The Demonization of Wikipedia

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="269" caption="Wikipedia isn't quite as bad as everyone makes it out to be."][/caption]

No doubt you have been on Wikipedia or at least seen it at the top of your search results. As a teacher, I did not allow students to use Wikipedia as a primary source, but I did encourage them to use the site. There are many uses and contrary to what most teachers say, it does not need to be avoided. Wikipedia has been demonized in education. Whether or not that has a good reason is open for debate, but the mindset needs to be changed.

Two years ago, I spent about six weeks working with a couple of physics researchers at Oklahoma State. When Dr. Rizatdinova wanted me to learn something, she always pulled up Wikipedia first. Was this ignorance? Or does she recognize that Wikipedia is, on average, more accurate than print sources? I suspect it is the latter. She has a PhD in High Energy Physics from Moscow University, so I can only imagine she has a pretty clear understanding of how to find correct information on the internet.

Back in 2009, I had a realization: Putnam City High School did not have a Wikipedia page. I thought to myself, "How can this be?" At that point, I realized I had two choices, I could continue to be a consumer of knowledge (and allow my students to do so) or I could model for my students what being a producer of knowledge looks like. I chose the latter. I did a minimal amount of research about the history of Putnam City High School and started a Wikipedia page. This was one of only two edits I made to the page. I only mention that because it has some (not a lot) of information on it, most of which was put there by others. There are actually people who enjoy building pages and some of them found our page! My second edit was to correct the mascot. I could have noticed the error and pointed it out to others, further casting the site in a bad light. However, I decided it would be better to make the page better.

A couple of weeks after I created the page, I went back to the page and there was a note at the top saying, "This page does not meet Wikipedia's quality standards, you can help by adding citations and information." What? They have "quality standards"? They actually want you to add citations? To show where your information comes from? That sounds a lot like the kind of thing we teach students when writing papers. I suspect Wikipedia could be used as a tool to teach writing, instead of being talked about like the plague.

Over the last two weeks, I have talked (probably too much) about Wikipedia over the course of some professional development I have done about technology. One was at Deer Creek Schools and the other at Yukon Public Schools. I spent some time talking about how students should no longer look at the web as a place to simply get information. They should also look at it as a place to construct their own knowledge base and add to the overall knowledge about a topic. This is (at least part of) the purpose of Wikipedia.

Oklahoma recently adopted the English/Language Arts and Mathematics Common Core State Standards. These standards mandate that students should "Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate..." Wikipedia would be a fantastic place to do that. By the way, this was cut and pasted from the grade 3-5 standards.

Imagine starting a Wikipedia page for your school (neither Yukon nor Deer Creek have pages for any of their schools at the time of this writing). You could have students develop interview questions, contact members of the community, video the interviews, post them to the school district's webpage, and then link to the video interviews as primary sources for your Wikipedia article(s). Would students think differently about their writing if they had that kind of ownership? Would they write differently with that kind of audience?

I recognize that Wikipedia can be used incorrectly. As teachers, should we continue letting students use it incorrectly? Or should we be proactive in our approach? I hope you will reconsider how you present Wikipedia to your students. Like most things on the web, it can be used to learn something.

I challenged the teachers from both Yukon and Deer Creed to build Wikipedia pages for their schools. I'll be interested to see if they pick up the gauntlet. What about you? Does your district have a page? Does your school? Is there some other way to integrate Wikipedia into your teaching? I would love to hear your ideas.

**I posted this today because Wikipedia is blacked out to protest the US Government's efforts to censor information on the internet through SOPA and PIPA. Both of these bills (like most) have a good intent. The controversy comes in from the way in which they are doing the "policing".**

My Final Duty

Putnam City has a tradition in which the previous Teacher of the Year speaks to the district faculty on opening day. Ive got to say, I was really looking forward to this. There's something very exhilarating about standing up in front of a captive audience of about 1200 professionals and telling them what's on your mind. I think my experience at IgniteOKC gave me a taste of public speaking and I like it! I'm not saying I'm good at it, but I enjoy it. When you have people clapping (even if you told them to) or laughing or even cheering, it gets the adrenaline going. It was a great experience.

I talked about the Common Core and I'm afraid I stole some (or a lot) of the superintendent's thunder. I felt pretty bad about that, but much better when several people asked if they could have a copy of my speech. So here you go: (it's long - as usual) I just cut and pasted from my notes, so please forgive any grammar and punctuation errors. I write just like I talk.

By the way, I sitting in Logan Airport in Boston, on my way home from a STEM plan learning lab. I'll debrief on that in another post. It was an enlightening experience in so many ways.



I’d like to start out by saying thank you to Mr. Hurst and the rest of the administration for the opportunity to speak to you all today. I was honored to be chosen as your Teacher of the Year for 2011. Being selected as a State Teacher of the Year finalist made my decision to take the Science Director job a very difficult one. In fact, I can easily say it was one of the most difficult decisions ever. I’m so proud to be a part of the Putnam City Schools family and I wanted so badly to represent each of you at the state level. Thank you so much for the opportunity to do so and I’m sorry I had to drop out of the competition because of this new responsibility.

Now if you’ve never spoken to a group this large, know that it can make you a bit nervous. I’ll just say that if I say something you agree with or that resonates with you, or even if I just mention your school, to let me know you are listening, you can clap or say something like woo-hoo!

15 years ago, I applied to be a bus driver in Putnam City Schools. I was hired and drove off and on for 10 years until I finally finished my undergraduate degree at SNU in 2007. During those years, I came into contact with what I believe to be the greatest faculty in the State of Oklahoma. As a bus driver, you certainly get a different perspective of the students and faculty. My time as a bus driver allowed me to learn what caring about students means and I learned that from you guys. One of the schools I drove out of was Tulakes Elementary (anyone here from there?) Every day the teachers would bring the students to the bus. They would get on the bus with the students and they showed me what an example of a caring teacher looked like. If a student was having a bad day or if they knew of some particular difficulty at home, the teachers made sure I knew about it. I have no doubt that this type of thing continues across the district in other schools and on other buses.  Little did I know back then, that I would get the privilege to join the faculty of Putnam City, a fantastic group of educators and that I would be afforded the opportunity to teach the best students in the state.

Speaking of great students, my own kids, Jessica and JC, have been in Putnam City their entire lives and I’d like to publicly thank each of you who influenced them during their time here. When I first started driving a bus, I applied for a transfer into the district so Jess could begin Kindergarten at Overholser Elementary. About that time, we moved into the district and the kids attended Rollingwood, Capps, and most recently, Putnam City High School. Jess graduated last year and JC will be a Senior this year. We were purposeful about purchasing a home in the district so our kids could attend school in Putnam City because we believed then, and still do, that the district offers the best academic and extra-curricular opportunities in Oklahoma. Because of the relationships I’ve built and the quality of education my children have received, I will always consider Putnam City Schools my home.

For those of you who are new to Putnam City this year, I want you to know that this is a special place. If I were to go into all the reasons for making such a broad statement, we would be here all day and I doubt any of you want that. (that is an appropriate place for applause) I’ll just say that there is a sense of family among the teachers in each building that I’ve not experienced in any other workplace. I’m thankful for the community that teachers and administrators work hard to build. If you don’t feel that in your building, I hope you do whatever it takes to treat your colleagues as family (or in some cases, better than family). It creates an environment of support and makes Putnam City a great place for students to learn.

The faculty members in this district have challenged me to grow and the members of the administration have given me opportunities to facilitate that growth. I have been fortunate to have leaders who allowed me the chance to try new things in my classroom. This led to an enriching teaching experience for me and hopefully a positive learning environment for my students. I hope the administrators in the district will continue to allow teachers to innovate in the classroom. Principals, if you aren’t already doing that, I’d challenge you to give your teachers some slack and see just what kind of excitement they can generate in their classes.

As I have begun to transition into the job of Science Director at the State Department of Education, I am beginning to realize that the change we’ve all been looking for in education is here. I doubt you’ve been able to read any journal or website without hearing about the Common Core State Standards Initiative. I’m not here to tell you that the Common Core standards are the saviour of education, but I do think they are common ground with which we can all start to increase the rigor and relevancy of our classes. If you don’t know about the Common Core, you should get informed. You can find information on the State Department of Education’s website or at corestandards.org. I thought I might share just a little of my understanding of the Standards (I’m talking to you as a teacher as a teacher, not as the State Science Director, give me a little slack, I’ve only been on the job for 3 weeks!)

The major components of the Common Core are this:

Include more reading and writing of informational texts in all content areas. - This isn’t really anything new. We’ve been talking about having students read and write for quite a while. Yes, you CAN have students in an English class learning to read and interpret a historical document. In fact, that is just the kind of thing the core standards encourage you to do. Literacy is everyone’s job. Think about it, if a student cannot read or write at grade level, how can they interact with the rest of their education? I guarantee you can connect literacy strategies to every single subject area in every single grade. If not, you are probably doing it wrong.

Provide opportunities for students to practice the 3 modes of rhetorical writing (narrative, argument, and informational) I can tell you from experience, when students enter college, they are going to have to do each of these three kinds of writing, probably in their first composition class. It doesn’t mean they have to be able to do them perfectly, but they should have already been exposed to this kind of writing, at a minimum. This isn’t just at the secondary level, either. Elementary students should be practicing their writing skills. How about having them write out the directions on how to accomplish a task and then let another student follow those directions?  

Require students to supply evidence and/or reasoning to justify their position. This can be mathematical reasoning, evidence from a text when analyzing literature, or scientific evidence from observation or experimentation. It doesn’t really matter what the topic is, but students must be able to give a reason for why they think a certain way or believe something. In this case, the process by which a student arrives at an answer is just as important as what their answer is. This may mean that you put students in a position in which there is either more than one right answer, or (heaven forbid) a situation in which you, as the teacher, do not know the right answer.
Expose students to grade-appropriate texts (which may be more complex than they have been in the past). The core standards are very explicit in giving examples of the kinds of texts students should be reading and at what level they should do so. Notice I said examples, I didn’t say mandates.

Use student work from each grade level to show proficiency (This is clearly a situation in which a series of GoogleDocs would work great as an e-portfolio!) This is a big part of the Common Core: being able to show that students are proficient at a particular skill. Just as the students should be able to give evidence of their reasoning, you as teachers should be able to give reasoning that supports your assertion that students are proficient in a particular area. We must be purposeful in causing opportunities for students to create artifacts that will demonstrate proficiency.

Teach using real world examples.  I’ll talk more about this shortly. I’m really passionate about this one, and I’ll tell you why in just a minute.

Integrate technology into instruction. Yes, the Common Core is very explicit on this one. The students Quote “use technology and digital media strategically and capably.” end quote. And they are not just using technology just to be using it. They quote “employ technology thoughtfully to enhance their reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language use.” end quote Ha! Some of you thought technology would decrease their language skills! Try having your students summarize a story or a semester-long project into 140 characters or less (maybe using twitter or polleverywhere). You will see some students writing more creatively and being more excited about what they are doing than ever before. Innovation like this will require training for students and teachers, I recognize that. In fact, it will probably require you as educators to begin doing some independent research into the use of technology in your classroom. I won’t lie. It’s not going to be easy. But then nothing worth doing ever is. If you need help with technology, I know of several people in the Putnam City technology department who are more than willing to help, you just need to ask. I’ve also heard there are some new instructional coaches who will be able to provide you with some much needed innovation assistance, as well.

Enough of what the Common Core is. Let me tell you what it is not.

The standards are NOT a national curriculum. They do not tell you how to teach your content. You should rely on your own professionalism, your district curriculum directors, and the collective wisdom and experience of your colleagues to help guide you in this area.

PThe Standards are not a comprehensive guide as to what should be taught, they are the minimum of what students should know and be able to do. However, those minimum guidelines are pretty explicit. For example, if you have students who cannot use the words their, there, and they’re correctly, they haven’t shown proficiency for what they should be able to do by the end of the 4th grade. Yes, I did choose that one because its a pet-peeve of mine.

The Standards do NOT include interventions for students below grade level and English Language Learners. However, PLCs can provide assistance with below-grade level interventions and I’m sure the ELL teachers are happy to help, as well. You have resources, but you have to ask for help!
Finally, the Standards do not define every single thing students need in order to be college and career ready. Teachers, districts, and states have some leeway on considerations as to what else is needed for students.

After stepping into the shallow end of the pool with the Standards I can tell you this: As an educator, there’s nothing in the Common Core I have seen that we shouldn’t already be doing.

My wife teaches at a local university, so you can imagine that we spend a significant amount of time talking about students, about teaching, and about our own learning. There is one thing she talks alot about that is a common struggle for many students arriving at college: the ability to think critically. The skill of analyzing a text or a situation and being able to cite specific evidence to support their position is something with which many students struggle. That’s a significant part of what Common Core is about: critical thinking. At the college level, students can still learn new content, but if they come in without the ability to think critically, they have a significantly smaller chance of academic success, no matter what their major is. Additionally, when students enter a workplace, they can learn how to run a cash register, but the ability to deal with a new situation requires problem-solving!

As a science teacher, I get really excited when I read anything that says students should be able to quote “evaluate the argument... including the validity of the reasoning... and sufficiency of the evidence”! end quote.  I heard someone on NPR the other day talking about gas wells and how they have a new method of getting more gas out of those old wells. If you were my family, I’d explain exactly how they do that, but suffice to say, there is a large group of people who are concerned about the contamination of ground water because of this new practice. The group is pushing for full disclosure of chemical levels in ground water before and after the drilling process. The host said, and I quote “The public needs some evidence so they will know the practice is safe.” end quote.  Really? How many average people in this country would be willing or capable of looking at evidence and drawing a reasonable conclusion? I suspect the average person would be willing to let some reporter interpret the evidence and tell them what to think. Consider that when you would rather let your students memorize facts instead of putting them into critical thinking situations.

I give this example because another significant part of the Common Core is relevance. I told you earlier I would get back to “Teach Using Real Life Examples”  As teachers, we owe it to our students to show that what they are required to learn is going to be useful later in life (or at least in a later class). In my physics classes, you cannot imagine the excitement on students’ faces when we would take some algebra or trig function and leverage that to actually learn about the position of an object or some force being applied! If you can’t make your subject relevant to students, you should reconsider what you are teaching. I’m not saying its easy to make your class relevant to students’ lives (unless you teach physics), I’m just saying you owe it to them to be explicit in that relevancy. This is especially important as students get into late elementary and middle school and begin to wonder, “What am I even doing in school anyway? What’s the point of all of this?” If we wait until students begin their high school years to introduce the relevance of learning, school may be so irrelevant by that point, they won’t be inclined to listen.

I’m so proud of each of you and I know this year is going to be better than the last. I hope if there is anything I can do to help you, (especially in science) that you will contact me. I’ll be looking forward to hearing about the exciting things going on in Putnam City. I hope you have a great year and I appreciate you giving me the chance to speak today.

what its like being married to the smartest woman I know

We are in Galveston on vacation. Every other year, we spend a week or so with @mishelleyb's entire family at an exotic locale like Pigeon Forge, Tennessee or Cedar Creek Reservoir near Dallas, Texas. Seriously, I know those are not exotic locations. What they always turn out to be are fantastic times of bonding with my in-Laws, including both of my brother-in-laws and my sister-in-laws. I also get to spend some quality time with my own kids and some really great nieces. Suffice to say we always have a great time. This year we decided to go ahead and take a trip even though this is an off year (we were together last year) and so we ended up in Galveston, Texas at a great house that is literally on the beach. As I write this, I am sitting on the deck watching and listening to the waves break about 20 meters away. Its awesome!

So, about being married to a wonderful, smart woman (who also happens to have a fantastic family). @mishelleyb and I went into town for a drive this morning (we are staying about 35 km south of Galveston near Jamaica Beach) because we enjoy looking at old stuff. We drove into downtown and walked for a bit in the area known as the Strand. Its on the Bay side of Galveston and used to be a natural deep-water port. Merchants would literally offload goods from ships into the back of their establishments and sell them out of the front. That kind of blows my mind to think about, I mean those guys must have been making some serious bank! Sorry for the digression... while we were driving around on Seawall Avenue (aptly named) we noticed a large group of students, probably in either high school or early college. They were all listening to a guy give announcements for what we suspected was some kind of community project. The oil spill hasn't reached the Texas Coast, so we have no idea to what their service project would pertain.

Seeing these students turned our conversation to school and learning, which is typical and really is the point of this post. She had a brilliant idea for a cross-curricular project and now I really want to design the curriculum and present it to a local community college! Of course I know this is talk, but we often enjoy talking about things we will probably never do.

So here's the idea: Three teachers collaborate to create a humanities course called Cultural Studies: The Island. The English teacher  (@mishelleyb) would teach island literature. This could be very broad if there wasn't enough specific Galvestonian lit (honestly, we haven't done any research so we were unsure of the amount available for study). A history teacher could cover everything from the history of the island itself to the historical ramifications of natural disasters such as the Hurricane of 1905 and Hurricane Ike (which still shows its ugly damage nearly 2 years later). That could go in so many different directions, it would probably have to be very focused to fit within the month-long time frame of our imaginary course. Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the science aspect of anything (since I teach Physics - the Study of Everything). I would lead a study of weather, specifically coastal weather, more specifically Hurricane development and damage assessment. I would also like to include a study of waves and tides. These two subjects would include gravity and simple harmonic motion (at least the basics of each.) This class would be taught through the local community college (I'd be surprised if there's not already something like it) as a 4 hour humanities class. It would a student chosen capstone project that could be from any of the 3 disciplines. Hold class a few hours a day and then have the rest of the day to explore, shop, study, and enjoy living "the Island Life." What do you think?

So how does all of this relate to my joy in being married? This conversation is not something out of the ordinary. It is so fulfilling to be able to talk about "work" as something I enjoy. I get immense satisfaction having "work" in common with my wife and being able to spend this kind of quality time together (we have the entire summer), but not forget what we do the other 10 months of the year (if you think teachers only work 9 months a year, think again!) It is fantastic to be married to someone who makes me want to be a better person. To be married to someone who likes many of the same things I do. To be married to someone who plans trips that include things I like (that's another post).

When I think about the person I am now (educationally) compared to who I was 6 years ago, it's mind-boggling. Back then, I was a window tinter who worked my hardest in the summer and didn't have to use my brain much. When I went back to school, I was unsure of the path I would take. I certainly didn't think I would be going into my last year of a Master's Program and preparing to teach my first college course in the fall, with two more in the spring. They are adjunct classes, but still, it's college! I am now in a job that gives me a tremendous amount of satisfaction and has a huge amount of room for growth. While my wonderful wife wasn't necessarily the single impetus for me returning to school, she has certainly been a great partner in this journey of growth, so far. She is an inspiration as a teacher (she does relationships with students very well), is a great sounding board for decisions, and is a constant stream of knowledge when it comes to curriculum design for the Physics students at Putnam City High School. So, thanks Michelle!

everyone loves a tesla coil

Wired.com posted a great video with Dr. Megavolt. Dr. Richards, as his alter-ego is known, lives a normal life as a particle physicist working on the AMANDA telescope, which interacts with neutrinos instead of visible light. In the video, Dr. Megavolt performs a some cool demos with his metal suit and Tesla Coil, reminiscent of Nikola Tesla's shows, way back in the day. It's a spectacular show and I believe I need to find out when he plans to come to the Science Museum of Oklahoma. I'm sure this type of demo leave a lasting impression on the viewer, especially when you consider that Tesla did his demos without a metal suit. No wonder people thought he was crazy and we now realize he was a genius. Probably mentally ill in some capacity, as well.

Check out the video and then go get out your Tesla Coil and light up some light bulbs or something! I can't wait to get mine out in class. The students never forget it.

What's the point, Mr. Bowie?

This was the question posed to me this week when we were discussion particle physics and the Large Hadron Collider in our classroom by an exceptionally bright student. She followed it up with "This just seems like an enormous waste of money."  I surely see her point. When you have friends at school who come from homes were there's not enough to eat or when they can't (or won't) keep the electric bill paid.

I imagine its also due (at least in part) to the idea students have that "everything that can be known, is".  As a student in high school, a person who has a constant inflow of information everyday, its easy to think the world is pretty well all figured out. I would say this is not the case, nor will it ever be. That doesn't mean we shouldn't stop questioning.  In fact, even if we, as scientists, think the world is all figured out, it would be a huge mistake to stop asking questions. According to Humphrey Davy: "Nothing is so dangerous to the progress of the human mind than to assume that our views of science are ultimate, that there are no mysteries in nature, that our triumphs are complete and that there are no new worlds to conquer." It is worth mentioning that Davy was the mentor of Michael Faraday, who produced the theory that electrical force and the magnetic force are the same thing. This was the first Unified Theory of Physics, which laid the groundwork for all other unification theories in Physics. So in essence, we can thank Davy for everything we know about Physics, for without his encouragement of Faraday, we might not understand physics much better than we did back in the 1800's.

I think Albert Einstein said it best: "The important thing is not to stop questioning".  That is the point! That is why we do research. All of the technology we gain from particle physics research is just a bonus. The reason to do the research is for the knowledge gained.

Thanks for reading.

What did the students say about using technology

I read earlier this week, on Will Richardson's blog, about Sara Bernard's call for students to give advice to teachers on how to integrate technology more fully into their classrooms.  What she wanted was for them to send her an email.  I didn't ask my kids to send her an email, although I will send one, but what i did do was ask them to tell me what they would like to see in our classroom concering using technology.  I got some good information from my students.  I like to think physics is the one class in which you cannot help but use technology.

Here were some of the responses I got:

"I think every teacher should have a smartboard".

"One of my teachers had us create a facebook profile about one of the characters in a story we had read, maybe you could do that with a physicist".

"Post all of your notes online so if someone was absent, they would not be very far behind". (this is a common practice in my classroom, so maybe they thought it needed to be reiterated?)

"Use a webcam to record lecture along with ppt capture software which could then be posted online. Students tend to miss out on some interactive parts of the lecture when they just look at the powerpoint". This would be great using some type of camtasia type software, or maybe one of the Adobe gizmos that have this capability.

And finally, "Make some type of video project and post it to YouTube."  This has been done in my class to a very limited extent.  I have some amazing kids in this class who are great videographers.  I have already talked to my lead video guy about an introduction to our classroom wiki that will be done and posted online within about two weeks.  I have also been watching a show on Adult Swim called "Look Around You" which is a humorous science spoof show.  I am considering having my AP class do this project where we make a "Look Around You" about physics.  I think it will be awesome.

There just are not enough days in the school year to do everything I want to do with my classes.  Maybe that year round school is looking better and better every day.