Social Media has overtaken my life. I wake up and participate in Voxer discussions. I moderate a Twitter chat (#slowchatpe) where I post one question a day about various education subjects. My students use kidblog to push their voices out to the world.  I also run a wordpress blog that gives the background for the questions of the week. There are lessons of mine on education skype where teachers from all over the world can connect with my class and my lessons.  These all push my teaching and professional development to the next level.

This is all well and great but it is not enough. It is a lot of talk and reflection. Talk is cheap and reflection only matters if you do something with your new-found enlightenment. I want next level. That level is collaborating and creating new projects.  The greatest example of this occurred in the @voxer physical education and health teacher group last week.  One teacher (@NicholasEndlich) threw out an idea he had using rock, paper, scissors as a game in physical education.  Within 5 minutes there were 15 voxes (voice posts) giving him other ideas using the rock, paper, scissors theme.  That right there is a pretty cool concept. A ton of teachers bouncing ideas off each other to come up with something new.  The story gets better though. Twenty minutes later Nick showed pics of his students playing the new games he had just learned!! That is mind blowing!! No more of going to conferences and waiting to implement new materials. The new pd uses social media and can be used immediately. That is the future of education.

Another great example of creation and collaboration is the project that @nicholasendlich,@mradampe, and I created.  The project is entitled #soyouthinkyoucanbalance.  Follow this link to start the project. The best part of this project is that we used students to create the balances and social media to plan how this was going to work.  The combination of twitter, voxer, and google hangouts can not be beat. We talked about it on voxer and then went in depth on a Google Hangout.  This allowed us to come up with the plan and how we wanted it executed. Voxer allowed us to keep the project moving because voice messages are so much more efficient than phone calls or twitter.  Twitter was the way we were able to push out the finished project.  So far students in the US, Saudi Arabia, the UK and Vietnam have participated in this.

This week I want us to think how can we stop talking about education and start collaborating and creating. We start out on social media lurking, then move on to participating, some go on to moderate different social media groups.  That is not enough! How can we continue to grow by creating, collaborating, and connecting ourselves and our students?  Let’s stop talking and start doing!

Q1: How have you used social media to create something? #slowchatpe

Q2: What different social media platforms have u smashed together to use the 4 C’s? #slowchatpe

Q3: When was the last time u implemented a new idea you saw on sm? How long between learning and implementing did it take u? #slowchatpe

Q4: Does your state/district give pd hours for sm? How does that work? #slowchatpe

Q5: What do people need to know about social media that they don’t know already?

How are minorities affected in education?  I have to be honest I don’t know much about how being a minority affects education.  I am a white Jewish male who was raised by two white teachers in a middle class white neighborhood. My middle and high school was a mix of various different races but I did not have many minority friends.  I played multiple sports and hung out with a variety of people but I don’t have the faintest clue how race or gender could affect a person.  I went to Rowan University where I had more minority friends but the subject of being a minority was never discussed.  I am trying to learn more about this subject by creating a @Voxer group with the author of the book, Missing Voices in Edtech, Rafranz Davis.  This book club will allow me to get an insight into the problems that minorities have within the education world. If you want to join tweet me! (@schleiderjustin) Help me discuss minorities in education this week at #slowchatpe.

When researching minorities in education I came across this article that was written in 1998: “Recent analyses of data prepared for school finance cases in Alabama, New Jersey, New York, Louisiana, and Texas have found that on every tangible measure—from qualified teachers to curriculum offerings—schools serving greater numbers of students of color had significantly fewer resources than schools serving mostly white students.” source That was 15 years ago though. Things definitely had to have changed though.  Right?

I went back to Google and found an article that was released over 15 years later.  “Racial minorities are more likely than white students to be suspended from school, to have less access to rigorous math and science classes, and to be taught by lower-paid teachers with less experience, according to comprehensive data released Friday by theDepartment of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. “ source  It seems that things have not changed a lot over the last 20 years.

When I think of minorities in education I think of skin color.  Gender inequality is also a problem in education.  “Last year, girls made up 18.5 percent of A.P. computer science test-takers nationwide, a slight decrease from the year before. In three states, no girls took the test at all. An abysmal 0.4 percent of girls entering college intend to major in computer science. And in 2013, women made up 14 percent of all computer science graduates — down from 36 percent in 1984.” source  This is a huge problem.  If we do not have diversity in a field then we are lacking in diverse perspectives that are needed to solve the various problems and changes that occur.

I am a firm believer that identifying the problem is only the first step in solving the problem. It is not enough to simply state that there is a problem.  I want to change the problem.  That change starts with us. How can we make sure that minorities are able to succeed in education? That will be the crux of a difficult conversation that I will attempt to tackle this week.

Q1: Do you treat both genders the same?  How do you know? #slowchatpe

Q2: Is race the bigger problem or is it SES? #slowchatpe

Q3: How do you address race in your class? #slowchatpe

Q4: What did you do to discuss the recent events in NYC and Missouri?

Q5: Do you engage in code switching with your students? Is this a positive or negative thing? http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/4558

I have to be honest I don’t know much about how being a minority affects education.  I am a white Jewish male who was raised by two white teachers in a middle class white neighborhood. My middle and high school was a mix of various different races but I did not have many minority friends.  I played multiple sports and hung out with a variety of people but I don’t have the faintest clue how race or gender could affect a person.  I went to Rowan University where I had more minority friends but the subject of being a minority was never discussed.  I am trying to learn more about this subject by creating a @Voxer group with the author of the book, Missing Voices in Edtech, Rafranz Davis.  This book club will allow me to get an insight into the problems that minorities run into in the education world. If you want to join tweet me! (@schleiderjustin) Help me discuss minorities in education this week at #slowchatpe.

When researching minorities in education I came across this article that was written in 1998: “Recent analyses of data prepared for school finance cases in Alabama, New Jersey, New York, Louisiana, and Texas have found that on every tangible measure—from qualified teachers to curriculum offerings—schools serving greater numbers of students of color had significantly fewer resources than schools serving mostly white students.” source That was 15 years ago though. Things definitely had to have changed though.  Right?

I went back to Google and found an article that was released over 15 years later.  “Racial minorities are more likely than white students to be suspended from school, to have less access to rigorous math and science classes, and to be taught by lower-paid teachers with less experience, according to comprehensive data released Friday by theDepartment of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. “ source  It seems that things have not changed a lot over the last 20 years.

When I think of minorities in education I think of skin color.  Gender inequality is also a problem in education.  “Last year, girls made up 18.5 percent of A.P. computer science test-takers nationwide, a slight decrease from the year before. In three states, no girls took the test at all. An abysmal 0.4 percent of girls entering college intend to major in computer science. And in 2013, women made up 14 percent of all computer science graduates — down from 36 percent in 1984.” source  This is a huge problem.  If we do not have diversity in a field then we are lacking in diverse perspectives that are needed to solve the various problems and changes that occur.

I am a firm believer that identifying the problem is only the first step in solving the problem. It is not enough to simply state that there is a problem.  I want to change the problem.  That change starts with us. How can we make sure that minorities are able to succeed in education? That will be the crux of a difficult conversation that I will attempt to tackle this week.

Q1: Do you treat both genders the same?  How do you know? #slowchatpe

Q2: Is race the bigger problem or is it SES? #slowchatpe

Q3: How do you address race in your class? #slowchatpe

Q4: What did you do to discuss the recent events in NYC and Missouri?

Q5: Do you engage in code switching with your students? Is this a positive or negative thing? http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/4558

Reflection: This week we discussed grades. The first wonderful surprise I found out was that teachers would be more motivated to teach without grades than less! That is quite the thought provoking epiphany. Does grading students actually hold teachers back?

My second thought about this week was what do grades tell about the students? Was Brian Jones correct in his tweet? I don’t think that grades are just about college admission. I think they show stakeholders how much progress has been made or needs to be made by the student. Do stakeholders understand this?

Another point of reflection was brought up by Samantha Bates. Would parents actually care if we just got rid of grades? She seems to think it would only effect tested subject areas. Does this mean non-tested areas don’t matter as much to parents? Are parents like the state and only care about test scores?

The final thoughts on this week’s blog I have is what is my purpose of teaching physical education. To me physical education is more about creating a positive association with movement and physical literacy than it is strictly teaching the curriculum.  Maybe we should put in the grade book a spot for how students feel about physical education at the end of each marking period! I firmly believe it is those who feel that physical literacy is important will be the ones to continue to practice it for the rest of their lives.

What are grades? What do grades tell us? Please read this quick storify of a conversation I had today.  My school went to standards based grading last year.  It was hard for people to understand at first.  My school did an excellent job giving stakeholders the information they needed to understand this change.  They used these two resources Resource 1 and video to help explain this new process. They also met with stakeholders to explain this to them and field any questions they may have had.  The transition was as painless as possible considering they just changed an educational foundation!

@MrZawlocki stated to me that “Grades are not assessments. They are supposed to be communication of learning. Whether single mark or narrative.”  I counter that grades are drawn from assessments.  How can you communicate what has been learned unless you assess? So in my logic (which may be flawed) grades are a representation of assessments.  (he agrees that assessment is needed)

@mssackstein is getting rid of traditional grades this year. This is her video explaining the beginning of her process bit.ly/1yrlQj3.  It will be exciting to see how this goes for her this year. She declared “…grades are…easy for teachers… nothing else. The represent very little.”  I think letter grades represent very little.  Standards based grading represent exactly what education needs.  A clear statement to stakeholders that the student mastered the standard, is working toward the standard, or the standard hasn’t been introduced yet.  “By comparing one child’s performance to a clear standard, parents, students and teachers all know precisely what is expected. Every time a student attempts a task, the performance is compared to the standard, not the other students’ performances.  The most important advantages for students and families are fairness, clarity, and improved learning.” (Douglas B. Reeves, 101 Questions and Answers about Standards, Assessment and Accountability, 2004)

This made think what would happen if we didn’t give out grades at all? Nothing. No letter grades and no standards based grades. Nothing at all. Let’s discuss this week!

Q1 If we didn’t give grades would ts still be motivated to teach? #slowchatpe

Q2 If we didn’t give grades would ss still be motivated to learn? #slowchatpe

Q3 What do grades really mean? #slowchatpe

Q4 Is standards based grading the best method to show student growth? #slowchatpe

Q5 Would parents understand or care if ts stopped giving out grades? #slowchatpe