Reflections and Revisions

We've all had to live with the ISM for a while now, and it is not an unqualified success. I'm now scuttling back to the drawing board and trying to decide what will improve this child of mine.

MindMeister has an incredible online tool for thinking things through, and it has helped me realize that the ISM is trying to accomplish too much in too little time.

Just like our students, we all are learning at different paces and using different manners. The ISM needs to reflect this. I've been playing around and wonder if I've found the right sequence. Let me know if you find this helpful, and email me if you'd like to become a collaborator. This is a group project, after all!

First Pothole on the ISM Road

(Note to self: Go to another computer to test features, when you have your usual computer set to automatically log in to sites.)

Checking my school email at 10:30 p.m. last night yielded feedback from the first teacher trying to work through the ISM:

I am having trouble on the module. There are several places that ask me to give my "Reflections" on a page but where I am supposed to click "Edit the Page" it is saying "Protected." This module is really hard to understand most of the time. I am getting really frustrated. I feel like I am wasting my time.

Oh No, that certainly isn't what I intended! But it is invaluable information, and showed me some major bugs...

• the instructions about joining wikispaces.com and the TTR wikispace at the beginning of the Getting Started section must not be clear enough, or s/he would have been able to edit the page
• I've deleted those instructions, and changed the wiki settings (see below)
  
• requiring membership in wikispaces is a pain - I'm not constantly at my computer (no matter what my colleagues think!), so can't be certain of getting the membership requests moderated in a timely fashion.
• I've changed the settings to Public, so membership isn't required to edit pages
• The My Maps feature in Google Maps is really cool, but it turns out that "sharing" doesn't mean people can add to the map, it just means they can view a map set to Private
• I've deleted the Exploration recommendation that the user "add to the map"

True to life and Murphy's Law, Wikispaces.com was down when I tried to work on it last night. After tossing and turning and failing to find sleep, at 2:30 a.m. I was finally able to get into the site and make the changes. I've emailed updates to the teacher, in hopes s/he will be willing to give it another shot and provide me with more feedback. Does the phrase "Not Ready For Prime Time" ring a bell?

Now I'm worrying about the usefulness of the physical handout. I created it by copy/pasting directly from the wiki, but that means the handout is out of date almost as soon as it is made available. Let's hope I find a solution before bedtime; I'm not worth much on 2 hours of sleep!

Will It Work?

The Internet Study Module (ISM) that has consumed so much of my life the last few weeks has finally been posted to the school website. I sent advance copies (doesn't that sound grand?) to the district admin, hoping it will be what they are looking for, but I'll confess to being very nervous.

Not nervous about the admin. If they don't care for what they find, we'll pull it and start over (or replace the new with the previous learning module). What I'm nervous about is the reactions of my fellow teachers. Have I pushed too hard? Am I asking them to take too big a leap? Is this just going to frustrate people who are working as hard as they can to prepare the young minds that are entrusted to us?

Then I read David Warlick's post, "Caught Whining..." and breathed a sigh of (almost) relief.

I do not believe that most teachers are too far behind to start learning new tools. They’re smart, resourceful, dedicated, and they are professional learners.That's the community in which I work...a family of professional learners.

Am I pushing too hard, too fast? Perhaps. But I'll find out shortly, once word spreads that the module is out there, ready to be worked on.