I am honored to have been nominated for an Edublog award.

I also deeply regret not having completed my nomination post in time!

There are a TON of amazing blogs, groups and people nominated this year, so please take the time to vote.

I also want to extend my gratitude on behalf of the Edcamp Philly team for our nomination for Best Educational Use of a Social Network.  We are humbled.

Please take the time to vote for ALL of the nominated categories here:

I finally decided to jump in and give Schoology a try. I've been intrigued by its Facebook-like interface and its services like assignment creating, dropbox, discussions, blogging and gradebook ever since I first came across it at the TSETC conference last month.

This is what my home page looks like. I can't show the course home page due to students' full names being listed.  You can see the assignments and due dates on the right-hand side and different 'places' on the left-hand side.

I introduced it to my 6th graders this week. The first assignment we tried, after creating an account with an access code (no email required!) was a discussion question: "What is your favorite kind of poem and why?" We are in the middle of a poetry unit that their homeroom teacher and myself are teaching, so the question was relevant to the unit.

Their responses were on topic, thoughtful and one student even wrote, "This is cool."  We had experience with commenting, so it was probably familiar for them, but what made it even  more familiar was the format. It looks just like a newsfeed on Facebook, so they picked up how it worked with little direction.

Today they logged in again to access our first assignment: making a Voki that reads a poem they wrote. I easily added the assignment to our course page and included a link to Voki. The students then copy/pasted their Voki embed code into the comment area of the assignment.

I can see using Schoology to teach blogging with my students. They have never blogged before, so the ability to get them started in a "walled garden" is really exciting.

A few features that I love:

• as an administrator you can edit student user permissions like private messaging
• built-in gradebook that automatically populates with students who 'join' your course
• no need for student email addresses
• user interface

How I introduced it to my students:

1. Guided students to the registration page.
2. Wrote access code on the board so students could automatically enroll in my course.
3. Had students choose an avatar for their profile.
4. Guided students to the course home page to find the discussion question.
5. Gave students time to answer the question and read each other's answers.

That took 45 minutes.

The second day the students navigated the site much more easily and I foresee it getting easier and easier.

I was reminiscing this weekend to the sound of Bad Religion when I realized that it was bands like them along with the Dead Kennedys and others that taught me what it was like to (literally) yell against injustice and corruption and plea for a better way.  As a teenager, punk rock provided me the impetus for not accepting the status quo, for pushing the envelope and for being fearless in the face of adversity and for going against the grain. 

In addition to the music there were self-published 'zines,' many of which contained articles written by students my age. The articles ranged from reviews of new albums to articles about corruption and political policies.  Of course, with the advent of the Internet, I'm sure many of these zines have fallen by the wayside.  I see a lot of similarity between these zines and the community of progressive educator bloggers on the scene right now.

As an adult, I still find power in many of the songs that had a huge affect on me as a teenager. Perhaps that's why I choose to label myself an edupunk.....

For your enjoyment, here are two Bad Religion songs that still seem poignant to my adult life 15 years after I first discovered them.

Against the Grain

Change of Ideas

well the sheaves have all been brought,
but the fields have washed away
and the palaces now stand
where the coffins all were laid
and the times we see ahead
we must glaze with rosy hues
for we don't wish to admit
what it is we have to lose

millennia in coming
the modern age is here
it sanctifies the future
yet renders us with fear
so many theories, so many prophecies
what we do need is a change of ideas
when we are scared
we can hide in our reveries
but what we need is a change of ideas
change of ideas, change of ideas
what we need now is a change of ideas

I recently wrote a post on the excellent group blog, The Co-operative Catalyst, called "Who's the Boss?" in which I explored the idea of teachers being in charge of a school. More and more I'm feeling that not only is this a trend, but it is an important movement.

This past Thursday I attended TEDx Philly, a gathering of inspiring and motivating movers and shakers in Philadelphia. I was struck by the talks by Chris Lehmann and Simon Hauger who both signaled a need for big changes in education.

Lehmann, as many people know, started his own school here in Philadelphia within the School District itself but partnered with The Franklin Institute. His talk about how High School sucks and why it doesn't have to be that way, highlighted the authentic, real-world experiences The Science Leadership Academy offers its students. As a perfect example, his students were documenting the entire event on film with still photography and video.

Simon Hauger, the renowned West Philadelphia High School teacher whose students beat out the likes of MIT and Cornell in the Progressive Automotive X Prize for their hybrid vehicle, spoke as well about how school should be. In fact, he is in the process of organizing his own school, The Workshop for Democracy and Social Entrepreneurship. 

photo courtesy of Budzlife on Flickr

Educators in the classroom know that the current state of affairs in education is not working. As members of the front line, they know what works and what doesn't. They also know that the models that work do not always neatly fit into quantifiable charts and graphs that can be analyzed by computers and politicians.

I can't begin to count the number of times that I have had a conversation about starting 'our own school.' What's amazing is that most of these conversations as well as the concrete, real-world examples, have a different kind of leadership.

Leadership in schools started and run by teachers are democratic in nature. They have flat leadership and the entire staff works as a team. Some of these kinds of schools do have administrators, but these leaders are just that: leaders.  They are not The Boss and they do not manage their staff like a CEO of a business.  Hauger's school describes its leadership and organizational structure as one of democratic cooperation:

photo courtesy of Tim Morgan on Flickr

I had a recent epiphany that I am, technically speaking, a Yuppie (young, urban professional). I've always used the term to describe office/corporate types in suits who drive nice cars. But when I think about it, I am a young, urban professional. I might not wear a suit to work and I might not work in an office, but I have a business card, I live in the city and I am a professional.

This realization is an important one. I think more teachers need to consider themselves as working professionals. For some reason we tend to separate ourselves from professionals who work in offices or work in the business sector, yet most of us are just as or more educated than our corporate peers and we are skilled at what we do.

I once pulled a business card out to give to someone I had met and they were amazed that a teacher had a business card. We need to change the perception that we are any different than those who work in the business world. We network, we attend conferences, we have performance reviews and we had to work hard to get where we are.

I'm a yuppie and I've come to terms with it. Can you?