Quasi-Blended Learning supports differentiated instruction, in that students can work at their own pace, choose the complexity in which they complete the assignment, and are able to add creative touches (or not) based on ability and interest.

Since I do not spend a ton of time presenting content to my students (I prefer they experience content through simulations or PBL), I do not have my students watch videos of me or others teaching.  When I choose to lecture, I prefer that my students are with me so it can be a whole-class discussion rather than a "sit and git" session.  One exception is math, where I always have about a 15-30 minute lesson, but again, having my students be a part of the lesson "live" is still important to me so I can immediately check for understanding, ask questions before moving on, have them do sample problems with their peers, etc.

OK, so some of our directions are posted online.  What about student work?  Well, I have my students post their work online as well.  Each student maintains their own personal ePortfolio of their work.  Once they are finished creating something from their directions, they post it online, possibly answer some pre-assigned questions about it, and write a reflection statement.  Ideally, the teacher would give 1-on-1 feedback in the next couple of days to further assess the student's understanding of the content or skill, as well as to extract more information than the child's summary contains.  (I crave the opportunity to do this, but haven't figured out a way to create the time just yet.)

Below is a sample activity that shows where we are at today (mid-year) in the process of getting my students ready for a blended learning environment.  We are learning about the human body in science - I have a blog dedicated to those lessons that my students have 24/7 access to.  I show them a sample blog entry for them to model their own.   When the lesson is complete, students will have a blog entry associated with each lesson (click each image to enlarge them):

I have been using Reflective ePortfolios in my classroom for the past three years.  I feel that they get children to synthesize the information that they've learned better than worksheets or quizzes.  I feel that ePortfolios provide my students with a more authentic (global) audience to explain their process and show their products to.  I feel that they provide me with an excellent cache of evidence that shows growth over time.  And I feel that Reflective ePortfolios allow my students an opportunity to return to a post to revise at any time throughout the year.  All said, I think that student learning is improved due to having my students maintain individual Reflective ePortfolios.

Prior to using ePortfolios in the classroom, I was notorious for teaching a lesson, having the students complete an activity, and quickly moving on to the next lesson without taking much time to allow my students to think about what was just learned.  ePortfolios force me to slow down, give the students an opportunity to explain what they've learned to me in writing, and create an emotional attachment to that learning by explaining what was easy or difficult, fun or boring, familiar or foreign to them.

Because everyone's ePortfolios are public, students have the opportunity to look at a respected peer's work, and use them as a model for future posts.  We can call this "silent collaboration" (a 180 degree turn from the days of calling it cheating)!  I want my students learning together, modeling behaviors after each other, and learning from each others' mistakes and successes.  Not all collaboration has to be done verbally or include back-and-forth dialogue.

I hope you will take a moment to watch the video above where I show dozens of examples of ePortfolio entries that my students have completed over the past few months (the first few minutes are hard to follow, so I recommend skipping ahead a bit!).  Another suggestion I have is to check out a few of my students' ePortfolios by clicking on the links below.  You can also view all of my students' ePortfolios by clicking here.

The rest of this blog post is dedicated to showing you the value of Reflective ePortfolios through examples. Each example is titled with the guiding question for the activity and contains links to all of the related resources. To get the most value out of each example, you should visit the entire blog post by clicking on the link titled, "____'s entire blog post explained to the right."

Here’s how this chain letter of inspiration works:
1.     Acknowledge the nominating blogger & let him or her know when you complete your post.
2.     Share 11 random facts about yourself.
3.     Answer the 11 questions the nominating blogger authored for you.
4.     List 11 bloggers (I chose Twitterers mostly) to pass along the challenge. (I listed more in hopes of spreading the sunshine further.)
5.     Post 11 questions for the bloggers/Twitterers you nominate to answer, and let all them know they have been nominated. (You can’t nominate a blogger who has nominated you, though.)

"Answering the Questions"

The following are the answers to questions asked of me. I answered at least one question from each of the bloggers who nominated me.  It was kind of nice being able to choose questions where I felt I had a somewhat unique answer to!  I'm not sure I could have done some of those questions any justice!!!  Here are the questions and my answers:

1) If you could make one significant change that would shift the course of education, what would it be?

5) What do you do to escape?

Answer: I spend a ton of time with my family. Although I am not married and don't have any children of my own, I am extremely close with my sister and her son and daughter, as well as my mom and dad. My nephew is nine years old and has autism. To see life through his eyes has helped me better understand my students, and has made me a more compassionate person. I feel as though he and I communicate with each other a little differently than the rest of the world communicates with him. I've felt that strong bond with him since he was a baby. My niece is a "13 year old stuck in a six year old body!" Although only a first grader, she seems to have an eidetic memory and knows how to infer gestures and hidden meaning, sarcasm, as well as opportunities to manipulate! (She's an evil genius who might some day rule the world - I'm a little scared of her!)

I share that I am extremely afraid of heights, so my "Skydiving cup" is currently empty and will probably stay that way forever, or until I fill my "Courage" cup to the top! But I'm a pretty good speller, so that cup might have 7 or 8 marbles in it! We then spend some time identifying which cups are pretty full inside of each of our brains and which ones might be close to empty! (Humility is an important skill to develop!) My connection to the quote is that schools often measure intelligence based on test scores in reading, writing, math, etc. but we are so much more than that. We may not all be gifted in each of those areas, but we do have important gifts. Once we admit that being kind to others, being able to play a musical instrument well, and turning a double play in baseball are skills that could be measured just like academic subjects, we begin to see that we are all gifted, but in different ways.

Play it Forward: Here is a list of people on Twitter who I appreciate collaborating with or look to for ideas. Some have blogs that I read, while some don't. These people, however, have consistently provided me with advice, feedback, or support over the years. These are the people whom I hope to collaborate with more in the future.  (There are dozens more, but I was supposed to only list 11 and I started to feel guilty! I know that I left important people off of this list, so I apologize to them - I ran out of time and space!)

Here’s the set of questions for the above bloggers (if you were listed above, you are encouraged to write your own blog post, passing appreciation on to others - no pressure though! This takes a lot of time!):

1) If you could make one significant change that would shift the course of education, what would it be?
2) What would your ideal classroom look like?
3) Best place you ever vacationed?
4) What is one thing you never/rarely share that you are exceptionally proud of?
5) What do you do to escape?
6) What is your favourite educational quote?
7) If you could do anything knowing you would not fail what would you do? Why?
8) What was the most unfair thing that a teacher ever did to you?
9) When did you know you wanted to be an educator?
10) If you won the lottery, what would you do?
11) If you were able to go back through time and give yourself a piece of advice, what would it be?

When I separate "entre-" and "-preneur" it seems to mean "to take on (-preneur) something new (entre-)."  By definition, I guess that would mean that a "teacherpreneur" is someone who "takes on a teacher!"  Maybe the term should be saved for administrators!?!?

Anyway, although I dislike starting a blog post with definitions, I think it's important to understand what the term means publicly and in my own context.

So I've used her ideas to formulate my beginning understanding of what a teacherpreneur is.  But I wanted to know more.  Who is doing this already?  How does that look logistically?

I want teacherpreneurship to mean that I can stay in the classroom, but have time off to work with teachers in my district and surrounding districts to promote change in their classrooms based on best practice.  I want all the work that I am doing to improve education in my classroom to benefit other students (and teachers).  But this is hard for an elementary school teacher to coordinate.  I have my students all day for all subjects.  I know that some teachers are team teaching or going part time.  I'm not sure that would work best for me since I don't want to give up a subject or two because most of what we do involves integrating the subjects!

In our district, I have been allowed to take days off to lead workshops in other districts.  These days are called "Professional Days."  I'm not sure if there is a limit to the number of Professional Days I can take, but I have found out that the district who hires me to teach has to pay for my substitute for these days.  I would love to start working with grade level teams to plan curriculum, create lessons that focus on 21st Century skills & use technology purposefully, and create student ePortfolios that make learning more transparent & help synthesize learning.

My goal is to do this on a more regular basis.  My students, especially as the year goes on, need me less and less once routines are established and they are "running the show."  Having a substitute regularly, especially one who is comfortable with the style of learning taking place in our classroom, is not a huge negative like it might have been in the past.

Just like our students, teachers need an authentic audience for which to share their knowledge.  Working 60 hour weeks to benefit my own personal students is one thing, but when we know that hundreds more could benefit, it makes our time commitment that much more meaningful.  Becoming a "Teacherpreneur" seems to be a logical next step for teachers pushing the envelope and I'd be interested in exploring that avenue!  

What ideas do you have?

(I found this article about Intrapreneurs that I really enjoyed reading - check it out if you're interested!)