1001 Flat World Tales: The Future

(Cross-posted from Beyond School)

I've been wishing aloud for some time that more non-Anglo countries would join the 1001 Flat World Tales project. So when Hagit from Israel (via my membership in ePals) and another teacher soon to begin work in Kazakhstan expressed interest in joining the project, you can imagine how happy that made me.

That brings the current list of participants to:

1. Korea
2. Denver
3. Honolulu
4. Hannibal, MO, USA
5. New Brunswick, Canada
6. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
7. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
8. Pennsylvania
9. Two schools in Australia
10. Shanghai, China
11. Serbia
12. Israel (fingers crossed)
13. Kazakhstan (ditto)

Imagine the '07-'08 mix for this project. We can all change partners.

But where is the Arab world? The African? The Latin American? The West European?

Patience. This project is only two and a half months old.

(And now is a good time to throw your hat in for next year. Sign up at the 1001Teachers wiki, and we'll take it from there.)

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

Podcasting to Improve Writing

EyePod (Revised)
Originally uploaded by LeggNet.

(Cross-posted from Beyond School)

Real quick: for the 1001 Flat World Tales project, we had each writer record and podcast him/herself reading the first draft for an audience of one: him/herself (gender pronouns stink).

Podcasting for self-criticism. I know it's not new, but it's so easy now. And it seemed to help the young writers hear the parts of their writing that needed improvement. Here's one student reflection:

The first thing came to my mind was that I had extremely simple and frequent grammar mistakes. I was kind of embarrassed when I heard it. Also, ideas and details sound incomplete and insights are shallow in depth; it was just shallow that proves not much thinking and brainstorming. I should work on 'showing' since my second draft 'told' everything. It sounded like a lecture about Korean cultures. Well, it was embarrassing to listen to my own podcast anyways.

It's all so easy now. Odeo, Podomatic. Students pick it up quickly, often without needing the teacher to know anything about it at all. How many teachers realize how easy it is to do this sort of thing?

Just thought it was worth a share.

(Photo credit: "EyePod (Revised)" by LeggNet on Flickr.)

Greenwich Time / UTC: The Next Shift?

Chris and Michele, I vote we all choose one Greenwich hour for revision deadlines and feedback deadlines. The initial confusion of learning to think in terms of a uniform "world time"--+9 for Seoul, -5 for Colorado (DST?), -8 for Hawaii--will clear itself up soon enough, and more than justify itself with the end of the deadline confusion and "false arrests" for "laziness" that I suspect we're all experiencing.

Seems like we want four days for revision, and for two of them to bet Saturday and Sunday. So I say revision should be due Greenwich Monday 0900. That makes your local deadlines in the States past Sunday midnight.

Deadlines for feedback would be three days later: GMT 0900 Thursday.

We can translate that to our kids so they all know what time that is locally.

But the point, again, is that everybody around the world knows the deadlines are at the exact same minute, regardless of local time. (In the military we called it "Zulu" time, if I recall correctly.)

Other teachers, I strongly suggest you adopt the same policy. The deadline confusion causes unnecessary confusion and frustration. Learn from our experience and save yourselves a headache!

Thoughts?

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.

...And Student Empathy Too

Michelle's discussions were interesting to read and prompted me to add this post about my classes' Flat World Writing session yesterday (Thursday in Honolulu). We were working on feedback only. (Okay, now several anecdotes are popping into my head).

First, two students were sitting next to each other making their way through the organization rubric and their partners' stories. The first student's partner had not posted a second draft. So I asked if she put her partner's number and name on the 4th column. She said no. I asked why. She said that if her partner looked under history, she'd know who put her name up there, and she didn't want to make trouble (sorry for unclear pronoun references). So I asked her how she'd feel if she took my class, did no work, and I still gave her a passing grade.

Second, my other student was working on giving feedback on his partner's introduction. He was typing some rather discouraging and unhelpful notes. So I asked what his partner was supposed to work on after reading the feedback. And I asked him to rephrase his feedback according to Elbowing protocol. All of sudden, very useful feedback.
My observation is that because we don't share a physical classroom, each piece of feedback, every edit to the wiki carries more connotation. And that's a great exercise for students.

Finally, what's been really fun for my students are the two warm-ups that Clay created on the 1001 Writers blog. My students loved collaborating in a lower stakes activity. I think those really help trust/relationship building.

"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.

1001 Tales Update: Listen to Jessica's Student Tale

[Cross-posted from Beyond School]

Regular readers have met Jessica (grade 9) before, in a post featuring her experiment with teaching a grammatically stylistic sentence pattern via a YouTube presentation.

She's the first, now, of all 130 of the 1001 Flat World Tales writers, to learn how to podcast and embed her own reading of her own second revision of her work-in-progress. One of the "emerging talents" I mentioned a couple posts ago.

I thought I would share her story. She's setting the standard. And she set up the Podomatic podcast without teacher hand-holding. Seems she self-taught by following my own podcast to its Podomatic home, reading directions, and getting it done. Thank Nature for genes like hers: her example should create a ripple effect among her peers--"trickle-down learning"?

She made this with the disadvantage of not having a Mac with GarageBand, so there's no music loops (though she did add a nice photo to her product). But the story itself, and Jessica's oral interpretation of it, stand on their own anyway.

Remember, it's only her second draft. We haven't workshopped voice, word choice, sentence fluency, or grammar. Drop a comment to her here and I'll pass it on. And see her page on the high school 1001 Flat World Tales wiki to read her story. She made some smart revision choices as she read, which you can see if you read along as she recites. She heard the parts of the text that didn't work, reflected on improvements apparently, and just made them orally.

Which is the whole point of this podcast exercise.


Click here to get your own player.

1001 Tales update: Scaffolding the Workshop, Making it Real

Collaboration is wonderful. Chris and I podcasted a brainstorm last week about ways to improve the peer feedback in the 1001 Flat World Tales project--and make it learner-managed instead of teacher-managed--and we came up with (and quickly implemented) a four-column table on the wiki with these headings:

1. "Feedback Stars": exemplary critics (photo source)

2. "Too Nice to Be Helpful": the "Great job!!!" kind of "contributor." (photo source)

3. "This Felt Mean": for those who think tact is something used to mount maps on walls. (I actually had a student write "feedback" to a complete stranger from another country to the effect of, "After reading your story, I wanted to grind you into little balls of meat." Interesting thing was, the student was just trying to be witty. So he's living and learning.) (photo source)

4. "Hellooo? Where's your feedback?": I love this one. It says it all. You know the type. Students who hit this column 3 times will be "fired" from the project. Better they lose their first job over PlayStation now than later. (photo source)

--Learners simply enter the names of any peer-collaborator who falls within any of these categories.

We also entered a table called the "Writers Hall of Fame." Since 130 students are writing on the wiki, and reading and critiquing each other weekly in rotating cycles, their fingers are closer to the pulse of this project than ours. So we hope to see them placing names (with links) to the exemplary writers in the table, so other students can learn how great writing at their age-level can be. We're only into the second revision so far, and already there are some pretty impressive literary talents emerging from this group of young writers.

Finally, we're putting out calls for participating students to interview for positions on the student editorial board that will select stories from the project for publication in the 1001 Flat World Tales "blook"--and any other publication formats that might emerge as this project continues to grow. They will do what all publishers do: sit around a (virtual, Skype) table and reach consensus on which stories merit publication.

There's more to share, but it's late. More later. (And apologies to the photographers on Flickr. I'll try to find the credits and add them later.--Update: credits posted under photos.)

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?

An Experiment: Podcast "Read-aloud" to Scaffold Insight

The Native Speaker podcast is part of the plan that emerged during the Skypecast with Chris Watson (also in the player below).

Comments and ideas--show tough love!--welcome. Chris, Michele, can you folks post your own as well?

If you download it to iTunes, by the way, you can click on "Chapters" to see markers of different sections of the story. The book, by Lee Chang-Rae (reverse it if you're Anglo), is available.

I'm sure he doesn't remember, but Chang-Rae was my teacher in a creative writing course at University of Oregon back in the '90s. He was unknown, writing this book, at that time. His advice to me? "Okay. Now cut loose and take risks."


Click here to get your own player.

Podcast Part 2: More Conversation with Chris Watson

[From the Podcast notes on iTunes:]

Chris Watson, HS English teacher at Punahoe High School in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, and Clay Burell of Korea International School in Seoul, Rep. of Korea, discuss the following topics in relation to their cross-world classroom collaboration on the 1001 Flat World Tales wiki world-wide writing workshop:

• Student publishing process
• Effective student blogging
• Diigo
• "This I Believe" podcast project
• Informal Prof Devt through Skype
• Using Library Thing for English classes

1001teachers: Chris Watson, part 2: Language Arts and the Read-Write Web


Click here to get your own player.

Eureka? A Solution to the Workshop Management Problem, I Think...

I just posted this on the HIGH SCHOOL 1001 Tales wiki discussion board. Short version:

1. The workshop for this cycle is closed. Participating schools are Seoul, Arapahoe, Hawaii, and New Brunswick (Michele, Chris, Chad, and Me). THIS IS FOR HIGH SCHOOL ONLY. Other teachers in Middle School and Elementary, coordinate away and godspeed :P We're into week 2 of the writing process, and 131 students from four schools feels like the limit, coordination-wise. All other high schools planning to come in can collaborate in their own cycle based on their own time-frames. (And the door is open for interaction with the current students in some way. Thoughts?)
2. The student writing links should not be edited by teachers or students anymore. There are three columns of 44 students. Each student can be assigned two students from the other two columns. Give the table a look and tell me if you think this works. We still need to coordinate which students are assigned to which rows. I vote that students do their own row this week, and go down one row for the next two students with each following week. Odds are, by the time the workshop is over, they'll get a good spread of feedback. Thoughts?
3. This means that the peer assignments will be self-regulating from now on, if you agree. Otherwise, I see management issues continuing :( Thoughts?
   

Here's the msg from the discussion board:

Hi All,

I've reformatted the table for easy, self-regulating editing. The three columns allow each student in one column to peer feedback to two students from other schools.

Since we're now into the workshop, it makes sense to me (do you agree?) to close this workshop for this cycle. All future schools can collaborate with each other on their own time-frame in March or later (see the 1001teachers.wikispaces.com wiki for the Coordination Schedule, and find contact info for other schools there).

SO: INSTEAD of entering 50 or more names to the student link table, just assign your students to give feedback to the students in their own row this week (it's Monday, Feb. 26), in the row below them next week, the one below that the following week, etc.

If you can see a better system or want to disagree, please do! :)

I'm just trying to make this manageable. That's the one slice that needs an efficient solution.

Thoughts?

Clay

Coordination and Rotating Peer Assignments: Logistics

More: Chris and I discussed in the podcast how students should peer review different writers every week. I'm seeking a way to make it a self-running process, so we don't have to assign that every week.

I'm groping toward a solution, but could use help.

Michele D (Denver) and I originally paired students by ability groups: same-ability for one partner, and either +1 or -1 (in Vygotskian terms--"Zone of Proximal Development" and all that) for the other.

As new classrooms join, though, I don't see that being very possible. You?

My first groping (ouch) was just now: I added a lettered column "a-ff" to designate each row. I figure we might be able to say: week 1, do your own column and the one below you. Week two, etc.

But there are problems with that. Each column has different numbers of students in it. Maybe we should reformat? Thoughts?

I also numbered each student, 1 to 131. That gives us another option, since no number is repeated.

I don't have a good "logic puzzle" brain for these type things. If any of you do, I'm keen to listen. Because right now I have to assign the next teams for my students.

Learning is messy....

But this is so interesting.

Thoughts on Irresponsible Students: Three Strikes Policy?

More on the "Hall of Fame and Shame." The idea is this:

When students are assigned a writer to give feedback to, and find that the writer missed the deadline, I've directed my students to enter that person's name, school, and date in the "Hellooo?" table. I don't mean to be harsh, but I do mean to be real world: if students can't cooperate and be responsible, I vote we teach them a real world lesson by removing them from the project. Cooperative learning's dark side.

Otherwise, all others suffer headaches. Not fair. They'd be fired in the real world, so why not here? Let them do textbook exercises while everyone else connects to the world.

Similarly, with the "Your feedback made me ANGRY" column: two strikes and you're out? What do you think?

More positively, for the "You're a feedback STAR" column, I say bonus points for final project grade. Thoughts?

And what about the "You're NICE, but NOT HELPFUL" students? How deal with them?

I guess this all boils down to: how do we assess for cooperative learning/teamwork in this thing?

Thoughts? I'd say 10% of the final grade.

1001 Reflectors Podcast 1: Improving Peer Feedback in Writing Workshops, with Chris Watson

This is part one of a talk with Chris (more to follow). The following is from the iTunes podcast notes. Since this is an enhanced podcast, with timestamp and chapter headings, you may want to download it to your iTunes or other podcast aggregator. Happy listening!

Chris Watson, HS English/Language Arts teacher at Punahou High School in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, joins fellow 1001 Flat World Tales collaborator Clay Burell of Seoul, South Korea, for a discussion about how to improve the tact, quality, and confidence of students giving peer feedback to other student writers during writing workshops. The first of a two-part podcast with Chris on the 1001 Reflections podcast series. Produced by Clay Burell for Beyond School and the 1001 Flat World Tales wiki/blog/"blook" k-12 world writing workshop. See Chris' excellent edublog, WatsonCommon, as well. Great stuff!


Click here to get your own player.