This is an important topic-if you don’t want to read my personal opinions-just PLEASE scroll down to the article whose title is in BIG print from LD Onlineand check out the helpful links I included too. And think about subscribing to LD ONLINE using RSS (i.e. Google Reader).
PLEASE NOTE BEFORE SCROLLING DOWN: There are many better/newer medications for ADHD than LD Online listson their website-but I wrote them about that and they not only thnaked me for bringing that to their attention, they said they would work to update their information ASAP-so those of us who take ADHD meds or who give them to our kids should check and make sure they follow through!
Parents need to be assured that ADHD medication, though not the Whole Answer, does NOT have to be a scary proposition at all; the sooner you get started trying it the better too- because not everyone has an instant “fit” with the first one they try-and the dosage level often needs tweaking too!
Study Proves Use of ADHD Medication Improves Test Scores
If you are interested in the personal opinion of one professional educator whose own ADHD was not diagnosed until age 40 (me!), who is also the parent of 3 intellectually and creatively gifted kids- (ages 13, 20 and 25)- who also deal with ADHD, then keep reading. Following my personal opinion is a long but very worth while article and some truly useful links-even if you think you know everything!
Here’s what I’ve been personally reading and thinking about concerning ADHD and Gifted Students :
It’s Novemeber 2, and here in Georgia, most parents have attended their first Parent/Teacher conference, and have seen a first report card too-which may have been a shock for some parents-especially if the grades did not reflect the true intelligence of the child. For some families, including many that might surprise you (i.e. families of “gifted” children or teens), this time of the Fall may be an extremely stressful time indeed. Like a late model Ferrari accidently built with a carburator from an old Ford Mustang, many extremely intelligent students (and their parents) are working overtime trying to use their “gifts” to “compensate” in areas of unsuspected or unacknowledged weakness!
ADHD isn’t something you’re going to be able to “fix”-it stays with most of us our whole lives and we either learn to work around it-or we don’t. But the consequences of not addressing this issue in your family ASAP can be devastating-please educate yourself with the facts-no matter what you ultimately decide to do with all the information I’ve provided in this blog.
My personal opinion is: It’s time to get over our fear of the unknown and the “stigma” of ADHD and the medications used to treat it, and finally, truthfully, unflinchingly educate ourselves and others about these very real learning differences-instead of hiding, pretending, and/or negatively labeling ourselves, our kids and/or others!
In the case of first children in a family, many parents have a tendency to become defensive, wanting to blame the school or the teacher, or friends their child plays with when their precious child has problems–and that’s if they aren’t among those completely denying a problem even exists in their family!
What concerns me is that once parents and teachers do finally agree that it’s time to “do something”, many have no idea how to “get on the same page”! And that’s vitally important if the child’s medication treatment plan and cognitive strategies, and/or IEP are going to be set up efficiently and effectively so that no more instructional time is wasted this school year. Dealing with ADHD reminds us that this is not a perfect world by any means, but don’t feel bad – No One Has All the Answers- every single person is unique-so the sooner you put your head together with others who are truly knowledgeable, and who care enough to help, the sooner you can get started on this journey, and the better for everyone-especially your child!
Parents should not assume their primary care pediatrician is an expert on ADHD who is qualified to diagnose and prescribe, though some insurance may require his/her permission to make an appointment with a psychiatrist. Cognitive Psychiatry is the way to go if you want real strategies tailored to your specific needs and to have access to someone who will work with you to find the best medication also, if medication is also needed.
But don’t kid yourself-medication is usually the only way to get behavioral strategies and manners/social skills lessons to actually “stick” in your child’s brain–so why put that off? You want your child to gradually be able to put together an arsenal of social and learning skills for himself or herself that he/she can call on as needed–after all, you can’t go off to college with your kid (even if you could, your child won’t let you)! You wouldn’t fail to get your kid eyeglasses right away if they were needed-well, ADHD medicine is like eyeglasses for the brain too, in a way-you just can’t see what is being illuminated for the first time.
Unfortunately, “head shrinkers” have gotten a bad rap and though they are the very specialists to consult -(especially “Cognitive Psychiatrists”)-when parents are attempting to sort out what is ADHD and what is not, and what to do about it. There are so many medications out there! If one doesn’t work, you do have options, but specialized guidance from the very beginning is so worth the extra cost and effort for all the precious irreplaceable time it will save in the long run!
I know from personal experience how most parents are scared to death to think of their child needing such a doctor. Many try to educate themselves-sometimes in an attempt to prove their child’s teacher/s wrong-but even if they read up on it and decide, yes, their child has ADHD, and should try medication, many will just ask their pediatrician to prescribe it-to lessen the feeling of stigma for themselves-but also, unintentionally, cutting themselves off from a much-needed expert source of information, education, guidance, and reassurance for themselves, their child, the rest of the family. and the teachers and administrators in their school as well. It does “take a village” to raise a child -especially one with LD, ADHD, or who is “gifted”-with or without learning or social/emotional challenges.
There is so much information on the internet these days, that it can be completely overwhelming-especially when you consider how much of it is inaccurate-and even outdated-especially where medication is concerned-and even potentially harmful where ADHD and Gifted Kids with ADHD or LD are concerned. So I want to pass on some information with some website links you or a close friend may find particularly helpful, that your child’s teacher or school administrator should already know about- (but might not)!
LD Online a wealth of information on all kinds of topics pertaining to Gifted Kids, ADHD, Dsylexia, Special Education, Federal Laws Protecting the Rights of LD Students-you name it. They either have the information right there or a clickable link to it. Plus books and other resources-a great place to start educating yourself-even if you think you know it all already!
Gifted Students? Parents of Gifted Kids? Gifted Adult? Please take the time to read this article from this month’s LD ONLINE newletter, which I recommend subscribing to using RSS-(Google Reader)- just one of many worthwhile articles that is available at LD Online:
Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder(ADHD) is the most common behavioral disorder of childhood, and is marked by a constellation of symptoms including immature levels of impulsivity, inattention, and hyperactivity. The National Institutes of Health declared ADHD a “severe public health problem” in its consensus conference on ADHD in 1998.
There are three subtypes of ADHD: predominantly inattentive type, predominantly hyperactive/impulsive type, and combined type. The combined type is most common and best researched. The DSM-IV states that to meet criteria for a diagnosis of Combined Type ADHD, a child must meet at least six of the nine criteria from both lists and exhibit significant impairment in functioning. Symptoms must occur in more than one setting, have been present for at least six months, and have been present before the age of seven. It is important to note that a child who meets the criteria but doesn’t exhibit significant impairment is not diagnosed with the disorder. The subjective determination of what constitutes significant impairment is one of several factors that contribute to the controversy regarding diagnosis and treatment, especially in gifted children.
Differences in gifted children and non-gifted children with ADHD
Initial findings suggest two points for consideration. First, Kaufman and her colleagues’ work indicates that identified gifted ADHD children are more impaired than other ADHD children, suggesting the possibility that we are missing gifted children with milder forms of ADHD. Second, high ability can mask ADHD, and attention deficits and impulsivity tend to depress the test scores as well as the high academic performance that many schools rely on to identify giftedness. Also, teachers may tend to focus on the disruptive behaviors of gifted ADHD students and fail to see indicators of high ability.
These delays are of concern because early provision of appropriate services is important for academic and social success. Gifted children whose attention deficits are identified later may be at risk for developing learned helplessness and chronic underachievement. ADHD children whose giftedness goes unrecognized do not receive appropriate educational services. It is recommended that children who fail to meet test score criteria for giftedness and are later diagnosed with ADHD be retested for the gifted program.
As a group, ADHD children tend to lag two to three years behind their age peers in social and emotional maturity. Gifted ADHD children are no exception. This finding has important implications for educational placement. As a group, gifted children without ADHD tend to be more similar in their cognitive, social, and emotional development to children two to four years older than children their own age. When placed with other high ability children without the disorder, ADHD children may find the advanced maturity of their classmates a challenge they are ill prepared for. Also, gifted children without the disorder may have little patience for the social and emotional immaturity of the gifted ADHD student in their midst. This is not to say that gifted ADHD students should not be placed with other gifted students. The research is clear that lack of intellectual challenge and little access to others with similar interests, ability, and drive are often risk factors for gifted children, contributing to social or emotional problems.
Assessing ADHD in gifted children
It is difficult to differentiate true attention deficits from the range of temperament and behavior common to gifted children. There is concern in the literature that clinicians err on the side of pathologizing normal gifted behavior. Common characteristics of gifted children can be misconstrued as indicators of pathology when the observer is unfamiliar with the differences in the development of gifted children. This difficulty can be exacerbated when the gifted child in question spends considerable time in a classroom where appropriate educational services are not provided. The intensity, drive, perfectionism, curiosity, and impatience commonly seen in gifted children may, in some instances, be mistaken for indicators of ADHD. The creatively gifted child may appear to be oppositional, hyperactive, and argumentative. Gifted children with some kinds of undiagnosed learning disabilities will be very disorganized, messy, and have difficult social relations.
Ideally, a diagnosis of ADHD in gifted children should be made by a multidisciplinary team that includes at least one clinician trained in differentiating childhood psychopathologies and one professional who understands the normal range of developmental characteristics of gifted children. Since as many as two thirds of children with ADHD have coexisting conditions such as learning disabilities or depression, assessment must include an evaluation for these disorders as well. School personnel rarely have the training needed to differentially diagnose ADHD, and few clinicians are aware of the unique developmental characteristics of gifted children. Accurate assessment must be a team effort.
One of the reasons parents may be hesitant to comply with treatment recommendations for their children is because they aren’t convinced their child has the disorder. Parents want a thorough evaluation, and parents of gifted children want assurance that their child’s giftedness has been taken into consideration when evaluations are conducted. When parents see that their child has been properly evaluated, they may be more willing to participate in a treatment plan.
What is appropriate intervention and support?
The available research suggests that we should not assume that all interventions recommended for ADHD children are appropriate for gifted children who have the disorder. Early findings suggest that there may be some differences in the way we intervene with gifted ADHD children. Treatment matching is crucial. Effective interventions are always those that are tailored to the unique strengths and needs of the individual. There is wide agreement in the literature on gifted children with learning problems that as a general strategy, intervention should focus on developing the talent while attending to the disability. Keeping the focus on talent development, rather than on remediation of deficits, appears to yield more positive outcomes and to minimize problems of social and emotional adjustment.
In addition, there is limited evidence that some of the commonly recommended interventions for ADHD children may make problems worse for ADHD children who are also gifted. For instance, since gifted children tend to prefer complexity, shortening work time and simplifying tasks may increase frustration for some gifted ADHD students who would handle better more difficult and intriguing tasks. Similarly, decreasing stimulation may be counterproductive with some gifted ADHD children who, as a group, tend to be intense and work better with a high level of stimulation.
Conclusion
There has been some concern that problems with inattention or hyperactivity that are better attributed to a mismatch with the curriculum or to characteristics of high creative ability are wrongly attributed to ADHD. Although there are good reasons to believe that misidentifications occur, there are yet no hard data on the frequency with which gifted children are over- (or under-) diagnosed or over- (or under-) medicated. Until systematic studies are conducted, we should be cautious about rejecting ADHD diagnosis in gifted children out of hand because there are serious, long-term negative consequences for under-treating the disorder (Barkley, 1998). The available research on ADHD children indicates that nationally, there is a good deal of under-treatment as well as some over-treatment of ADHD children.
It is a challenge to arrange a good fit in school for gifted ADHD children. They must have an appropriate level of intellectual challenge with supports and interventions to address their social and emotional immaturity. Placement in the gifted program may or may not be appropriate, depending on the nature of the program, the social milieu of the gifted classroom, and the coping ability of the child, but a coherent plan for addressing the student’s intellectual, social, and behavioral needs is nevertheless imperative.
LD ONLINE Article’s References:
ERIC Digests are inThe ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education (ERIC EC)
The ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education (ERIC EC)- ERIC EC Digest #E649 – October 2003
The ERIC references are in the public domain and may be freely reproduced and disseminated, but please acknowledge your source. This digest was prepared with funding from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), U.S. Department of Education, under Contract No. ED-99-CO-0026. The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of IES or the Department of Education.
American Academy of Pediatrics (2000). Clinical practice guidelines: diagnosis and evaluation of the child with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Pediatrics, 105:1158-1170.
American Psychiatric Association (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. Washington, DC: Author.
Barkley, R.A. (1998). Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: A handbook for diagnosis and treatment. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Baum, S.M., Olenchak, F.R., & Owen, S.V. (1998). Gifted students with attention deficits: Fact and/or fiction? Or, can we see the forest for the trees? Gifted Child Quarterly, 42, 96-104.
Baum, S, Owen, S.V., & Dixon, J. (1991). To be gifted and learning disabled: From definition to practical intervention strategies. Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press.
Kalbfleisch, M.L. (2000). Electroencephalographic differences between males with and without ADHD with average and high aptitude during task transitions. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
Kaufmann, F.A., & Castellanos, F.X. (2000). Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in gifted students. In K.A. Heller, F.J. Monks, R.J. Sternberg, & R.F. Subotnik (Eds.), International handbook of giftedness and talent. (2nd ed., pp. 621-632). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Kaufmann, F., Kalbfleisch, M. L., & Castellanos, F. X. (2000). Attention deficit disorders and gifted students: What do we really know? Storrs, CT: National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, University of Connecticut.
Leroux, J.A., & Levitt-Perlman, M. (2000). The gifted child with attention deficit disorder: An identification and intervention challenge. Roeper Review, 22, 171-176.
Moon, S.M., Zentall, S.S., Grskovic, J.A., Hall, A. & Stormont, M. (2001). Emotional, social, and family characteristics of boys with AD/HD and giftedness: A comparative case study. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 24, 207-247.
Moon, S. (2002). Gifted children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. In M. Neihart, S. Reis, N. Robinson, S. Moon (Eds.). The social and emotional development of gifted children: What do we know? (pp. 193-204). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.
National Institutes of Health (1998). Diagnosis and treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) consensus statement. Washington, DC: Author.
Neihart, M., Reis, S., Robinson, N., & Moon, S. (Eds.) (2002). The social and emotional development of gifted children: What do we know? Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.
Olenchak, R., & Reis, S. (2002). Gifted children with learning disabilities. In M. Neihart, S. Reis, N. Robinson, & S. Moon (Eds.), The social and emotional development of gifted children: What do we know? (pp. 177-192). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.
Olenchak, F.R. (1994). Talent development: Accommodating the social and emotional needs of secondary gifted/learning-disabled students. Journal of Secondary Gifted Education, 5, 40-52.
Reis, S.M., McGuire, J.M. & Neu, T.W. (2000). Compensation strategies used by high-ability students with learning disabilities who succeed in college. Gifted Child Quarterly, 44, 123-134.
Webb. J.T. (2001). Mis-diagnosis and dual diagnosis of gifted children: Gifted and LD, ADHD, OCD, oppositional defiant disorder. N. Hafenstein & F. Rainey (Eds.), Perspectives in gifted education: Twice exceptional children (pp. 23-31). Denver: Ricks Center for Gifted Children, University of Denver.
Zentall, S.S., Moon, S.M., Hall, A.M., & Grskovic, J.A. (2001). Learning and motivational characteristics of boys with AD/HD and/or giftedness. Exceptional Children, 67, 499-519.
Maureen Neihart, Psy.D. is a licensed clinical child psychologist in Billings, MT.
MORE LD Online References for this article: ERIC Digests are in the public domain and may be freely reproduced and disseminated, but please acknowledge your source. This digest was prepared with funding from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), U.S. Department of Education, under Contract No. ED-99-CO-0026. The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of IES or the Department of Education.
The ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education (ERIC EC)
Here’s a list of some of my favorite educationblogs (including dance education!) that are worth reading, sharing, discussing and commenting on; I’m hoping to hear from you!
Which blogs do you subscribe to? What’s the most useful tip you’ve picked up from reading a blog?
If you’re a parent of a school-aged child, do you see a blog listed here that you might recommend to one of your child’s teachers-and if so, which one?
*Hint-at least check out the first blog listed below-you don’t have to be a parent, teacher, or a blogger to appreciate The Newberry Project-just a lover of great books!
I’m an EdublogsSupporter now and would like to bring more traffic to my blog but I’m not getting much help from Edublogs in that department, I’m afraid. What’s wrong with letting me put a badge like this on my sidebar? Subscribe to updates
Unfortunately, I don’t have enough web-know-how to solve my problems here, even it seems that the only thing that has happened to this blog since I became an Edublogs Supporter is my original Clustrmap got wiped clean! So now it looks like only people from Atlanta. GA read tis blog and I actually had attracted readers fro as far away as India, Finland and the Ukraine!
What ways have you found expeditious to share links to what you’re reading and bookmarking these days? I sure would like to hear from you!
Today I tried to create a link that I hoped would allow others to connect directly with my Google Reader “Starred List” of interesting articles on parenting, teaching and education issues, learning differences, all kinds of dance information, and articles that address technology issues, along with helpful tech tips and tutorials. It worked but people could access more than I bargained for so I just deleted the link-sorry!
As you may discover if you read many of my blogposts, this isn’t a one-sded blog by any means-I’m interested in too many things to write just about one, though I seem to be most attracted to discussing and adding to people’s knowledge base on the topics of: education (including gifted education, learning differences, and dance education-of course-since I’m a dance teacher), good tech topics for non-techies to know about, cool web 2.0. tools for kids, teacher, and parents–among others topics of interest.
My thinking was if you’re interested in any of these topics, or you like the way I think and write, if you’re taking Shelley Paul’s k12learning2.0 course or another web 2.0 course, or just want to learn more about web 2.0 without having to take a class, and you’re as pressed for time as I seem to be all week at school or work, then you might enjoy clicking on my list of starred articles just to see what kinds of things are possible to read about thanks to the wonders of RSS, or if you already know about Readers, to find some accessibly written, interesting, short reading for carpool or bank lines, and/or learn about some “how-tos” for processesyou haven’t heard about or haven’t had time to look for a tutorials on. But I guess that idea just bombed!!!
Browsing through my Google Reader is fast becoming one of my very favorite ways to spend a rainy, cold Sunday afternoon. I’m the Queen of Week-end Procrastinators, but I promise it’s not really a time-waster; I really learn a lot of useful things this way, and often find articles and links to share here, and to email to friends. I think that’s why I was hoping to share here on this blog too. I’m sure there are other ways to do that-this idea of mine was supposed to save me some time hough-back to the drawing board,
GoogleReading is relaxing for a workaholic like me-what do you think? I like it because I can read about the latest things that will help me as a parent, blogger, teacher, etc. without actually having to get up off the couch to go do any of it-unless I want to!! So far it’s just something I indulge in on my own time at home-it hasn’t become a form of procrastination that I use at work, nor do I expect I’ll ever have time for it to become one either (my boss will surely be glad to know)! Like most teachers, I’m afraid I can all too easily address my addiction to reading, and get my daily technology “fix” at the same time, just trying to keep up with school email! But if youhave a job where you sit at a desk and stare at a computer all day, I don’t have to tell you-you probably have your own reader that you’re wasting time with already. You can’t add my “starred list” but you can access jan_o’s Delicious Bookmarks! Many of the articles I find in my Reader end up in My delicious!
jan_o’s Delicious Bookmarks have finally been put into tag bundles-more or less. Tons of great links here-in my humble opinion-lol! IF you find something useful-please let me know! Some of my more recent bookmarks are how-tos for Twitter and Facebook, i.e. how to share your links on those two social networking platforms.
Personally, I’m trying to figure out how much I want to get involoved with Facebook (as a person who is already starved for time to update one blog and one wiki on a regular basis) so you probably can’t find me on Facebook very easily, if at all, and I’ve only just started to think seriously about Twitter, as I have said before, it might be interesting to sign up just so I could learn to be pithy! But thanks to my Google Reader and my Firefox app Zemanta (that automatically suggests related articles whenever I type an email or blogpost), I see it’s becoming possible to put tweets on my blog and my blogposts on Facebook etc. -so I may subcumb after all! At least one of thosearticles is listed at the end of this blogpost, so check it out if you’re similarly curious.
You may notice some of my recent bookmarks on Delicious from Digitizor-I was disappointed to discover that when you click on those they just take you to a place where you have to add Digitizor to your reader to be able to see the article, but at least you can tell by the titles of the articles whether or not you want to add Digitizor to your Reader. I think they’re definitely worth it-but you you’re like me and don’t “speak geek”, be aware that you’ll probably have to scroll through their extensive lists of articles to find the ones you can actually understand and use.
Learn About Smart Boards Here! Mr. Clarke is available 24/7 on this Pageflake; he’s got Smart Board information and truly useful links-even for Primary School teachers all right here-along with a page of Education Tips, Technology Tutorials-tons of good information and ideas!
I can’t tell you what an awesome resource this is for teachers like me! I have a Smart Board and I’ve been to the classes that my school offers to teach us how to use them, and everything makes perfectly good sense- until I get back to my classroom. I take notes, but somehow I seem to forget most of the interesting things the IT Staff shows us how to do-and I like to differentiate instruction-relating Dance to Math, Science, Language Arts, Social Studies, Music, and Visual Arts–which isn’t difficult if you teach Dance as a Fine Art, and not simply as a healthy alternative to “regular” PE classes.
Now that I’ve got Mr. Clarke’s Pageflake to refer to, I won’t feel quite so helpless! Now if I could only wave my magic wand and make time stand still for about a week-or maybe a month- so I could try everything out!
SUPER VOLUNTEER IDEA! Want to learn about Smart Boards? Got some time to kill? Talk to the teacher about an upcoming unit of study and do some research for him/her. Find and load some appropriate activities on the Smart Board for your child’s teacher too-you can load activities while everyone is at lunch and recess, or put everything in an online folder that the teacher can access on his/her own time; your teacher will be so grateful!
Here’s some ideas I got from Mr. Clarke for using the Smart Board in the Primary Dance Studio in the private school where I teach-but these ideas will work in all kinds of classrooms:
1) Illustrate and write a book as a class. Use the record feature to narrate the text. We made up a story about a statues that came to life when they heard magic music floating through the sculpture garden at midnight. We can record it-with music- on the Smart Board.
2) Diagram activities. We’ve been making “Movement Maps” in the 3rd Grade Dance classes-a form of diagramming-drawing out the floor patterns and directions we want to move in, and deciding which verbs and adverbs to dance!
3) Teach steps to a math problem. Dancers count-most often to * but how many math problems can you make with movement, i.e. four jumps plus 4 slides =8 movements that can be performed to 8 beats to a bar of music. Try it! Can you make up 6 + 2= 8, or 4=2=2+ 8?
4) Have students share projects during Parent/Teacher/Student conferences. Our kids aren’t here during the conferences but there;s no reason why the Smart Board can’t play videos we’ve mad eof some of the dances they’ve been creating in class.
Wordle is such a nifty tool to use with your students-for just about every subject! If you haven’t tried it yet-you should!
I used Wordle to make a Chance Dance Experimenting Tool for my Primary Dance students in grades 1-3 to play around with at home. Not only will my students have fun using “chance” to see what kind of interesting dances they can make up at home from simple verbs and other easy words, they can also work on their handwriting at the same time, and will also be working on sequencing and memorizing the experimental dance phrases they’ve written down as they enjoy the creative process. I’m going to encourage the kids to come in and show their Wordle dances to the class the next day-and I bet their Language Arts teachers will be excited to see what they’ve created too!
By clicking on my link for “fun” (with a parent with them so they don’t browse, indiscriminately all over the Wordle Gallery)-the students can easily discover how to make their own Wordles too-for dance AND other subjects! I put the link to Wordle on my Dance Wiki to make it easy for the children to experiment at home and in hopes they’ll create new Wordles too. If they copy and paste the link to their Wordle Dance Experiment into an email and send it to me at school, we can look their Experiments up in the Wordle Gallery, put them up on the Smart Board in my dance studio and try them out-how cool is that?!
TEACHERS: If you’re reading this and happen to make a Wordle with YOUR class, using verbs, Or verbs and adverbs that are “appropriate” for 3-5th graders, please send me the link-maybe we can get a collaboration going where we copy your verbs and add adverbs to them
or vice-versa; then we can send You a link to the new wordle we made from your words-and trade back and forth–even if you don’t dance yours, it’s fun to “talk” with students who are in a different school somewhere else in the USA or the World!
VOCABULARY LESSONS? It’s fun to use Wordle to study vocabulary! Just get the kids to type in all the words they need to learn, then push “Randomize” to scramble them up. Let them choose a black and white or color picture to print out if you have plenty of colored ink! Give the children the definitions, numbered, on a separate piece of paper, and let then kids hunt through the Wordle to find and circle the correct vocabulary word-writing the number of the definition beside the word it goes with. Staple the list of definitions to the Wordle and students can take them home and use them to study for tests. Be sure to put the web address on the Wordle so the students can make more “Study Wordles” at home for other subjects too! design or a
Links to “What Works” for Dance Teachers and Others-links that help Bloggers, Small Business Developers, Dance Educators, Science Teachers, and Parents and Teachers of Gifted Students:
Explaining Neuroscience Graduate student Alexis Webb partners with fellow neuroscience students to create a program that aids neuroscientists in communicating with the public.
Wiggio: the best (free) way to work in groups. This looks like a super tool for easy and efficient collaboration. If you try it, let me know what you think!
Well I finished the Web 2.0 course I’ve been taking but I’m not done with this blog-I want to keep it going, though I do wish I had given it a “catchier” name!
I never ever thought I would become so attached to blogging and I was sure that no one would read my posts, especially anyone in performing arts, but thanks to the Clustrmap I can tell this blog has been seen by some far-flung people, and that’s been exciting even though I haven’t gotten as many comments as I hoped for. Mark Twain said, “I can live for 3 months on a good compliment” and he’s right-I just have to be patient and remember to look at the ClustrMap where the dots are starting to multiply and grow bigger-someone besides me is really reading this blog! Cool!
I guess that only a very small percentage of elementary schooldance teachers are into technology for 2 way communication and collaboration, I guess, except for email, Facebook and Myspace. I really wanted my students to communicate via the web with one of my former mentors, the choreographer Merce Cunningham, who I have often written about on this blog. Merce at 90 was still choreographing using special software he helped invent, and I know he would have loved to see my kids doing their versions of Chance dances. But he died in late July before I got back to school to set anything up with my students. So it’s back to the drawing board but I’m sure we’ll think of a project soon-all the kids are very interested in doing something “web 2.0-ish” with dance.
As far as this blog goes, I may have to broaden my topics to connect with more people-but I know there are other teachers out there who do relate to what I’ve said here-they’ve told me so…and some are people I would never have met if not for this blog, who have exchanged information and ideas with me, so maybe our students can collaborate long distance, even though no one I have met yet on the web is a dance teacher or choreographer like I am.
I don’t get a lot of comments from “regular people” or teachers as much as I hear from “places”-they’re either reading my blog and emailing me or linking to some of my posts, or contact me after I comment, or ping me–it’s been funny to notice my own child-like excitement to other blogs and “places” mentioning my posts-when Digitizor first mentioned one of my posts I said, “Whoa! This thing is real!” I got so excited I called up everyone in my family to tell them, and then really felt like a computer wiz since no one knew what I was talking about. No wonder the kids at school get so excited when anyone comments on their classroom blogs! But I’d rather one person noticed than a whole lot of computers that are programmed to look for keywords and tags.
Zemanta’sbeen linking to my posts quite a bit lately, so that’s been kind of funny too-it’s probably only because aren’t too many other dance teachers and choreographers out there blogging who use Zemanta as much as I do, but it’s such a fast and easy way to find pictures and links to related articles-and a lot of them are good ones too!
Twitter keeps trying to get me to blog with them too, even though I haven’t ever been to their site-I guess they’ve been to mine! I ought to try Twitter just to learn how to write in 140 words or less-as you can tell if you’ve read this far, that would be extremely challenging for me!
I’ve started commenting sometimes when I read my “feeds” and that’s been interesting too-some people write back and keep up the exchange, so if you’re a newbie-blogger or web “Reader” like I am-Comment-you might be surprised at the reactions you get! I can’t even remember the name of one place I ended up, some educational newsletter linked to some teaching website I visited as a task in the k12learning2.0 course-where I responded to a survey asking if people used cell phones in education-and if so, to comment and tell them how they were using them. After I reported how I texted choreography to some of my teenage pointe students-and how much the students liked that ,and actually worked on what I sent them, the survey author asked to quote me in another article she was doing about the results of that poll-so that was a surprising, positive development,but uh-oh–here’s where I showed my “newbie-ness” -I got to that site through some random path of links that I kept clicking on, and have no idea where I was! Since school started, I’ve gotten so many emails that I can’t seem to find that one now- so I can’t go back and read her article (!!!)…
But that experience did get me thinking-maybe my students and I should do a poll this year -perhaps, “How Many Dance Teachers and/or Dance Classes Blog?” that would be a great way to attract comments and find out what other dance people are doing and thinking!
2nd Graders Make a Dance Comic Book about Dress Rehearsal!
I know we’re going to make a couple more pages for our Dance Comic Book this year-that project was a HUGE success thanks to the cooperation of two very creative, constructivist 2nd grade teachers and especially helpful IT staff at my school.
Two girls and I wrote everything that needed to be said, and the girls in one second grade class dressed up, acted everything out, took pictures to go with all the instructions, and all the members of that class helped even cut out and staple the books together!
Every single dancer got a small color copy well in advance to read every night before bed at home, and we read my big copy in each dance class, so on Dress Rehearsal Day, no time was wasted answering questions-everyone knew what to do- and every dancer felt “large and in charge” of themselves and their costumes.
Dress Rehearsal is a huge event here every year. Last year 140 girl dancers and 21 boy dancers in Grades 1-3 had to get dressed in their costumes at school between 8:30 and 9:oo am in 8 differnt locations in the school that we turned into temporary Dressing Rooms for the occasion, then they got on buses to go to our theater where 12 different dances were performed in one hour for the rest of the Primary School students and teachers, got back on the buses, changed back into uniforms, packed their own costumes and dance shoes into handle tie trash bags, tied them tightly to their book bag handles for transport home that afternoon-and got to Lunch—all by 11:30. It’s a major undertaking, but the Dance Dress Rehearsal Comic Book saved the day; the para-pros who supervised the kids getting dressed said they stood back and watched in amazement as even the 1st graders knew what to do and where to go! With 141 girls and 31 boys dancing in Grades 1, 2 and 3 at my school this year, you can bet this is one web 2.0 project I want to do again.
Another thing I can do is more “flip videos” to help my students. Only a few of the dance teachers I know video rehearsals and email them to their dancers for personal review, though it’s easy to see on You Tube that everyone is posting dance. Here at school I know some teachers post choreography they want rehearsed on Edline, and I plan to post things to practice too this year-probably on my wiki.
I emailed a video of a student’s part to her when she was in the hospital and when that little 2nd grader returned to rehearsals after 3 weeks away, she knew her special recital part better than the dancers who were never absent-so that’s definitely a good use of web 2.0 tools that I plan to do more of in the near future!
Have I developed a sort of Personal Learning Network from this blog? I didn’t think so at first, just because I wasn’t getting very many comments, but I’ve realized from communicating with a few colleagues in other states that almost everyone that teaches-and anyone who has anything to do with performing arts- is almost always incredibly busy during the school year, especially –we might as well live each in our own little worlds. And not everyone takes the time to comment if they don’t have a question, perhaps because they don’t expect to get a reply, much less start a long distance networking relationship from a comment-but it was only halfway through the summer that I began to understand that’s what web 2.0 and blogs are really all about-someone had to write me back and forth for me to figure that out –just reading about it happening to other people just didn’t convince me, I guess!
Educationalsocial networks are more than just me and you emailing or trading comments with each other though, somaybe I do have a network of sorts going now that I’m reading blogs and going to different links based on the recommendations of people I have learned to “know” through their blogs! I’m commenting in several places on the web, based on the encouragement of bloggers who I have never met in person, so that’s a PLN, I think.
Has k12learning2.0 had any other positive effects on me that I think will last-and/or taught me at least 3 things I’ll use all year with my students? YES! I’ve already talked about some of them but every time I go back and read this I think of more!
For myself,I now “read my feeds” everyday usingGoogle Reader on my iphone, and Walt Mossberg’s “All Things Digital” and the “Walt Street Journal” apps on my iphone almost every day too-and expect to continue that.
I’ve learned a lot by reading the coolcatteacher blog- I always click on lots of Vickie Davis’ links that she posts there andPBS Teachers is another resource I use all the time now too. (Where do I find the time??? I hate to say it, but I gave up reading the 2 “real” newspapers that land on my driveway every day, but feel somewhat less guilty for not cancelling my subscriptions because now my husband is finally reading them).
My school wiki is here to stay-the parents and the kids love it and I plan to figure out a way to make it more interactive this year-though I hope I can do that without me having to read more emails every day- that would be Great!
And I’m keeping this blog going too! The time I spent on this blog and the whole k12learning2.0 course was definitely worth it-even if I did have to take it twice to be able to “get it”! Perhaps this sounds like a cliche’ but where web 2.0 is concerned, I say, “Our kids are the future, and we teachers really do light the way”! (And those that don’t feel like that are going to be left in the dust-sorry, but that’s the truth!)
If nothing else, maybe one day, my own children will look back at these blogposts and understand at last why their “technology-obsessed” Mom was up so late at night, and stayed so long after school.
Thanks to all the things I learned and bookmarked this past summer during the k12learning2.0 course, I think I can create my own professional development for years to come!
Through struggling with some web2.0 tasks, I have definitely learned I need more time than most people, and will choose my courses carefully and also make sure I have checklists like the End of Course rubric I had to sign today for the k12learning2.0 course, at the Beginning of the Course-not just at the end, so I can make sure I stay on track. Or else I may have to sign up for a professional development course that is offered through a learning disabilities organization of some kind; no one at my school doubts I qualify now, and goodness knows, my k12 learning2.0 coach and others in the IT Dept here at my school can certainly verify that I need “accommodations” too!
Other “Things” I learned about that I will try to use this year myself or with my students are some of the Cool Tools in thisk12 learning2.0 course-making the Slide Show was fun and there are a lot of things that I have Simply Boxed that I will use for a long time to come for school and personal projects. Google Docs just might save my life AGAIN the next time my school computer acts up and/or is accidently wiped clean! And I love Delicious bookmarks! My Delicious bookmarks are
I also hope to find time to make a wiki this year for the nonprofit dance organization that I founded, DancerKids, Inc. I can’t tell you how helpful it would have been to have a wiki when the main computer server went down with a virus over at the church where the DancerKids program is in residence!
In addition to showing You Tube clips of great dances to my students, I hope to post some of the kids’ dances online too where they can be viewed with a password, and I think just between all of my different 3rd grade classes, I’m almost ready to get a choreography collaboration going as an “online movement experiment”, where one class makes up a few moves, another class looks that video up on the web and learns the steps, and comes back to class to show me-then I help them add their moves onto the first class’ moves and film them and post to You Tube, etc etc back and forth. That could be really cool!
Flickr and Creative Commons and Gcast-are also very cool things I want to use with my students. I’m even glad, I guess, that I learned the hard way that it’s possible to take off your own podcast from Gcast if you accidently violate a copyright law, but the fact that I might have done that by accident just goes to show how easy it is to do. Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that copyright protection is something I strongly believe in-(though lawyers will tell you that copyright law is very poorly written for Dance).
Thing 22 was about Nings and should have had it’s own blogpost but I almost forgot it skipping around to finish all my web 2.0 tasks the way I had to do here at the end, so I’m squeezing it in here. NINGs I don’t think are for me…not yet. I joined Classroom 2.0, and The Strengths Ning that the Gallup organization has going now, but really haven’t had any time to play with those much after setting them up! When school started in August, I thought I would never be able to do anything extra ever again, but lately I’ve at least had time to be thinking about how to make more time to blog, and have found a way to read my feeds even when I’m really busy… now if I could figure out how to get time to update my wiki more often etc…it is getting a little easier after a month in school-but I have to be careful. I got so excited about having time to go back to update and add to my blog that I totally forgot about some school paperwork I was supposed to be working on (so that’s where the “free” time came from–oops)!
As far as this web 2.0 course is concerned, I must say I won’t miss trying to finish everything by the deadlines, but I will really miss having a bunch of assignments pre-selected by someone who knows what she’s doing, just sitting there on the web waiting for me anytime I am ready to go do learn new-and sometimes I really needed my coach’s help to know how to do some of the technical stuff-but I also know a lot more places to look for that kind of information now too. And I am much more confident than I ever was before!
I know that even if things I try don’t work out for me as easily as they do for most other people, it isn’t the end of the world, for one thing. If I keep trying, I eventually figure stuff out, and if not-there are loads of people to help me-in and out of school (my PNL!)
I don’t think I’ll stop this blog-it’s a good way to think out loud and remember what’s important and communicate that to whomever is listening. I’m glad for the contacts that do come my way, but if you’re too busy to comment, don’t feel bad-I know exactly how that is!
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(I really do love this Firefox extension-and I use it like an RSS feed to-I go to my own blog and click all the Zemanta links and read them, then go back and delete any I don’t like-so anything you click on in this area, I’ve read too-so let’s talk about it)!
Podcasting is something I didn’t think I would get the hang of, but I have to do it to complete this Web 2.0 course. I finally was able to borrow a headset and microphone today, and in less than 40 minutes, using Audacity, I found it very easy to read and comment on what I read in a chapter called “Contemporary Dance“, that I found in an Usbourne Guide for Kids-and save it to a mp3, and load it where my course teacher could hear it- voila’-I thought I was home-free. Of course, after I made that podcast, I realized I probably broke a copyright law by reading from a book-that’s what I get for being in a hurry! So you won’t find the podcast here-I don’t dare publish it until I know it is ok! \”Jan Duffy\’s Replacement Podcast\”
Here’s hoping I finish making a podcast that “counts” by midnight tonight! I was in such a hurry, after bus duty, I have to go back and re-read all the directions to see! if you take the k12learning2.0(web2.0 course)-be sure to print out all the instructions, make checklists of the tasks and check them all off-you do not want to miss seeing some of the tasks, and have to take this course over again like I have had to do!
Better yet-ask to have a copy of the End of Course Rubric too-at the start of the course, if you tend to be easily distracted whenever you go online, (like me)-it might help you stay focused!
Merce Cunningham “Rockefeller Award” is one of my favorite video clips on You Tube for educational purposes for students aged 7-18. It’s short enough to hold the interest of younger students, but interesting enough that it never fails to spark lively discussion about “what dance is”, and how different cultures decide what relationship dance “should” have to Art, music, and to lots of other subjects too.
The video is short retrospective of Merce Cunningham’s career, filmed to be inform to the audience that was watching when Merce received the Rockfeller Award. Merce talks a little bit about who he is, where he came from, how he was the only person in his family who danced, and how got started dancing in high school because he wanted to learn to Tap Dance. Short film clips and photographs illustrate his evolution from dance student to modern dancer to choreographer, and though the younger students don’t always understand when he talks about where his ideas come from-and how he choreographs-it’s easy enough for me to re-explain in words that children can understand.
Web 2.0, and computer and other technologies are a major emphasis at the private college prep day school where I teach-and they’re being integrated more and more into every subject area- (which is the main reason I began this blog to begin with-that and the fact that it was a requirement of the k12learning2.0 course). That’s why I always like to start with Merce at the beginning of every school year with my 3rd Grade modern/jazz classes.
“Chance Operations”, which the composer John Cage first encouraged Merce Cunningham to use, early in his career, when Merce was experiencing an artistic block. The “Zen” inherent in both chance and ordinary, everyday random events were great influences on Merce’s work throughout his lifetime, and this film is a great way to introduce a study of “Chance Dance”-or “Chance Operations”, which is a method lots of teachers use everyday-if only to choose their “Line Leader”, or put students into groups.
Here in my classroom, and wherever I work with dancers, Chance is used like Merce used it-because Catherine Kerr, one of his long-time partners, was one of my most influential teachers-and her descriptions of how Merce applied his methods and personal philosophy to dance were the most intriguing ideas I’d ever heard.
As Dance is traditionally passed from one generation to the next, I Like to think I’m passing my choreographic tool box along too so that even my 3rd graders learn how to use Chance as a way to make up dances, and as method to solve problems-including problems like indecision, fear, and procrastination, and sometimes, they figure out how to use Chance the way I like to use it best- just to shake up everyone’s “usual” way of thinking from time to time! This movie helps me to begin to explain all that.
Merce Cunningham’s “collaborations” with both “up and coming” and well-established avant garde’ musicians and abstract artists, as well as computer programmers, videographers, and motion capture photographers helps to broaden students’ views of the connections that exist between dance, music, art, technology, science, math, and many other subject areas and disciplines-many that before Merce weren’t considered “artistic”, or even related in any way to dance-(and as some students’s first reactions to the video clips of Merce’s work clearly demonstrate, still aren’t always appreciated-another topic for discussion)!
One of the things that’s unique about Merce is the way he kept on being creative and expressing his artistry integrating technology with dance in surprising ways all thoughout his entire career. Merce Cunningham even helped invent special dance choreography software that allowed him to make incredible dances for the members of his own dance company until he was 90 years old-long after he himself was unable to dance or even demonstrate his dances! Merce is my personal hero because he kept on being interested in “new ideas” right up until the very end of his life, last July 26, 2009, when only a couple of months after his 90 birthday, he died peacefully in his sleep. What an amazingly creative and original life he led-and what an inspiration he has been to me and countless other dancers, choreographers, and other artists, scientists and idea-lovers!
Merce is a lot older in this film than any of my students are used to thinking of when they think of famous “dancers” and “choreographers”, which is a good thing, because the sooner they understand how inappropriate and unfair age bias can be, the better, as technology will probably lengthen their life spans far past mine and their parents!
I especially like how this short video clip about Merce and his work challenges students’ preconceived ideas in many areas; it could be used as an appropriate introduction to various lessons in other subject areas besides Dance, such as Music, Visual Art, Art History, Modern American History, Comparative or Eastern Religions, Technical Theater, Video Production, Computer classes, as well as in Math and Science.
Sound of Music in a Train Station? You have to see this to believe it! My students who ride take rapid transit to school all think it would be so much fun to do this-and they’re right, it would be-if someone else besides me could work out all the logistics, permissions, and pay for all the security we’d have to hire to do this in Atlanta-but it’s impossible to watch this whole video without smiling!
Bookmark it to use the next time you’re in a bad mood, or want something you’re working on to go especially well-(a speaker at our school just a couple of years ago told us that scientists at Harvard helped her prove that when you smile for one continuous minute -even if it’s a “fake smile”-you flood your brain with “feel-good” endorphins-enough of them to relax your body, and change your mood into a more positive and hopeful one, and smailing for one minute helps students do as well on their tests as students who have had extra tutoring-well, that’s what we were told-try it)!
For families on a budget, with children who’d have trouble sustaining their attention all the way through a 2 hour dance concert, You Tube videos of professional classical dance, contemporary dance, musical theater, and modern dance companies are perfect!
On my school wiki right now are two clips of excerpts of “Swan Lake”-one is the “Dance of the Little Swans”-which is a great example of teamwork and precision, illustrating a “traveling group shape”, and the ballet step, “pas de chat” (among others), and the other video features the late great dancer, Rudolf Nureyev, partnering “Miss Piggy”-which even the more “socially sophisticated” students among my 1st and 2nd Grade dancers think is hilarious.
Parents who are culturally astute typically schedule an annual family outing to see one of the many “Nutcracker”s in Atlanta, but it seems very few of my primary age dancers get to see any other story ballets-much less any “real” modern dance, though a few years ago, we did get to take our entire Primary School, (when it was much smaller), to an Alvin Ailey school show at the “Fabulous Fox Theater”-you can see the Ailey Company on You Tube too.
You can see performances by almost every great artist or dance company if you just enter their name in the Search Box on You Tube-or enter the name of the dance you want to see, i.e. “Coppelia”, NYC Ballet’s Nutcracker, Mark Morris, Baryshnikov, “Revelations”, Paul Taylor, “Esplanade”, Merce Cunningham-you can even search for dances that are in some movies or musicals like “Centerstage”, “A Chorus Line”, etc.
Thinking of kids’ reactions to professional dance:
It’s amazing for me to see how many of my active 3rd grader dancers who were only in Kindergarten or First Grade when they saw that Ailey performance we took them to way back when, will stop improvising to stand listening intently, with a far away look on their faces, if I suddenly put on music from “Revelations”. They get all excited when I tell them where they’ve heard it before-like they’re remembering something from a long-ago dream and they have to tell me all about what they remember too! Most of them immediately recognize photos or movie clips from “Revelations”-a piece that the vast majority only saw that one time-despite the fact that the Ailey company comes to Atlanta almost every winter. I do have to say though, that when I put on my wiki the dates and times and locations of professional dance companies, along with a link to the Box Office, many more of my students’ parents see that info and act on it! Which just goes to show the power of web2.0!
One of the clips I selected to use in my classes is always especially popular with my 3rd Grade Dancers-who are captivated by the whole idea of props, and who love light effects like “black light”. Tensile Involvement, was originally choreographed in the mid-50’s by the late choreographer, Alwin Nikolais, but looks extremely contemporary.
I can’t imagine what people thought in the 50’s when “Tensile Involvement” was first presented, but my 3rd grade students said they thought it looked like a strange dream someone might have had about being trapped inside a big machine, or maybe inside a computer, or lost out in cyberspace. This particular video clip shows The Joffrey Ballet performing the piece as the opening of the movie, “The Company”.
You Tube is such a great resource for learning historical dances too: here’s and easy to follow clip of the Ragtime One Step, just one of many educational dance video clips from the Library of Congress.
My students like trying to do the Tarentella by following along with the New York City Ballet Workout video clip on You Tube.
Here’s something I found on Teacher Tube-a site I really don’t like because of all the ads: Dance Video for Pre-K.K. Gr. 1. This video has a catchy little song with the lyrics on the screen so students can learn to sing along to it-and it might be a memorable way to get across the point to young children that dancers usually don’t talk (or make noises and squeal with delight) when they are dancing-they let the music speak for them, along with their body shapes and movements, use of space, weight, force and energy.
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