steve presented these projects as remakes of movies, but he immediately put them into a digital storytelling perspective:  How would your students present the Fibonacci numbers as a One Minute/One Take?  They must condense something very complex into one minute.  What do they consider important in that minute?  What about the Cold War as a Swede It?  What version would the students re-enact with the materials they have on hand?  How can students convey the concept of Absurdism through a Draw My Life?

Inspired by the creativity in the project, I decided to jump right into a project of my own about. . .you guessed it: Absurdism.  My Advanced Placement Literature and Composition students had read Albert Camus' The Plague and Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle for their summer reading, and we had tied those works into Camus' treatise on absurdism, The Stranger.  I was tired of assigning papers (almost as tired as my students were of writing them), and I wanted to know what my students understood about absurdism as it applies to these three novels.  This is what I came up with after much discussion with my Blended Learning Colleagues:  Click here for a view of the whole project, including the rubric.

The Big Picture

You have read three novels that share the philosophy of absurdism.  Your task is to portray absurdism in all three novels using the lens of nonconformity, religion, or human suffering/endurance.  You will work in groups and present your project as a YouTube video.  Here are the details:

The Questions:   What is absurdism? How does the authors’ use of one thematic concept convey absurdism?

Thematic Concepts (choose one):   Nonconformity, Religion, Human Suffering/Endurance

The Vehicle:  Choose one of the three:

                           Draw My Life                  One Minute/One Take               Swede It

The Method:

Day 1:  Choose teams.  Explore examples of the YouTube tools from the embedded links on the webpage.  Discuss strategies.

Days 2-3:  Research and gather evidence of the portrayal of absurdism through one of the three thematic concepts.  Use Google Spreadsheet (Create-Spreadsheet) or insert a table in a Google doc (Insert-Table) to track your page numbers for the references in each novel.  Share the table/spreadsheet with me through Google. (20 points)

Day 4: Storyboard.  Use paper or a tool or app:  Powerpoint, Google Presentation, Prezi, Lucid diagrams (Go to Google Drive, Create, Lucid), or any that suits you.

Day 5:  Storyboard.  Embed your storyboard in the discussion board by the end of the day.  If you used paper, take pictures and embed them. If you used a Google app, share it with me. (30 points)

Once your storyboard is ready, you have one week to make your video, submit it to YouTube, and embed it in the discussion board.

The students enjoyed this project, and I heard some very insightful discussions during their collaboration time.  The timeline was perfect; what I like best about it is that I turned the students loose to make their videos on their own.  I find that when it comes to tech, it's better that I give the students a goal to reach  without telling them how to get there.  In this case, I knew the students would find the resources that worked best for them to create storyboards, load them into a discussion board on our LMS, film the videos, load them to YouTube, and embed them in the LMS.  It would be counter productive for me to require them to use any certain tool or format to achieve the end result.  I did spend some time teaching the concept of storyboards, and I think with younger students, it would be a good idea to give them some examples of storyboards or maybe create some together before letting them work in groups.  Here are some of my students' projects:

Absurdism through Religion:  Draw My Life

Absurdism through Human Endurance/Suffering:  Swede It

What I like about using these three tools is that you can do this without technology.  No access to storyboarding digital tools?  Paper or posterboard will work just fine.  You don't have the means to make a video?  Why make one at all?  Challenge your students to a live session of Swede It, One Minute/One Take, or Draw My Life.  It beats the heck out of listening to the same speech over and over, and I bet your students will get just as much out of the collaboration and presentation as they would doing the project digitally.  Plus, you don't have to grade papers!  How genius is that?

While I truly believe in the value of sustained analysis (yes, my students still have to write papers), I think that condensing information down into its true essence (which may be different for everyone) is a valuable skill to teach our students.  YouTube Digital Storytelling is one way we can use the tools they often already play with online to allow them to create meaning from complex ideas.

Plus, it generates funny bloopers.

Like what you read?  Follow me on Twitter @itibrout