being a teacher – Page 110

aha moment, being a teacher, connections, PLN, trust

Voxer Takes Connections to the Next Level If You Let It

December 10, 2014 Pernille Ripp

This summer I, along with many other educators, got on Voxer and started discovering just how powerful of a PLN tool it could be. Although I wrote a post extolling the virtues of the app then, it is not until now 5 months into using it that I have truly witnessed the incredible power it holds for me. Voxer is not just for collaborating, it is for connecting, and those connections are changing my life.

As educators, and especially female educators, there seems to be a weird phenomenon surrounding us; the seemingly overabundance of highly connected male educators, whether administrators, teachers, or tech integrators. (Yes, this is a simplification, but bear with me). I have often wondered about the apparent “mens/boys” club that seem to exist on Twitter, at conferences, and on blogs that list who people must follow, and have even written about it in the past. Don’t misunderstand; I don’t feel the need to be a part of a male club, instead this realization made me long more for my own female version that could share the same camaraderie that seemed to exist in these groups, the ease with which they communicated and had each others’ backs. I wanted my own group of women that would inspire me, support me, and actually become friends. Enter Voxer.

5 months ago a few acquaintances and I started a Voxer group. I didn’t think much of it, after all I was in about 8 different groups at the time all discussing various things related to education, and loving it. The group consisted of 5 women from different parts of education that all had a few things in common but were nowhere near being close friends. At first the Voxes were funny, little slivers of our lives and thoughts being shared. Yet with time those Voxes grew, sometimes spanning more than 5 minutes, and as they grew so did our bond. I never knew how much I needed this group. I never knew how much I needed a group of women to grow with.

Yet, this group is not the only one I go to every day hoping for my heart to be filled, for my inspiration to be renewed, and my thoughts expanded. Another Voxer group is between a few female educators I greatly admire and am lucky enough to call friends. These two women have inspired countless blog posts, helped me make huge life decisions, as well as made me laugh. Every week we check in, we update, we share our thoughts, making sure that we all feel supported, that we all feel cared for. How powerful is that.

So if you are in need of a tribe like I was; don’t be afraid to reach out. Use Voxer a s a way to connect to others in a deeper way and don’t be afraid to ask others to be in a group with you. If you are a female connected educator but feeling alone sometimes, Voxer is your place. Start a group, take the plunge, reach out tot those that you maybe only know a little and see what happens.

The groups I get to be a part of, those that really matter to me, weren’t planned. We didn’t set out to create these bonds, but they happened because we tried. They happened because we realized that by having this tool to bring our voice together, we grew stronger as a group, we grew because we trusted each other. You don’t have to feel alone even if you are a connected educator.

I am a passionate teacher in Oregon, Wisconsin, USA, who has taught 4th, 5th, and 7th grade. Proud techy geek, and mass consumer of incredible books. Creator of the Global Read Aloud Project, Co-founder of EdCamp MadWI, and believer in all children. I have no awards or accolades except for the lightbulbs that go off in my students’ heads every day. First book “Passionate Learners – Giving Our Classrooms Back to Our Students” can be purchased now from Powerful Learning Press. Second book“Empowered Schools, Empowered Students – Creating Connected and Invested Learners” is out now from Corwin Press. Follow me on Twitter @PernilleRipp.

being a teacher, student blogging, student voice

How is Student Blogging Different in the Middle School Grades

December 9, 2014December 8, 2014 Pernille Ripp

One of my biggest “crazy ideas” I knew I wanted to try when I switched from the elementary classroom to the middle school was to continue blogging with students. Nowhere else had I seen the same impact of just what empowering my students to find a voice to the world could do for them than student blogging. At first, I didn’t think it would be a crazy idea, just a natural extension of my classroom as always, but then I thought about it a little bit more.

You would think that blogging with students would look the same no matter the age. In fact, I used to think that it probably wouldn’t look that much different between 4th grade and 7th grade. That is until I woke up in the night, realizing just what my constraints would be with my new position and wondering if it was even worth trying. After all, I was already wondering how in the world I would get through the curriculum let alone add on anything else. Thankfully, I realized that blogging with students and giving them a voice to the world is one thing that I cannot cut from my curriculum, and neither should you. Yes, just because it looks different than what I had tried with elementary students, does not mean it is not worth your time, or not worth exploring. In this case, different simply means different, not wrong, bad, or worthless.

So while blogging in elementary classrooms can be cross curricular and deeply embedded within the classroom culture, blogging in the middle school has to look different solely based on the time constraint. It also has to look different based on how most middle schools are set up, with one teacher teaching one or a few subjects, and often being the steward of more than 100 students. After 3 months of blogging with my 113 students, this is what I discovered.

Before: We blogged every week, with blogging challenges assigned Friday and due the following Friday. Everyone got them done, few problems.

Now: We blog every other week on a set schedule. The students know and look forward to it and few ask for the blogging challenge until that day.

Before: We used our 8 computers to blog in the classroom and students would rotate throughout the week thus ensuring everyone got it done.

Now: We go to the lab every class period in one day so that each child gets it done. If they do not finish it within 45 minutes, it becomes homework and they have 2 weeks to finish it. I have to remind them a lot that it needs to get done.

Before: I would approve posts whenever they would pop up, checking every night.

Now: I approve posts the day they blog, thus getting most read and posted the day of, and then check in every 3 or 4 days when I know more have blogged. This allows me to save my check-in energy and focus to a few days a week.

Before: I would try to leave comments on every post or every other at the least.

Now: I gave up. There are too many posts but I do try to make sure that every single post gets a comment from either me or someone else from our school. I didn’t want to just leave short comments, and leave many of them so now my students know that if they get a comment from me, I really thought about it.

Before: All blogs were public, except for very rare circumstances.

Now: Almost all blogs are public but some are private between the student and I. I ask at the beginning of the year and set up their privacy settings as needed. Why the change? 7th graders are more aware of their place in the world and thus experience blogging on a perhaps more emotional level than my younger students. They really want to be viewed positively by the world and not have more things that they feel can be used to judge them.

Before: We talked how to stay safe on the internet and how we needed to represent ourselves once or twice a trimester.

Now: We not only discuss safety every single time we blog, but also how we present ourselves to the world. In 7th grade the students are much more fearless when it comes to putting themselves out there, which can be a double edged sword. It is a wonder to see them embrace the mode of communication so readily, but also terrifying when they don’t always think things through before they post.

Before: Their blog posts were meant to start a global conversation so they were never graded,

Now: This remains true. I will not grade my students blogs ever. It flies in the face of what I am asking them to do; start a global conversation baring their deep thoughts. If I ever wanted to squelch their voice all I have to do is slap a grade on it.

While there are many other small things that have remained the same, these are a few of the big differences. In the end, blogging with middle school students is definitely a must do, one just has to find the time.

PS: If you want to visit my incredible students’ blogs, please leave them a comment here and here.

assumptions, being a teacher, ideas

Use This Time to Remind

December 8, 2014 Pernille Ripp

I thought they would all remember. I thought they would all instinctively know. After all, by now, we have spent so much time together. I am sure they had me pretty figured out. Yet, after I surveyed them last Friday, I realized a few things. They have plenty of demons for me to battle when it comes to English, and boy, do they not remember the first day of school.

That first day of school. I should have known. After all, I don’t think I remember any of my first days or what was said, what we did. More an overall feeling of confusion, an overall feeling of nervousness yet wanting to get through the day so that the first day would be over; a new year begun.

So today we spent 15 minutes discussing the survey results, but also more importantly going through things that were said the first day of school. Yes, you can really move the tables and chairs wherever you want. Yes, you can really work ahead on projects and hand them in before they are due. Yes, you can come up with your own ideas. Yes, you can sit by whomever you want. Things that I thought by now they surely just knew.

You should have seen the look of surprise on many faces.

So as we lead up to the next winter break, as we get closer to an exciting time for many students; take the time to remind. Take the time to restate some of those things you said on the first day. Discuss as a class what you discussed on the first day. Bring it back up and watch it sink in for the first time for some. I thought they knew but once again I should have known better. As we unwind; remind and see the change, plant the seeds for 2015.

aha moment, being a teacher, student choice

Why I Don’t Want My Students to Fail All of the Time

December 4, 2014 Pernille Ripp

“I want students to fail in my room all the time. I want them to be unafraid of failure.” This was me, all the time. In conversation with other teachers, on Twitter, in blog posts. Always discussing how students should fail. How our rooms should be filled with opportunities to fail. How we should model failing any chance we got.

I assumed this is what students needed; fearlessness in the face of failure, chances to fail every single day. So much failure that they would never be afraid to conquer it or be stymied by it, but instead saw it as a dragon to slay. And then, one day, I said it out loud to my students. And they looked at me in horror. And then they laughed.

“Why do you want us to fail so much, Mrs Ripp?”

“Isn’t that against the rule?”

“Won’t you be a bad teacher if we fail all the time?”

I shrugged it off that day; clearly they had missed the point. Failure wasn’t about me being a bad teacher, if my students failed then it would mean I was doing great things, teaching them great resilience, getting them ready for “real life.”

Yet, the thought kept nagging me late at night when teachers tend to get nagged by thoughts like these. Did I really want my students to fail? Did I really want them to be surrounded by failure so they could develop more grit?

We forget that as adults we would never stick with something if we were constantly failing. That we have to have small successes along the way to keep us going. That some days we need it to be easy so that we can get ready for the next big challenge. We need to be aware of our own fears and we have to work through them. We are not fearless, so why do we expect our students to be?

I realized then that constant failure is not what I want. Nor is fearless students that barge ahead, with little thought, because they have to conquer their fear. I don’t want my students to be surrounded by failure. I do not want them to be fearless in every decision, nor do I want them to constantly have be resilient. That is not “real life.” That is not what we are as adults.

Instead, I want students who will face their own fears and still do it. Students that see their fear of failure and still try. I want students who acknowledge that they are moving into territory that makes them uncomfortable and still stick with it. And I want kids who know where their boundaries are. Who understand their own limits, their own comfort zones. Not so we can burst through the barricades, but instead so we can inch out of it, day by day, expanding ourselves, growing and feeling comfortable with the way we grow.

Failure will always be a constant companion in our classrooms, but they shouldn’t be the driving force. Opportunities should be, challenges should be, with the possibility of failure. We shouldn’t be striving for students who are unafraid to fail, but rather students who are willing to try. Willing to think. Willing to still do something even though they are afraid. That’s “real life.” That’s what we should be modeling.

being a teacher, being me, Passion, students, webinar

The Student’s Voice: Empowering Transformation – A Webinar Recording

December 2, 2014 Pernille Ripp

I had the huge pleasure of discussing student’s voice and how to empower them within a classroom with Tom Murray for the Alliance for Excellent Education on November 17th. To see what other great things the Alliance does, go here.

In this video we discussed

Ideas for including the students’ voice in classroom setup, planning, and outcome
Technology tools to bring the students’ voice out into the world
Stories of how the students’ voice can transform education
New ideas that can be implemented starting today to change the power within our classrooms

being a teacher, being me, reflection

What I Take For Granted

November 27, 2014November 27, 2014 Pernille Ripp

I know I have a lot to be thankful for. And yet, it seems to get lost in the every day. The hustle and bustle we call life. I try to be thankful, I try to give thanks, but some of the things I take the most for granted are the things that I forget about. The things that if I didn’t have them in my life, my life would not be a happy one. So why is it that we take so many things for granted when really we should be aware of how different our lives would be without them?

I think of the last few days in the aftermath of the not guilty verdict out of Ferguson and how I take for granted that my white son will never be accosted by police, unless he deserves to be. It’s amazing what you take for granted when you are white.

I think of the millions of children who go to schools that are underfunded, falling apart, and riddled with inequities, and how I take for granted the incredible school my daughter goes to.

The couples who fight to pay their bills every day, whereas my husband and I certainly have to save and budget and not buy, but we are never faced with the choice of heat or water or which one we should pay.

I take that for granted.

Family and friends who get mad when you can’t see them enough because life is too busy and it has been too long.

Ugly mini-vans that are safe to drive in winter and can fit all of our crazy lives.

7th graders who are invested in our classroom, who think I am ok, who don’t hate everything we do.

Colleagues who actually like you and think you have worth.

Plenty of food to eat, to fit even the pickiest 2 year old’s appetite.

Health insurance that doesn’t stop, even when faced with more than $500,000 in medical bills because a baby decided to come 10 weeks early.

I take that for granted.

So today, I am thankful, but not for those big incredible things I get to do, but those essential ones that make my life my life. Those tings I take for grated even though they should be the first in line whenever thanks is given out. What are you thankful for?