New Math 10 Curriculum

manitoba
There's a new curriculum coming. Gave a little talk about it and the text book that supports it. Here it is. You can download it if you like. All the links I shared in the session can be found by clicking around on the slides below.

MHR Math10 Workshop
View more documents from dkuropatwa.

UPDATE

Joe, one of the folks who attended the session on Friday, has shared the Graphing Calculator Lease Form he uses in his school. You can see it here. Feel free to copy and edit or or just print it as is.

Thanks Joe!

Scribes Spreading

bloggers
Thanks to some blog love from Roland I put together a small, inadequate list of how the scribing blog love is spreading; check out these wonderful teachers:

Chris Harbeck's class blog hub (innovator par excellence!)

Ryan Maksymchuk's suite of class blogs (more scribing class blogs than you can shake a stick at!)

Derrick Willard's class blog

Jim Homan's Cathoilic Morality wiki

Mr. Marti's precalculus class blog

Reversearp's (an alias I believe) precalculus class blog

Mrs. Everard's AP Calculus class blog

Image by dkuropatwa via Flickr


Every new day brings more new math (and non-math) bloggers. This is a small and woefully incomplete list. If I've failed to include your blog, or another one you know of, where the teacher has implemented the practice of having daily student authoured scribes please share it here in the comments.

I've Got 5 Minutes

blogging
actually, it was 11 minutes and 45 seconds.

This is the slidecast from one of three talks I gave on Friday October 9, 2009. I was in Virden Manitoba participating in the NIBBLE Conference for the Fort La Bosse School Division.

More coming soon. Everything will be aggregated on the Senior Years Information and Communication Technology wiki I'm maintaining to share all the work I do in Manitoba with teachers across the province ... and you.

I've Got 5 Minutes
View more documents from dkuropatwa.

Seeing Differently or 31 Days in October

flickr
It seems I've been talking about flickr a lot lately. Mostly in the course of discussing pedagogy and Brain Rule #10 in the context of my flickr assignment. One of the points I often bring up is the experiment I did with myself, inspired by folks who, like D'Arcy, are taking a photo a day. Every day. All year.

I just don't have that kind of stamina. I've twice in the past managed to sustain it for about a month; 31 Days. Every time the experience has changed the way I see the world around me. I notice things I've missed even though I walk past them every day; like that little tree ... I never noticed it until I started taking a picture a day for the 31 days of March, 2008.

This is what happened in October of last year when I did this again with a larger group of teachers from around the world:



Anyway, I'm starting this up again and you're invited along for the ride. I've already heard from a couple of Manitoba educators who are interested in doing this and some folks from MICDS in St. Louis might join in the fun too; they might even have a few students join us ... I really like that idea.

I'm going to tag all my photos 31DaysOct09. Feel free to use the same tag. Tagging all your photos allows you to create nifty little slideshows of them like the one I have above. Even if you use the same tag as me you can pull out just your photos if you want to create your own slideshow.

If you'd like to join, with or without your students, you can sign up for the flickr group I started. We're starting tomorrow, October 1st. If you start late, that's OK too. There are no rules. We're just going to have fun ... and maybe start seeing things differently together.

Photo Credit: Snow Came Back This Morning by flickr user dkuropatwa

The problem with math education ...

... is that there is too much emphasis on content and not enough on skills.

Math explains the world around us — makes it comprehensible — and when it's not comprehensible, when we don't understand something in the world around us, math guides our discovery ... it's all about knowing what to do when you don't know what to do.

Math is the science patterns; shouldn't we emphasize pattern recognition deliberately and explicitly in our teaching? Isn't that an important set of skills? Have I got this wrong?

Photo Credit: Sunny Side Up by flickr user code poet

Learning to Speak Math While Learning to Speak English

literacy

Multicultural Integral (sharpened)Image by dkuropatwa via Flickr

The other day I was talking to a teacher who works with EAL (English as an Additional Language) students. I was reminded of a summary of teaching tips I had assembled by scouring through a pile of research articles when my department was struggling with the issue of teaching a growing population of EAL students in our school. Unfortunately I've lost all the sources. This was originally designed to be shared with just my colleagues as a quick reference sheet.

It struck me that these tips are really good for all students.

By the way, that picture is an integral written using various languages and multilingual character sets. It makes perfect (mathematical) sense if you can decode all the numbers. Can you "read" it?

I hope other teachers find this helpful. Please add your own suggestions in the comments below.

Strategies for Teaching EAL Students Mathematics

The strategies below have been collated from a variety of resources. While all may be specifically geared towards assisting the EAL learner in math, these strategies are likely to prove effective in supporting the learning of all students.

The Language of Mathematics and Teacher’s Use of Language

"Command of mathematical language plays an important role in the development of mathematical ability"

  • Teach the language of the subject.
  • Be aware of vocabulary that has different meaning when used in mathematical contexts.
    • e.g. positive, negative, table, irrational, etc.
  • Mathematical operations signaled by several different words or phrases.
    • e.g. add, plus, sum, combine, increased by, etc.
  • Provide additional "wait time" for student responses to questions.
  • Be conscious of the vocabulary you use.
  • Simplify sentence structures and repeat sentences verbatim before trying to rephrase.
  • Rephrase idioms ("take a stab at it") or teach their meaning.
  • Clearly mark transitions during classroom activities.

Explanations and expectations need to be articulated explicitly and completely. Don't simply expect EAL students to "pick up on" assumptions, unstated premises, or subtle nuances of meaning.
  • Periodically check to ensure EAL students are understanding.

Create Language Supportive Classrooms

"Journal writing offers English Language Learners (ELLs) the opportunity to practice and develop their emerging mathematics discourse skills."

Some possible prompts for journal writing:

  1. Construct a word problem about [this] picture that can be solved mathematically. Share your problem with a partner and solve it.
  2. What is the most important idea you've learned in [algebra] this week and why?
  3. Write a paragraph containing as many of these words as possible: ..........
  4. List some things you must remember when answering this type of question or doing this type of problem.

Connect Mathematics to Students' Background and Experiences

  • Young people learn best from their own and not other peoples’ experiences.
  • Use students’ past experiences with mathematical terms to help give the terms meaning in a mathematical context.
  • The introduction of a new term should be carefully orchestrated through repetition in context and through saying it aloud and spelling it.
  • To learn mathematics successfully, many ESL students need a more multisensory approach to mathematics.
  • Relate mathematics instruction to the “out of school” life of students.
  • The implementation of “ethnomathematics” can help teachers relate mathematics to their students’ “out of school” lives.
  • Use teaching methodologies that “contextualize” the subject matter.
  • Be concerned about affective factors in the classroom.

Between the 10th and 15th year of teaching I discovered that what was needed for these children was not an emphasis on the academic but a meaningful interaction with mature adults. The relationship with a stable, mature adult is most important.


Vary Instructional Methods

"ELLs learn best when instructional methods and approaches match their individual abilities and learning styles."

  • Use a variety of methods tailored to students' needs including direct instruction, guided discovery, cooperative learning, computer assisted learning, etc.
  • Provide writing and other language development activities for EAL students.
  • Use cooperative learning strategies.
  • Encourage students to rephrase information or instructions orally.
  • Use peer tutoring.
  • Establish a "homework club".

Contextual Supports for Linguistic Development

  • Write key words on the board and other non-verbal cues, wherever possible, to present key ideas.
  • Provide written notes, summaries, instructions, and pre-reading.
  • Where possible, use the students' native language to check comprehension and clarify problems.
  • Communicate interest in students' linguistic development and set expectations.
  • Respond to students' language errors.
  • Establish a supportive environment for language learning.

In most subject areas, EAL students should be able to grasp essential concepts, if these are presented carefully, emphasized through repetition, and clearly distinguished from finer points that the students are less able to assimilate.


Assessing, Evaluating, and Reporting on Students' Progress

  • Use a diversity of measures including portfolios, observations, anecdotal records, interviews, checklists, criterion referenced tests, etc.
  • Design alternative assessment tasks including exhibits, dramatic renditions, interviews, writing samples, etc.
  • Include questions for small group discussion and individual writing.
  • Provide extra time on tests for EAL students to process the question in English, think about them in their first language, and respond in English.
  • Simplify directions in English and/or paraphrase in students' native language.
  • Permit students to use dictionaries or word lists.
  • Avoid heavy reliance on multiple-choice and true/false tests with EAL students (these involve a lot of reading and often depend on comprehension of subtle shades of meaning)

Functioning all day in a second language is exhausting and demanding. Homework can take these students two to three times longer to complete.

The Ten Commandments

George Polya
From the archives ... I started writing this post in November of 2007.
A LONG TIME COMING
A while back, Dean and Bud got me thinking. Bud's tweet contains more than a kernel of truth.




Shortly after reading Bud and Dean I was listening to David Suzuki on the radio. He mentioned in passing the idea of "in depth news reports" on television. Generally, that means they're going to talk about an issue for about two minutes. Some issues need to be explored in more depth than that. I think pedagogy is one of those issues. In particular, I think I need to explore my own teaching, articulate my own pedagogical practices, open them up to scrutiny and shore up the weak bits.

George Polya's ideas have been very influential on me and my evolution as an educator. Since reading his Ten Commandments For Teachers I have tried to model them in my practice. Although Polya (1887-1985) is no longer alive, I consider myself one of his students. This series of blog posts is my record of what I'm learning about the craft of teaching.


IN BROAD STROKES
In chapter 14 of Polya's book, Mathematical Discovery, he talks about the teacher's attitude and structures his thinking around what he calls The Ten Commandments For Teachers. This is the first in a series of posts digging into this in depth; maybe four, maybe ten; one for each commandment. We'll see.
Although I've been thinking about it for a long time, I've got more questions than answers about these commandments. I want to share my thinking and questions here because:
(1) I want to capture my where my thinking is at today so I can come back and reconsider it in the future.
(2) I'm hoping people wiser than I might share some of their insights. I'm hoping the give and take inherent in blogging about it might push my thinking and practice; make me a better teacher.
So push back at any weak bits below or share your own teaching tip.


THE TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR TEACHERS
In chapter 14 of Mathematical Discovery Polya lists his Ten Commandments For Teachers. They have been a guiding light for me as a teacher since I first read them.
1. Be interested in your subject.
2. Know your subject.
3. Know about the ways of learning: The best way to learn anything is to discover it by yourself.
4. Try to read the faces of your students, try to see their expectations and difficulties, put yourself in their place.
5. Give them not only information, but "know-how," attitudes of mind, the habit of methodical work.
6. Let them learn guessing.
7. Let them learn proving.
8. Look out for such features of the problem at hand as may be useful in solving the problems to come — try to disclose the general pattern that lies behind the present concrete situation.
9. Do not give away your whole secret at once — let the students guess before you tell it — let them find out by themselves as much as is feasible.
10. Suggest it, do not force it down their throats.


MODELING PASSION: Be Interested In Your Subject
Polya identifies the single most powerful and infallible teaching method: "If the teacher is bored by what he is teaching it is a certainty that all his students will be too." I believe the inverse is also true: If a teacher is interested in what they are teaching their students will be too. Actually, "interest" by itself may not be enough; passion is a virus. There is a contagion in passion that can be passed on. I would rewrite Polya's first commandment as: "Be passionate about your subject." If you can't do that then I guess interest will have to do but if you don't have even that, do something else.
If you were a student in grade 8, and your teacher began a new unit of study like this what do you think your engagement with the material might be? Passion Based Learning is powerful stuff. There's something magnetic about a teacher who is passionate about what they are teaching. Passion leads to Interest leads to Life Long Learning. Kids need to see that their teachers are interested with their subject and constantly trying to get better at what they do. If we don't model the drive for excellence in what we teach why should they be interested in doing excellent work in our classes?

The teacher's most powerful pedagogical tool in their toolbox is tucked away in their attitude, demeanor and engagement with what they are teaching; we call it modeling. It's such a fundamental idea. Surprisingly, some quick searching on the net reveals very little written about the importance of modeling in education as a general pedagogical practice. Even wikipedia has very little to say about it; the closest article to this idea is called Modelling (psychology). It seems to me we need a few good educators to flesh this article out a bit on wikipedia.
A while back Dean asked, Can A Fat Man Teach Phys. Ed.? His answer: "Yes, but ..." It all comes back to the importance of modeling.

I'm reminded of Benjamin Zander who says:
Our job is to awaken possibility in others ... You know you're doing it when their eyes are shining. And if their eyes are not shinning, then we have to ask ourselves, "Who am I being that my [students] eyes are not shinning?"






Calculus Made Easy

textbook

Cover of "Calculus Made Easy"Cover of Calculus Made Easy

Considering how many fools can calculate, it is surprising that it should be thought either a difficult or tedious task for any other fool to learn how to master the same tricks.

By far the best opening line for a math text ever written. Now released from copyright restrictions you can download a copy, visit the scribd.com version, or read it here.

I think I'm going to use this as the text for my High School Calculus class next year and perhaps as a supplemental text for my AP Calculus students.

Thanks to Denise for the tip. ;-)

Calculus Made Easy, by Silvanus P. Thompson Calculus Made Easy, by Silvanus P. Thompson q2
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Weekly Math Links (weekly)

Was it a good idea to auto-publish this as a blog post?


Posted from Diigo. The rest of Math Links group favorite links are here.

My Class Blogs: Part 5

My Blogging Model
I'm publishing this one out of order. It's my blog, so there.

What Came Before

    Part 1: Before Meeting the First Class
    Part 2: The First Class
    Part 3: Digital Ethics (coming soon)
    Part 4: Delicious and Flickr Assignments (coming soon)
    Part 5: Wiki Solution Manuals (that's this post)

Three years ago I first started having students create Wiki Solution Manuals as part of their exam preparations. The AP Calculus AB exam is coming on May 6 and so, year four of our wiki wonderland begins.

Some students have already started solving and annotating their problems tonight. Feel free to watch how it unfolds on the wiki.

Over this past weekend I created a new wiki and seeded it with exam level problems. The details are posted on the front page of the wiki, but in brief, the assignment comes in two parts done over two weeks:



A Significant Contribution or Week 1

Solve a problem completely. Annotate well enough so that an interested learner can learn from you. Make the layout clean, clear, and complimentary to the articulation of the solution.

Students often think this is the hard part of the assignment. I think it's the easy part. It's more or less like a Scribe Post focusing on a single problem. Granted, some of the problems are challenging, but the timeline for this, 1 week, is supposed to make it a low pressure sort of thing. Unless they leave it for the last possible moment; most don't some do. I mean, they have a week to do something that could reasonably be assigned as an overnight homework assignment.



A Constructive Modification or Week 2

This time next week the real fun begins. (The real metacognitive work.) Each student must scan through the entire wiki looking at each solution their mates have done, find one that has an error, and fix it. They must edit someone else's work, not their own.

Week 1 was just a set up for this; this is where I think the real learning happens.

As they read through several solutions looking for errors they have to decide what is right or wrong and why. They question each line of every solution verifying each other's thinking as they read through. The hardest part for me, as the teacher, is to not say anything.

This all ties in with one of the three guiding principles I always think of as I design learning experiences for my students: Make Thinking Transparent. This is particularly well illustrated in this assignment.



Refinements or The Nuts and Bolts

The sidebar of the wiki has links to:

» the class blog.

» the grading rubric (feel free to copy it if you like, it's quite simple).

» an index of all the problems/units seeded on the wiki.

» the sitmo Google Gadget for create point & click LaTeX equations. (This makes it real easy to write math on the web.)

» equplus.net, a database of copy & paste LaTeX equations & expressions for those kids that really want to rock and roll with LaTeX.

Next in this series (when I've caught up with the backlog) is Part 6: Developing Expert Voices or Learning To Do What Mathematicians Do: create mathematics.

Photo Credit: Create by flickr user Darren Draper
Wistful thinker... by flickr user carf

Rules To Live By

Design
I've become more and more interested in visual design as it pertains to teaching. I see a lot of teachers new to using a SMARTboard creating long, text heavy slides in their lessons. For myself, I've started a collection of feeds in my reader called Visual Thinking and it's had a dramatic impact on my own slide design process.

If you watch TED Talks you may have noticed that the visuals used by speakers at this years conference are qualitatively superior to those used in the past. TED has hired Duarte Design and assigned each speaker a small stipend to have their visuals given a makeover by the folks at Duarte. You can really see it in the visuals used in these two talks:

Barry Schwartz: The real crisis? We stopped being wise

Here's the backstory to Barry's slide makeover.

Bruce Bueno de Masquita: Three predictions on the future of Iran, and the math to back it up

Here's the back story to Bruce's slide makeover. (Seems to be offline; wonder what happened? Here's the Google Cache of the page. You can also find it on my Shared Items page.)

The post ends with this:

Rules We Live By

  » Break apart big ideas into smaller bite-sized pieces.
  » Simplify the message (even when you’re talking about using game theory to predict the future!)
  » Give a message space to stand out and contrast to focus attention.
  » Use more visuals and less words.
  » Use clear, easy-to-read charts with simple shapes and colors to add texture and clarity.

If you're new to using an Interactive White Board (IWB) in your class I think this is an excellent list to use as a starting point for slide design. When designing slides for classroom instruction these are the ideas I use as guidelines. I'm working hard at evolving how I present information to my students daily. Particularly when teaching more conceptually difficult material.

This is how I introduced statistics the first time with the SMARTboard:

Applied Math 40S Slides Mar 12, 2007
View more presentations from dkuropatwa.

This is how I did it this year:

Applied 40S March 20, 2009
View more presentations from dkuropatwa.

There's still lots of room for improvement in that second set of slides above. I'd genuinely appreciate any suggestions you may have about improving this particular slide deck or my approach in general. Can you suggest a specific image that might fit nicely into this lesson?

I'm going to keep trying to increase my use of visual images and since SlideShare added the ability to embed YouTube videos in each slideshow I've been trying to have at least one instructional video inserted into every day's set of slides.

What are Our Kids Doing Online @ CJOB

radio
Chris Harbeck and I will be guests tomorrow morning on the Richard Cloutier Reports show at our local radio station, CJOB.

The topic is "What are our kids doing online?" but I can see us talking about adults as well as how some sites are changing the way we connect socially, personally, and professionally at all ages.

You can listen live, streamed over the internet, but we'd rather have folks participate in the chat room we've created or via twitter. We're using the hash tag #cjob.

Chris has a much more detailed post up than I do. Head over there and check it out.

Hope to see you online and on the radio. ;-) The fun starts at about 9am central time in North America.

What's the Value Added?

pedagogy
Cross posted from a ning community I'm in.

Watch this first:

OK, so this is going to sound weird coming from a math teacher — I'm liable to be run out of the club for saying it — but, in most subjects, does every kid have to learn exactly the same stuff?

Here's what I'm thinking (and I don't think it's an original thought):

Don't send them home to read and listen to the lecture, send them home to take in a short (10-15 min video) or even a micro lecture. Then change the classroom into more of a lab or studio environment. Each kid produces a paper or other artifact of what they've learned and shares it with the rest of the class either face-to-face or online; they become expert in the area they've chosen to explore and at the same time develop the research skills to learn related content when needed.

The question I try to ask myself is: What is the value added for my students by being in the same room with me? If I recorded my lecture (video or audio) and they watched it at home, did the assignments and handed them in, would they be missing something by not being here physically?

I do think my students gain value by being in the same room with me, but most often when I speak very little. I let them work through the problem(s), debate and defend their work with each other, and only towards the end, when they've collectively sucked the marrow from the bones of the problem do I either ask another question that fires them all up again or draw their attention to the finer points of how best to share their thinking on paper.

This is what the video I embedded above suggests to me. I know I'm not there yet, but man! I'd like to be.

Thought Provoking Images ...

motivation
... not all, but many of them. What I really like about this set is that the fellow who puts them together often references and links to the source articles or research where the snippets are taken from.

If one of these images (all cc, I asked) strikes you in some way, follow the link back and copy it to the comments here maybe sharing what struck you. I'll start it off below.

I'm not sure if images will embed in the comments here (I'm testing this with my first comment below) but I've got apture installed on my blog so linking to the image should create a popup view of it when you hover over the link; like this.

David After 5 Years

digital ethics
One of my students came into class today and wanted to share a funny video with the class. I had already seen it and I laughed too; at first. Then I got to thinking.

This video has gone viral; over 15 million views to date.

Searching YouTube for David After Dentist reveals over 1800 results. In classic YouTube fashion, the video has been remixed and parodied. You'll also find that since the video went viral there is now a blog collating all the remixes, parodies, other humourous and viral videos, an Amazon store, various other ways of monetizing the video of a 7 year old boy who went to the dentist, was medicated, and took a while to fully recover his senses.

I wonder how young David is going to feel about all this in five years; when he's in high school. As he struggles to establish his own identity and "fit in," how will he feel if (when?) this video resurfaces and spreads throughout the school?

I wonder if David's parents have fully thought through the future ramifications for David; from the point of view of his future self.

It's cliché; the internet changes everything. That includes our perception of time. I think this is a really important thing to get our heads around: digital footprints can last a lifetime.

It used the be the foolish things kids did faded with people's memories. The internet has a better memory. I think kids today need to learn not only to "think before you post", but to think, from the perspective of ALL your future selves, before you post.

What Do We HAVE To Memorize?

math
I've had the same comment surface in several, unrelated conversations I've had with colleagues lately. All math teachers. In each case we were discussing some aspect of the curriculum and at one point they invariably say: "Y'know, you just have to memorize that."

Really?

Driving my son and a friend of his home yesterday we were talking. They started talking about tests they have coming up in various classes. They listed those classes where "you just have to memorize that stuff." Again, math was one of those classes.

So really, what do we absolutely have to memorize in math? I do not teach memorization, although I too have told my students that they have to commit certain things to memory. In each case I emphasize they should not memorize individual facts, rather, they should identify patterns and recall the patterns. I teach mnemonics. (Is that splitting hairs?) For example, how many patterns can you find in these two columns of numbers?

09
18
27
36
45
54
63
72
81
90

So really, what do we HAVE to memorize in math?

Photo Credit: day.304: Big-O by flickr user Mad African!

Sharpening The Saw

assessment
I've been using a SMARTboard in my class for a little more than two years now. I know I've seen dramatic growth in the way I teach and present information to my students in no small part because of it.

I'd like to publish a series of posts transparently sharing how I use the SMARTboard to teach math and encourage anyone who reads/hears it to leave me suggetsions on how I might better use the affordances offered by the SB. Please share your critiques, comments, concerns, questions, complaints, confusions, uncertainties, anxieties, and suggestions for improvement with me by leaving a comment on this post or directly in the VoiceThread I've created to share my process.

I'd encourage other teachers to do the same; we could learn a lot from each other this way.

LINKS FOR THIS LESSON

Teaching Slides
Student Authoured Scribe Post

Thanks!

My Class Blogs: Part 2

blogging
Here's Part 1 if you missed it.

The first 7 to 10 days of the semester are busy, particularly the first 2 or 3. I ask each student to email me and mention the class they are taking with me and what period it's in. (Each class has their own blog.) This allows me to "capture" their email addresses in my gmail account so I can communicate with them as needed later. I copy and paste their email addresses (I hate typing long lists) into the appropriates space on the blog and invite them to be contributors to our blog. (In Blogger go to: SETTINGS > PERMISSIONS > scroll down and click on ADD AUTHOURS) I use a group blog model; each class has their own blog which will serve as the social and academic hub of our time learning together.

In our first class I discuss the same things you do: class expectations (mine of them and theirs of me), give a quick overview of the course, and something I call The Critical Path to Success. I also discuss the class blog, how scribe posts work (their contributions), and how I post the daily lesson slides to the blog and occasionally share "links for learning" (my contributions). One of the best descriptions of scribe posts I've ever read I discovered yesterday on one of the class blogs. It was in the chatbox (more about this in my next post); written by one student to another explaining what they were supposed to do when it was their turn to be scribe. PJ said:

A scribe post is basically like you are teaching the class again, but this time in your words in a way that other people can understand it. You can also recap other important things that we talk about in class (like Pi Day) so that if someone was away in our class, they would know what they missed. Also don't forget that when you scribe, you get the power to choose the next scribe.

I thought it kind of cool that he described choosing the next scribe as a "power".

The way I present information, and consequently they way I teach, has undergone dramatic growth in the last few years. I decided that I owed it to my students to develop an opening presentation that was similar to the sort of thing I do when giving a workshop. This is what my opening day talk looked like in the Fall of 2007. I podcasted this particular class so you can listen to me if you like, but I warn you, it's not compelling listening. ;-)

Our First Class
View more presentations from dkuropatwa. (tags: math firstclass)

I updated it a bit for the Fall of 2008. This is what the latest incarnation of my opening day talk looks like:

Pre-Cal 40S Slides February 2, 2009

There is no scribe for my first class which has no real mathematical content. There are also no scribes for tests days. Recently, some students have taken to publishing a personal reflection of how they felt the test went, inviting the rest of the class to share their thoughts in the comments. I love the spontaneous incidental learning and thinking that comes of students habitually publishing their thinking.

By the next morning I'll have a small handful of students signed up as contributors to the class blog. I ask for one of them to volunteer to be the scribe for that first class and remind them that they must finish their scribe by choosing the next scribe, which can be anyone in the class, and by labeling (other blog platforms call this "categories") their scribe post properly ("First Name", "Unit Title", Scribe Post). This kicks off the students beginning to take responsibility for their own learning and each other. I never choose a scribe; they do. If the scribe is absent for class one day I tell the students that they have to figure out who will cover for the absent student and decide how they want to manage this. Sometimes I lean back against the board at the front of the room and wait several minutes until they start talking and get it all sorted. I'm consistently clear that this is their responsibility; not mine.

I also begin discussing ethical online behaviour, alerting students to some of the things that can happen when we publish content online. At the end of the day I publish a post to the blog called Digital Ethics which is required reading for everyone.

In my next post in this series I'll talk a little more about the follow up to the Digital Ethics post and The Scribe List which I post to the blog as we continue getting organized for the semester. I'll also touch on how the blog evolves as a learning ecology and how I deal with certain pitfalls like students that don't have computers, email accounts, hit technical snags, or don't register for the blog. (I know I'd said I'd do that this time, but next time a really will. ;-) )

Photo Credit: Farewell February by flickr user Cayusa