If you've been reading the Radical for the last few days, you know that I spend last weekend in Philadelphia at the Educon conference. 

That means I'm intellectually spent and WAY behind in almost all of my part time work right now.  Constant conversations and really, really cool interactions with some of the brightest people on earth will do that to you.  As a result, I haven't got a ton of time to write today. 

What I'll do instead is share a handout with you that I created recently for the language arts teacher on my team to use with our kids.

It's designed to walk students through the process of writing a really good 25 word story.  You can download it here:

Download Handout_CanYOUWritea25WordStory

So what's a 25 word story -- and more importantly, why would you want your kids to write them? 

Well, a 25 word story is exactly what it sounds like:  A 25 word story.  It's a writing style that I first discovered by following Kevin Hogdson -- a really remarkable sixth grade language arts teacher -- in Twitter. 

Kevin was regularly writing these incredible stories contained in a single tweet that had a clear beginning, middle and ending.  They were emotional.  They were funny.  They were provocative and they were cool.  And while there doesn't seem to be a ton of people writing them anymore, a little community grew up around the short stories being shared with the #25wordstory hashtag. 

Here's a sample one of my students wrote this week:

From a language arts perspective, 25 word stories are GREAT activities for middle school kids.  Not only are they perfect for filling the short chunks of time that you might have at the end of a more traditional lesson, they force students to think more carefully about word choice. 

Like I tell my kids, when you only have 25 words, EVERY one is remarkably important. 

Finally, I love 25 word stories because they can be shared in text messages -- the primary form of communication for my students.  That means they can quickly send their stories to a bunch of friends and/or their parents for feedback. 

Instant audience is never a bad thing when you're trying to encourage writing.

Hope this sounds like something you're interested in exploring.  I'd love your feedback on how my handout works with your kids!

______________________________

Related Radical Reads:

What Can YOUR Students Learn from the Romney/Perry Slugfest? [Activity]

Google Search Story Creator [Activity]

Here at Educon yesterday, I had the chance to learn a bit more about design thinking from David Jakes. 

David's central point was that schools and teachers often get stuck in a "Yeah, but..." mindset when thinking about change. Instead of dreaming about what's possible -- taking a "What if" stance towards the challenges standing in our way -- we're all too ready to trip over the hurdles in front of us without even attempting to jump. 

David asked each table group to come up with a "What if" question spotlighting a more positive -- and possible -- future for classrooms and then to break that question down into the tangible steps that schools and teachers would need to take in order to move towards that future.

Here's a graphic organizer detailing what Kristen Swanson, Patrick Larkin, Larry Fliegelman and I came up with:

(click to enlarge)

Our key question is a good one, isn't it? 

What IF schools created a culture of "DO" instead of a culture of "KNOW?" Doesn't that action-oriented stance reflect the kind of real-world learning environment that we know resonates with kids? 

More importantly, don't we WANT kids who see themselves as living, breathing contributors to the world around them rather than simply as little people locked away behind our walls waiting to be released?

Of course, we'd have to work to take active steps to redefine almost everything about our schools if a culture of "Do" is really going to be possible.  Grading will need to change -- from a focus on content mastery to a focus on demonstration of an ability to apply content in novel situations.

Purchasing and budget decisions would have to change -- from a commitment to buying containers holding content (read: textbooks) to a commitment to giving kids opportunities to interact with their worlds. 

The rules that govern how kids advance from one grade level to the next would need to change -- from an emphasis on hours spent in seats to an emphasis on the use of artifacts to prove levels of mastery that we're comfortable with.

So this all sounds great, right -- but how do you move forward with what seems like such a significant change?

That depends on your role in the system.  As a principal, Larry was ready to start rethinking purchasing decisions starting on Monday morning, placing an emphasis on spending that encouraged doing instead of just knowing. 

Patrick -- also a principal -- was ready to begin moving towards creating a separate track in his high school that parents who were interested in a "doing" experience for their kids could opt into, knowing that it would be non-traditional in almost every way. 

Kristen and I are convinced that most teachers could begin creating learning opportunities that allowed our kids to work independently -- and interdependently -- on meaningful tasks without much trouble.

The key point -- as David would argue -- is that EVERYONE needs to move forward.  Find a step you can take tomorrow.  Find a step that you take a week from now.  A month from now.  A year from now.

But move forward.  Give up the "Yeah, buts" and start asking "What if . . ."

Cranky Blogger Warning: From time to time here on the Radical, I feel like a ranting lunatic driven by emotion rather than solution-oriented blogger driven by reason.  Now might just be one of those times.  Take what I write tonight with a grain of salt -- or a gallon of gin.  Dealer's choice.

__________________________________________

Poke through my thoughts about technology's role in public education and you'll hear me preach over and over again about the importance of working to transform teaching REGARDLESS of the number of computers you have in your classroom.

That's a very personal message simply because I don't live in a 1:1 world. 

Heck, I don't even live in a 10:1 world.

Like most teachers, I've spent the better part of the past decade making due with limited access to labs with dozens of computers in need of Flash updates.  Sure, we've got a few laptop carts -- but they've sadly become dilapidated wrecks that we can't afford to replace. 

#soundfamiliar?

For the most part, I've tried to be tolerant of that reality. More importantly, I've consistently encouraged anyone who bothers to listen to be tolerant of that reality, too.

"It's not like your schools and districts don't WANT to provide you with access to the kinds of digital tools that you need in order to change teaching and learning in your classroom," I preach.  "It's just darn near impossible to appropriately outfit classrooms given the limits of district budgets."

There's some truth in there, right?

Times HAVE been unusually tight.  Geez - here in North Carolina there hasn't even been money to give teachers cost-of-living adjustments in the past 4 years.  Where ARE we supposed to get the cash to invest in classroom technology.

#soundfamiliar?

But I'm sick of being tolerant, y'all. 

I'm sick of hearing critics hammer teachers for being resistant to change while I'm STILL sitting in cut-and-paste classrooms full of textbooks, glue sticks and safety scissors.  I'm sick of educational soothsayers conjuring up visions of 21st Century learning environments that I'll NEVER be able to create with the three working computers plugged into the corner of my classroom. 

I'm sick of telling my students that they'll have to wait until they get home to answer the questions that they care the most about.  I'm sick of standing in line behind twelve other teachers waiting to make photocopies because handouts are the only instructional resource that we have consistent access to. 

#soundfamiliar?

Most importantly, I'm sick of pretending that I stand a chance of convincing kids who understand just how personalized and engaging learning can be that my ridiculously quaint, completely unplugged, intellectually standardized classroom is anything OTHER than a big, fat waste of time.

The genie's out of the bottle, y'all. 

Like Scott McLeod recently argued, our kids KNOW that traditional learning environments are irrelevant -- and pretty much everyone with a pulse KNOWS that our schools need to change, but NO ONE is willing to put their money where their mouths are. 

You (and I don't care if "you" are a pundit, a parent or a politician) want to see my instruction change?

Find a way to give me some new tools to experiment with. 

I don't care how you do it. Force through some ridiculously sick bond referendum earmarked for technology and technology only.  Figure out a way to make Bring Your Own Device Programs work in your communities.  Pass the hat at Chamber of Commerce meetings. 

But whatever you do, quit ranting about the crappy job I'M doing until YOU'RE actually willing to pony up some cabbage or to help cut through red tape to create solutions that give me a fighting chance of actually doing my job well.

Quit crying about the dioramas my kids are making when the supply closet is chock-a-block full of crayolas.  Quit acting so surprised that my kids aren't networking with the world when the only lenses that we have to look through are dated textbooks.  Quit asking for "timely feedback" when I'm collecting data by hand with clipboards and post-it notes.  

I guess what I'm saying is quit asking me to perform instructional miracles.

My well of professional tolerance has run dry. 

#soundfamiliar?

(Glad I got that off my chest.  I almost feel better already.  Now where's my red checking pen? I have essays to grade.)

_________________________________

Related Radical Reads:

How Limited Technology Budgets Failed My Students

More on the Challenges of Wondering in Schools

Your Data Dream. My Data Nightmare

Let me come clean with y'all:  I LOVE reading nonfiction.  In fact, if you were to look at the 200 titles on my Kindle, you'd find about 12 that are fiction. 

More importantly, I think we do students a disservice when we fail to introduce great nonfiction reads to middle schoolers. 

The fact of the matter is that the majority of reading students will do to prepare for careers will be nonfiction. That means they've GOT to learn to love it -- and that's why I think biographies are so important.

Because biographies resemble the stories that kids have spent their whole lives reading, they are the PERFECT gateway into the world of nonfiction.

That's the theme of this week's Minute for Change podcast:

Here's three biographies that your students are likely to love:

The Great and Only Barnum : Not only will kids chuckle at the hilarity in Barnum's life story, they'll love wrestling with the morals behind a man who made money hand-over-fist by putting bearded ladies, Siamese twins, and crippled old women on display for the entire world to gawk at. 

Escape - The Story of the Great Houdini : There's something magical about magic, isn't there?!  And even today, there's something magical about the life of America's greatest magician.  Even in an era where seeing it is believing it, the stories of a long-forgotten Houdini will capture your kids' imaginations.

Mao's Last Dancer : Let's face it - Middle schoolers are passionate about wrestling with what's fair and what's unfair.  That makes any book connected to life in Communist China -- a place of almost incomprehensible injustice -- an interesting read. 

This title -- which details the life story of a poor Chinese boy who grew up hating America only to discover that everything he'd been taught was nothing but a lie -- gives students the chance to think about the role that governments play in keeping people down. 

So when ARE you going to start taking practical steps to introduce students to interersting biographies. 

#theymatter

___________________________________

Related Radical Reads:

Reading is NOT Optional

Real Men Read

A few months ago, I stumbled across an interesting new Google tool in a Kyle Pace blog post.  Called the Search Story Creator, it allows users to create 30 second videos of the screens that appear when they are searching for particular topics.

Kyle use of the Search Story Creator -- he created a sample commercial to advertise a political candidate -- got me thinking that Google's newest gizmo could be a great tool for having kids practice visual persuasion during the upcoming election season. 

But instead of using the Search Story Creator to generate a commercial about a candidate, I thought having students create a commercial trying to influence people around a particular issue might make sense. 

Specifically, I wanted to create a task that would make kids think through what candidates AREN'T saying about hot-button issues.  Doing so would serve as a tangible reminder that there are two sides to every political story even if candidates aren't always willing to consider them.  

So I whipped up a few samples of search stories built around political issues that teachers could share with students starting a similar project.

Here's one questioning Barack Obama's position on universal health care:

And here's one questioning Newt Gingrich's positions on immigration:

They're pretty interesting products, aren't they?  Forcing kids to ask unanswered questions about the positions that candidates take on issues requires higher level thinking AND a deep understanding of political issues.  

More importantly, it would encourage the kinds of behaviors that characterize the savviest citizens in any democracy.  For too long, politics has been driven by an unquestioned allegiance to individual parties.  It's about time that we start to remind our kids that questioning candidates matters. 

These kinds of products are also pretty easy to create. 

Here's a handout that your students can use to craft their own search stories on the political issues that matter the most to them:

Download Handout_ElectionThemedGoogleSearchStories

Overall, I think the Search Story Creator is a new tool worth exploring. 

Not only does it generate an interesting and potentially influential visual product -- something that students MUST master if they are going to be persuasive in tomorrow's world -- it forces kids to think through the kinds of questions that can result in more meaningful learning about controversial topics.

I also like how approachable the Search Story Creator is.  Once students have thought through the kinds of questions that they want to include in their final products, Google does the rest -- from including background music and choosing transitions to uploading videos to YouTube.

That matters to me.  Whenever I'm working with technology, I want my kids focused on content, not on mastering new pieces of software or wrestling with technical processes.  The less time that my kids spend tinkering with tools, the more time they can spend thinking through key ideas.

That doesn't mean, however, that Google's Search Story Creator is perfect -- final products are limited to 30 seconds, which is barely enough time to tell a meaningful story and users can't make any individual enhancements to the screen captures that appear in their search stories even if they wanted to -- but there are definitely classroom applications here.

Whaddya' think?  Is this a tool that you think you could use with your students?

___________________________

Related Radical Reads:

Google's Reading Level Search Feature

Google's Redesigned Related Searches Feature

Working Together with Wikis and Google Docs