Is it Possible for Teachers to Have an Anonymous Online Life?

A colleague came to me this morning asking if some of our students had tried friending me on Facebook; she had three requests last night.

Earlier this year, a few giggling kids approached me to ask about something I had posted on my Twitter account. They had found it while Googling the names of their teachers.

Even this blog has been discovered by inquisitive students who spotted its title in my list of favorites.

Is the concept of online anonymity gone? Is it a myth – something people claim to have, but can’t confirm (like spotting a Sasquatch, Chupacabra, or the Loch Ness monster)? Are we experiencing the 21st century equivalent of looking up a teacher’s phone number in the white pages and pranking the daylights out of him/her?

The optimist would say that this issue can be resolved by becoming completely transparent. Share everything; show you have nothing to hide. This does have some merits, like sharing your blog with students so they can see firsthand the rewards of writing for pleasure. But all it takes is one comment, taken out of context, and there’s a problem.

But shutting everything down and denying the existence of a web footprint is just as incriminating for a teacher. If you don’t want kids to know something, it’s probably bad, right? Maybe, maybe not – but that’s how the adolescent mind works.

So how do teachers deal with a loss of online anonymity?

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Why I'm Intimidated by Open House

In 8th grade, my math teacher was a nice man who – judging by outward appearance – was rather well-fed. The buttons on his dress shirt made a puckered vertical row where each side of the shirt struggled to contain the incredible weight straining against it.

And then, one afternoon as the teacher leaned against his desk, one of these buttons failed. It shot off his shirt, soaring over the heads of the astonished students, and landing somewhere in the back of the room.

It was a wardrobe malfunction only to be trumped by Janet Jackson’s tassels some 10 years later. And you can bet every kid in the school couldn’t wait to share the story with their parents that night at dinner.

It makes me wonder what wonderful tidbits the parents of my students know about me. Despite having a good group, I doubt my students go home and share stories of an excellent lesson plan or in-depth group discussion with their parents. Most likely, they know of a time when I inadvertently taught class with my fly down, or a day when I had a cold and sneezed enough times to get a nosebleed.

This is the reason why Open House intimidates me so much.

I don’t have a problem speaking in front of people, or even discussing a child’s progress with a parent. I’m uncomfortable with the fact they know something about me, but I have no idea what it may be (or in what way it may have been taken out of context). It’s like playing poker with your hand facing out. Everyone can see your cards but you.

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Audio Books in the Classroom

Last night @nbteacher sent out a tweet alerting his followers to Lit2Go – an audio book repository created and maintained by the University of Southern Florida. It's a collection of famous poems, short stories, and larger works that have fallen into the public domain and therefore free to use and share without the fear of copyright infringement. Lit2Go took these works and had them recorded as downloadable MP3 audio books.
I find audio books to be much less interesting than real books. It’s just not the same, like having someone retell a movie. Sure, you’d know what the movie was about, but few will dispute that it’s not the same thing as experiencing the feet-sticking-to-the-floor, greasy-popcorn-fingers joy of really being there first-hand.

Regardless, I can't help but think audio books have a place in the classroom. But where?

The mp3 recordings found on Lit2Go can be readily downloaded in printable, PDF format from popular public domain sites like Gutenberg.org. I spent much of the summer browsing this site and found a few good titles, but I wasn't sure what to do with them. Lit2Go gave me an idea.

Wouldn’t it be cool if students created their own repository of audio books similar to what USF has accomplished with Lit2Go. Not only would this transfer a sense of ownership to students, but it would give them real, authentic cause to practice reading fluency.

Good idea?

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Digital Cheating

When I was in 7th grade, I watched a girl in French class get caught cheating. She had answers written all over the palms of her hands When she finished, she thoughtlessly raised her hand and accidentally showed her cheat sheet to the entire class - and the teacher.

This was in 1993.

Today, ask Google how to cheat on a test and you'll get close to 600,000 possible answers, more than 5,000 of them in the form of video tutorials on sites like Metacafe and Youtube. They range from simple solutions like writing definitions on a stretched rubberband, to intricate redesigns of Coca-Cola labels.

This is the other side of the digital coin.

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An Open Letter to PBworks.com

From the PBworks.com site:
"PBworks is the world's largest provider of hosted business and educational workspaces. We host over 800,000 workspaces, serve millions of users per month, and 96% of PBworks business users would recommend PBworks to a friend."

Dear PBworks,

I recently created an account for myself, and a workspace for my group of 110 8th grade students. I have some personal experience using wikis and I was excited to integrate one into my classroom. After polling other educators on the subject, your service was recommended as a front runner in educational wiki products.

Only after I took the time to establish the wiki and create accounts for all of my students did I begin to run into problems. Confident that it was due only to my own learning curve, I set out to find the answers to my questions. Unfortunately, these problems seem to be on your end and not due to my inexperience with PBworks.

Problem #1 - No Password Reset
Your help section clearly states that passwords cannot be changed or recovered once an workspace account has been created. Why is this option unavailable? I wonder if members of the PBworks team have a background in middle school education. If so, they would know that the average middle level student practically forgets his/her own name after a long weekend. A password pre-selected by a teacher has no chance of enjoying a long-term stay in their developing brains.

Problem #2 - No Folder Hierarchy
In regard to organization, my plan had been to create a folder for each class section, and then nest other folders within it for different assignments or projects. This is as common organization framework for anyone using a Windows operating system, or any online user responsible for maintaining a website. It appears to be missing from Pbworks. While it is quite easy to create new folders to be displayed in the navigation bar, it is impossible to move them into other folders. Without this hierarchy system, it will be impossible to maintain a school year’s worth of student work.

A steering wheel is not considered an extra when purchasing a new car because it is something that simply needs to exist in order to make the product perform in the manner that is expected of it. I am not asking for advanced features. These are basic utilities that should come with a service such as yours.

In the end, I’ll probably suck it up and continue to use your service. After all, I am using a basic, free account. But I will certainly never pay for a service that has gaps in its back end that hinders deployment to my students. For a product that has adopted a freemium business model, you are not doing a very good job of enticing users to pay for membership.

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How to Get Students Reading Silently and Independently

Our teaching contract requires us to teach five classes, and supervise one duty. Being an ELA teacher, my duty usually ends up being SSR, or Silent Sustained Reading in the half period opposite my students’ lunch. On paper, this is a 20 minute period of time where students choose a book to read while relaxing with their full bellies. The reality is that it is a holding tank for children hopped up on the social gossip spilled during lunch SSR is the time during the day where students are asked to do something that many of them do not particularly love to do, and where there is no consequence, punitive or grade-based, for their performance.

Some teachers concede quickly to SSR, turning it into a study hall. Others play dumb – ignoring students who habitually grab a different book from the shelf each day, or dangle carrots like “free Friday” for silent compliance during the week.

I’ve tried group read-alouds, small book clubs, high interest selections – all with some success. Some kids embrace it while others visit my desk daily with legs bent and knees touching proclaiming inevitable bladder infection unless I turn them loose to visit the bathroom and then roam the halls. At best I would estimate 80% of my group to be engaged in meaningful reading. Better than the SSR classes that abandoned reading altogether, but not great. I resigned myself to this being the best possible model for an unstructured activity with a group of middle schoolers. Until, that is, I found the one missing component to a successful reading group. Me.

I’ve been a big fan of practice what you preach (here’s an earlier post on that same topic), and I realized I hadn’t been doing that during SSR. Typically after handing out books, and clearing the line of children with near-exploding bladders, I would hunker down at my desk and use the time to catch up on some of my own work.

My example was the wrong one. No wonder some SSR groups transform into a study hall. I had done it myself without even noticing. With the start of a new school year, and two SSR groups, I promised myself that I would set myself as an example. We are only into the second week of school, but perched in front of a silent group of readers with my book open in my lap, I have already noticed significant changes.

Once we begin reading, I open my book and get comfy in the front of the room. Amazingly, only twice have I been interrupted by a student asking to leave the room. I’d like to think that seeing my with a book caused an epiphany with my students on the importance and value of reading, causing them to immerse themselves in their own books. In reality, they are probably intimidated by the idea of interrupting the teacher while he is doing something. Either way, they are reading more during SSR. Everyone. I have 100% participation.

And best of all, I get a few minutes during my hectic day to read.

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