I love this website.  phet.colorado.edu I made my first screencast here.  Check it out.

In The Backwards Brain Bicycle, Destin from Smarter Everyday describes a very interesting brain experiment.  He unlearned how to ride a bike.  Riding a bike is a simple thing and once learned that skill is fairly easy to relearn or so we thought.  Destin's experience begins with a challenge from a friend who had created a bicycle where the handlebar move opposite to the wheel.  If you turn the handlebars right the wheel turns left. Having learned to ride a bike 25 years before Destin thought this would be easy.  He couldn't do it.  In fact, he hasn't been able to find anyone that can do it on the first try.  He trains on the bike for 5 minutes everyday and in 8 months learns to ride the bike.  He says it felt like something clicked.  He could manage the backward brain bicycle, but only with intense focus. Even the slightest distraction and he would loose the "pathway" or skill.  He challenges his 6 year old son to ride the backward brain bike.  He works on it and gets it in 2 weeks.  This demonstrates the greater neuroplasticity of younger minds.  His son could "relearn" how to ride a bike much faster.  
One of the craziest parts of this comes when after mastering the backward brain bike he tries to ride a regular bike again.  He cannot do it.  He cannot stay on the bike.  With lots of people watching and laughing, he ties and tries.  After twenty minutes, something clicks and he has it again.  His brain had to relearn what was unlearned.  
In this learning, unlearning and relearning process Destin learned that knowledge does not equal understanding.  He could conceptualize how to ride the backward bike, but until he trained or created a new neural pathway, he could not ride.  Destin says, "You are looking at the world with a bias whether you think you are or not."

What does this mean to my students?  I wonder how often I have been satisfied with the knowledge and didn't work for the understanding.  I thought I knew how to study and learn in school, but as I continued on into college, I discovered that I needed to relearn somethings.  As a teacher I need to provide opportunities to my students to relearn and understand.  Very often in my class I encounter, especially at the beginning of the year, student who say, "I'm just not good at science."  This is not true.  That student just hasn't put in the work to retrain their brain. I can help them do that.  The young have powerfully plastic brains that can learn and  relearn, given the opportunity and the motivation.  We can do it together.
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"The Backwards Brain Bicycle - Smarter Every Day 133." YouTube. Web. 31 Oct. 2015.

Nervin Mullick is a filmmaker.  He goes to buy a doorknob at an auto-parts resale shop and finds a 9 year old boy that has created a full arcade out of cardboard.  Nervin recognizes some genius in this child and decides to make a film.  He invites a flash mob to the arcade for the movie shoot.  This begins a huge movement called The Imagination Foundation.  Their goal is to Find Foster and Fund children with imaginations.  They have created this movement to invite children to invent and create.  
Nervin says, "One of the things I have learned from this experience is how a small gesture can change the life of a child."  As a teacher, I am not sure that I can fund, but I know that I can find and I can foster.  These students need a cheerleader, someone who will stop to recognize the effort and the genius that is hiding.  I can offer a classroom that challenges students to create and discover and connect.

"Caine's Arcade 2: From a Movie to a Movement." YouTube. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.

Personal Relevance changes everything.  You want something bad enough, you will make it happen.  That is the story of Caine's Arcade.  Caine loves arcades.  So much so, that during a long summer of hanging out in his dad's auto-part's shop Caine created his own arcade, out of cardboard boxes.  Not only does he create a great shop but he uses his great marketing skills to attract customers.  He is persistent even though no one comes.  He continues to build and hope.  He mans his shop diligently, until one day he gets a customer.  This customer, first buys a fun pass, then decides to do more.  Through some crafty internet use, he invites a flashmob to visit Caine's arcade, where so many people show up that they wait for up to 4 hours to get a chance to play.
What can we learn from this for education?  First, personal releveance is absolutely essential for learning.  Scholars will invest in what they care about.  As educators, we must finds ways to connect our students to the learning content or better yet, allow the students to create content understanding in their own lives.  Second,  there are moments when we as educators can illuminate the greatness of a student.  It may be a facebook flashmob, or as simple as a note or call home.  We have the power to allow our students to shine.  When we use that power, real learning happens, learning that enlightens the mind and empowers the heart.
In this digital age, we must create learning opportunities that allow for real relevance and personalization and allow for each of our students to have authentic global conversations.
This story continues.  See the next post for what happens.  This one boy, his interest and a filmmaker in a teaching moment, started a global phenomena.  

"Caine's Arcade." YouTube. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.

It has been suggested that in this day and age maybe the teacher and the traditional classroom is too antiquated, why don't we turn it over to the internet.  In a digital classroom one person could support many, many students from far away without expense of school and staff and books.   Alan November suggests that now, in this digital age, the teacher has become more vital than ever.  November continues that education in this digital age is not about collecting the greatest apps but redesigning the way we ask questions.  How often do we integrate technology by asking the students to look something up.  If we are asking questions that can be googled, we are failing our students.  We need to change the questions and the problems.  The digital classroom needs to challenge our students to find global perspective and common themes, to challenge stereotypes and celebrate diversity.  How do we match the power of the internet with real challenges?  November asks,"What is your quotient for global empathy?"  We need to allow our students the opportunity to feel globally and act accordingly.
As a student, I learned to give the answer that was asked for, which brings with it the fear of being wrong .  What if we stopped being "right" as the teacher and instead allowed our students to question, wonder, and doubt.  What if we, as the teacher, become the cheerleader and  inspired our students to action after developing solutions.  What if we as a people stopped worrying about ourselves and started thinking about the needs of our community, local and global.  We could start a journey for our students that could last a lifetime.  November suggests that we need to get our students globally connected so that they can begin authentic conversations.  "What is your quotient for global empathy?
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November, A. (2014, May5). Alan November - Who Owns the Learning? Preparing Students for Success in the Digital Age. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOAIxIBeT90&index=24&list=PLbRLdW37G3oMquOaC-HeUIt6CWk-FzaGp
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In the talk given by Michael Welsch, entitled From Knowledgeable to Knowledge-Able, Michael draws attention to the need for our education system to change.  He suggests that critical thinking is no longer enough for our students.  The internet not only allows our students access to world-wide awareness but can be a voice for each of them to initiate change.  On the internet, we can create layers of communications.  "Different contributions from all over the world can add up to something quite beautiful."  (Michael Wesch, 2010)  Our education system needs to change from helping our students become knowledgeable to becoming knowledge-able.  Knowledge-ability is a practice not an end point.  Our students must become "meaning makers" embracing real problems, collaborating to solve them by harnessing the tools available.
The science classroom is a great place to put this shift of learning into play.  We use pod casts and videos, along with computer simulations to scaffold learning.  These along with lab observations make learning fun and relevant and build knowledge.  This is still not where we need to be.  Knowledge-ability is a state of mind, a growth mindset that empowers our students to question real life.  We need to get to the point where students discover the problems and work together to solve those problems.  Knowledge-ability is the confidence to act on your question, think critically, propose a solution, and create results.  The rising generation must be able to feel globally and act accordingly.  I am not exactly sure how this will happen, but I know that I will contribute as I recognize the greatness in each student, empower them to take care of each other, and inspire them to seek a better world.

Wesch, M. (2010, October 12). TEDxKC-Michael Wesch-From Knowledgeable to Knowledge-Able. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeaAHv4UTI8 

Creating Emotionally Literate Classrooms (Maurer, Rivers, Elertson, Carpenter, 2011) is an introduction to social and emotional learning.  The authors introduce the RULER approach, Recognize, Understand, Label, Express, and Regulate.  This curriculum gives the structure to teach emotional literacy.  "Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all." (Aristotle as quoted in Creating Emotionally Literate Classrooms, Maurer, 2011, p69)  The RULER approach builds social skills through emotional learning.  Students that are emotionally literate will be more engage and successful n learning academics.

Regginal Washington is putting these tools into practice in our local community.  Project AWARE (Attitude When Angry and Resolving Emotion issues) is creating safe classrooms and socially functional youth.  When our children are taught skills to understand their emotions and do something about how they feel, they become empowered to make change.  "We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future." (Franklin D. Roosevelt as quoted by Maurer, 2011, p.69)

​For more information check out the video below or this http://www.ncpdf.org/pdf/steering/2014-10-17/4.0.projectaware.pdf.

Dr. Dave White presents a very interesting theory in the video Visitors vs. Residents.  White suggests that a person is not characterized by their online skills, but by their "digital identity."  He characterizes a visitor as one who views the internet as a tool or set of tools.  A visitor does not maintain a social persona online, but uses the internet as a means to an end.  A resident sees the internet as a park, or a club.  The internet is a communal, visible, social space.  Even when they are not online, some part of their persona lives online.  "It's not about academic or technical skills.  It's about culture and motivation."
I totally agree with this theory, and it makes me feel better about myself.  I am a visitor.  I have been so busy living life that I didn't have time to build a life online.  I understand that social sites help people connect, but with 8 children, I am connected to as many people as I can handle.  This needs to change for me.  My dream is to be a teacher.  I believe that as a teacher I represent the future to my students, their future.  They must be willing participants in the global community in order to work, to communicate, to learn, and to problem solve.  I must represent that pathway to my students, and truthfully in order for me to be the best teacher possible, I need help.  There are so many brilliant, creative people that have been inspiring students for a long time.  Time to join the club.  There are many tools that I can use to help with lesson plans, ideas to prompt inquiry based learning, and research that I can use to inspire my students to be scientists in their everyday lives.  I will probably always be a visitor, but I hope to be able to unpack all the tools on the internet to build my arsenal.

White, D. [Dave White]. (2013, May 31). Visitors and Residents [Video File]. Retrieved fromhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sFBadv04eY ​

In the book, Why School by Will Richardson, he outlines two popular ideas to make schools "better."  One of them suggests that high stakes testing should be used to determine which teachers are good and which are not.  This view also suggests that we sell our curriculum to the highest bidder and allow our children to be taught remotely.
"In a nutshell, proponents of this view believe that education can be improved by identifying and getting rid of teachers whose students underperform on the test, by privatizing schools, and by “personalizing” the curriculum via computers that deliver content and problems to individual kids based on their assessed skill level."  I find it interesting that the plan is to "personalize" curriculum by taking away the humanity.  What we need to do is empower students and teachers to lead their own learning.  Give the students the tools and the power to become the scientist, writer, the humanitarian that already exists in their heart.  Unlock the global community so that we can all learn together.
One of the learning and unlearning ideas that really has power for me is the idea of discover, don't deliver the curriculum.  In his book Richardson quotes Stephen Downes as saying, "we have to stop thinking of an education as something that is delivered to us and instead see it as something we create for ourselves."  I truly believe that especially in the field of science.  I hope to inspire my students to question all aspects of the world around them.  In the classroom I will demonstrate that process of inquiry as we learn the content standards, teaching my students to extend their wonder and understanding into all aspects of their life.
One of the hardest for me to instill will be "do work for real audiences."  It will be difficult for me to build this understanding for my students as lab and science work is not a natural experience for many of my students.  They may not have home experiences where wonder and inquiry is encouraged.  In our classroom we ask for projects and creations where the students mimic real world experience, such as biotech conference.  Students will design projects that they will have to present and sell to parent and other students.  This will take focus and effort to design, but will allow my students to be prepared for real world work.

Richardson, Will (2012-09-10). Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere (Kindle Single) (Kindle Locations 232-234). TED Conferences. Kindle Edition.