The unpredictability of the social network

What better place than my journal to capture the journey I’ve been on collecting requirements for a K-12 Parent Portal. Based on a conversation I had with Dr. Rick Schwier, my trusted graduate advisor, I realized stories were a great way to convey the meaning of what folks are looking for in a portal. I already had several stories in my blogs and blog comments, he reminded me. I also found a theoretical basis for the work in the computer science literature, and several pieces in the general literature on story-telling as communication which I included in my project proposal. I was excited!

So for the last month I have embarked on collecting stories and using comic strips to tell these stories. I’m using Bitstrips.com thanks to a recommendation from Kelly Christopherson to build the comic strips. I soon discovered, however, that my online network had two deficiencies: first many members of my network are teachers and not always parents (or principals or trustees), and second many of these teachers vacation in July (so my network is not as active). It was and remains a struggle to get feedback on the work, although there have been a few bright spots including when two commenters began dialoguing in my blog.

A Skype call with Lorna Constantini got me back on something of a right or better track. I realize and the research supports that to engage parents you must make it personal to them. You must go where they are, not expect them to come to you. So that’s what I’ve done. First I sent emails off to Vanessa Van Petten and Kate Olson looking for advice on where to find parents online. At the same time, I searched myself. Vanessa suggested Cafemom and I found the Canadian Parents Forum. Both of these have provided fruitful comments describing the perspective of parent. I also have a couple links I’ve sourced while working on my proposal that I will post to today. And Kate has offered to have me guest post on a “mommy’s blog” that she thinks will generate good feedback. If that works out I’ll cross-post a link to my own blog at the same time. I’m posting all the work at my other blog Technology for Learning.

So while slower than I wanted (as always) the work is coming together. Next I’ll be looking at existing portals to determine what is available for parents in other school districts. I hope to have this done by early next week. Better get at it!

 

Progressive Learning

I’m struggling with the concept of school as it relates to my graduate studies. As a mature student I have several years experience in the work force. I have come to know that the best product is not produced in isolation, nor is it given to prime time for judgement in its first run.

But that is precisely what we are asked to do in our graduate classes. Write a paper and submit it for marking. No drafts are reviewed and commented. No chance to catch those miserable APA slip-ups or discuss whether the professor and the APA manual have a fundamental disagreement (or did you just read it wrong?).

Professors are as time-challenged as the K-12 educators they are preparing for the classroom or supporting in advanced learning. But if the assessment model in graduate school does not support progressive learning, what will the chance be that our teachers come prepared to approach assessment in new ways with our younger learners?

I think there is something to be learned from how projects are conducted in the world outside of our educational institutions. The best products emerge from a scaffolded approach with feedback, teamwork, and iterative prototyping. I wish the same for teacher preparation and advanced learning.

 

Pay it Forward

I realized I needed a break. It’s been a wicked month – last month of school means everyone else is tidying their desks onto ours, our support staff were on strike (thankfully settled this week), I finished two intersession classes (one on-campus), and I realized I’d gained 10 pounds. So that latter problem became my focus and I found myself just a tinge less committed to my studies. A time for rejuvenation, exercise, and healthy food. Yes those 7-hour drives to Saskatoon and back are munchie drives. ‘Nough said.

To top off the month, I read this morning that a colleague just one year older had died on Monday. Our paths have crossed several times through work and golf as he held the same position as me at a post-secondary institution in the city. He was a dedicated contributor to the profession and his work and wit will be missed.

So face every morning with a smile. Say good morning to strangers. Pay it forward. You get this one chance to make a difference.

 

Research class is done

photo credit: alecska

I just finished the final exam for EDRES 800, the research course for my master’s. Two assignments (one of them my master’s proposal), one presentation, and a final exam in six weeks, including four weekends in Saskatoon. Pretty intense.

What have I learned? Hmmm. Not sure I would call it learning. More like refreshing. And situating. New context. The concepts were not unfamiliar to me. I’ve been down the research and stats road before. But it was fun to resurrect t-tests and F-ratios and MANOVA’s. I’m a math geek at heart.

So the course for me was an opportunity to apply that learning to my studies today. I was able to take a very good run at my project proposal. I extended my network of fellow graduate students. I’ve developed a heightened awareness of the importance of research skills in teachers today. Tied to the accountability framework and being data-driven, in our district we are promoting more action research in our classrooms. To accomplish that, teachers need to know how to frame the research question, what data to collect (and how to collect it), and how to analyze the data. Without some skill development and support we can’t expect that it will just happen. Hmmm. Maybe this was more than just a refresher.

On a lighter note, I haven’t written in APA style for 30 years. I’m feeling almost compelled to double-space this post. Did you notice all the sentence fragments in the second paragraph? My inner writer is rebelling…..

 

getting back to my social network

I’ve spent the last two weeks (at least) working on papers. I’ve realized that writing term papers is not social. So every once in a while, I need to check Twitter. Problem is, it only reminds me that I’m not contributing. No blog posts. No interesting links. No answers to others’ questions. Only time to observe.

I can hardly wait to get on to the other part of this work I am doing – the social learning part. I’ll be posting to both my blog and wiki to solicit input to the creation of personas to storyboard requirements for the parent portal project.

In the meantime, I’ve made note of @cogdog’s latest post on ping.fm. I’ll have time to check it out in a week or so ….

 

The Wrong Way is the Best Way

photo credit: Maproom Systems

I missed the turn leaving Saskatoon today. Not that I realized as I passed it, but I quickly knew this road was foreign to me. Would it take me home to Calgary? I had no map. My only guide was the compass in my car (I’m not that good with the sun). Oh well, I thought, as long as I’m heading west or south, it was all good. The sun was shining, the Saskatchewan skies were wide above me. Why not just drive and take it all in.

I was listening to Rodd Lucier from The Clever Sheep at the time, catching up on my podcasts. Rodd was talking about the digital divide between teachers and students. He related a story about teachers unable to problem-solve when the computer froze at home while in the next room the kids were conquering the Wii with ease.

It occurred to me that my uncharted drive must be what teachers exploring technology feel like, just what Rodd was talking about. Am I going the right way? Will I hit a dead end? Will I waste an hour messing around?

And I thought of how we might encourage them to just enjoy the ride. Learning is all about exploring, feeling some discomfort along the way.

So did I make it home? Well, yes. But I did hit a dead end. After driving along Valley Road and turning left on 60, I found myself at the entrance to Pike Lake Provincial Park. They were very kind at the park entrance. By backtracking only a little bit, I could drive across to Deslisle and catch Highway 7 there.

All it takes is a little help along the way from one who knows. If you’re among those that know, be sure you are available with some directions. If you’re just exploring, go for it. The risk is well worth it.

 

Learning from the best

I sat with a master teacher today. He knows who he is, and those who followed my travels will know as well.

I watched him teach trigonometry to a student who had gotten behind, who didn’t understand sine and cosine and tangent. I watched him patiently explain with pictures, then coach the student through several examples. Then, and here was one piece of magic, he helped the student use trig to calculate the height of a mountain. Now this particular student is a winter sports enthusiast, so mountains are pretty special. I’m sure for another student it might have been a sailing mast, or a flag pole, or the goal posts.

I also listened as he talked to the student about making the most of every day. Of enjoying his life today and tomorrow. That was the second piece of magic, the magic of the student-teacher relationship. Coach, mentor, guide, facilitator.

And when he was done, the student remarked with surprise how easy it was. Oh student, it wasn’t easy, but he helped you to that place.

I sat with a master teacher today. And I learned from the best.

 

Considering a Research Question

I just blogged about a New York Times article reviewing parent online connections and titled my post Is it ever too much?. For my Master’s project I’m creating an implmentation guide for a K-12 Parent Portal, and as part of that work I have been reviewing the literature on parent engagement. The research continues to demonstrate the positive impact of parent engagement on student learning (not completely black and white, but no outcome contextualized by human behaviour ever is). But the article uncovered students that are not happy that their parents have potential access to every detail about their school lives.

The online tools for parents are relatively new. I’m curious about whether the positive impacts of parent engagement might turn negative when parents have unlimited access to what is going on at school. How much is too much?

There are several possible research questions. Consider these independent variables alone or in combination:
1. online marks
2. teacher email
3. classroom video
4. online assignment/homework information

and these dependent variables:
1. student anxiety
2. student achievement

Research will need to be done in these and other areas as we introduce online tools for parents. We cannot assume that because engagement has value in face-to-face environments that the same holds true online.

 

Reviewing a Research Article

My first assignment in my graduate research class was to write a critical review of a research article. The objectives of this assignment were to target reading educational research rather than advocacy literature and second to give us experience in writing, synthesizing and evaluating current research.

I selected the article Contestation or Collaboration? A Comparative Study of Home-School Relations by Amanda E. Lewis and Tyone A. Forman. It is directly relevant to my own investigation of parent engagement in K-12 schools.

This review deepened my learning in areas not all directly related to the subject of the article.

In my studies on parent engagement in K-12 schools, I had encountered readings relating context theory to parent engagement and recently posted about a related book. This study corroborated those other findings about the importance of context in defining and prescribing parent engagement strategies, and went a step further to include social class – of both parent and teacher – in the analysis.

In that regard, this study makes an important contribution to parent engagement research. As the authors note, the role of social class is often discounted as not important in the research. In school practice, however, it may sit as a delicate subject to be avoided. Consideration of social class and concomitant power issues helps build understanding of the phenomenon known as “helicopter parents”, the power struggles between parent and teacher, and the role of teacher professionalism as a defence mechanism that negatively impacts parent-teacher relationships.

Examining the research article with a more critical eye was also a welcome opportunity for me to learn about ethnography as a research approach and methodology. Educational ethnography, a sub-field within anthropology, seeks to understand patterns of human behaviour within a group (group culture) so that the behaviour of other group members may be predicted. Studies that compare two locales are referred to as microethnography. Macroethnography considers the impact of external forces on the group. I determined this work was a study in both micro- and macroethnography. I also learned that the researcher role in this study is an observer-participant role, where the researcher documents in detail observations but also interacts informally with the participants. These informal interactions serve both to validate the observations and develop understanding of the phenomena being observed.

This was a great assignment that achieved its objectives for me. The most difficult aspect of the assignment was keeping it to three pages!

Reference:
Lewis, A. E., Forman, Tyrone A. (2002). “Contestation or Collaboration? A comparative study of home-school relations.” Anthropology and Education Quarterly 33(1): 30.

 

End of my rope

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Originally uploaded by rdrunner

That’s it. I’m done.

I’ve started the process to move my website and blog to canadianwebhosting.com.

So there’ll likely be more interruptions in the next week or so. But after that I’m looking for smooth sailing! And much less time (of which I have precious little) spent on problems with hosting service.