Logistics (3 Separate Spring Breaks) and Hiring Student Editors

[This is adapted from an email I sent to Chris and Michele.]

Spring Break is hitting our three schools in Denver, Honolulu, and Seoul in three different weeks. Another wrinkle in Flat World collaboration. Honolulu starts Spring Break this week.

It's not a bad thing, from a writerly view. One week off is good. But three weeks off? Uh-oh.

Anyway, concerning the current week, when Honolulu is off the radar, here's what I'm telling my kids:

Hemingway himself said that he lets drafts sit for a couple of weeks so he forgets what they look like. Then, when he re-visits them, he first pulls out his (and I quote) "Shock-proof sh#t- detector" before reading them.

Because he hasn't looked at his draft for so long, the bad parts really jump out at him. It helps him see what needs work.

So a one-week hiatus (and Michele, you and I need to coordinate our own Spring Breaks and find a way not to let this sit too long) is good.

That will give us time to breathe, figure out who should be "fired" (if necessary), and prep some exercises for word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions.

Also, I'm going to start my editors interviews. Announcing it tomorrow: prepare resume (our college counselor just hooked the freshmen up with an online resume builder, so why not hook into that), samples of blog and other writing work, and samples of good peer editing from the project.

Expectations? Maybe two conference calls: first for our student editors to plan the process; second, for them to discuss and select submissions? Both to be podcasted as digital portfolio bullets of authentic publishing experience?

How does that sound? Can we set April 1 as the deadline to have our student editors selected? April 7 as the date (roughly) of their first conference call?

One problem: Skype conferencing only allows 5 callers maximum. That means one school either only selects one editor, or else we find a creative solution to enable more (for example, two students using a line-in headphone splitter (double jack) to plug two headphones into one computer).

Thoughts?

Podcast: Hawaii Students Sound Off on Classroom Blogging, Wiki Collaboration, More...

On Sunday, 11 March 2007 (oh wait--that's Korea time. It was Saturday in Hawaii), Chris Watson was nice enough to invite three of his students in Hawaii to join us in a Skype conference call/podcast. And Lindsay, Eddie, and Blake were nice enough to accept.

His two sophomores and one freshman did most of the talking, and Chris and I listened. What they had to say (and the relaxed, intelligent way they said it) was, I hope you'll agree, worth the listen. The talk was long and wide-ranging, but focused mainly on their experience of writing on blogs and wikis in the Language Arts classroom.

I have to add this: class discussions inside classroom walls--and tyrannized by classroom "factory bells"--don't hold a candle to what we did on Skype. There was no clock-watching, no hierarchy, no policing. We were just five people talking about writing and learning in this new world.

It was enough to make me consider getting a Ph.D. in administration--something I've never been interested in--simply to have the credentials to find funding to create a school without bells and factory rules, and with more conversations like this.

The podcast, if downloaded to iTunes, is extended with a time-stamped Table of Contents. For your convenience (I know I never have time to listen to hour-long podcasts), I've copied it below the podcast player.


Click here to get your own player.



00:00:00.000 Intro
00:01:31.000 Opening Questions on Student Blogging
00:02:31.484 Lindsay on Student Blogging
00:03:16.326 Chris' approach (Lindsay) and privacy
00:04:49.000 Frequency Eddie
00:05:27.333 Content Eddie and Lindsay EssenQs
00:06:25.000 Pitfalls: Rambling diaries
00:06:42.000 Reading other sts blogs
00:07:42.250 Lindsay: Reading Adult blogs for inspiration
00:09:47.375 Blake joins: reading blog habits
00:11:57.000 Lindsay's blog recommendations
00:12:26.250 Assigned to read/comment on others?
00:13:37.625 The Art of the Title
00:14:46.625 edit and revise, or just post?
00:19:34.875 Finding ideas
00:20:42.375 On sts who DON'T like blogging
00:26:35.625 Will you keep it after class is over?
00:26:59.875 Blake on 1001: Don't want it to end
00:27:52.375 Permissions and School restrictions
00:31:12.750 My school's "fresh start": anagrams and anonymity change writing?
00:34:49.375 On MySpace writing v. blogging
00:38:38.139 Does Blogging Feel like Homework?
00:42:20.526 How Teachers Can Ruin Blogging
00:44:37.838 Blogging Across the Curriculum
00:47:15.750 Students on Best Assessing
00:52:39.500 Flat World Time Management
00:54:01.969

1001 Flat World Tales "Kudzu" Update: Five New Countries Enter New Workshops

(Cross-posted from Beyond School)

Ms. Cofino posted an announcement that the first middle school (11-14 year-old, for non-Yanks) 1001 Flat World Tales global wiki writing workshop opened. One interesting spin-off for me was that I simply snooped into the wiki they set up for it, and saw so many improvements to my own wiki design for our current high school wiki that I see some major thievery coming in a future overhaul. Wonderful job, Ms. Cofino. When I read and watch you, I'm "Always Learning" too.

Again, real professional development just through watching each other work. Doesn't happen very often in the physical school-building, but one click with a web 2.0 collaborative colleague takes me into her virtual classroom, where I'm watching and learning in an instant. The wows continue.

To add to that wow: Here's how the Flat World Tales kudzu has grown in the two months since its inception:

• High school first workshop cycle: Seoul, Denver, Honolulu (in week 4, third revision)
  
• High school second workshop: Australia, Serbia, Shanghai (getting underway this week)
• Middle school first workshop: Malaysia, Serbia, Canada (now open)
  
• Elementary school first workshop: USA (Missouri), Dominican Republic (now open)

That's classrooms in ten countries making connections, writing together, aiming toward authentic publication on the "blook"--all for nary a penny nor a conference, thanks to the read-write web and some tapped-in teachers. Talk about the "machine us/ing us."

Go to the 1001 Reflections collaborating teachers blog for our exploration of how a "flat world faculty" team blog might help us and future participants. It's still messy, but it's far better than the neat boxes of the past, I think.

Please Start Cross-Posting Your Reflections...Please?

Michele, Chris, all--I just dipped into my Bloglines for the first time in too many days, and noticed that you had all been reflecting, to one degree or another, about the Tales project so far in your blogs.

Please, please, a million times please: cross-post those blogs here! That's the whole point of this collaborative blog--to consolidate all reflections in one place so that a) we can reply to each other and collectively reflect; and b) so that future teachers can use this blog to learn from our experiences.

It does take maybe an extra three minutes to bother, but I hope you'll do it anyway.

Talk to you folks soon~

"Hey, You Got 15 Minutes?" A Three-Country Team Meeting, Cyber-Style (Podcast)

[Update: If you don't see the podcast in the player below, check back shortly for Podomatic to do its thing, or else click on the player to go to the podcast page.]

Terry Smith of Hannibal, Missouri, USA, Jeff Dungan of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and I (in Seoul, Rep. of Korea), have a "virtual faculty meeting" to plan the first elementary school writing workshop for the 1001 Flat World Tales Project.

It was the most efficient team meeting I think I've ever had. Length: 20 minutes.

(Download to iTunes to see extended podcast Chapter Markings.)


Click here to get your own player.

Navigating the Flat Seas: Time is Melting

time melting away..
Originally uploaded by areyarey.

1001 Flat World Tales update: Michele, Chris, and I seem like three shepherds trying to herd 130 cats in three different timezones. (I know I'm mixing metaphors--call me avant garde.)

Here are the things I'm noticing from Week 2 of the first HS world writing workshop that I hope we reflect on this weekend when we Skpye:

1. Flat World Time Management:

"Thursday midnight deadline" for peer response means this in World Time:

1. Korea: Thurday midnight (2400)
2. Denver: Thursday 0800
3. Honolulu: Thursday 0500

Doesn't seem like a problem, right? But..."Revise your stories, based on peer feedback, between Thursday midnight and Sunday midnight" means this, for my Korean students:

1. Denver's peer responses for my story won't be done until Friday 1600 Korean time
2. Honolulu's peer responses won't be done until Friday 1900

So really, my students don't have "Friday through Sunday." They have "Friday night through Sunday." They lose 19 out of 72 hours for revision time due to time zone differences.

We need to fine tune that. I notice, too, that the Thursday feedback/Sunday revise deadlines seem misguided: we're giving four days (minus lag time) for feedback, and three days (minus lag time) for re-writing? It should be the other way around. So I'll vote for Wednesday deadline for peer response, so the majority of the weekly round is devoted to re-writing, not responding.

We need to all learn, young and old, how to understand world time and work cycles. My students are "reporting" partner classroom students for late feedback because they don't see feeedback by their own Thursday midnight.

I want a parent who works in a multinational team to talk to my classes (Skype?) about how this looks in the real world. Would it make more sense for us to all use GMT/UTC time to coordinate this work?

Tips on Tables in Wikispaces: A Word to the Wise

From a Skype chat transcript with Cindy Barnsley of Australia, who is talking with Mira in Serbia and probably right now emailing Ed in Shanghai to start the next 1001 Tales workshop cycle for the high school level:

Tables in wikispaces are a bit annoying, but working without them would be worse still. Things to be aware of (they're easy once you know):

1. To add a column or row, just click inside a cell adjacent to where you want to insert a new one.

You'll see a one vertical, and one horizontal, circle with an X in it (meaning "delete), and on each side of that circle you'll see left/right arrows (add column left/right) on the horizontal, and up/down arrows (add row above/below) on the vertical one. Use those to add or delete rows or columns.

2. IMPORTANT: I learned this the hard way. You CANNOT copy a row or column and paste its content into another row or column. It will foul up your table. Unfortunately, it seems you can only enter text into a cell one at a time.

3. IMPORTANT: Clicking "return" or "enter" to start a new line WITHIN a cell will not work in tables. So you have to make a new row every time you want to start a new line. Not a biggie, but best to know now instead of frustrate later.

4. GOOD STUFF: You CAN embed widgets (html stuff like podcasts, clocks) and files (photos, whatever) inside table cells. That can be handy.

That's about it for tables.

Hope that helps. --Clay