This post is written with a mix of sadness and excitement.

It is with sadness that I say goodbye to Edublogs but it is with excitement that I announce I’ve finally taken the plunge and bought my own domain name and am hosting my own blog using BlueHost and Wordpress.

James Farmer and Sue Waters – you are two of the most generous, helpful and amazing people I have ever met in the blogosphere.  You both are so generous with your time, your resources and your knowledge.  Thanks to you both, I’ve not only been able to blog, but also I’ve been able to improve my blogging skills.

And of course to you, my faithfully readers, I extend my thanks.  Thanks for dropping by to read my “goings on”.  Thanks for all your comments and encouragement.

I’m hoping of course (fingers crossed) that you’ll update your RSS reader with the feed from my new blog.

Image Attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fernando/141222763/

Wow – the end of another course – Course 4 starting next week!!  The purpose of this post is to reflect on the experience of designing this unit/presentation.

To be honest in my reflection,  I need to say first that I’ve really struggled keeping up with Course 3.  It’s not that I don’t understand parts of it or I can’t do parts of it, it’s that I’ve struggled with keeping everything functioning together.  By that I mean my family, my work and my study.  And it’s been hard.  So hard in fact, that I ended up doing BOTH parts of the final project instead of just one.  Was it a combination of so much to do and so little time to do it in?  Was it not reading the instructions properly?  Is this what happens to our students when we overload them with so much to learn and so little time to learn it in?

So how did I come to do twice as much work as I really need to?  I believed I’d read the requirements correctly the first time, and I actually had.  I also distinctly remember our Course Advisers repeatedly tell us that we had a choice so my confusion, and eventual “extra workload” was entirely my own fault!

Utilize your visual literacy skills to either:

• Create a visual presentation to use in your class to help teach a lesson

OR

• Develop a unit plan to actively engage students in using visual literacy to demonstrate their learning (include a model “project” for what your students should produce).

For some reason a while later I thought than you had to have a unit plan and I couldn’t understand how to get a unit plan out of the tutorial my group and I had created on “How To Choose A Just Right Book”.  So that’s what led to me doing BOTH parts of the final project! I think I need to take some of the advice I always offer my students:

Check and double check you understand exactly what it is you are required to do before you start!

Anyhow ……. back to the reflection:

Create a visual presentation to use in your class to help teach a lesson:
I enjoyed working as a group on a creating a tutorial for what is a similar problem across the grades – teaching students how to choose just right books in the learning hub!  For some of us, many of our students wander aimlessly around the learning hub not actually making good use of their time and certainly not sure of how to choose a book that’s just right for them without the levels on the books.  It felt like we were creating an authentic presentation for use in the classroom as well as fulfilling our course project requirements.  Working together as group saw us work cooperatively, collaboratively, using each others strengths to produce a finished product, much like we expect our students to do.  It is always helpful to go through the process we expect our students to go through in order to troubleshoot any problems we think may occur.

Develop a unit plan to actively engage students in using visual literacy to demonstrate their learning (include a model “project” for what your students should produce).
I love digital storytelling.  Stories let us communicate our perspective and perception. Stories let us connect on an emotional level with people and events in stories and we connect them to experiences in our lives.  Digital storytelling allows us to share our stories globally hence the driving force behind the unit plan Personal Narratives Digital Stories.  Sharing our stories with an authentic audience enables students to work with purpose, using visual literacy to show, not tell the narrative story.  How powerful is that?  Communicate skills are engaged, connection skills are addressed and students are provided with opportunities to address multiple intelligences.  Again, going through the process we expect our students to go through in order to experience what it will be like is paramount to the success of any project-based learning in the classroom.  It also provides students with a model to aspire to, gives them direction and helps them to understand what is expected of them.

The actual process of making the model was an eye-opener.  Just thinking that you’ve developed this splendid, authentic, purposeful task does not necessarily ensure that the project will be successful.  Choosing my personal narrative was easy – it’s the one I’d done the most work one, it’s the one that’s been polished and polished until it’s the best that it can be.  Students will not struggle with this step as they too have a similar piece of work in their Writer’s Workshop book.

Finding the images for the story was easy – pictures from my camera.  That’s what had prompted me to write the original narrative in the first place.  As for students finding images, unless they too had photos stored on their computers at home and could bring them in on a flash drive, they would have to search for appropriate images to retell their chosen personal narratives.  I began to wonder whether there was a rather large obstacle here for students.  Searching and finding appropriate images (and I’m referring to the visual appropriateness here, rather than the creative commons approriateness) will be time-consuming and difficult for many students.  This would be the area where the storyboard planning would be extremely important – what sorts of images will help me tell my story.  This is where those critical thinking skills will need to be applied.  Critical thinking is a very valuable skill, a very important skill.  At this point I get the feeling that this is the focal point, the crux of the lesson – that’s different to what was originally envisioned in the unit planning.  Again, I’m reminded of the importance of creating a model project.

Using still images, adding audio, adding background music, and using transitions in iMovie was exceptionally easy, but only because I’m familiar with the programme.  This is where screencasting will be of particular use – mini tutorials to share with students how to do certain things like importing images, editing images, transitions etc.  It could also be an opportunity for students with prior knowledge to shine – they could help other students by offering a “mini-workshop” on how to do certain things in iMovie.  You could organise to have 3-4 “iMovie Experts” who are available to answer questions from fellow students so that the teacher remains the facilitator and does not have to have all the answers and technical know-how of the programme.

Projects have layers – it’s important to understand that – it’s important to realise that some things will be taught “just-in-time” with project-based learning, other things will be deliberated planned and taught.  Being flexible is one of the reasons working with digital tools will succeed.  Taking risks with your own learning and going through the process you expect your students to go through will also help your project to be a successful one.

After a very long (self-imposed) break from blogging, the start of Course 3 of our CoETaIL.asia group means I’m back in the saddle again!

Our first blog post requires to us to reflect on implementation of ideas learned during the past two courses.  There’s are the essential questions:

• What have you tried/are trying in your classrooms?
• How has this / or how do you hope this impacts student learning?
• What do you hope to get out of of this next course?

For me personally, Course 1 and 2 didn’t really offer me anything new to try in the classroom.  I don’t mean for that to come across as big-headed as that sounds either!   Technology, global collaboration and connections were already staples in our classroom learning environment.  What Course 1 and 2 did give me was the opportunity to share ideas and tools as well as offer support to teachers who were willing to have their thinking and their knowledge pushed.  This aspect was immensely satisfying as it is always a good feeling to be able to “pay-it-forward” in terms of giving people help like people (in my PLN) have helped me in the past.  My pedagogy was challenged as were my reasons for using technology in the classroom for learning.  I found this extremely helpful to deepen my own understandings of how and when and why I use technology and it also gave me the opportunity to look at things from another person’s point of view – which I can often forget to do.

The impact on student learning has been more in the development of our Grade 5 Digital Literacy Overview.  It is a great thrill to work with, support and guide a fabulous group of teachers in our Grade 5 team who are willing and enthusiastic about the value of using a blog as a “Window into Our Learning”.  The impact on student learning will no doubt reveal itself slowly over the coming year and be evident in the content of our classroom blogs and individual student blogs.  Every single Grade 5 student has their own blog.  That’s an incredible step our team has taken onboard!

I’ve always considered myself to be a “life-long-learner” and I am nowhere near close to knowing everything there is to know about Information Technology and Digital Literacy.  I hope to continue my own personal learning journey by finding more ways to inspire, guide and facilitate learning in the classroom through digital literacy as well as continue to support and help my fellow colleagues who have been led to the water, and are now drinking it by the bucket-full!

Image Attribution:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericsurfdude/322217434/

Ding Ding …… Round Course Two begins for CoETaIL.Asia

Enduring Understandings:

• Online behaviors and actions impact the access and safety of personal information.

• Responsible use of online tools can help protect the personal information of others.

Essential Question:

When and where should we be teaching students about their digital footprint?

This weeks readings were from Kim Komondo’s Your Online Reputation Can Hurt Your Job Search and Protect Your Digital Footprint from kutv.com

I was fortunate enough to have our afternoon presenter, Silvia Tolisano, stay with me after her presentation at ISB.  We discussed in depth one night the need to own your domain name and those of your children. Thankfully my name and those of my children are unusual enough to still be available domain names.  What I have realised I need to do is take charge of my blog name so that I can continue to control what happens with it.  I’d not really given any thought to what might happen if someone decided to “kick me off” my name.  All my thoughts and ideas would disappear over time as someone began to use my name legally.  Whilst I would like to believe that no-one would do that deliberately, I realise that not everyone  is as idealistic in web ethics as I am.

Google Alerts, RSS feeds of Google Search Terms, Technorati and Edublogs’ incoming links  have always kept me informed of how my digital footprint is impacting on others.  I believe it is necessary to keep an eye on how and when our names are being used on the internet for a variety of reasons.

Clarence Fisher also believes that tracking your digital footprint is an essential part of working online and these are essential basic skills for us and for our students as well. His Digital Footprint blog post is an informative read as he shares how he tracks his digital footprint and the reasons why he does it.

It is great to see what people are writing about you. It gives you a chance to respond to posts people write and also it keeps your finger on the pulse of any ongoing conversations.”

I listened to Ewan McIntosh, at an unconference session at Learning2.0 in Shanghai, about how he has already begun to protect and nurture his young daughter’s digital footprint before she is even old enough to walk let alone blog!  I remember thinking how that was just a little bit over-the-top but as my learning journey continues down the path of 21st Century Digital Literacy, it has become more obvious that looking after your digital footprint is the same as looking after any of your tools in your toolbox and it’s the same as looking after your own reputation.  YOU need to do it – no one else is going to.

Online safety and digital citizenship in the classroom when working with blogs, wikis and any other tools that leave a footprint of ourselves online is a message that we, as educators, have a responsibility/need to continually push at ANY level.  It’s no different to teaching encouraging students to respect themselves, or respect one another in any space they are in.

Only this time the space is the internet and this space keeps a record of all behaviour – the good, the bad and the ugly.

And anybody can look at it.  Anytime.  Anywhere.

Image Attribution:  TeachingSagittarian

It’s incredible that Course 1 of our Certificate in Educational Technology and Information Literacy is complete (well as of midnight tonight it will be!)

Our final face to face session yesterday was a doozie!  Kim and Jeff organised for the authors of Reinventing Project-Based Learning – Your Field Guide to Real-World Projects in the Digital Age (from which our project assignment stems from) to skype in.  It was very powerful to receive words of encouragement and advice from Suzie Boss (Portland, Oregon) and Jane Krauss (Eugene, Oregon)  Also impressive was the fact that they were giving up some of their Friday night to talk with us.

Take-aways from the conversation:

• If the technology (tools) is leading your project then go back and look at it again, make the learning lead the project
• 8 Essential Functions (Recommend that we read that section in the appendix – the tools will change and/or advance but the set of functions are enduring
• Visible Thinking – Do something that has students showing their thinking. When you do this you can get some dialogue going – ie: what are they doing and why?  By the time you get to the final product it’s too late to get into a dialogue
• Must check out The American Crawl – amazing English teacher with a great reflection blog.
• You don’t have a network for no reason.

One of the great things about Course 1 has been the chance to collaborate with members of my own Grade 5 team as we put together a Project especially after hearing the authors of Reinventing Project-Based Learning!!  We set ourselves a goal of establishing our Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions by 11.00am (Lunchtime for the Course).  It’s such a pleasure working with people who are willing and enthusiastic about learning in the 21st Century.

Julie Lindsay joined us via skype today too.  Sheis an IT Director, currently working at Qatar Academy, soon to be at Beijing International School.  Along with Vicki Davis (CoolCatTeacher),  Julie developed an amazing project-based learning opportunity for students around the globe based on the Horizon Project, The World is Flat and Grown Up Digital. Julie and Vicki have recently completed the first ever Flat Classroom Conference and have received multiple awards for their ground-breaking work. Her blog, E-Learning Journeys, is a wonderful resource for all things related to globally collaborative projects.  When I was teaching Year 7 in New Zealand (Grade 6) my class and I were lucky enough to be a sounding board for the Horizon Project in 2006 and 2007.  It was an amazing opportunity to be involved at a lower level.  My students got real insight into the kind of students that they themselves, in the not so distance future, would be.  It was interesting for us look at the ways other students communicated and collaborated and produced a final product during the Horizon Project as well as provoking a lot of discussion about critiquing people’s work / thinking.

The last part of the day saw us back together in our teams finalising our Project.  The GRASP was excellent as it kept us focused on exactly what learning we wanted to expose our students to.  We struggled somewhat with the “Six Facets of Understanding” because none of us really had any experience with this.  Having the template on our CoETaIL wiki helped a little, but we were unsure of what exactly to write.  This provoked some discussion about our own understanding and together we were able to nut it out.  Fabulous cooperation, contributing and collaboration!  You can read our Project Page here – although please note it’s still a work in progress.  We are going to share it with the rest of our team and have them add their input too, as we believe this has the potential to be a wicked Social Issues Unit for Literacy!  We welcome any feedback or suggestions you might have – just scroll down to the bottom and start a thread!

It really is hard to believe that Course 1 is complete.  The weeks went fast, the readings were thought-provoking, reaffirming and sometimes prickly. But that’s ok – we’re life long learners and this is what life long learners do – extend themselves, challenge themselves and learn new things.  There’s more photos in my flickr photostream of Course 1 if you’re interested.

Is my journey of learning continuing?
Crossing the bridge as I hit “publish“.

Bring on Course 2!

This weeks readings were Adopt and Adapt: Shaping Tech for the Classroom by Marc Prensky (Edutopia) and Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project “Conclusions and Implications” pg. 35 – 39 (MacArthur Foundation Report)

I have to admit, I’ve been putting this post off.  Whilst I found the MacArthur Foundation Report rounded up the messages that all of our readings have been pointing us toward – the value, recognition and importance of social networking, messing around, collaboration, peer-based learning etc,  I am just a bit wary about what Marc Prensky writes.

This wariness originally grew from a valid point written in a blog post that a very good friend and colleague of mine wrote after he completed an assignment for a paper he was doing – the topic – the frequently- commented-on terms Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. The valid point?  Marc Prensky made some statements in that article for which there are no references to research carried out or other reading he has gleaned pieces of information from.

I find myself wondering the same about this article.  Where is Marc Prensky’s information coming from.  What does he base his statements on – research? personal opinion? observations?  Has he ever been a classroom teacher?  Or is this point of view solely from someone who may have spent a lot of time in various schools but not actually been a part of one.  Has he traveled around the world visiting a variety of schools or is this article aimed solely at the American public education system?  And what about the parents?  Where do they factor in all of this?

Technically speaking, I’m a Digital Immigrant – but I’m definitely beyond the old things in new ways step and I do ask my students their opinions, and value their feedback.  It is my firm belief that we should be using the right tools for the job.  If a letter is required, then I shall write a letter, if a face to face message is more appropriate than an email – that’s what I will do.  If a digital tool can help students construct meaning in an authentic way then use that technology.  Don’t use the technology just for the sake of using it – make sure it’s right for what you want need to do.

I think we need to be a 1 to 1 school if we are to truly prepare our future workforce for jobs that haven’t even been invented yet – but the reality is it’s not going to happen yet.  So should I sit back on my heels and blame lack of computers or lack of skills a reason for not using technology in my class? – Heck no!  I’m innovative, I’m creative and I’m darn sure that technology embedded in learning is the direction education and educators have to move in and it’s the direction that I am committed to move in, passionate to move in and prepared to move in!

The thorny part, for me, is the sweeping generalisations about teachers.  There’s a fair few of us out there in education land that aren’t like what you describe Mr Prensky and we are definitely living up to your last words which I really do agree with SO
I’ll let you have the last word …..

Let’s adapt it, push it, pull it, iterate with it, experiment with it, test it, and redo it, until we reach the point where we and our kids truly feel we’ve done our very best. Then, let’s push it and pull it some more. And let’s do it quickly, so the 22nd century doesn’t catch us by surprise with too much of our work undone.

Image Attribution
‘long prickles‘ www.flickr.com/photos/76187282@N00/239243059
‘Working Together Teamwork Puzzle Concept‘
www.flickr.com/photos/22177648@N06/2137737248

This week our COETAIL course directs our attention to three readings to digest and reflect upon.

Reading #1:  [New] Bloom’s Taxonomy Digitally by Andrew Churches (Tech & Learning)

Bloom’s Taxonomy is nothing new.  What I particularly like about the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy and it’s direct impact upon my own teaching practise is the way learning can be scaffolded depending on the learning taking place.  Bloom’s taxonomy encourages us to take students thinking steps further by beginning with lower order thinking skills (LOTS) and naturally progressing to higher order thinking skills (HOTS).  When planning tasks, I try to include more HOTS than LOTS to encourage students to go beyond the recall and regurgitate phase and into the internalise and construct new meaning/knowledge phase.  The simple suggestion of verbs in the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy helps me to include learning tasks that will help develop a variety of levels of thinking from my students.

What is of particular interest to me in Andrew Churches’ article New Bloom’s Taxonomy Digitally is the authentic incorporation of digital tools on offer – how to do it or how to use them in in such a way that is rigorous, challenging and of sound pedagogical foundation.  Andrew has given the 21st Century Educator ways to incorporate skills in for today’s learners in a digital world.  New web 2.0 tools are changing the way we receive, process, and produce information.  As educators we need to authentically and realistically include those tools/skills in our toolbox for learning if we are to fully embrace the direction that 21st Century Digital Literacies are progressing.  Andrew Churches has produced a wiki, Educational Origami jam-packed with resources, explanations, sound justifications and information on Bloom’s Taxonomy.  He further details the 21st Century Educator and the skills needed to be that kind of educator in a world where our students jobs in the future don’t even exist yet.  Having just content-driven curricula is no longer good enough for our learners of today for employment of the future.

Reading #2  Connectivism:  A Learning Theory for the Digital Age by George Siemens

My favourite quotes from this article:

Over the last twenty years, technology has reorganized how we live, how we communicate, and how we learn.

Wondering …… why is it so difficult to encourage a change in the way we teach?

Within social networks, hubs are well-connected people who are able to foster and maintain knowledge flow.

Wondering ……. are we teaching our students to be well-connected?  Remember Clarence’s skype call?  Does our own pedagogy support this foundation idea of connectivism?

The pipe is more important than the content within the pipe. Our ability to learn what we need for tomorrow is more important than what we know today.

Wondering ……. plus the ability to unlearn and relearn …….. it is no longer necessary for the teacher to be the font of all knowledge.  Does my teaching practise reflect this?  Is our learning environment set up in such a way that fosters the development of learning for tomorrow?  Could our students flourish in a digital era?

Reading #3  Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth ProjectMacArthur Foundation Report)

Wow, this was pretty slow reading …… and then she realised only pgs 20-28 (the “Messing Around” bit) needed to be read.  Darn it!  Note to self – read instructions carefully!

The most important factors are the availability of technical resources and a context that allows for a degree of freedom and autonomy for self-directed learning and exploration. In contrast to learning that is oriented toward a set, predefined goal, messing around is largely self-directed, and the outcomes of the activity emerge through exploration.

I particularly enjoyed Cindy’s post about her thoughts on this article.  She summed her whole mind-shift with an apology to her kids for continually giving them a hard time about “wasting time on the computer”.  When I ask my students to self-reflect on their learning, the best part is often the ten or so minutes given to “mess around” with a new tool/programme.

I can think of no other more powerful learning time when students “mess around” and then share with each other what they have discovered.  I’ve seen students who don’t normally “shine”, smile from ear to ear when their peers say to them – “wow, that’s cool – I didn’t know that!”

Does it boil down to control?  How much control can you give over to your students?
Can you say – I’m not the expert – and that’s ok – let’s learn from one another.  Are you ready to teach that way?  Are you prepared to give that degree of freedom and autonomy for self-directed learning and exploration?

That’s not to say, that we as educators can take a back seat and let the students do ALL the driving.  A warrant of fitness or a registration is still our responsibility as educators as is the responsibility to provide the real, rich and authentic learning environment for the “messing around” to take place in.

Image Attributions:
Flow and process of learning. – A Churches – Edorigami
Computer Screen Image: ‘untitled‘ http://www.flickr.com/photos/21257461@N05/2994169884 altered by TeachingSagittarian under Creative Commons – flickrCC

I’ve just finished reading Michelle Martin’s latest post, A Week Without Google, on her Bamboo Project Blog.

My heart darn near skipped a beat at the thought of it.  Could you imagine it?  No gmail, gchat, gtalk,  google calendar, google docs, google maps, google search, google earth, google alerts, no blogger, and alas no iGoogle – no google anything!  And this is an actual assignment for Michelle’s daughter to do for her New Media Research class. And her assignment includes no YouTube either!!

Oh my!  Could I do it? Um … NOPE.  Not a chance!  And then it dawned on me just how reliant I’ve become on one company’s products.  I hadn’t meant to, I didn’t do it deliberately and I certainly didn’t realise it – til now.  I can’t think of any other aspect of my life (even financially) where I’ve literally put all my “eggs in one basket.”

How many Google products do you rely on?  All the ones I use religiously (that’s on a day to day basis) are listed in the first paragraph.  I am so dependent on Google. I really need to think seriously about how to manage if Google “went down”  (as she’s frantically touching wood so that doesn’t happen)!  Over the past week our school server has been hit with a virus that no one has the fix for.  Work with the internet in the classroom has all but ground to a halt.  Today my students alternated between reading their books and writing with a pencil while we waited patiently for pages on our blog to load.  At least we had the books and pencils as an alternative.  But that’s my point really.  What alternative do I have for all the google apps I use?

What about you?  Could you go a week without google?  Are all your eggs in one basket too?

The thing I love most about hearing Chris Betcher speak is they way he constantly teaches me more about things I thought I already knew.  Chris has already posted some incredibly helpful links on the ISB Wiki so I’m just sharing the link to the wiki rather than reposting all his links.  You’ll find the links here: (Just scroll down past Chris’s mugshot)

In just few short minutes Chris has just taught the entire room some very useful tips for searching “smarter” with Google, how to use basic search syntax and Google Advance Search.

Chris’s session was extremely interactive – he had us all searching and learning in a fun way.  The Google quiz was great – I like the fact that you needed to apply your search techniques – great for doing with our students – and the last question was excellent because it required a deeper level of thinking/synthesizing – kinda like Blooms Taxonomy thinking.

I especially enjoyed the Spaghetti growing on Trees Video and the link to the Tree Octopus website bought back memories of my entire Year 7 class a couple of years ago being completely fooled by this site when we were learning about the validity of websites and information on the internet and how do you know.

Even more informative was the discussion we had about Wikipedia.  In just a few minutes (again) Chris was able to explain the ins and outs of Wikipedia’s questionable validity and truthfulness in such a way that the majority of us could go back and explain the exact same thing to our students.

This session was fabulous practical session and I am so grateful to have been reminded about the Google for Educators website (bookmarked in my delicious account but certainly not looked at closely).  Even better are the resources we now have on our ISB Cert. Ed. Tech. & Informational Literacy wiki, (COETAIL.Asia) available at our fingertips (and we’ve experienced them) to help us teach ourselves and our students what’s real and how do you know and how can you find out and can you tell the difference?

Thanks Chris – great way to spend the afternoon and thanks so much for sharing your expertise with us.  Hope Kim and Jeff ask you back for another session!

What I enjoy most about Clarence Fisher is that he’s real.  His classroom is real.  His students are real.  His successes are real and his failures are real.  Clarence’s blog Remote Access is testimony to that realness.

I like the way his classroom pulls all the information together.  Our second f2f session today (our first full day though) began with this video put together by Wendy Drexler’s high school students as they made sense of “The Networked Student”  just before Clarence skyped in to talk to us.

Part of the conversation after watching the video talked about how can you pull information? How do you find the time to do it?  How do you check out the information?  I think Clarence did a great job in answering those questions for people even though he was unaware of the discussion prior to skyping in.

Clarence described his students as “hubs”.  Sometimes we teachers miss valuable pieces like that.  Sometimes we don’t know enough about the networks in our classrooms.  He spoke of a group of middle-school girls in his classroom who are a “hub” – they are networked – to each other.  They sit together, they work together, they produce things together, they help one another, they support one another.  Then he spoke of another “hub” of networked students – some boys.  The difference between the two “hubs” was their network extend 3600kms outside the classroom!  Neither group is any less connected/networked.  The teacher is still a “hub” be it in a different way.  The teacher is still in charge of the learning goal.

Clarence relies heavily on RSS feeds into the classroom.  He teaches his students about the power of RSS.  He teaches his students how to pull feeds from blogs around the world, he teaches his students how to make information come to them and by doing so, he encourages them to talk about what they are learning and uses it to help his students have a voice out in the world.  And they do.  He’s shown his students the power of their voices and how to express the things that they really care about.  He’s shown them how they can have a voice.

That’s powerful stuff.  That’s real stuff.  That’s how we can spread our ideas more powerfully. Thanks for talking to us Clarence! Hope that glass of wine was nice!