Success!

Wow! I am blown away by my students' presentations. We had quite a crowd show up today to hear about our students passions, interests and findings about themselves and the world we live in. I think the best way to show our awesome day off is with some pictures!

The Big Day

Today is presentation day!!

I'm so excited for our guests to see what these 8th graders have done this year and learn more about what fuels their passion in life! After hearing speeches for the last few days, I have been blown away not only by the projects these kiddos took on, but by their wisdom and insights about themselves and their journeys this year.

Hope to see you there today!

You're Invited!

Please join us for our final presentations:

When: Friday, May 8 from 10 a.m. - 3:20 p.m.
Where: Auburn Junior High School Media Center
Details: Students will be conducting TED Talk-style presentations in a gallery/walk-through format in our media center. Please come and find out what the highlights and learnings were for our students this year as they tried to make their passion projects come to life.

Light refreshments will be served. 

**Please sign-in in the front office when you arrive.**

Contact me at dmbrowning@auburnschools.org with any questions!

I'm so excited, I just had to write it!

So, it's 1:30 in the morning and I can't sleep because I am so excited to hear my students' This I Believe essays tomorrow. I know this is off topic but I had to let my excitement out somewhere, and, well, everyone else is sleeping. Not only are my students doing amazing things for their 20% Time projects, they are writing stellar essays about their beliefs and convictions in life by sharing their life experiences and philosophies. Yes, I'm getting more energy just writing this and thinking about it. Looks like sleep is a long way off. #teacherprobs #mystudentsarekeepingmeupatnight #foralltherightreasons

Check out the This I Believe project at www.thisibelieve.org. 

And yes, our 20% Time speeches are coming along nicely. I think I'll have a few "I'm so excited I feel like a kid before Christmas morning" sleepless nights next week too! #can'twait 

#writingatnightmakesmehashtageverything

#gotobed

Get Ready, Get Set, Find that Motivation!!

Welp! I haven't written in a few weeks, and it's because we're in high-gear right now preparing for our speeches on May 8. Boy I am excited for these students to share what they've been doing and learning about their own journey with the project with our community. Today, we watched an awesome, super inspirational (yes, I got a little choked up, even though it's totally not typical "choke-up" material) and just incredibly interesting TED talk by Dan Pink. Check it out here:

Speech Time!

Today, we've started working on our speeches. We'll be giving TED Talk style speeches and inviting teachers, parents, and other community folks to see what our passion projects are on May 8.

I've given students outline organizers to help organize the important talking points in their speeches (credit goes to Mrs. Raville, who gave these bad boys to her 20-timers last year). Students will highlight their successes for the year, and talk about how they met or didn't meet goals, what they struggled with and what they liked or didn't like about the project as a whole.

On another note, I'm so impressed not only by how quickly our tech staff have been clearing student blogs and websites so they are open on our school network, but also by how flexible my students have been when they try a site that's been blocked. It's been a good learning experience to hit this road-block and learn how to continue our projects despite this change.

Refreshed and Restricted?

Two things to mention today. First, we just got back from spring break week. Such a nice break for all of us. And guess what? That means we only have 8 weeks of school left! Whoo hoo! It's certainly bittersweet though, because I have THE BEST students ever who are doing THE COOLEST projects ever! Here's to you classes of 2015-2016 "step up your game!"

Second thing that we're running into is a bit of a hurdle for all of us. The internet is always a moving thing, and we've pushed a much needed update across the school system to continue to ensure online security and clear our bandwidth up (a.k.a. too many people streaming videos and using various sites at the same time clogs up the pipes!) On the unfortunate side of things, this means a lot of us are reaching 'virtual' brick walls with our 20% time projects - some sites we've been using have now been blocked. So please, don't judge us too harshly these last few weeks aren't as visibly productive as you've seen leading up to today. We'll be working over the kinks of having some of our resource sites blocked, like Gmail, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.

Our new mantra for the year: "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming... just keep surfing (the internet)"

Rules from My Mother

Just got off the phone with my mom - did I mention she's an 8th grade teacher in Michigan? Check out our other awesome project here: Project North & South! Anyway, her school just sent her and a whole gaggle of teachers to Detroit for a MACUL conference. What is that you may ask? MACUL = Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning. Yeah, that's a mouthful. But, she got an earful of information from the over 4500 folks who attended the conference about the most awesome technology based projects - one of which was a presentation about 20% time in the classroom.

I'm loving that this is the big new push because it's definitely one of the coolest things I've gotten to experience this year. Why? I've gotten to understand and get to know my students in a new light, I've seen my students motivate each other and themselves in ways I know wouldn't naturally happen in the classroom, and frankly, I've just been pretty durn impressed with the passion projects my students have devoted themselves to and the things they're discovering how to do on their own.

I know she had a lot to say, and I'm going to have to pick her brain again about all this info, but two things stick out to me that I want to use as goals for myself next year. 1. NEVER skip a Friday (We are so guilty of this). If you're going to commit, then commit. I just need to completely and totally reserve our time and never use it for other classwork. 2. Get students to actually have a relationship with a mentor. Now, I did have students identify mentors in our project proposal stage, but I know many have not really cultivated a relationship - something that can bring a whole new level of meaning and discovery to the projects.

Ok, gotta rush - more updates soon :)

My Passion Project

Yesterday, Ji Sung asked me what I would do if I could do my own 20% time project. In a way, I am doing my 20% time by facilitating and monitoring my classes' 20% projects; but I knew Ji Sung meant more than that - he wanted to know what my passion project would be without the responsibility of mentoring my students during this time.
 

Today, I'm thinking an extra period for grading papers might be kinda nice... but I started talking a little about how I started getting interested in the concept of a 20% time project and I realized that this really is one of my passions (duh - right?) If I were doing "my own" 20 time project, it really would be researching 20% time information and learning more about the cool things teachers, companies, and people following their passions are doing.

So, yes, I have some restrictions so to say on my 20% time because I've committed to being a mentor to my students, but this is truly what I find fascinating! Plus, it makes for awesome story telling and bragging on my students every time I have dinner with friends, call home, or tell my hubby what my students did at school each day.

Conference Day

Today, I set a goal to meet with every student individually about their 20% time projects. I actually met it (minus the folks who were absent)!

I'm so, so proud of my students this week. I loved looking through each blog and hearing about their successes and struggles with their projects.

One exciting development that I hope will grow is that we set up a Google "Writer's Circle" for my aspiring authors, hopefully this will give us a chance to connect and share our work and get some extra feedback for those working on writing projects.

One of the things a lot of my students seemed to need help with is citing sources and getting permission to use materials. We're so used to copying and pasting and sharing pictures on social media now, that it can be hard to remember to take the time to give credit where it's due. Luckily, we'll be starting with our research papers soon, so we'll have plenty of resources to help make citations perfect!

This weeks highlighted blogs:
Ji Sung: Learning to play the piano after years away from it (truly impressive).

Learn about photography with Sarah Kennedy. I love the most recent post about taking pics of pets - I'll have to try this with my dog this weekend!

Check out a history of music with Tori. I think I'm feeling some classic rock on the radio on my way home today.

Gotta Love Technology!

Silly me... I haven't spent enough time exploring my own blog and using Google+ to its full extent. I'm currently adding all my students to a Google+ circle and will be able to communicate much more efficiently with everyone through through this format. How exciting!

I also found lots of staff at school who think they will be able to donate spare computer parts to Gabriel for his 20% Time project. What a helpful & generous bunch of folks we have here!

Unfortunately the buzzer just rang, meaning time's up. More to come soon...

Brrrrr! It's Blogging Time!

It's been awhile since we've had 20% time. We had exams and our December holiday break since the last time I've posted. Despite the freezing cold, we're back in business and ready to explore our passions, learn about ourselves and our projects, and blog about it all!

Monday, January 12 is the last day for students to post their project proposals. This is an assignment that calls for students to formally write up their rationale, steps, and goals for the project. Check out the blogs linked on the left to see these awesome proposals.