The Social Network, er, ah, classroom?

Because I'm vain, I run analytics here on the BlazeBlog. (actually, Google runs the analytics, I just look at the information they give me). It doesn't provide an overwhelming amount of information, since I don't really do this to make money or drive traffic to the site. Quick commercial: Click an add, and Google gets paid, and then they pay me. Everybody wins! Anyway, when I look at the information on where you all come to the BlazeBlog from, I'm not at all surprised to find that many of you come here from Facebook.

Why would it surprise me? Everyone and their mothers, literally, seems to be a member of that and the now ubiquitous "social media" sites like twitter. I think I make possibly the understatement of the year when I drop this thesis statement on you: Social media has changed our lives. It has also changed how we teach and how kids learn.

I'm pretty sure it's been a change for the better. Pretty sure.

The Internet is full of stories about teachers who get in trouble over something they posted on Facepagetwitterspace. Students who go without access for even a matter of 10 minutes begin to convulse, they look like crack addicts.

Before I get into a largely arbitrary listing of the positives and negatives of the social media revolution, I think you should be privy to the ways I think that social media has changed our culture and by extension our schools and students.  (admittedly, you could of course just google and figure it out for yourself, but it's my blog, and I do what I want, so I'm going to spell out exactly how I think this revolution has changed our lives.)

1. Social media is, more than anything else, about constant contact and feedback. I think that some sociology pH.d will write a dissertation in the next decade about how the like button changed the world, and I think that dissertation will probably make a lot of good points. Think about it. Sure, social media provides constant contact, but that isn't a huge game changer. Realitically, it just means that you hear from people more often. However, if you think about it, when you were in high school you were in pretty constant contact with your friends: you rode around in cars, you hung out in basements, you made 3-way phone calls. Social media simply serves as an amplifier for those activities.

However, the feedback (be it the like button, the retweet, the whatever google+ has) is what has really changed us as a society. Sure, social media started out as a way to share what we had for breakfast. Now it has morphed into an way for us to get instant feedback on what we do. Don't lie. You like it when that little red box in the upper left of your Facebook lets you know that people are liking and commenting on your words, pictures, or links.  That's human nature. We all want to be accepted and liked. 

For students, this means that they want feedback on what they've done, and how they've done on it RIGHT FREAKING NOW! That's fine, but as long as class sizes stay large it's almost impossible with traditional assessments, unless you're willing to give mostly multiple choice tests, which are very easy to grade quickly (but which tend to do a very poor job actually measuring what students know and have learned). I think we need to move to more innovative ways of assessing, methods which can provide quicker feedback. I think that projects are a great way to do this. The final project can be presented, watched, or read relatively quickly (if teachers are willing to allow formats other than essays), and thus final grades for those efforts can be presented quickly.

Moreover, those projects (again if we're willing to allow for formats outside of the traditional essay structure) can be assessed very quickly in the draft formats. Indeed, teachers can even use social media as a tool to do this. I have in the past assigned facebook pages for famous figures in history. If students friended me with that profile, I would comment or message them with suggestions as they worked. It was a double win: they got that all-important quick feedback, and they fixed problems, leading to better scores. However, there is a concern that all of this positive feedback (the "no dislike button" problem, if you will) causes students to be adverse to hearing negative feedback, which leads us to my next belief about how social media has changed our, and our students' lives.

2. I've written about the problem of everybody getting a ribbon before. Really, most of this post is a rehash of that post. But I think that social media tends to emphasize positive feedback while minimizing negative feedback. If I block someone, or unfollow them, they don't get an email, their news feed doesn't change. However, if I get liked, or retweeted, or get a new friend, I get an email, my news feed changes, I find out. I think that this is an even bigger deal for kids. They are at an age when being accepted is a number one priority. They are very sensitive to criticism. As they live their lives shaped by their interactions with social media, I have found that they are less open to negative feedback. Their either ignore it, declare it to be untrue, or shut down when faced with negative feedback. (Some students take it and make positive changes, but they are rarer now than they were even ten years ago when I started teaching.) Why? Well, I'm not a psychoanalyst, but I suspect some of that comes from the lack of negative feedback they experience every day. I could be wrong. It happens.     

3. Social media is all about sharing. I think that it has caused us, as a society, to be more open to sharing our beliefs and feelings. It has also given us opportunities to share how dumb we are (you're a liar if you don't see some things people put on their facebook pages and judge them. You do.) Because of this, we're all (if we have a relatively open "friending policy") exposed to people with different beliefs and ideas than we hold dear. I think this is great for kids, since it's showing them how to be open minded. Also, this sharing has led to a little something one of my former students put in his facebook feed. He said that no one can be a stripper anymore, because all of our history is public.

It makes a lot of sense. There was a time when you could do work below what you wanted to do. Perhaps not stripping, but maybe a stint working as a Wal-Mart cashier. Maybe you hauled trash. Whatever it was, you could keep it secret from your peers at your professional job. Now? Not so much. How does this apply to schools and students?

Accountability. If you're friends with me on Facebook, you've probably seen the 18 minutes of me teaching in the classroom. That's great. A little embarassing, but great. I'm accountable for that. Kids are the same way. They do something dumb and post about it; people call them out. They can share their creative outlets; bands, shows, writing and people can provide support and critique. Everybody can grow if they really share on social media.

Anyway, about 990 words ago, I promised you an arbitrary list of the positives and negatives of the world of social media from a teaching standpoint. Let's hit it.

The Downsides:

A. Teachers who forget that they're teachers. If you're a teacher, and you're going to act the fool on Facebook, you better lock that puppy down. Because no matter how much you want to channel Charles Barkley, you are a role model. What you put on the interwebs will be found by your students. I've had students present me with letters I wrote to the newspaper when I was an undergrad. Most of those stories about teachers getting fired are when they do something really dumb.

B. The days of your private life being private are gone. If you're on social media sites, you're a public figure. It used to be that kids were shocked to see you shopping for groceries. Now? They probably know much more than that about you. Again, you can lock it down, but they're going to find out.

C. Cheating. Social media has made it easier for kids to share answers. Staff at schools need to be on the lookout, but also to be clever. Don't use the exact same test every year. Change answer options from hour to hour. Better yet, evaluate with tools that neutralize social media cheating. It's hard to cheat on a presentation. Memorizing the order of 5 multiple choice answers is a lot easier.

D. If you have students in your news feed, you are demoralized by their grammar conventions and spelling/word choice issues. tHeY REElly LiKe 2 ShoW hOw uNFaZed bY GrammEr theY R. The good news is, since social media won't advertise you blocking / unfollowing these people, you can do so without damaging their psyches too much.

The Upsides:

1. Social media, as I talked about 1000 words ago with the "Facebook for the famous" example, gives teachers, if they're willing to enter the arena, a way to provide feedback very quickly. Every day you can find a new way to use not just social media but technology in general to provide lighting fast response to students. They can use their phones to answer poll questions from the safety of anonymity. They can email you assignments so that you aren't lugging around paperwork. You can use shared documents on Google docs to revise as they watch.

2. If you and your students are in the same social media circles, you can communicate with them at times that aren't in class. Require students to join a Facebook group, and you can share assignment requirements, due dates, notes, whatever. If parents want to join, even better. Listen, students are going to talk about your class on social media, you might as well facilitate the discussion so that you can see what they're happy with and what they're complaining about. You can be a better teacher by finding out what your students need, and this is the place where they will most honestly tell you.

3. Social media allows you to engage students on their terms. Though we as old people may not feel as at home here, teens can't imagine a world without twitter and tumblr. That's where they go, it's how they communicate. If you're there, and communicating, it lets them know that you care about them, and it also sends a message that they are being watched by "real" people. Maybe that can help them avoid "stripper" moments.

4. As a teacher, social media can give you valuable feedback and genuine warm moments. I didn't ask for a video of me running my yap to be posted on Facebook. However, it was. The comments showed me that I had made a difference to those kids. It also gave me an opportunity to see myself. Without Facebook the video would exist, but it wouldn't have done any good.

I suspect that's the takeaway from all of this. Social media has changed the speed and way we interact with each other. But the real value is in that it lets us share. And though I bemoan (to some degree) that sharing as creating the too many ribbons/no negative feedback culture the sharing can be really useful. So teachers, pick up that mouse, and start using your social media for good!

(that said, I still hesitate to friend students, but mostly I accept them and then just hide them from my news feed. It makes all of my posts better if I think that students may be reading them. If I need to complain about kids, I can always fall back on a teacher's best friend).

Is being Cart-er-ific is the best thing that happened to me?

Those of you that check your facebook have undoubtedly noticed one of the most popular memes this month has been to list something you're thankful for every day. I haven't participated, but not because I'm not thankful. I haven't participated because I think that I don't need to share the things I'm thankful for on the Internet. The Internet is a place for complaining and devaluing other peoples' opinions, not for telling the people I know what I'm thankful for.

But I am thankful, and seeing what other people are thankful for has caused me to think about what I'm thankful for. The more I thought about how fortunate I am (a natural side-effect of teaching about Africa), the more I realized that the situation I'm teaching in this year has really been a blessing. To show you how far my attitude has come, I provide you with a link to the post I wrote after my first day at work.

Huh. I didn't seem very happy. I wasn't. The biggest problem for me, I think, was the idea that I wouldn't have my own classroom. No matter where I've taught, I've had my own teaching space. I think that most American teachers would rank a classroom of their own as one of the most important factors in their success as teachers. As individual teachers, our classrooms provide the set-up for everything we do.

We cover the walls with posters, class rules, and images that send a message to students about who we are. Student work? I'm going to reward and display good work. Music posters? Talk to me about things outside of school. Souvenirs from other nations? I'm a traveler, talk to me about it. Stuffed animals? I belong in an elementary school. Maps and flags? I'm a stereotypical geography teacher. You get the idea.

In our own classroom, we establish a space that helps us to set up routines and procedures. I know that in my own room, I have a basket for on-time work and a organizer for graded work. I have tubs to let students get their missed work. I also have many many piles of paper. Everywhere. The bookshelves are covered with text books, history books, and binders of classroom activities. Student work good and ridiculous lines the walls.

However, in many schools, there aren't enough rooms to go around. Especially in middle and high schools, where students change rooms every 90 minutes, teachers often get relegated to the cart, and have to move from room to room. That's me (and thousands of other teachers) this year.

I've had teachers in my room before, but I've never had to be that guy. As the host, I never really liked it. I always ended up leaving, or putting in headphones, because if I didn't, I would end up watching/participating in class. But now I am the invader. As you can tell from reading that post from August, I was nervous about the change of roles. That makes sense, because I was right. Teaching in 5 different rooms for 6 class periods is hard.

(You know what, let me change that) Teaching in 5 different rooms for 6 class periods is HARD.

That's better.

For a person like me (piles of stuff, constantly digging examples out of books, pointing at things on the wall) not having the same room twice is really difficult. I have to plan much more specifically what I'm going to say, and the most important references I have to bring with me. Some days, I carry a backpack (with student work, seating charts, dry-erase markers, regular pens, copy paper, plan book, referral forms, laptop, laptop charger, and portable hard-drive), a re-usable Target bag (with speakers, power cords, and a sub-woofer/amp) and a projector (which my school calls a "light-box"). One room has the desks in pods, a second has lab tables, a third has desk/chair combos, and one changes weekly based on the whims of the full-timer in there. One room has a SMART board. One doesn't even have an over-head. I struggle daily to make sure I have everything I need to run class, because I can't just open a file drawer or cabinet to dig out the think I need.

It's making me the best teacher I've ever been.

Wait. What?

Oh you heard read that right. Being in 5 different rooms has made me a much better teacher than I used to be. 

I know that it doesn't make sense, but give me three minutes of your time to explain why. 

Still with me? Good. For the first month of teaching, the hardest part was the constant presence of the teacher who "owns" the room. They just sit there and plan while I teach, but I've been in their shoes, and I know that they're watching and listening. This was impossible for me. I felt like I could never have a "down" day. (Yes, I realize that this job is important/the future/appreciated but if you tell me that you never have 90 minutes at work where you aren't a super-star, I'm going to go ahead and call you a liar). Always having someone watch me made me want to really knock it out of the park every single day. I planned more than I had in years. I made sure that I was dead-on the standards, and that every activity was set up to match the best practices

That isn't easy. For the teachers who read this, think about having an observation every day. That's what teaching in a room with a veteran teacher is like. I was new, and they were sizing me up, whether they would admit it or not. I felt like I had something to prove. I made sure that my lessons were dynamic and good every day.  Since the room wasn't mine, I became a better classroom manager. There was no way I would allow a class I was responsible for to damage a room that wasn't mine. Desks end up exactly where they started, and you had better believe that the floor is cleaner than it was in J-208 at the end of the day.

But it's more than the impact on my daily teaching. If it was just that, I would have said that teaching on a cart has changed me but not that it has made me better than I've ever been. It's also that I get to talk to other teachers daily after they watch me teach. They see things that I don't. I also get to watch them interact with their students before and after class as I'm setting up. (this could be an entire post. I could tell you which teachers were great and which ones probably struggle within a week of the beginning of school, just by how they interact with students outside of a class setting). I get to see what they have on their walls, how they plan, and how they arrange desks. 

I don't know if people who don't teach can ever understand how out of the ordinary this is for teachers. In high schools teachers all live in their own little worlds. We don't spend very much time talking to each other or observing what we do differently from each other. The culture of schools has been that I won't criticize another teacher, because they have their way of doing things and I'm not an expert. By invading their rooms, and being willing to talk about a lesson, I think (at least personally) that is being broken down. I am taking everything I see and using it to be a better teacher. 

It's not that this is a pain free experience. It isn't. It sucks. That said, I think every teacher could benefit from having at least one class in someone else's room. You won't like it, but if you're like me, and you don't want to be embarrassed, it'll make you a better teacher.