Kaulbach's Modern World

see published article at Educator's Room.  Normally March 2nd would pass without notice but this year I am embracing the 109th birthday celebration of Dr. Seuss in my high school classroom. Seuss is ageless and timeless. Many elementary school teachers and children's librarians have embraced Read Across America's promotion of "grab your hat and read with the cat"  but high schools tend to lose the connections to childhood things as we focus intently on preparing students for impending adulthood, college or career applications and many meaningful assessments. In our busy efforts to implement more literacy in 6 or 8 course specific areas of content each day teachers hope students will learn more. In the words of Seuss we are thinking "Oh the places they will go" instead of acknowledging how far they have come. High school students need more contact with childhood literacy. In reading Children's Literature Briefly, (Tunnell & Jacobs) I was expos...

published links: E Literacy Changes Everything                   gaming                   gaming dialogue The majority of homework in elementary schools and high schools tends to be practice or preparation leaving less than 30% for integration, interpretation opportunities ( Brozo, 2010 ). The Common Core  is shifting assessment from a focus on skills and gains of knowledge to information analysis, critical evaluation, and expression of new understanding (CCSSI; www.corestandards.org). This means our standard practices in education are not necessarily preparing students for the Common Core.  Instead of causing great alarm this lead me to reexamine isolated practices in our literacy program that could be improved to promote information analysis and new understanding.   Review of our fall diagnostic testing allowed me to isolate inference questions as a common miscue.  5...

Screenleap        is a fantastic tool for distance learning. Flatdaddy needed to share  Haiku learning platform with me. Using Screenleap, he talked me through the tutorial as I watched him navigate his own screen from my laptop here in New Mexico.  This tech to tech connection gave me the impression that screenleap could be a useful conferencing tool to use with my own students absent from class. Students who attend ski academy, who move temporarily, who hunt for weeks at a time would not have to have the excuse of losing a classroom connection.  Does this excuse students from meeting daily in the classroom?  I think it makes a class of students reliant on each other if what they are missing is truly interactive. This is why I teach lessons that revolve around situation gaming both online and offline. Admittedly, I can improve how I actually blend the learning environments. image courtesy of Wikipedia.  Scribblenaut was introduced to m...

Who would've thought that a simple homemade toy, promoted through collaborative effort online, would lead to.... The Imagination Foundation?   Caine's Arcade.  Or that simple, impossible design could be immediately useful.  This following blog inspired me to have my own students create housing based on our world studies of architecture. Design Tavern Cardboard Housing         Why not? Cardboard is accessible and free, so why not let students' base knowledge combined with imagination produce something real? In this case, no costs, no repercussions with the possibility of it something being put to real use. This led me to think- with so many possibilities being shared on social networks, what are high school teachers preparing students for?   At the ISEA conference (International Science, Electronics &Art) 2012 Albuquerque,  the theme, Machine Wilderness provided a forum for global discourse on the blending of art, technol...

Distance learning. My husband is separated from me and my daughter by 2,000 miles during my sabbatical here in Santa Fe. We are determined to continue our traditional family time despite the distances.  How can we engage in meaningful dialogues that lead to less loneliness, greater happiness and motivation to appreciate all that we can from life in a new environment?  Our experiment with distance learning began with our Ipad.  Facetime  allowed us to bring " Flatdaddy " to the dinner table and eat as a family.  We could watch the sunset or the quail scurry in the backyard or just brush our teeth together.   Flatdaddy enabled us to continue the nightly storytime while I used a few moments for other chores.  Eventually, reading to a flat screen wore off.  Technology and the virtual world is no replacement for the real person.  Our daughter was quick to point out that hugging Flatdaddy was not the same.   Reading chapter books lost its a...

ISEA promotes international interdisciplinary discourse and discovery. (x)trees Agnes Chavez & Alessandro Saccoia ( Taos, New Mexico & Milan Italy ) Add caption Dual Visualization, video mapping & social interactive projections on a wall. Virtual trees created from thoughts and messages.  (x)trees is an algorithmic drawing of tree forms generated from tweets and SMS (text) messages.  We walk into this space and become surrounded by the everchanging trees.  With each text, branches and leaves develop as a result of the text appearing and disappearing. The immersion helps us acknowledge interconnectivity between nature and technology and public opinion concerning tree planting worldwide.  Because anyone can tweet, facts, quotes and myth are published onto the space. How does this work? The program scans Twitter for  key words that appear as seeds under each tree.  Then the message appears as a leaf at that moment in time. I was...

I admit becoming a parent made me more aware of what I loved and feared in education.  I went through an intense stage of self awareness when my daughter entered kindergarten.  I was so impressed by her excitement to learn.  Her teacher of 30+ years experience was engaging, entertaining and very organized.  Her mentoring led to my transformation  and a decision to improve upon a few things. This teacher communicated with parents.  Parents were not afraid or put aside.  Every interested parent found a role to play in education (at least while their children are involved).   It is difficult to organize but I will not give up on the idea that parents want to be involved in education in a positive way.  If I don't give parents a role it isn't surprising to find them airing frustrations on Facebook or in other public forums. First, I need to improve how schools acknowledge the role that parents play in the home. In the Journal for the Educati...

How does this success transfer to a rural Vermont high school? In December I will return from my sabbatical to teach high school history at the public school that I have been teaching in for sixteen years. There are a few big ideas that I definitely need to bring from this literacy program in New Mexico to both my own teaching and the newly shaped literacy program in the high school. I have never worked with someone as organized as the director of this program.  She has to be.  She constantly updates changes in a daily school schedule and her volunteers' schedules in order to guarantee consistent student contact with reading and writing. Every lesson has to be organized so that students and mentors can follow simple directions without misinterpretation.  Each day must follow specified routine.  This is the foundation for building a supportive community between school and everyone else. I see a great value in bringing organization to my class curricula that will e...

I didn't realize that I looked so intense. What I have learned out here in Santa Fe is that tradition and culture is very much a prominent part of peoples' daily lives.  Everyone embraces art, experiments, practices and creates.  I see things I hold in awe and projects that are down right goofy.  But there is no right or wrong, only practice. When Spanish colonials moved to New Mexico, fresh flowers for the home were difficult to come by. Not to forgo tradition, colonists took scraps of paper, cloth, anything and fashioned them into flowers to decorate a mantel, a table, a woman's rebozo or the hair.   shiny paper added gave it a sparkly effect. we did not have this handy.   But one could quickly fill a room with flowers. Once the process is mastered.  And the end result is... stunning. Traditions give people a sense of style. A sense of identity to embrace at any age. see this story of this young artist at Spanish Market & ...

Rapport is everything. In this literacy program it was initiated during the one on one testing.  It began with a hello and a show of interest in the student; a request for the student's participation in the test, not a command.  As the administrator of the test I showed the student the scoring guide, the word lists and the readings.  The student was aware of their role and mine.  It was necessary to tell each student that the information written during their participation was to be used in order to to design instruction specific to him or her.  The score is neither good nor bad. It only highlights what skills and strategies will become the focus of the program. Any answer given was met with approval.  A wrong answer is actually viewed as excellent data.  It highlights exactly what deficit or need that student will focus on in order to progress. The student knows if they are selected for this program, it is not for remedial needs but for students...