The Beta Test Reflection

Today is the last official day of school... and it's been a weird day. My son, who is 3 1/2 years old, was not feeling super great and since I did not have any facilitator meetings scheduled, I just kept him with me rather than taking him to preschool. I've been waiting for my students to post their final blogs and working on finishing up grades for most of the day, and Gavin (my son) has been playing with toys on the floor of my office. Currently, I have the lights dimmed and he is sleeping (kinda) in a bed of blankets.

I went though a lot of effort to make this bed... I guess he doesn't like it.

Anyway... It's quiet right now, and I've got all the work completed that I can for now which has afforded me the opportunity to reflect on this 20% Project experience. I'm sure some of my kids will post at 11:59 p.m. which would technically meet the requirement. It didn't occur to me how inconvenient it would be (for me) to have the final post be due on the last day of school. In fact, it didn't cross my mind until this week. I thought of a seemly brilliant solution and put a carrot out there for them: I offered them extra credit if they posted at least a day early. Of course, the ones who took advantage of that opportunity were the ones who did not really need the extra points. Next year I'm not going to make that same mistake; I'll probably have the final post be due the week before the end of school, or like Wednesday or something. But that's not the only thing I will do differently next year.

The biggest challenge for me was the implementation of this project. I learned about the 20% Project while at a tech teaching conference called CUE (computer Using Educators). There was a super-inspiring teacher there name Andrew Moriates who did a session on the 20% Project. I immediately knew I had to do the project with my kids... but... how? Although Mr. Moriates also teaches sophomore English, he teaches at a regular high school. You know, the kind of place that is classroom-based, with desks, and a white board, and he sees his students daily. I see each of my students one at a time, every 2-4 weeks, most of them don't even know each other, and we've never done anything like this before. My plan for implementation had to be very different from his. Despite this challenge I was determined. I had my mind set: I'd totally throw these kids a curve ball and see how they handled it. Moriates has lit a fire in me, he said in that session at CUE that "the first one through the wall gets bloodied." I thought "OK, that could be me. I could do that. My students are amazing; they can handle this." ...and I went for it.

#notetoself

I'm not gonna lie, the implementation was rocky. I warned them one by one, this is coming. look for my e-mails. Maybe it was too much information at once, maybe they didn't get enough warning, maybe they needed more discussion... I mean, this was a major shift in the way we had been doing things all year. They had become comfortable with my packets, essays, vocabulary quizzes, minimal use of technology (pretty much just YouTube and Google Docs), and non-involvement with their peers. Some of them were psyched and totally ready for what lay ahead, others were super confused and overwhelmed. As a consequence, some were late to the game or in one case didn't show up at all. So what am I going to do differently next year? For one, I'm going to start earlier... like Marchish. I'm also not going to give them all the details up front. I think it was too much to chew on all at once. 

Overall, I'm so insanely delighted that I did this project. My students did amazing things: one kid build a water recycling device for his swamp cooler that waters his garden, another one created a Tumblr feed of inspirational digital comics, another one implemented a system that anonymously provided clothing to needy kids, one student earned his amateur radio (HAM) licence, another kid made a bunch of adorable stuffed bunnies for sick kids at UC Davis Children's Hospital, one student created a YouTube channel devoted to addresing the difficult issues of teen depression, bullying, self harm, and suicide... the list of accomplishments goes on and on. My point is, they have made a civic impact. And their blogs... their blogs are awesome! It's been a lot of work, but so completely worth it. So yeah, I'm doing this next year... but better, because I am inspired by my kids.