I recently had my students create and record some songs on the Prime Ministers of Canada. It was an interesting experience from which I learned at least as much as the kids did, though about different things. They learned a bit about each of Canada’s 22 Prime Ministers, how to use Audacity software and how to sing badly. So what did I learn?

1. For a project like this set very specific requirements.
   •  How many lines long should it be?
   • Should your song rhyme?
   • What will the teacher tolerate in terms of choice of melody for the song? (Can it be copyrighted? Can it be rock, country or a nursery rhyme? Two girls took the tune of a popular hymn, much to my surprise.)
   • Without specific requirements, it’s really hard to tell if the kids’ are reaching your objectives or not.
2. There’s a certain amount of chaos to be expected with a project like this
   • You can try to keep it quiet all you like, but when the kids need to find music they can remember, or when they have to sing it will be noisy, like it not. Get ready for it.
   • Noise can be good. You need to figure out the difference between good noise and bad and that’s a fine line with something like this.
3. As much as some kids do horrible songs, some do wonderful ones.
   • Most kids used the recording software to disguise their voices. I have quite a few kids who apparently sound like chipmunks.
   • Some kids picked well known songs and adapted them in creative ways. The most interesting song was probably “Why can’t we be Prime Ministers?”
   • Other students actually created their own music. It wasn’t brilliant, but it gave them an opportunity to express themselves they wouldn’t normally have.
4. Giving kids new opportunities is worth it.
   • Not all kids excel at essays, or projects, or PowerPoints, or drawings, or whatever you can dream up.
   • This project gave other kids an opportunity.

This morning I read a great post by Joel Ralph of Canada’s National History Society. In his position as the education guy with the History Society, Joel spends a lot of time working with teachers in general, and at conferences in particular. He’s seen how a lot of history teachers meet for PD sessions and he has some doubts about how it works.

What’s the problem? Teachers who teach the same discipline all show up at these conferences, but the conference does “not actually provide space and time for them to talk to each other.” In other words, as teachers we go to conferences, listen to and watch presentations, and never actually talk to the many people there who are working in the history classrooms doing the same things we do.

Joel wants more of an “unconference” where people are free to talk and mill about with others in an environment with limited structure. Lightning Talks may be featured to give the event some cohesion and talking points to start conversations.

I like Joel’s ideas. I know him and he’s a bright guy so I don’t doubt his ideas. What I’m a bit skeptical about is the teachers. I’ve tried coaxing teachers into sharing ideas, lesson plans, or exams face-to-face and online and it’s not easy. Teachers don’t readily share. We learn quickly to scrabble and collect all the resources we can so our own classroom can be better and our own lives can be a little bit simpler. We don’t quickly share our ideas because if another teacher takes our idea and uses it in his classroom, we may not be able to use it in our own.

We tend to go to conferences the same way we teach. Most teachers stand in front of the room and the class is very teacher-centric. The notable exception to that is computer teachers, especially those dealing with new media that emphasizes collaboration. These teachers tend to go alongside their students and spend time coaching rather than lecturing. Lecturing is still necessary from time to time, but it’s not the focus.

In the same way, most teachers expect to be told what to do by some authority figure, rather than gently nudged and coaxed into doing something in a sharing session. The notable exception to that seems to be computer teachers. The Manitoba Association of Computing Educators has held a couple of brilliant and unorthodox unconferences that Joel would’ve really appreciated. (One was even held in a pub.)

Can an unconference work with history teachers? Maybe. I hope so because I think Joel’s right and the current system of conferences needs updating. Facebook, Twitter, and iPhones are changing the way kids communicate, and as teachers we can learn from that and figure out better ways for us to communicate. While some of the things the kids are doing aren’t great, a lot bear some investigation. Milling about with a bit less structure can lead to surprising conversations and unexpected insights.

It’s risky. Trying something new in your classroom or your professional development can lead to miserably disappointing results. But the only way to test an idea’s brilliance is to take it and run with it. If we never try anything new, we’ll never know if there’s a better way.

I just checked into my GMail and discovered I now had Google “Buzz.” I’m not yet exactly what it does, but here’s what Google says about it.

A new semester has started and, in addition to my Social Studies courses, I get to teach a bunch of computer stuff. I”m always amazed at this point in the semester just how keen the kids are. I’m showing them a few new things that are old hat to me (blogs, wikis, Audacity) but are new to the kids. Because these things are new to the students, they embrace them with enthusiasm.

It’s a good wake up call for me as a teacher. What we can do with computers is practically limitless when compared with what we had when I was my students’ age (I still adore my 64!) and when I see them react excitedly, I wake up one more time and see just a few of the things that can be done.

I’m trying to spill this enthusiasm over into my Social Studies class. To start off this year I’m having the kids write and record songs about all 22 Prime Ministers. Goofy? Yes, but it gets the kids interested and excited because, frankly, I’m the only teacher just odd enough to try something like this.

The new, the different, and the unusual can create excite. Looking at the familiar through fresh eyes can make us better teachers and better learners, too.

I’ve been busy the last few weeks and haven’t blogged much at all, much to my embarassment, but I’ve still been up to interesting things in class.

I’ve spent much of the past few hours on this prep day trying to dream up and put together an assignment for my Grade 9s for later this week or early next week. Though I teach them Social Studies, I still think knowing some basic history (which isn’t necessarily part of Social Studies) is pretty important.

I’d like it if all of my students would at least be able to recognize the names of all 22 Canadian prime ministers. To that end, I’m going to tell them a little bit about each, and then have them get together in small groups and write songs about the PMs. Music seems to be a great learning tool, so I figure that if I can get the kids to write a song summarizing all 22 of the prime ministers, then it will help them keep track of them.

We’re not looking for brilliance in the writing (though we have a strong music program at this school, so I may be surprised). All I really want is a bit of rhythm and rhyme sung to a recognizable tune whether that’s something complex and funky, or something simple like Frere Jacques. (I guess we can’t use Happy Birthday to You since that’s under copyright.)

I hope to record the songs using Audacity and then play them back for the class.  It should be an interesting experience. I hope it works.