Back to school doesn't have to mean back to homework

When I suggested to Chris Anderson, the creator of TED Talks and now TED-Ed, that he might want to reconsider using the term "Flip" for all his teacher-created videos, he looked puzzled. Flipped classroom, or flipped video in this case, refers to the practice of doing homework in class and watching the instruction at home. I explained, that the power of video doesn't have to be relegated solely to work that happens at home. Instead, these videos can be powerful in school learning tools as well. 

He asked why teachers and parents wouldn't want to watch these great videos for homework. I explained that there is a growing movement against homework among parents, educators, and students. Kids already spend about 6 hours a day with academic pursuits chosen by other people. More and more people feel time at home should be chosen by the child and his/her family. 

When we do this we empower and trust families to decide what they want to do when they leave school. Instead of homework, they may want to:

Play outside. 
Be with friends. 
Have dinner.
Talk and laugh.
Play games with friends or family. 
Read a book. 
Write a book.
Make a video. 
Draw. 
Chill out. 
Be bored. 
Sleep.

We need to take the work out of the home and give time back to students and their families. 

As I shared with Chris Anderson, this is a growing movement led by some of my favorite experts to do just that.  Here’s the video they’re using to make their case.

The below video is another anti-work at home video created for viewers to share and discuss with friends, colleagues and any PTA members or leadership officials

You have read this article Alfie Kohn / Chris Anderson / homework / TED Talks / TED-Ed with the title TED Talks. You can bookmark this page URL http://benncam.blogspot.com/2012/08/back-to-school-doesn-have-to-mean-back.html. Thanks!

Flip your classroom and more with TedEd videos

Guest post by Shawn Rubin

TedEd is a a new resource from TED talks with a focus on the flipped classroom model. The idea behind TedEd is that teachers can take the best of YouTube or create their own videos then flip them, which means adding titles, directions, questions and links to other resources.

These videos then live on the TedEd website. They each have their own unique URL and can be sent around to the general public for viewing and learning.

The beta version is quite useful for teachers looking to enter the flipped classroom space. Educators should note that there are a few missing features that will hopefully be addressed in the future, but until then, users should note that you don’t have the ability to create or edit the “Quick Quiz” section when you flip your lesson and once you flip your lesson you cannot edit it any further.

As a teacher who has been using YouTube for years with my kindergarten and second grade students I see TedEd as much more than a flipped classroom tool. In the lower grades TedEd is a resource for building video based lesson plans that can be delivered any place, any time, and by any adult.

YouTube is full of fantastic videos that reinforce early learning concepts like vocabulary, rhyming, numeracy and science. Each of these videos provides a way for teachers and students to engage with new content, but when they stand alone they have much less impact on long-term retention of information.

Flipping these videos on TedEd provides teachers a framework in which they can document the activities they use to enhance each video.

Here is an example of a short vocabulary lesson I built for an ELL kindergarten classroom that was working on increasing its Tier 3 vocabulary words. This lesson took me less than 10 minutes to build. I used one of Sesame Street’s “Word on the Street” episodes in which a famous actor teaches about the word “prickly”.

As you can see in my flipped lesson, the first step is to rename the video and provide some direction around what students could be doing while the video is playing. Physical gestures, movement and shout-outs during a video increase student participation and drive home the concept by engaging the brain in multiple ways.

Once the video has been completed or at various points throughout the video the teacher can click on the “Think” section of the lesson to get prompts on activities that students can do to further solidify their learning.

In my example I want students repeating the word “prickly” as often as possible. I also have prompts for taking the learning deeper by pushing student conversation toward the nuances of the word “prickly” and how it differs from the word “rough”.

Lastly, I built out the section called “Dig Deeper” with one activity in which the students must pick one prickly object to create. I then suggest different mediums the students can choose from, providing a degree of academic choice to them around how they express their “prickly” noun.

I finish the “Dig Deeper” section by pasting some links to prickly images from the web. Then I hit the “Publish” button and my video lesson is ready to go. I’m instantly provided with a URL that I can share with anyone.

These flipped lessons are excellent resources for:

1. Morning meetings and carpet based learning.
2. Unit starters or kick-offs to new exploration.
3. Support staff to use with students when the classroom teacher is engaged in small group instruction.
4. Families to use at home to reinforce the learning that is taking place in the classroom.
5. Movement based transitions throughout the day
6. Fun sub plans

Early grades teachers it’s time to get out there and flip your favorite videos. Register for TedEd today, find your video and flip away. Be sure to incorporate lots of movement and choice so your students will have never-ending fun with your TedEd lessons.

Once you’ve flipped your lesson share it with us! At the Highlander Institute we are building a list of great, early grade, TedEd, flipped lessons. Tweet them to us @HighlanderInst or send the link via email to srubin@highlanderinstitute.org. We will promote your lessons for other early grade teachers to benefit from.

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Shawn Rubin serves as the Director of Technology Integration at the Highlander Institute in Providence, RI. Shawn oversees the Institute’s blended learning and technology integration professional development programming. Shawn is also the CEO of Metryx, a start-up mobile software company that is building flexible assessment tools for educators to use on tablets and smartphones. Shawn began his education career as a founding faculty member of the Highlander Charter School teaching a range of grades including four years of kindergarten during his 11 years in the classroom. Shawn lives in Providence with his wife and two sons. You can find Shawn @shawncrubin or srubin@highlanderinstitute.org.

You have read this article flipped classroom / TED Talks / TED-Ed with the title TED Talks. You can bookmark this page URL http://benncam.blogspot.com/2012/08/flip-your-classroom-and-more-with-teded.html. Thanks!

Preparing students for success without tests and textbooks

In this TED Talk by South Bronx teacher Stephen Ritz we see how this innovative educator took a nontraditional route to lead his students to success. In his story, you will notice that when the focus is moved from subjects to students the results are amazing. You will also not see a single test or book report anywhere in sight.

As his recent TED Talk reveals, Ritz believes that students shouldn't have to leave their community to live, learn and earn in a better one. Ritz and his kids grow lush gardens for food, greenery -- and jobs. He is bringing generations of students successes they have never imagined while also reclaiming and rebuilding his community where they have grown more than 25,000 pounds of vegetables.

Rather than decorating class walls with the traditional carrots and sticks (grades and test scores) Ritz’s walls are edible generating enough produce to feed 450 students healthy meals. His students have gained the skills that have lead them to become the youngest nationally certified workforce in America traveling far and wide earning a wage and for some opening their family’s first bank account.

Watch the video below to discover out how one educator is growing a movement that is changing lives and rebuilding communities. Like what you see? Visit the student-run Green Bronx Machine Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/green.BX.machine

You have read this article choose2matter / green classroom / Stephen Ritz / TED / TED Talks with the title TED Talks. You can bookmark this page URL http://benncam.blogspot.com/2012/08/preparing-students-for-success-without.html. Thanks!

TED-Ed: Great delivery & creation tool, falls short on global collaboration

Chris Anderson addressed an audience of innovative educators at this year’s Building Learning Communities conference to discuss the launch of the TED-Ed platform. He shared that the great power of technology was its ability to facilitate amplification, specialization, and collaboration. TED-Ed knocks the ball out of the park on two of the three.

Amplification
An extension of TED’s commitment to sharing ideas worth spreading, TED-Ed’s commitment is to creating lessons worth sharing. This in turn amplifies the lessons by the best teachers to students across the globe.  Below is an example of a video which this lesson was created around.

Specialization
The TED-Ed lessons bring into focus how the future of education will bring specialization to the teaching profession with the lessons from the world’s best educators captured as well as the specialization of those able to bring those concepts to life via animation, video capturing, and editing capabilities.  This will free time for educators to work with individual students, pairs, and small groups.  

Collaboration - The missing piece
The TED-Ed platform is powerful in shifting the way teachers may spend their time in the classroom, but it misses the boat on collaboration as pointed out in the following tweet:
JackieGerstein Ed.D. ‏@jackiegerstein
@InnovativeEdu How does TedEd promote global collaboration? There are no tools for doing so on the site? Only tools for making tests

Chris Anderson explained that the collaboration happens when lesson creators and animators connect but it doesn't seem that the capability to do so is built into the system. Most importantly there is no way for learners to connect and collaborate. This would be a powerful feature that hopefully will be incorporated in the future.  

The power of the platform
Providing lessons that can be used for learning anytime/anywhere is not the only power of the platform.  What some teachers will find exciting is that they can customize existing lessons or create their own lessons using any YouTube video including those they themselves have created.  What's more, they can track learner progress because each unique lesson has its own url and learners can view their progress by viewing the "recent activity" tab.

What you’ll find on the site
Here is an outline of what you’ll find on the TED-ed site. You can watch it on video here.
Series

• These are video series.

Subjects

• The Arts
• Business & Economics
• Design, Engineering & Technology
• Health
• Literature & Language
• Mathematics
• Psychology
• Science & Technology
• Social Studies
• Thinking & Learning

Best Flips
Best flips are exceptional, user-created lessons. Users nominate the lessons they build. The lessons are carefully selected by volunteer teachers and TED-Ed. Want to see your lesson here? Don't forget to hit nominate after you publish.
YouTube
You can transform any YouTube video into a lesson worth sharing and customize it by adding your own supplementary materials and sharing your lesson with others.

• Watch
• View the video
• Think
• Questions which students will answer and submit
• Dig Deeper
• Ideas to continue the learning
• …And Finally
• Concluding thoughts

Once teachers become comfortable with TED-Ed for lesson delivery and creation, they may want to support their students in become lesson creators too. Anyone can create a TED-Ed lesson. For the best lessons, don't forget to nominate them for Best Flips to amplify lessons that can be shared with the world.


So what do you think? Is TED-Ed a tool you can see incorporating into your practice.

You have read this article #blc12 / TED Talks / TED-Ed with the title TED Talks. You can bookmark this page URL http://benncam.blogspot.com/2012/07/ted-ed-great-delivery-creation-tool.html. Thanks!

Removing Versus from Our Ed. Reform Dialogue

by John Clemente

TED talks are often an incubator for iconoclastic thinking - the talks in general carry the message think out of the box. And so it comes as no surprise that the TEDxNYED conference speakers last weekend delivered a message that runs counter to the current big trends in education- There is a national movement towards developing common standards. There are incentives for states to lift caps on charter schools. States are building complex electronic assessment systems to track and analyze standardized student test data.

The speakers at TEDxNYED emphasized their ideas are at odds with these trends. They spoke of how the classroom environment needs to be redesigned to foster collaboration and self-directed student learning; how we need to shift from standardized assessments to portfolio assessments that focus on the creation process. They spoke of how we need to co-opt gaming/fantasy culture, social media and incorporate real world problems to engage students in learning; how broadening the curriculum (not narrowing it) is critical to preparing our children for tomorrow's world.

Many of the talks were inspiring and that kind of thinking needs to be more prominent in the national education reform conversation.

But...

All of the talks stayed inside the box with regard to how we dialogue about education publicly. It is a well-worn war paradigm... whole language vs. phonics... core knowledge vs. critical thinking skills... Luke Skywalker vs. Darth Vader... good guys vs. bad guys metaphor of your choice...

This paradigm doesn't work in the best interests of a child's education. When I was a teacher, my 6th grade students in the Bronx endured changing reading programs 3 times in 5 years. Switching philosophy in a reading curriculum is good politically- those in charge get a clean slate and time to implement their new initiative. But it is disruptive to the child’s learning experience. When we switch from whole language one year to a phonics focused program the next, students lose consistency; something all too familiar for the students I taught.

Michael Wesch said something that resonated on this chord for me. He described his experiences studying the people of Papua New Guinea. Instead of putting people on trial, they put the failed relationships between them on trial. We need to shift our national education dialogue this way. There should be less finger pointing, wagging and gesturing in our dialogue, and more hand holding, shaking and slapping with an emphasis on building relationships and making connections between ideas that people often rush to say are inherently at odds. We should view all of the current innovative ideas –including those that carry the banner of “market-based reforms” and those that are of the “school 2.0/21st Century” ilk- as a patchwork of thinking that it is our responsibility to weave together.

The thought leaders that spoke at this conference need to be assertive in the way they connect their ideas to the thinking of the people carrying forward reforms with a focus on accountability and standards. There will be common standards, there will be more charter schools, there will be a bigger emphasis on standardized assessments. All of this will happen whether they choose to engage with them or not. While there is reason to be leery, there is also tremendous potential for good in these trends. I suggest we all weave our solutions to that quilt.

There are nascent innovative projects like School of One, a project to rethink human capital in the school context and utilize technology to personalize student learning, that would benefit greatly from the thinking of the speakers at TEDxNYED. I implore these innovators to knock on the door and invite themselves to sit at the table to make connections between their ideas and the reforms rapidly taking root. This challenge is perhaps more difficult than setting the course for education independent of the accountability movement; but it is also a much more worthy cause. Otherwise, for these provocateurs, the echo of their voices will continue to fade into the background- lost to the next generation of leaders.

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John Clemente is the Director of Educational Services at Teaching Matters

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Spend Saturday with the TEDxNYED Education, New Media and Technology Webinar

TEDxNYED, a conference examining the role of new media and technology in shaping the future of education, will take place this Saturday in Manhattan and will be webcast live at www.TEDxNYED.com, allowing viewers around the world to join and engage in these “ideas worth spreading.”

TEDxNYED is operating under license from TED, organizers of the immensely popular TED Conference, an annual event where some of the world’s leading thinkers and doers are invited to share what they are most passionate about. In the spirit of "ideas worth spreading," TED has created TEDx, a program of local, organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. ted.com/tedx.

TEDxNYED is independently organized by New York educators. At TEDxNYED, TEDTalks video and live speakers will combine to spark deep discussion and connections. Individuals have been invited to share their insights and inspire conversations about the future of education. Attendees of the conference will participate via networking sessions where they will educate one another and, in the spirit of TED, help spread these ideas. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events, including ours, are self-organized.

TEDxNYED presenters include: Gina Bianchini, co-founder and CEO of Ning, one of the world’s most popular social networking websites; Amy Bruckman, leader of the Electronic Learning Communities research group at the Georgia Institute of Technology; Andy Carvin, Senior Strategist at NPR’s Social Media Desk; Dan Cohen, Director of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University; Jeff Jarvis, author of the recent book What Would Google Do?, blogger at buzzmachine.com and Director of the Interactive Journalism program at CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism; Henry Jenkins, Professor of Communication, Journalism and Cinema at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism; Neeru Khosla, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the CK-12 Foundation, which aims to reduce the cost of textbook materials for the K-12 market; Lawrence Lessig, pioneering creative commons advocate, director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, and a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School; Dan Meyer, acclaimed high school math teacher and blogger in Santa Cruz, CA; Jay Rosen, Professor of Journalism at NYU and press critic; George Siemens, Founder and President of Complexive Systems Inc. and author of the book Knowing Knowledge; Mike Wesch, dubbed “the explainer” by Wired Magazine, a cultural anthropologist exploring the effects of new media on society and culture; and David Wiley, Associate Professor of Instructional Psychology and Technology at Brigham Young University. For more detailed bios please visit http://tedxnyed.com/speakers.

The emcee for TEDxNYED will be my friend and colleague Juliette LaMontagne, a Leadership Coach for the Asia Society International Studies Schools Network and part of the NYCDoE iZone.

HOW TO WATCH TEDXNYED

TEDxNYED will be webcast live at www.TEDxNYED.com starting at 10am EST on Saturday, March 6, 2010. Join the conversation on Twitter using our hashtag #TEDxNYED or on our public Facebook fan page at facebook.com/TEDxNYED.

Follow TED on Twitter at twitter.com/TEDTalks, or on Facebook at facebook.com/TED.

You have read this article TED / TED Talks / TEDx with the title TED Talks. You can bookmark this page URL http://benncam.blogspot.com/2010/03/spend-saturday-with-tedxnyed-education.html. Thanks!