Mystery Skype

This was originally written for my school's weekly staff newsletter, Bear Essentials, November 22, 2013.

One of the great things about going to a large conference with a colleague is you can divide and conquer - each person goes to a different session then shares over lunch or dinner.  At ECOO, one of the sessions I didn’t attend was on Mystery Skypes.  But even though I didn’t see it, I’ve learned quite a bit about it over the past week because Sarah went to the session and was inspired to try it. (Skype is a free video calling service on line.)

The idea behind a mystery Skype is that you connect your class to another class somewhere else in the world and each class tries to figure out where the other is located.  It is a great way to start talking about location, weather, or culture.  It inspires curiosity and engagement.  It forces the students to ask specific questions that will help them solve the mystery of where the other class is.  It also forces the class to think about where they are in the world, and how it might be discovered by another class.  Excellent option for getting students thinking about perspectives or point of view.

Over the past week, Sarah set up 2 mystery Skype sessions with 2 different classes.  The first was only a mystery for Sarah’s class, as they skyped with a friend of hers at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.  The class is studying the holocaust and creating a museum to demonstrate their learning.  They skype session was able to give them access to an expert to expand their research.  Sarah’s second class will do a mystery Skype with a First Nations class as both classes are reading The Rez Sisters play in 3U English. In this case, both classes are in the dark about the other’s location.

But mystery skype is not the only way to use skype.  There is a website with ideas for using skype in your classroom (https://education.skype.com/‎) that suggests using skype to collaborate with other classes around the world, to invite experts into your class or take a virtual field trip.  Here you can find all kinds of ideas for using skype in your class (experts, lessons, topics, classes looking for a connection).  There is also a skype blog, twitter feed and facebook group if you want to see what others are doing.

Update, after this was put in Bear Essentials.

See Sarah's reflection on her first Skype session with her friend at the Holocaust Centre. Her reflection on the second Skype session should follow soon.

taking notes with videonot.es

This post was originally written for my school's staff newsletter, Bear Essentials, November 29, 2013.

image from http://www.videonot.es/img/logo.png

I ran across this very cool new chrome app/website recently.  It came to me through one of my circles/communities in Google+.  It would be great for blended or e-learning classes, but useful for anyone taking notes on videos.

The app/site is videonot.es and it allows you to take notes while you are watching a video - side by side, on the same screen.  Each point you type is automatically tagged with the minute/second in the video when you typed it.  When you go back through your notes, if you click on a point, it will load the video to that part of the video.

The video and corresponding notes are saved in your google drive.  This means that you could start watching and taking notes on a video notes at school, then go home and pick up right where you left off.  You (or your students) can also share it with others and take group notes.  There is also an option to export to Evernote if you are an Evernote user.

To use videonot.es you need to go to the chrome store, find the app, then install it.  When you install a chrome app it is connected to your chrome id and therefore is with you on any computer with chrome that you are on.  To use it (after install), type videonote.es into your URL, or from Drive, go to create and find the app in the list.

There is a youtube 3 ½ minute demo you can watch at http://goo.gl/H0EccN (shortened URL is case sensitive) or in Youtube, search for “Videonot.es as Demo”.

Geek Squad

I have a dream  (I mean) I have a vision of a school in which all community members are free to use technology for the sake of student learning and are well supported while doing so.  Here’s my vision...

We would have a number of students who are comfortable with chromebooks, ugcloud, UG2GO (including databases, e-books), and other educational apps (like bitstrips, prezi, screencasting...) and they would be able to help the rest of the school population with whatever.  I envision a few peer to peer training sessions in which I lay out the common trouble-shooting issues or FAQs for using chromebooks or ugcloud, and in which they peer to peer train/learn various common applications so they can help others.  Maybe each one becomes an expert with a specific software or web-based educational application, or maybe they are all expert trouble shooters and on the spot learners/helpers.  I would also work with them on some tutoring/social skills so they can work with a variety of school community members (staff and students, one on one or whole class).

Once comfortable with technology and the idea of being used as resources, I see a few ways this “Geek Squad” could be used.

1) They could run “lunch and learns” in the library Seminar Room or in the Bear’s Den every other week.  These could each focus on a different application or web resource.  These could be open to staff and students.

2) They could have ‘shifts’ in the library before/after school and at lunch to help students or staff with technology problems in course work.

3) They could be ‘pre-booked’ by a teacher/class to help introduce or get students started on a new project with new applications or software.

My rationale:

• I am committed to allowing students to use GAFE and other Web2.0 tools to demonstrate their learning.  I would like to see other teachers develop the confidence or find the support required so they can allow their students to best demonstrate their learning in whatever ways suits the students’ purposes.  
• In order to do this I would like to grow a culture in the school of co-learning, where students and teachers can learn together. This supports and models the idea that we are all lifelong learners, and we can all respect one another’s strengths and weaknesses and we can support each other in our challenges and grow.
• Having students use their expertise to help teachers encourages that community of co-learners.  It also gives the students a voice in how they would like to learn or demonstrate their learning.  
• There is a fair bit of resistance in many teachers to trying new technology in class because they don’t feel confident enough with the tools/resources.  In such cases, the students in geek squad would become a resource for the teacher and the class.  It takes quite a bit of pressure off the teacher, and may allow that teacher to learn the new tool or device along side his/her students, again modelling the importance of being a life-long learner.

I’d love some feedback on this.

What would you like to see if something like this were offered at your school?

Is "Geek Squad" offensive? Is tech team or tech club better?

Would you use student experts as a resource? Would other teachers you know?

I am going to try to get this idea funded, so any and all feedback you would be willing to give is greatly appreciated.

Read & Write

This was originally written for my school's staff weekly newsletter "Bear Essentials" October 11, 2013

You may have seen this app on your chromebooks. It often pops up as an add on app, and students randomly click on install or not without a reason.  Then they complain that there is a bothersome tool bar at the top of their screen that looks like this:

You can hide the bar when it shows up by clicking on the green and yellow square.  The pull down menu will stay and you can click on it again to bring it back.  So why would anyone want this or use this?

It is a text to speech app.  It will read what is on your document within google docs.  I think it’s a great tool for students to edit their work.  I often tell my students to read their work  aloud and listen for mistakes or awkward wording.  This does that out loud reading for them.  It is a simple replacement for kurzweil that doesn’t require extra software downloads.  It will work for pdfs that are saved within your Drive as well.  Students can scan text, upload to google Drive and open with Read&Write for google (you can choose “open with” by right clicking on the document name in Drive).  You do have to highlight the text you want read.

I’m sure it will do lots of other stuff, but I haven’t played with it very much.  But if you or your students use kurzweil, or you know students who have trouble reading or editing their work you may want to check it out.

This was first posted October 4, in my school's staff weekly newsletter "Bear Essentials."

I have a few ideas bouncing around in my head right now that I think are related somehow.

The first is reflection on the staff meeting Monday.  I haven’t received much feedback, but what I have gotten has been positive. (might be selective sharing)  What I liked about it is that a) it was to some extent self directed PD, and b) it was based on things real teachers are actually doing in their classes.  I also think that having the ALPs as a shared document was a very practical way of giving staff practice at using ugcloud.  I’m not certain, but by the sounds of it, more people finished their ALP this year during the session than previous years.  Hopefully fewer people will be chased come November.

The second thing going around my head that I want to share is the title of a session I might go to at ECOO this year.  It’s called “It’s OK to be right where you are (it’s not OK to stay there).”  I love this idea.  It can be both affirming and a challenge.  I think it can speak to the life-long learner in all of us.  You are OK where you are, but how can you grow?  I think the ALPs ideally address this as well.  Think about what you’ve done to get where you are, set some new goals, and plan out how to get there.

The third related idea is the SAMR model.  It is a model of technology integration.  Like the ECOO session name, it’s OK to be at any stage at any given time, but you need to know there are other option for growth and change.  The challenge is thinking about how you most use technology for student learning, and thinking about how you can try new things.  Here’s the model:

Twitter Experiment in class

Yesterday I decided I’d inject a little bit of digital citizenship and connectedness into my grade 9 geography class.  We were talking about ecological footprints, so in class I logged into my @ODSSUnger twitter account and sent two tweets.  We composed the tweets together (OK, I did it, but I did it in front of them and got their input) in class.

The first one was fairly general: “My gr9 geog class wants to know what you do to reduce your ecological footprint #UngerCGC1P”  This is not my PLN twitter account, and I only have 43 followers (most of which are Orangeville businesses that just follow anyone/everyone in Orangeville with a twitter account), so I also retweeted it on my PLN twitter account hoping for more feedback.  

One response to this tweet was

From this we were able to discuss how this would help reduce his footprint.  How many different areas this would affect of his footprint.  We also talked about how this would be possible in the winter months.  The class seemed to think he must have a greenhouse whereas I thought he likely froze or canned his produce.  So we tweeted him back to see. We will (hopefully) look at his response on Monday.

We also sent a tweet to our Mayor Adams:

This was good in terms of giving the class something to talk about that was local.  Which one they thought was most significant, what each meant and how it affected our footprint and land use.

I appreciated that the students could see what we were talking about in class was something that other people were thinking about and focused on.

The added bonus was in a couple replies to Mayor Adams’ tweet.  

These two tweets allowed us to discuss point of view and bias. We looked at the profiles of each of the people and discussed how their backgrounds and professions may affect their view. This was all outside of my "lesson plan" but really got the students thinking and discussing with real life examples.

Since then there has been a discussion between Mayor Adams and Chris Halliday on twitter that I can’t wait to show my class.  I love that asking a fairly simple question on behalf of my geography class has blossomed into an interesting discussion that has moved beyond my room, but that my students still get to see it.

This little experiment of mine resulted in a few different good discussions and teachable moments that would not have happened had I not reached out beyond my class.

We got to talk about what I thought were good twitter etiquette guidelines. And as a class we wrote thank-you tweets to the people who responded.

I am thinking about getting the students to do a little side research about the EAB issue and what the students think the town should do about an arborist.

This is not something I have tried before, but feel fairly good about how it went and will try again.

What have you done to bring “real world” examples into your class?

What bonus ‘teachable moments’  have you had this week?

And if you would like to share how you've reduced your ecological footprint please tweet to @ODSSUnger and use #UngerCGC1P. Thanks!

GAFE Certification

Image from: http://memoirvita28.blogspot.ca/2013/05/college-life-exams-part-3.html

A few weeks ago I wrote the 6 google exams to become a Google Apps certified trainer.  Each of the 6 exams was made up of 60 multiple choice questions and there was a 90 minute time limit.  They were intense.  The good thing was that I didn't have to have every detail memorized in order to pass the test.  I had to know how to find the answer.  It's google, you are allowed/expected to search for the answer.  But it was still tough.

At least once, I found some piece of information to answer a question and thought "Oh, I didn't know I could do that."  But in the stress of completing the test I couldn't for the life of me remember what that was when I was done.  I just remember having the thought.  But I feel fairly certain that if/when I decide I want to try whatever that thing was I'll know I can go looking for the answer.

I really enjoy using Google Apps for Education (GAFE) in school.  And one of the things I like about it is the availability of helpful hints and tips available.  I don't have to know how to do everything, I just have to have the confidence to go and find the answers.  Google is good for this, as is youtube.  Many people have uploaded screen casts about how to do anything you could possibly want to do.

Because I appreciate GAFE so much I spend quite a bit of time talking to others about its merits and how they can use it.  One of the toughest things I have to get them to believe is that they can play with it without knowing everything about it.  They can also find answers to whatever questions they might have.  Many time people come to me with questions about how to do something.  If I don't know off the top of my head, I will go with them to a computer and look it up, or I will look it up and email them links to videos or help pages on whatever they want help with.  I hope that eventually people will gain the confidence to search for the answer themselves.

Back to the Google Certification...  I passed all 6 exams.  I am now a Google Certified Individual.  It is my intention to complete the certification process to become a Google Apps for Education Certified Trainer.  I believe that this process will be much more reflective and give a much more accurate picture of my ability to work with GAFE and pass on my knowledge to my colleagues and work with it in class.  On many levels I find this process at least as intimidating as the exams as it is much more personal.

I will continue to share my process in becoming certified here in this blog.  It is my goal to be done it this summer.  Wish me luck!

Tech at the Lake

I know a lot of people may be upset by this picture.  It was a beautiful long weekend up at the lake.  The kids hadn't seen each other all winter and here they sit, on devices (btw we don't have internet).  They should be running around.  They should be enjoying the outdoors.  They should be playing together.  All of these I'm sure are arguments from many.

They did run around.  They did enjoy the outdoors.  They played soccer; they rode their bikes; they played on the park...  It wasn't quite warm enough to swim yet. They did all the same stuff I did when I was growing up here in the spring/summer.  But when I was done running around I read, by myself.  Maybe we did crafts (I learned to macramé).

I know I may be a bit biased, but I think there is room for all of it.  And I think there are huge benefits to this.  There are 4 kids here (ranging in age from 9-12) and 3 devices.  They are playing Mine Craft.  What I saw that was "better" than the crafts we used to do:

• they shared devices around, and built on each others' worlds
• they shared knowledge - each of them was able to help the others (regardless of age or experience)
• I think they were developing problem solving, sharing and communication skills that are more transferable than my macrame skills

Added benefit:  I don't have any ugly plant hangers or owls that I have to find a place for in my house!

Barn Dwelling Macramé Owl

Photo credit: April Killingsworth, Los Angeles, USA, July 2005

from: http://www.macrameowl.com/macrame_owl_spotting.html

Reflection on April 20-21, Ontario GAFE

The following post was written for Bear Essentials (my school’s staff weekly newsletter).  I have a regular column “On-line with Lisa.”  I will cross post the columns to this blog.  This post was originally written for the newsletter the week of April 26, 2013. It has been slightly modified to reflect an online format.

Reflection on April 20-21, Ontario GAFE (google apps for education) Summit

Last weekend, I was one of 100 UGDSB participants out of 525 total participants at the Google Summit sponsored by ECOO and hosted by Eastwood Collegiate of WRDSB.  I’d like to share a few of the ideas that I found interesting from Sunday morning’s keynote by Molly Schroeder (@followmolly on twitter, Google certified teacher and Google Apps for Education certified trainer).

Google loves being in BETA.  Part of their philosophy is “launch early and iterate.”  The idea is that you don’t have to have something perfect before you try it out.  If something doesn’t work, or becomes obsolete it is not a failure, it is simply a part of a larger path to find something great.  Someone has actually created a graveyard for google products that google has killed (http://goo.gl/4XXfE).  You can leave flowers at the headstone for the google project you miss most.  I left a flower on iGoogle and Google Reader.

Kids are in beta.  It is part of our job to help them fine tune so they can launch.  It is important for students to be able to think about where they are in the journey, and not just be told “this is important for your future.”  

Interestingly enough, as I was thinking about writing this, and reflecting on the idea of “being in beta” from the google summit, I ran across a blog by Shelley Wright called “Beta: The Courage to Fail and Change.” (you can find it at http://goo.gl/QCUfN)  She writes: “I’ve decided to live my life in Beta. Always incomplete. Always failing. Always trying to get better.  ...  What if our kids learned that failure is a good thing, something to be embraced, instead of something to be avoided like the plague.  What if teachers were set free to teach messy, fail often & “fail fast”, as Seth Godin says. ... What if teaching & learning was a fluid process that was never finished?”  I love serendipity.

Another nugget from Molly’s keynote: speed date devices, apps or websites, but marry the transferable skills.  I really like this and think it’s tied to idea of being in beta.  Try something; use it while it works; let it go when it’s done (or when you are).  It is the ability to take the skills or knowledge you gain and apply them to another situation.  

The last big take away I’d like to share with you is that everyone has experienced something not working the way you wanted/expected.  The fact that it didn’t work isn’t what’s important.  It is what you do with that experience that is important.  Problem solve.  Hit ‘refresh.’ And keep trying.

GAFE and feedback

The following post was written for Bear Essentials (my school’s staff weekly newsletter).  I have a regular column “On-line with Lisa.” This was a guest post written by David Harvey, and English teacher at ODSS. This post was originally written for the newsletter the week of April 12, 2013.

I am a better teacher this semester than every semester before it.  This is not hyperbole, but a direct result of using ugcloud.  ugcloud is a board-supported cloud-based (no hard drive required) service where I create documents in an excellent, auto-saving word processor (google drive), share documents with students and colleagues, and where I receive and provide feedback on all of my students’ work through our ugcloud email addresses.  When I’m working with student writing, ugcloud becomes interactive and allows me to highlight everything from specific words to particular punctuation to entire paragraphs and make corresponding comments in the side margin.  The student sees both the highlights and the comments.  When the student clicks on either the highlighted section or the comment in the margin,  the corresponding information is highlighted.  There is a very concrete and clear link between their writing and my comments.  ugcloud also allows me to make an overall comment on a piece of writing which I often do when I’m done reading it.  

My teaching has become accelerated through ugcloud as it has allowed me to give students more precise, concrete, full-sentence feedback by the mid-term than I can usually manage in an entire semester.  The interim report, which often causes me great concern due to a lack of information, caused me no stress whatsoever this year, as at that point, I’d read and thoroughly commented on 6 pieces of formative writing in my 1D class and 9 in my 4U class.  The cloud makes things more efficient and effective, and while part of this is my ability to type faster than I write, another part of this is the closing of the feedback loop.  

We know that the shorter the time is between the work and the feedback the more likely the learning and, with the cloud, students no longer have to be in class (or even in the same country) to receive feedback, nor do they have to wait for me to mark 30 pieces of work before they get theirs back.  I mark them in the order in which they’re submitted and they can watch me work with their document in real-time.  As a result of the speed of things, I have never had a clearer understanding of my students’ abilities, nor taught them each so much on such an individual basis so early in a course.  I can open up their email folders and instantly see everything they’ve written, the order in which they submitted it, all of my feedback, and then each keystroke of editing the student has made while applying their new understanding.  

This is a game-changer.  While I’ve never accepted technology as the great saviour of education - and still don’t - I’ve never discovered and used a technology with such great benefits to both myself and my students.  I haven’t collected a single piece of paper from either class this semester - not one.  More importantly,  I’ve seen a level of improvement  in their work by midterm that I usually hope to see by the end of a course.  

I’ve witnessed what I consider three legitimate educational revolutions in my 14 year career, and this is the most recent and the most powerful one in terms of what works best for me and what works best for students.

Twitter post for ODSS

The following post was originally written as a post for my school's weekly newsletter (Bear Essentials) in which I have a weekly column. It was written the week of March 22, 2013.

Twitter has gotten a bad reputation.  But, like most things, twitter is as valuable as the user makes it.  And it can have as many uses as people who use it.  Here are some ways people at ODSS are using it.

Share information with students

There are classes, clubs and teachers who are using twitter to communicate information with students.  Some examples:

@ODSSBakeshop @ODSS_News @ODSSlibrary

@ODSS_Bears @NGWEDWE @ODSSUnger

I try to use the hashtag #ngwedwe for school wide activities/information

Professional Learning Network (PLN)

For some people, twitter is a great place to share what you are doing, and see what other professionals are doing.  There is a large community of educators on twitter who regularly share what they are doing and what they’ve found (articles, ideas) that is of use to them professionally.

Uses in class:

There are a lot of students using twitter.  It doesn’t hurt to engage students in places they are already using.

You could follow someone/organization related to your subject.

OR follow a hashtag about an issue or current event

OR you could use classroom hashtag as an exit ticket to check for understanding

Sarah Le (@sarle83) is having her grade 11 English class tweet Macbeth.  Each character has a twitter handle that Sarah set up, students will take on a character and tweet about events from that perspective as well as respond to others’ tweets.  

If being out there and public makes you nervous, you could have students create fake tweets to show understanding of an issue, time period, character, important figure.  Use classtools.net and choose TWISTER.  Here is a slideshow example

Blogging at ODSS (Bear Essentials post)

The following post was written for Bear Essentials (my school’s staff weekly newsletter).  I have a regular column “On-line with Lisa.”  I will cross post the columns to this blog.  This post was originally written for the newsletter the week of March 18, 2013. It has been slightly modified to reflect an online format.

Classes are blogging at ODSS. Below is a list of class blogs currently (February - June 2013) engaging students at our school. Part of the point of getting students to blog is that they are writing to an authentic audience beyond their classroom teacher. It would be greatly appreciated if YOU would take a look and leave a comment. Hopefully the blogs have been written in a way to inspire a conversation. Your comments help keep the conversation going.

If you are interested in some suggestions about how to comment, you can check out “Tips for Leaving a Good Blog Comment” by Bill Ferriter.

English Classes (students in these classes are all contributing to the same blog)

http://3uwithsle.blogspot.ca Sarah’s ENG3U class blog

http://schouteneng3u.blogspot.ca/ Dirk’s ENG3U class blog

http://msbeng3u2013 Holly’s ENG3U class blog

http://msbnbe3u.blogspot.ca/ Holly’s native studies class blog

History Classes (students in these classes are all contributing to the same blog)

http://2Dwithsle.blogspot.ca Sarah’s CHC2D class blog

http://chc2punger.blogspot.ca/ Lisa’s (my) CHC2P class blog

Erin’s CHC2D class each set up their own blogs here are a few:

http://chloealbertshistoryblog.blogspot.ca/

http://chc2dconnorhawleyyan.blogspot.ca/

http://chc2d1kelseygallant.blogspot.ca/

http://granthamshistorydebates.blogspot.ca/

http://roanhistory.blogspot.ca/

http://patrickjhistory.blogspot.ca/

http://clairemacdonaldcanadianhistory.blogspot.ca/

Media Arts - Alanna’s students have created individual blogs to talk about their process/progress through the class. Here are a few

http://hannahwiththeworld.blogspot.ca/

http://towhomitmayconcearn.blogspot.ca/

http://dropofthedime.wordpress.com/

http://weallseethingsdifferently.blogspot.ca/

http://thewordsofaging.blogspot.ca/

http://austinstrangemusic.wordpress.com/

http://bloomingbones.blogspot.ca/

http://stainedglasseyes.wordpress.com/

Digital Presence

As part of my quest to become a Google Certified Trainer I have to demonstrate my digital presence.  This is kind of freaking me out.  I don't think I put myself out there very much and when I do I get very nervous.  This morning I forced myself to comment on a blog post by Doug Johnson (the Blue Skunk Blog).  I stressed and worried about it.  I had a thought, then I thought I should share it.  But was it 'worthy'?  Would others readers just say 'well, duh'?  Who am I to add value to the discussion that was going on?  Could I add value?  My comment wasn't as long as most of the others - does that mean it wasn't as 'deep'? Then I changed my mind about a billion times as to whether or not I should use my full name (I eventually did).
Then I got this response:

Hi Lisa,
We've been using the SAMR model in our district as well - and for some of the same reasons. Thanks for reminding readers of it and how we can move between levels.
Yeah, reading these comments is a real treat for me. I quoted you in my last blog post!
Doug

And here is the blog to which he is referring.  I am a little embarrassed at how excited I was to see my name on someone else's blog.  Someone that I've actually never met, but whose work I appreciate and follow.  So cool.
The moral of this story: Take a chance.  Just like I appreciate someone taking the time to comment on something I've written (and I appreciate it a whole lot!!!), others do too.  I tell my students to comment and add to blog discussions, this is another instance in which I have to model what I teach.  It does feel a little like risk taking, but like other risks, the payoff rush can be exhilarating.

I'm back!

OK, it's been a while...

I've been very busy.  I'd like to briefly share a little of what I've been doing.

PLP (Powerful Learning Practice) action research is done - sort of.  Have a look at what our group did on our Rhymes with Orange website.  Although our year with PLPnetwork is over, we will all continue to get our students to develop critical thinking skills is a visible way.  We all have ideas about what we need to change.  As it is an action research project, I think this is to be expected.  We didn't get it exactly right the first time, but we believe that we are on a good path and are going to continue to work at it.

I've also been working on a weekly post on our staff newsletter.  I've written a number of them, but I've also asked others in my school to write about their use of IT in their classes.  I have decided to post those on this blog as well.  So you will see them soon.  I will include the original date of publication in the staff newsletter with each publication.

Last week I spent two days at a Google Bootcamp run by Learn Style.  It is my intention to get my Google Apps for Education certification.  It was a heavy 2 days, with lots more heavy work to come, but I think I'm up for it.  At this point, I actually think the 9 hours of exams will be the easy part! I will try to blog about the experience so far soon.  Getting this blog up and running again is going to be an important part of this process.

"I just want a credit"

This post was started in November 2012...
My grade 12 students are unengaged.  I cannot do anything to inspire them or engage them.  I've tried getting them to find answers to historical questions on their own, using their own devices, class iPads, laptops and textbooks.  The questions are 'boring.'  I've tried getting them to create questions on a topic on their own to research.  They sit with blank pages in front of them.  I've tried engaging them with music, art, the guillotine, science, religion.  Other than a knee jerk anti-religion rant from a few it was blank stares or more interest in their own conversations which they are unable/unwilling to give up no matter what we do in class.
So, I tried to have a discussion with them about why they were taking this history course.  "I need a credit to graduate."  But why this course?  "I've already taken all the tech courses I can take."  OK, so you need a credit.  Is there anything else you might be able to get out of this course?  "Huh?" Try again: what do you have to do to get the credit?  "Show up every day and get pass."  How does one pass?  "Show up everyday and do the assignments."  There is a distinct lack of familiarity with the word learning.  They don't want to do it.  Or maybe they don't know how to do it.  These students are in their last year of school and they have figured out how to get through the system, but not how to learn.
One of the great ironies I find in my grade 12 course is that my "Big Idea" for the course is "Knowledge is Power."  The focus is actually on the relationship between knowledge and power, because often in history the case is that the person with power lacks knowledge or the people with knowledge lack power.  They don't see the irony ~ if they remember what the word means after they finished their literary devices test in English class.
My plan for the next unit is to divide the class into 4 groups and have each group tackle an -ism from the 19th Century (nationalism, romanticism, imperialism, industrialism).  I am doing a brief introduction of each of the -isms before they start.  They need to develop some questions to focus their study of the -ism.  I will need to approve their questions before I want them to get too far.  We are going to work at creating various types of questions.  They are going to have to learn about the -ism and its relationship to the Knowledge is Power big idea.  They are going to have to create something that will demonstrate their learning and share their learning with the rest of the class.  I want to be excited - I was when I started planning this in the summer.   I want them to be engaged in their learning, I want them to be excited.  I don't think this is going to happen.  My fear is that after 2 weeks I will give up.  They will not have done anything substantive.  I will have 'helped' (given) them formulate questions.   I will have found research for them to answer their questions.  A few might have a couple basic definitions or timelines of the events pertaining to the -ism.  Even fewer might have some understanding of the significance of the -ism on the time period.  One or two may have attempted to make a connection to knowledge is power.  Someone in a group may have started to create a prezi with the definitions and/or timeline.  It will be quite zoom-y and will be very colourful, but it won't be done and it won't demonstrate deep thought.

Update: They did get it done.  It took them 3 days to believe that I actually wasn't going to to be "teaching" them anything.