Website: done.
Video: done, edited, shortened, done again.
Poster: yep.
Screencast: I'm a mere mortal.  Give me Tuesday, when Nana takes the kids.

I'm going to learn how to paddleboard.  You can go down to the Napa river, rent a paddleboard, and get right in.  If, of course, you aren't completing a master's capstone, working 5 days a week, or taking care of children.  And in a week, I'll be down to only one qualifier; I'm going to throw money at a babysitter until I've taken care of that one too.  No blogging, no research, no Zoom.  Just water sparkling on the river and my wet toes gripping on for fear of cold.  Only give me the right tide and a sunny afternoon.

That's all I've got.  I could go on about how grateful I am for what I've learned, how much the discipline of weekly blogs has been surprisingly enriching, my appreciation for a dependable and creative cohort, and the unquantifiable measure of a year's season of growth.  But it will be my first time on a paddleboard; I don't want anyone to push me off.

It's been real, folks.  See you on the river!

How do you turn spaghetti into waffles?

One of the most time-consuming parts of building my capstone website, is the part nobody sees.  It's the absence of clutter, and the sorting of my thoughts, that is the most taxing on the mind.  How do you take a year's worth of thinking and research, and fit it into a 12" x 8" screen?  How do I take my spaghetti-like jumble of thoughts and grid them out, waffle-style, into a format that is easy to understand?  More than font sizes, more than headings and subtitles, that has been the most consuming element of my website design.

And then I've got to sum it up in a five minute video.  I've spent weeks preparing a feast, only to offer guests a morsel.  So it goes.

As it stands, I've figured out enough variations on the waffle that I think my website is in good shape.  A three-column chart here, a row of icons there, and my thinking seems to be coming together in a way that's approachable.  But what a task!  I am grateful that after such a long to-do list, the remaining items are fewer by the day.

Bon apetit, viewers!

The theme for all my work this week is, the small things take more time than the big things.

In the world of video production, making my video smaller (shorter) took more painstaking time than making my original rough cut.  Usually, my take on first drafts is that it's better to go a little overboard, and then cut stuff out.  In this case, however, I may have been in for an easier ride if I had started with the bare minimum, and then added on.  I wonder: if I were a more experienced video producer, would I prefer to start with shorter drafts or longer ones?

The good thing about spending so much time trying to shrink my original footage is that iMovie and I got to know each other on a deeper level.  I'm getting more familiar with splitting scenes, detaching audio, speeding up, and fading out.  All these are tricks of the trade that I knew were possible, but that I hadn't practiced much beforehand.

The two remaining bits I need to complete are filming myself talking, and adding the concluding shot and thank yous.  I won't be filming myself until I can be "on location" in my classroom next Wednesday.  I am in the process of creating that concluding shot and thank yous, using the same two trailer templates I used for the first 2/3 of my video.  I like that I'll be able to reference those themes one more time at the end of my video, for a sense of completeness.  

This week, 21st century obstacles like tech tools and wifi access are not an issue.  Instead, I’m up against old-fashioned (existential?) problems: time and place.  A big next step for me is to film myself talking to the camera.  However, I can’t get to the right place to do that until a later time, July 13.  That’s because until that time, I’ll be camping in Colorado.  And as much as I love the mountains, I’d like to maintain an academic aesthetic by filming in my classroom.
 
In the meantime, I’m taking two small steps to continue my progress: editing and feedback.
 
Editing:
Our video shouldn’t exceed 90 seconds.  As it stands, I’m hovering around 82 seconds, still without any footage of me talking to the camera.  Therefore, I’m in the process of identifying segments that are superfluous or too lengthy, and pairing them down.  I’ll also need to revisit my script for the part where I’m talking; my goal is to edit this part by half and still retain my central message.
 
Feedback:
Today I showed my video-in-progress to few friends who work in screenwriting, web development, and advertising.  (Kind of a feedback dream team!)  I wanted to get an outsider’s take on my project.  Without giving them any background on my work, I asked them to view my video cold and answer a few questions:
 
Q: What is this about?
A: Lofty ideas, but reality getting in the way.  It looks like there’s some connection between CCSS and PBL, but it seems that it’s not working.
My thoughts:  Good!  My target audience, teachers, will have some sort of context for this already, so if “outsiders” are getting the gist, then I’m on the right track.
 
Q: What do you want to more know about?
A: A clarification of what PBL and CCSS are, and what those statistics at the end mean.
My thoughts: My target audience will know what PBL and CCSS are, so not a worry.  I don’t know if I can take up time explaining the statistics- will have to think about that one.
 
Q: What do you expect to see next?
A: A recommendation or a solution; a resolution.
My thoughts: YES! That’s what I was going for.  Where the existing video ends, I want to film myself explaining the very basics of what I’ve learned.  The challenge will be doing that in a concise way.
 
 Working with iMovie
Because I began my rough cut before our last class, I already discussed some techniques and workarounds I discovered with iMovie.  One thing I did was begin my work using a trailer template.  Then I exported the trailers to video, and imported the video into a new movie project.  This allowed me to cut out parts of the trailer I didn’t need, as well as splice different trailers together.  I also got a lot of leverage from taking screenshots of rubrics and webpages, and then using the iPad’s markup feature to zoom in on certain visuals.  I then let iMovie give the Ken Burns treatment to my new-and-improved “photos”.

​

If Becky Albertazzi was an 8th grade student, I'd give her an A+.

After meeting with my colleague, I realized that my teacher brain kicked in was admiring how well her feedback aligned with- gulp!- 8th grade CCSS standards.  She:

• Came to the discussion prepared, having read my website ahead of time (SL8.1A)
• Acknowledged the new information I expressed (SL8.1D)
• Helped me to analyze the purpose of information presented in my website (SL8.2)
• Evaluated the soundness of my reasoning (SL8.3)

This makes me think that:

1. Maybe those standards are relevant and well-thought out, after all!
2. Maybe those standards are asking a lot from a 13 year-old.

This week, we are asked to blog about what it means to be a good critical friend.  The word that comes most strongly to my mind is specificity.  While a pat on the back and a, "That all looks good to me!" is heavy on the friendly, it's not very specific.  To me, that's where the "critical" comes in.  Identifying specific errors or improvements is helpful.  And if the feedback is along the lines of "Hey, good job!", a specific example of what was effective is helpful too.  That way, as we continue our work, we can refine and repeat those elements that are working well.  

John Hattie's research shows that peer feedback is one of the most impactful ways to learn.  However, research also confirms that 80% of feedback that young people give one another is inaccurate.  To that end, I made great strides towards the end of my school year in guiding students to give one another specific, clear feedback.  This week's exercise in critical friending put me in the student's seat.  As adult learners, my colleagues and I don't have to rely on sentence frames and simplified rubrics as my students do, in order to keep our feedback clear and specific.  But the impact of getting feedback from a respected peer is, all the same, extremely beneficial.  It was great for me to experience, firsthand, something that confirms both research and classroom practice.

I'd also like to add that being the giver of critical feedback is just as helpful as being the receiver.  Examining my colleagues' work gave me ideas for content and layout.  

​And now, my two year-old is fighting to get her grubby hands on my keyboard...  Over and out!

Working on my Capstone Project video script took me back to the fifth grade.  I vividly remember the cardiovascular system project I cooked up in my ten year-old brain: full size nude mannequin, encased in a 6-foot long aquarium, lined with tubes that would pump lifelike blood to and from a pulsating heart model.  I knew it would be a masterpiece!  Imagine my dismay when my mom told me I had to make a poster instead.  I still haven’t fully recovered.
 
My delusions of grandeur have lessened with time.  This week, for example, I’m reminding myself that I’m not getting my masters in video production- it’s in education.  All the same, this should be in my wheelhouse, right?  I’m a theatre major: less words, more story!  Lights, camera, and all that.  
 
I spent days toying around with ideas in my head, but the how remained pretty limiting.  This is not the time to teach myself complicated video editing software.  I’ve worked a tiny bit with WeVideo, but it’s not inspiring.  YouTube frustrated the heck outta me before they developed their Editor, so we’re still not on friendly terms.  GoAnimate and I are pretty chummy, but it’s not quite what I had in mind.  Camtasia sounds tempting, but what if I fall in love and then my free trial expires?
 
And then, like Clooney, the iMovie trailer templates swept me off my feet.  Music?  Done!  Melodramatic styling?  Check!  “Economic” pacing?  Indeed!  There were only two elements missing that I’d have to work around:
 

1. Voice: Preview templates don’t include a straightforward way to add, as TechSoup puts it, “The Gift of Your Voice”.  The more effective videos I’ve seen let the viewer see and hear the producer, if only for a shot or two.
2. Conflict: After a few years of teaching teenagers to write novels, I know the amateur’s tendency to wait way too long to introduce conflict.  iMovie templates are made to showcase vacation photos or kid pictures; they don’t have any conflict at all.  

Thanks to a quick web search, I learned that I can begin with a template, and then import it as video and edit away.  Conflict and voice will be able to have a seat at the editing table after all.  Better yet, playing around with a template got me out of my “But how?”  and changed my tune to, “What if?”  It is always so nice to be handed a scaffold!  I just hope my 90 seconds in the director’s chair leaves me with enough energy to complete my capstone...

​

I'm reminded of something Michael McDowell likes to say at his trainings: Give teachers one mandate, they see five.  Give teachers five mandates, and they 25.  I appreciate site goals and mission statements that are simple.  At SMS, our monthly faculty meetings begin with a lightning-quick review of our site goals:

1. College & career readiness
   
2. Equity to close the achievement gap
   
3. Expand access to 21st century skills
   

Nowhere is the word technology mentioned, even in the fine print.  However, an optimistic view would suggest it's implied.  

If students are to be reading at grade level (part of college & career readiness), for example, then the transliterate student can read on a device or on paper.  Next, equitable access explicitly mentions college-going curriculum, but it also brings to mind the Williams Act.  If some students have access to technology, all students have access to technology.  Lastly, 21st Century skills include collaboration and creativity.  These are not dependent on technology, but tech tools in the Google suite certainly make collaboration and creativity do-able in the classroom.

I did do a little digging from my Site Leadership Team folder, and found a document where we had addressed goals on a page.  The document read:
Silverado is part of the New Technology Network of schools, we engage students in purposeful, authentic, deeper learning through Project Based and Technology Infused Instruction aligned with common core standards.  

In my personal practice and my capstone, this last statement makes sense.  However, after spending a few years keeping NTN and PBL as first priorities, I think the statement could be improved by moving "aligned to common core standards" to the beginning, instead of the end.  I know it's an issue of semantics, but to emphasize the standards, I would begin with standards first.  That's because I've seen the pitfalls of creating authentic projects that teach kids how to collaborate and create flashy products on their chromebooks, without actually learning how to improve their writing or create a strong thesis statement.  I've seen beautiful presentations that were copied and pasted together by students who didn't understand their content.  So maybe a revised goal should read:

Silverado is part of the New Technology Network of schools, we engage students in purposeful, authentic, deeper learning aligned with common core standards and supported through Project Based and Technology Infused Instruction . 

I added the word "supported" because technology, like PBL, should support learning- but it's not always necessary.  Both technology and PBL, however, can create immense gains in engagement, collaboration, and authentic work.  A mission statement reworded like this would support my capstone.

This spring, fueled by acacia blooms and a newly refined project, I had The Great AutoCrat Breakthrough.  It was my first real add-on success, and I used it fluidly and frequently throughout my project.  It was a cool trick, but also yielded great gains in terms of organizing and improving student work.  After getting handy with AutoCrat, suddenly all add-ons seemed more approachable.  Not only that, I also gained enough confidence to understand that not every add-on is worthwhile (and that's okay); in other words, sometimes it's not me with the problem, it's them.

Where have you gone, fresh springtime brain of my youth?

Maybe the trouble is that I started today with DocAppender.  Or maybe it's that I tried to run AutoCrat on a form that didn't need AutoCratting.  Or possibly it's that I've been travelling, juggling the kids and family, with no immediate classroom-payoffs in sight.  But I must disclose: I took a look at the elaborate AutoCrat script I ran months ago, and my weary brain wondered, "Wow.  How did I do that?" 

So I think it's best to preface my reviews by saying that I do embrace the increasingly crowded world of add-ons.  But boy does it help to be looking at them with a fresh and focused head on your shoulders.  Here's my review:

1. RowCall: Thumbs up!  Where was this add-on when I was organizing field trips this year?  I am not exaggerating- it could have saved me hours worth of work.  Row call takes a spreadsheet and, with a few clicks, makes additional page tabs showing the breakdown as you request it.  I organized our 8th grade field trip bus lists by third period teacher, and spent valuable prep time duplicating my list of  students over and over, and filtering each duplicate with a different teacher's name.  The real fun started when certain kids changed classes at the last minute- then I had to update the master sheet, their old teacher's list, and their new teacher's list.  RowCall automatically updates the filtered pages, so that additional work wouldn't have been necessary.  I also tried running this add-on with a class roster form; it easily broke up my students by period.  Pros: simplicity, speed.  Cons: the additional pages reveal data, not formatting (if  your cell on your original sheet is pink, it will be white on the extra page).
2. AutoCrat: Thumbs up!  There is so much Autocrat can do; it is the marriage of forms and docs.  One way I used it this year was to as an essay frame.  I started sentences or asked questions, and students filled in the blanks.  I ran an AutoCrat script that emailed their answers back to them in an editable doc.  One accidental victory in that situation is that, since I was the owner of the doc, nothing ever had to be turned in- I already had all students' work saved in my Drive.  Everybody wins.  However, I thought I'd revisit AutoCrat today with my class roster, and... weary brain lost the battle.  Maybe that's because a class roster is already so simple, there's not much need for forcing an AutoCrat into it.  Pros: emailing respondents with personalized text, creating custom folder & doc names for storage, extremely versatile.  Cons: you almost need to learn a new language to figure this out; it took me a few tries.
3. Doc To Form:  Thumbs sideways.  I used this earlier this year, after a colleague asked me to convert her doc quiz to a form quiz.  This add-on saved time because it allowed me to copy and paste text into my form, rather than having to retype it.  However, the process wasn't seamless.  First, you have to copy and paste every question, and every answer option; you can't copy and paste them all together.  Second, you can't save your work and come back to it- even though copying text line-by-line takes a while.  Third, after ten questions, you have to pay for the add-on... I wish I had known that from the beginning, so I didn't have to pay, reload, and start all over again.  Pros: better than retyping a doc word-by-word.  Cons: takes time, doesn't save, no prior warning that you'll need to pay for more than ten questions.
4. DocAppender: Thumbs down.  Maybe it's that weary brain I mentioned, but I could not get this to work.  I thought it might be a quick way to take my class roster and put it into an easy-on-the-eyes doc table, but no such luck.  My first mistake was trying to use it as an add-on to my form results (a spreadsheet); it doesn't exist in this realm.  You've got to use it as an add-on while you're still in forms.  The add-on icon looks like a puzzle piece.  Which makes since, I guess: trying to work with this one just left me puzzled.  Pros: good idea.  Cons: I couldn't figure it out.

     Reviewing other people’s capstones helped me to see the importance of clarifying your audience boldly and efficiently, from the homepage and beyond.  Viewers should be able to answer the question quickly, “Is this site for me?”  I think that an image or two, and a statement or question in

...............................bold text.................................

(surrounded by our friend White Space) can accomplish that task well.  Therefore I hope I can find/create graphics that will quickly communicate: adolescent, reading/writing, PBL.

     My most central audience is middle-grade humanities teachers who are implementing PBL and Common Core in their classroom.  However, it helps me to think of the audience like a literal target: there is a specific, central focus in the center… but also wider circles surrounding the bullseye.   Close outliers to my very specific target include administrators and coaches at PBL schools, high school teachers, and teachers who teach PBL outside of a humanities context.  My most central focus remains, however, remains teachers like me, with conundrums similar to mine: What is the role of close reading in PBL?  How should technology be used in writing?  How can reading and writing be collaborative and rigorous?

     My lesson examples and reflections will be most relevant to teachers who, like me, are struggling to find the best way to teach reading and writing to middle schoolers, through the lens of PBL, in the era of Common Core.  Whew!

     I see, after reviewing other websites, how personalized each “Learn More” section should be.  This is really where the meat of our capstone lies.  A few things I already know I’d like to include in this section are listed below:

• A side-by-side comparison of “Gold Standard PBL” and “Rigorous PBL”
• A side-by-side comparison of my project rubric from last year (wordy and confusing), and my project rubric from this year (simple and effective)
• Maybe a do’s and don’ts list, or a concept page inspired by Clark or Baggio showing what I’ve learned about PBL and CCSS
• My research paper screencast
• My video I made to sum up last semester’s work
• Something- a written anecdote?  Correspondence? About the outside-the-classroom involvement I used in a recent project, inspired by my research
• Example of forms/autocrat used to promote specific, standards-based student feedback
• A link to my blogs

 
    It looks like I’ve got work to do!

​

Google Forms, you're killing me.

I'm an English teacher.  Isn't it enough that I already confessed my dirty little secret, that I love spreadsheets?  I already paid homage to my family lineage of accountants and bookkeepers in an earlier blog.  I love numbers.  I love sorting data.  Google Forms is awesome.  I've said it.  

The dirty laundry is already swaying in the breeze- and yet here I've found a few more items to hang on the line, thanks to blog posts by Matt Miller and Keith Hamon, and trying out a few more writing hacks inspired by the marvelous Catlin Tucker.  I mentioned in an earlier post that I already love using Forms for self-grading quizzes, student rosters, pre- and post- tests, student reflections, and quick surveys among my colleagues.  Here's a few more uses that are new to me:

• Specific, Standards-Based Peer Feedback:  Peer feedback has an overwhelmingly positive impact on learning.  Unfortunately, most peer feedback is incorrect.  In other words, my students care more about what their peers think, than what I think, and their version of peer feedback is usually, "Good job.  You misspelled a word."  Michael McDowell, author of Rigorous PBL by Design, synthesized research from John Hattie and Graham Nuthall to produce some brilliant research to confirm what I see on a daily basis.    Enter Google Forms!  In a recent project, my students went through three cycles of peer feedback.  For each cycle, I created a Form for them to use that evaluated the project based on one standard at a time.  Then I really jazzed things up with AutoCrat; it automatically sent an evaluation to the groups' inbox.  Instead of hearing students murmuring a weak, "It's good."  I heard them giving each other feedback like, "Your volume was low and you needed more emotion, but you made good eye contact."  Voila!  (The AutoCrat-ted results looked like this.)
• Forms as a Writing Template: Inspired by Catlin Tucker, I recently used Forms as a writing template for my students.  Their assignment was to write a movie pitch, a format I knew would be challenging for some of my struggling writers.  So, rather than writing sentence stems on the board, I created a Form with sentence stems built in.  Students filled it out, and by the wonder of AutoCrat, received a paragraph-version of what they typed in their inbox.  From there, they could edit and revise as needed.  This was especially useful because I wanted to lessen my students' cognitive load: I wanted them to focus on their ideas, without having to worry about how to format a professional-looking movie pitch.  (Want to try it out?  Here's what my students used.)
• ​"Insurance" for Flipped Learning (haven't tried it yet): I find, like Keith Hamon, that if there is not a grade attached to work done outside of class, students won't do it.  Using Forms to create a quick assessment for a flipped learning assignment both: a) grades students on their knowledge, and b) serves as a formative to better direct the face-to-face class time.  
• Exit Ticket Template (haven't tried it yet):  I've been using Forms for exit tickets for a couple years now, because they're so fast and straightforward for both me and my students.  I didn't realize until reading Matt Miller's blog that fast could be made even faster with a template.  How could you not use that?  I read about this just in time for my school year to end, but I'll definitely be trying it out next year.
  
• Late Work Submission (haven't tried it yet): I always make sure Forms will not email me with student responses.  Until reading Matt Miller's blog, however, I never thought about using that option for late work.  What a good idea!  I constantly have students submitting their late work through Echo, and I have to remind them to send me a follow-up email so I remember to look for it and give it a grade.  A late work form is a great way to simplify that process, as well as keep record of what was turned in, by whom, and when.