Aristocratic warrior class, retainer of the daimyo. They started to play an important role in Japanese society from the 12th-century wars between the Taira and Minamoto clans.
Under the Tokugawa regime (1600-1867), the samurai were the highest of the four social classes. They were the only people allowed to carry swords, although the long Tokugawa peace and their erudition meant that they mostly worked as bureaucrats in the administration, to a point where their military skills came to be doubted.
Samurai have been the objects of much admiration and idealization. Since the early 20th century, they have been seen as the incarnation of the values of the bushido of unfailing loyalty to their overlords and indifference to pain or death, but in fact rarely lived up to their romanticized image.
The word samurai has origins in the pre-Heian period, being
derived from the classical Japanese verb saburau, meaning to serve or attend. It was not until the early modern period,
namely the Azuchi-Momoyama period and early Edo period
of the late 16th and early 17th centuries that the word saburai became replaced with samurai. However, by then,
the meaning had already long before changed.
During the era of the rule of the samurai, the earlier term yumitori (“bowman”) was also used as an
honorary title of an accomplished warrior even when swordsmanship had become more important. Japanese archery (kyujutsu), is still strongly associated with the war god Hachiman.
The following terms are related to samurai or the samurai tradition:
- Buke (武家) – A martial house or a member of such a house
- Mononofu (もののふ) - An ancient term meaning a warrior.
- Musha (武者) - A shortened form of Bugeisha (武芸者), lit. martial art
- Shi (士) - A word roughly meaning "gentleman," it is sometimes used for samurai, in particular in words such
as 武士 (bushi, meaning warrior or samurai).
- Tsuwamono (兵) - An old term for a soldier popularized by Matsuo Basho in his famous haiku. Literally meaning a strong
tsuwamono domo ga
yume no ato
All that remains
Of soldiers’ dreams
(trans. Lucien Stryk)
The samurai used various weapons. Bushido taught that a samurai's soul is in the katana that they carried. Sometimes a samurai is pictured as entirely dependent on the katana for fighting. This is, much like difference between the role of a crossbow in medieval Europe and the role of sword to a knight, a symbol of being samurai rather than the actual importance of katana itself. Upon reaching the age of thirteen, in a ceremony called Genpuku (元服), a male child was given a wakizashi and an adult name and became a samurai. This also gave him the right to wear katana though it was usually sealed with strings to prevent accidental drawing of a katana. A katana and a wakizashi together are called daisho, lit. big and small.
The samurai's weapon of choice was yumi or a compound bow and it was unchanged for centuries until the introduction of gunpowder and rifle in the 16th century. A Japanese style compound bow was a powerful weapon. Its size made it possible to shoot various projectiles like fire arrows and signal arrows over a distance of 100 meters with accuracy, over 200 meters when accuracy was not an issue. It was usually used on foot behind a tedate (手盾), a large wooden shield, but it could be used even from horseback. The practice of shooting from horseback became a Shintō ceremony of Yabusame (流鏑馬). In battles against Mongolian invaders, these compound bows were the decisive weapon outdistancing smaller compound bows and crossbows that Chinese and Mongolian preferred. Mongolians lacked horses that they had used so devastatingly against opponents and were forced to fight on foot, reducing their effectiveness.
In the 15th century, the yari or spear also became a popular weapon. It displaced the naginata from the battlefield as personal bravery became a less of a factor and battles became organized. It was simpler and more deadly than a katana. A charge, mounted or dismounted, was more effective when using a spear and it offered better than even odds against a samurai using a katana. In the Battle of Shizugatake where Shibata Katsuie was defeated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, then known as Hashiba Hideyoshi, the Seven Spearmen of Shizugatake (賤ヶ岳七本槍) played a crucial role in the victory.
One of the biggest controversies surrounding the weapons of the samurai is whether samurai ever charged on horseback. Horses of that time were smaller yet durable but it was questionable how well they would perform carrying heavily armored samurai. A traditional belief held that samurai mainly fought on horseback acting as heavy cavalry and charged through hapless foot soldiers. It is currently believed that samurai mainly fought on foot and used horses for transportation and only occasionally charged on disarrayed and retreating enemies. The Battle of Nagashino was one of such battle where samurai supposedly charged on horseback.
After the matchlock rifle was introduced from Europe, samurai started practicing this weapon. It became the favorite weapon for sniping on the battle field as samurai were awarded for every enemy he took down himself, though commanding was an important aspect of samurai. Conscripted soldiers also used matchlock rifles but instead fired in volleys to break up enemy ranks. Toward the end of the feudal period, some samurai organized dragoons as part of their troops and some were reportedly used in the Battle of Sekigahara and later battles.
Some samurai were unarmed on the battle fields except for katana. Takeda Shingen was one such samurai. This did not mean that they fought using katana. Instead, they focused on commanding and were confident that they could trust those they commanded for protection. In one of the Battle of Kawanakajima, this almost got Shingen killed. A plan went wrong and troops of Uesugi Kenshin charged into troops under Shingen's command, who were unaware that his entrapment plan had been detected. With only half of his troops and completely surprised, Shingen himself had to defend his life with a wooden stick that he used to order attacks. The rest of his soldiers barely returned in time to save Shingen and the rest of his force from being completely wiped out.
Other weapons used by samurai were jo, bo, grenade, catapult and cannon. However, specific samurai sometimes favored others. In battles around Meiji restoration, more modern weapons like Gatling gun and rifles were used.
Origin of Samurai
Before the Heian period, the army in Japan was modeled after the Chinese army and under the direct command of the emperor. Except for slaves, every able-bodied men had the duty of enlisting for the army. These men had to supply themselves, and many men got lost or gave up returning and settled down on their way home. This was treated as a part of taxation and it could be substituted with other forms of tax such as bolts of cloth. These men were called Sakimori (防人), lit. defenders but they are not related to samurai.
In the early Heian, the late 8th and early 9th centuries, Emperor Kammu sought to consolidate and expand his rule in northern Honshu. The armies he sent to conquer the rebellious Emishi lacked motivation and discipline and were unable to prevail. He then introduced the title of Seiitaishogun (征夷大将軍) or shogun and began to rely on the powerful regional clans to conquer the Emishi. Skilled in mounted combat and archery, these clan warriors became the emperor's preferred tool for putting down rebellions.
During the Heian period, the emperor's army was disbanded and the emperor's power gradually declined. While the emperor was still the ruler, powerful clans around Kyōto assumed positions of ministers and their relatives bought their positions of magistrates to collect taxes. To repay their debts and amass wealth, they often imposed heavy taxes and many farmers were forced to leave their lands. Regional clans grew powerful by offering lower taxes to their subjects as well as freedom from conscription. These clans armed themselves to repel other clans and magistrates from collecting taxes. They would eventually form themselves into armed parties and became samurai.
The samurai came from guards of the imperial palace and private guards clans employed. They also acted as a police force in and around Kyoto. These forerunners of what we now know as samurai had ruler-sponsored equipment and were required to hone their martial skills. They were saburai, servants, yet their advantage of being the sole armed party increasingly became apparent. By promising protection and gaining political clout through political marriages they amassed power, eventually surpassing the ruling aristocrats.
Some clans originally were farmers that had been driven to arms to protect themselves from the imperially appointed magistrates sent to govern their lands and collect taxes. These clans formed alliances to protect themselves against more powerful clans. By the mid-Heian, they had adopted Japanese-style armor and weapons and laid the foundation of bushido, their famous ethical code.
Kamakura Shogunate and the Rise of Samurai
Originally these warriors were merely mercenaries in the employ of the emperor and noble clans(kuge). But slowly they gathered enough power to usurp the aristocracy and establish the first samurai-dominated government.
As regional clans gathered manpower and resources and struck alliances with each other, they formed a hierarchy centered around a toryo, or chief. This chief was typically a distant relative of the emperor and a lesser member of one of three noble families (the Fujiwara, Minamoto, or the Taira). Though originally sent to provincial areas for a fixed four year term as a magistrate, the toryo declined to return to the capital when their terms ended. Their sons inherited their positions and continued to lead the clans in putting down rebellions throughout Japan during the middle and later Heian.
Because of their rising military and economic power, the clans ultimately became a new force in the politics of the court. Their involvement in the Hogen Rebellion in the late Heian only consolidated their power and finally pit the rival Minamoto and the Taira against each other in the Heiji Rebellion of 1160. Emerging victorious, Taira no Kiyomori became an imperial advisor, the first warrior to attain such a position, and eventually seized control of the central government to establish the first samurai-dominated government and relegate the emperor to a mere figurehead. However, Taira clan was still very much aristocratic than later Minamoto. Instead of expanding or strengthening its military might, Taira clan had its women marry emperors and attempted to control through the emperor.
The Taira and the Minamoto once again clashed in 1180 beginning the Gempei War which ended in 1185. The victorious Minamoto no Yoritomo established the superiority of the samurai over aristocrats. In 1190 he visited Kyōto and in 1192 became Seii Taishogun, establishing the Kamakura Shogunate. Instead of basing its rule in Kyoto, he set up the Shogunate in the Kamakura, near his base of power.
Over time, powerful samurai clans became warrior nobility (buke) who were only nominally under court aristocracy. When samurai begun to adopt aristocratic customs like calligraphy, poetry and music, some court aristocrats also began to adopt samurai skills. In spite of various machinations and brief periods of rule by various emperors, the real power was in the hands of the shogun and samurai.
Ashikaga Shogunate and the Feudal Period
Various samurai clans struggled for power over Kamakura and Ashikaga Shogunates.
Zen Buddhism spread among samurai in the 13 century and it helped to shape their standards of conduct, particularly overcoming fear of death and killing. Zen Buddhism in Japan took Sakyamuni as the principal image and taught to be a living buddha with enlightenment by Zen meditation training. While major schools of Buddhism among populace took Amitabha Tathagata, a buddha is said to be capable of taking believers to paradise after death.
In the 13 century, Yuan, a Chinese state of the Mongolian Empire, invaded Japan two times. Samurai unused to combating in group barely survived the first brief battle. However, they were prepared for the second invasion and samurai devastated large, but disorganized armies composed of Chinese, Korean and Mongolian. It is believed even without Kamikaze, they would have driven back these invaders. An innovation on Japanese sword was accomplished by a blacksmith called Masamune in the 14th century; the two-layer structure of soft and hard iron was adopted and the style spread rapidly with its amazing cutting power and endurance in continuous use. Since then, Japanese swords had been recognized as one of the invincible carry weapons during the pre-industrial era of East Asia. It was one of the top exported items, few even making its ways into as far as India.
The issues of inheritance firstly caused family infighting because primogeniture became common while division of succession was designated by law before the 14th century. To avoid infighting, continuous invasion against neighboring samurais' territories was rather favored and bickering among samurai was constant problems to Kamakura and Ashikaga Shogunate.
The Sengoku jidai ("warring-states period") was marked by the loosening of samurai culture, in a sense. Those born into other social strata could sometimes make names for themselves as warriors and thus become de facto samurai. In this turbulent period, bushido ethics became important factors to control and maintain public orders.
Japanese war tactics and technologies improved rapidly in 15th and 16th century. Use of large infantry troop called Ashigaru , which was formed by the humble warriors or populace, with Nagayari (長槍) or long lance was introduced and combined with cavalry in maneuvers. The numbers of people mobilized in warfare were generally in the thousands to the over hundred-thousands.
Harquebus or a matchlock gun was introduced by Lusitanians/Portugese on a Chinese pirate ship in 1543. Japanese succeeded nationalization of it within a decade. Groups of mercenaries with harquebus and mass produced rifles played a critical role. By the end of feudal periods, several hundred thousands rifles existed in Japan and massive armies over 100,000 crushed in the battles. The largest and most powerful army in Europe, Spanish armies had only several thousand rifles and could only assemble an army of 30,000. Ninja also played critical roles engaged intelligence activity.
The social mobility of human resources was flexible, as the ancient regime collapsed and emerging samurai needed to maintain large military and administrative organizations in their areas of influence. Most of the samurai families that survived to the 19th century originated in this era. They declared themselves to be the blood of one of the four ancient noble clans, Minamoto, Taira, Fujiwara and Tachibana. In most cases, however, it is hard to prove who their ancestors were.
Oda, Toyotomi and Tokugawa
Oda Nobunaga was the well-known lord of the Nagoya area (once called Ohwari) and an exceptional example of samurai of the Sengoku Period. He came within few years of and laid down the pass to the reunification of Japan.
He made innovations on organizations and war tactics, heavily used harquebus, developed commerce and industry and treasured innovations ; the consecutive victories enabled him to realize the termination of the Ashikaga Shogunate and disarmament of the military powers of the Buddhist monks, which had inflamed futile struggles among the populace for centuries. Attacking from a "sanctuary" of Buddhist temples, they were constant headaches to any warlords and even the emperor who tried to control their actions. He died in 1582 by the assault of one of his follower Akechi Mitsuhide. Importantly, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (see below) and Tokugawa Ieyasu (//www.samurai-source.com/samurai-warriors/togukawa-ieyasu.htm), who made Tokugawa Shogunate, were Nobunaga's (//www.samurai-source.com/samurai-warriors/oda-nobunaga.htm) loyal followers. Hideyoshi was brought up from a nameless peasant to one of top generals under Nobunaga and Ieyasu had shared childhood with Nobunaga. Hideyoshi defeated Mitsuhide within a month and was regarded as the rightful successor of Nobunaga by avenging the treachery by Mitsuhide.
The two were gifted with Nobunaga's previous achievements to build the unified Japan. So there was a saying: "The reunification is a rice cake; Oda made it. Hashiba shaped it. At last, only Ieyasu tastes it." (Hashiba is the family name that Toyotomi Hideyoshi used while he was a follower of Nobunaga.)
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who became a grand minister in 1586, himself the son of a poor peasant family, created a law that the samurai caste became codified as permanent and heritable, and that non-samurai were forbidden to carry weapons.
It is important to note that distinction between samurai and non-samurai was so obscure that during the 16th century, most male adults in any social class (even small farmers) belonged to at least one military organization of their own and served in wars before and during Hideyoshi's rule. It can be said that an "all against all" situation continued for a century.
The authorized samurai families after the 17th century were the winners that chose to follow Nobunaga (source), Hideyoshi and Ieyasu (source). Large battles occurred during the times of change between regimes, and a number of defeated samurai were destroyed or absorbed into the general populace.
During the Tokugawa era, samurai increasingly became courtiers, bureaucrats, and administrators rather than warriors. The daisho, the paired long and short swords of the samurai (source) (cf. 'katana' and wakizashi) became more of a symbolic emblem of power rather than a weapon used in daily life. They still had the legal right to cut down any commoner who did not show proper respect; in what extent this right was used, however, is unknown. When the central government forced daimyos to cut the size of their armies, unemployed ronin actually became a social problem.
Bushido was formalized by many samurai in this time of peace much like how Chivalry was formalized after knight as a warrior became obsolete in Europe. The conduct of samurai became a favorable model of a citizen in Edo with the emphasis on formalities. With time on their hands, samurai spent more time on the pursuit of other interests becoming scholars.
Samurai decline during the Meiji restoration
The last hurrah of original samurai was in 1867 when samurai from Choshu and Satsuma provinces defeated the shogunate forces in favor of the rule of the emperor. The two provinces were the lands of the daimyos that submitted to Ieyasu after the war of Sekigahara (1600).
Other sources claim that the last samurai were in 1877, during the Satsuma Rebellion in the Battle of Shiroyama.
The main players of the revolt came from lower class samurai in every province. Their ultimate political goal was the same: to maintain the independence of Japan against Western powers. But the two daimyo clashed first and these bloody conflicts lasted for years. At last, they realized that a large serious civil war must be avoided because that was just what the foreign powers waited for. So the last shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu returned the governing to the emperor to avoid the war. Some resisted, believing this was coup d'etat by Choshu and Satsuma and the governing was in their hands. Groups of Tohoku samurai organized an armed resistance and they were eventually defeated.
Emperor Meiji abolished the samurai's right to be the only armed force in favor of a more modern, western-style conscripted army. Samurai became Shizoku (士族) who retained some of their salaries but the right to wear katana on the street was eventually abolished.
Post Meiji Restoration
In defining how a modern Japanese should be, members of the Meiji government decided to follow the footstep of United Kingdom and Germany. It would be based on the concept of "nobles oblige" and samurai would not be a political force much like that of Prussia. The Imperial Japanese Armies were conscripted but many samurai volunteered to be soldiers and many advanced to be trained as an officer. These volunteers were highly motivated and trained hard. The Japanese empire won the Sino-Japanese War (1894) and the Russian-Japanese War (1904) and it could be reasoned that these volunteers and officers were behind these victories. Most soldiers of both Chinese and Russian armies could neither read nor write and after their officers were killed, these armies quickly disintegrated.
Many early exchange students were samurai, not because they were samurai, but many were literate and well educated scholars. Some of these exchange students started private schools for higher educations. Some samurai took pens instead of guns and became reporters and writers to set up newspaper companies. Other samurai entered governmental services as they were literate and well educated.
As de facto aristocrats for centuries, samurai developed their own cultures that changed the way Japanese acted.
A samurai was expected to read and write, as well as to know some mathematics. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a great samurai yet a peasant at start, could only read and write in hiragana and this was his biggest drawback. Some hint that this was what prevented him from becoming a shogun. Samurai were expected, though not required, to have interests in other arts such as dancing, Go, literature, poetry, and tea. Ota Dokan who first ruled Edo wrote how he was shamed to realize that even a commoner had more knowledge of poetry than him and this made him study harder.
Samurai culture ranged from a spartan Zen Buddhism influenced culture to an extravaganza Kano-style culture. Most samurai lived simply not due to preference, but necessity. As commerce developed in Edo period, samurai who were supplied with rice as income were faced with inflating prices of common goods. Some samurai did crafts and others farmed to make ends meet. These poor samurai still found money and time to teach their children to value education. By the middle of Edo period, samurai had to be ordered to practice their martial art skills. There were stories of samurai being threatened and forced to run away against well muscled workers, some were even beaten in a fight. As samurai were specialists in fighting, these troubles were never reported out of shame but were still documented.
With time on their hands, many samurai began studying such topics as archaeology, botany, and literature. Samurai introduced vegetables like the potato and sweet potato to farmers who remained apathetic to these imported vegetables. Samurai also transcribed and studied historic books and records. Kojiki as well as Chinese classics were studied. Samurai also started studying anatomy and medical science looking not for a better way to kill, but simply because they were interested. In the late Edo period, they translated a Dutch medical book.
A samurai usually was named by combining one kanji from his father or grandfather and one new kanji. Many samurai had intentionally phonetically same names as a great ancestors to honor their greatness and hope this samurai would be as good. This name was applied after genpuku. He also had a childhood name. Most samurai had a second name and also used his title as a part of his name. Oda Nobunaga would be officially called "Oda Kōzukenosuke Owarinokami Nobunaga" (織田上総介尾張守信長) and he would be refered as "Oda Kōzukenosuke" or "Oda Owarinokami".
A marriage of samurai was done by having a marriage arranged by someone with same or higher rank than those marrying. While for those samurai in upper ranks were a necessity as most had few opportunities to meet a female, this was still done as a formality for lower ranked samurai. Most samurai married women from a samurai family but for a lower ranked samurai, a marriage with commoner were permitted. In these marriages, a dowry was brought by women and this was used to start their new lives.
A samurai can have a mistress but she was strictly checked by higher ranked samurai on her background. In many cases, it was treated like a marriage and a kidnapping, common in many fictions, would have been a shame if not a crime. When she was a commoner, a messenger would be sent, with a betrothal money or a note for exemption of tax, and ask for her acceptance to her parents. Many parents gladly accepted, and if she gave a birth to a son, he could be a samurai.
A samurai can divorce his wife for a variety of reasons with an approval from a superior. A divorce was, while not nonexistent, a rare occasion. An important reason would be if she could not produce a son but an adoption could be arranged. A samurai can divorce for a personal reason, even that he simply did not like his wife, but this was generally avoided as this would embarrass the samurai who arranged this marriage. Women could also arrange a divorce, although it would generally take the form of samurai divorcing her. In a divorce, samurai had to return the betrothal money and this often prevented a divorce. Some rich merchants had their daughters marry samurai to erase a samurai's debt and advance their positions.
The eldest son of the previous leader became the next leader of the clan. If the eldest son had passed away before the succession, the eldest son of the eldest son became the next leader of the clan. If the eldest son did not have children, the second son became the next leader. These rules were sometimes bent with the wish of the former leader. When the next leader was too young or inexperienced, brothers and retainers of a previous leader acted as leader until the clan could be handed over. Dividing a domain had been popular in Kamakura and Ashikaga period but declined later as it often made the clan weaker.
Many samurai changed their name not because they didn't like it, but because they were adopted into other clans. This was done for many reasons. The first and foremost reason is that many clans wanted a successor with high abilities and skills even if it meant throwing out sons of the previous leader. If that successor happened to be from a higher clan, so much better. While this had to be approved by shogunate or daimyo in Edo period, there were many instances. When the previous leader died without a son but with a daughter, it was common to adopt samurai from other clans into a clan and have him marry the daughter.
Samurai had a lot of children and faced with disease and wars, this often caused succession problems. These sometime led to a decline or even a disintegration and eventual destruction of the entire clan. Several steps were taken to avoid this problem. The adoption was one step and other was called Kōkaku lit. decline in rank, where a son was given a new clan name and became a retainer and a vassal of their elder brother. Some samurai even became a merchants or farmers because of Kōkaku.
Philosophies of Buddhism and Zen, to the lesser extent Confucianism influenced the samurai culture as well as Shinto. The meditation became an important teaching by offering a process to calm one's mind. Buddhism concept of reincarnation and rebirth led samurai to abandon torture and needless killing. Some samurai resigned from samurai and became Buddhist monks after realizing how fruitless their killings were.
Bushido, codified during Edo period, was the way of samurai yet its deceptive simplicity led to countless arguments over its interpretation. Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo is a manual of instruction into the way of the samurai. Even as it was published, it raised number of reviews that criticized strict and impersonal interpretations. If the lord is wrong, for example if he ordered massacre of civilians, should he observe Loyalty to massacre as ordered or should he observe Rectitude to let civilians escape unharmed? If a man had sick parents but committed an unamendable mistake, should he protect his Honor by committing Seppuku or should he show Courage by living with dishonor and care for his parents?
The incident of 47 Ronin caused debates about the righteousness of their actions and how bushido should be applied. They had defied shogun in ways by taking matters into their own hands but it was an act of Loyalty and Rectitude as well. Finally, their acts were agreed to be Rectitude but not Loyalty to the shogun. This made them criminals with conscience and eligible for seppuku.
Explanations of shudo in Hagakure was highly controversial even at the time when such practices were common. It illuminates one of the samurai's practices of platonic love that were sometimes homosexual relationships between samurai. Even though this was not considered a crime at that time and was not exactly prohibited by religions, a notion that some samurai advanced by being sexually attractive was enough to raise an uproar. Samurai were not prostitutes and they advanced by having abilities and skills, not sleeping together.
The most famous book of kenjutsu, or sword fighting, dates from this period (Miyamoto Musashi's The Book of Five Rings, 1643). But larger part of the book is focused on mentalities of fighting. Many kenjutsu book from Edo period also focused on spiritual aspects as well to cope with demands that a practice of kenjutsu to build characters.
Samurai in Fiction
Jidaigeki lit. historical drama had been a staple on movies and TV from the beginning. It usually futured a samurai with a kenjutsu who stood up against evil samurai and merchants. Mito Komon (水戸黄門), a fictitious stories of Tokugawa Mitsukuni's travel, is a popular TV drama where Mitsukuni travels disguised as a retired rich merchant with two unarmed samurai also disguised as his companions. He finds trouble where ever he goes, and after gathering evidences, he has his samurai knock around unrepenting evil samurai and merchants. He then reveals his identity which, if he wished to, can destory the entire clan and evils has no option but surrender and hope that his punishments would not extend to their families.
The samurai-themed works of film director Akira Kurosawa are among the most praised of the genre, influencing many filmmakers across the world with his techniques and storytelling. Notable works of his include The Seven Samurai, in which a besieged farming village hires a collection of wandering samurai to defend them from bandits; Yojimbo, where a former samurai involves himself in a town's gang war by working for both sides; and The Hidden Fortress, in which two foolish peasants find themselves helping a legendary general escort a princess to safety. The latter was one of the primary inspirations for George Lucas's Star Wars, which also borrows a number of aspects from the samurai, such as in the Jedi Knights of the series.
Samurai films and westerns share a number of similarities, and the two have influenced each other over the years. Kurosawa was inspired by the works of director John Ford, and in turn Kurosawa's works have been remade into westerns, such as The Seven Samurai into The Magnificent Seven and Yojimbo into A Fistful of Dollars.
Another fictitious television series, Abarembo Shogun, featured Yoshimune, the eighth Tokugawa shogun. Samurai at all levels from the shogun down to the lowest rank, as well as ronin, featured prominently in this show.
Shōgun is the first novel in James Clavell's Asian Saga. It is set in feudal Japan somewhere around the year 1600 and gives a highly fictionalized account of the rise of Tokugawa Ieyasu to the Shogunate, seen through the eyes of an English sailor whose fictional heroics are loosely based on William Adams' exploits.
A Hollywood movie, The Last Samurai, containing a mixture of fact and fiction, was released in 2003 to generally good reviews in North America. The film's plot is loosely based on the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion led by Saigo Takamori, and also on the story of Jules Brunet, a French army captain who fought alongside Enomoto Takeaki in the Boshin War. The life style and the war tactics shown in the movie The Last Samurai are those of out-country samurai of the Sengoku jidai, precisely of the era before 1543; not those in the 19th century. An actual battle of that period was only a little different from that of American or European army, the only difference being a katana to be waved for soldiers to charge instead of a saber.
Kill Bill by Quentin Tarantino can be described as a glorification of the samuari sword, katana.
The samurai have also appeared frequently in Japanese comics (manga) and animation (anime). Most common are historical works where the protagonist is either a samurai or former samurai (or another rank/position) who possesses considerable martial skill. Two of the most famous examples are Lone Wolf and Cub, where the former proxy executioner for the Shogun and his toddler son become hired killers after being betrayed by other samurai and nobles; and Rurouni Kenshin, where a former assassin, after helping end the Bakumatsu era and bringing about the Meiji era, finds himself protecting newfound friends and fighting off old enemies while upholding his oath to never kill again through the use of a reversed-bladed sword. Samurai-like characters are not just restricted to historical settings, a number of works set in the modern age and even the future include characters who live, train, and fight like samurai. Notable examples include Goemon Ishikawa XIII from the Lupin III series of comics, television series, and movies; and Motoko Aoyama from the romantic comedy Love Hina.
Samurai are also heroes and enemies in many games where they would either be greatest friends or worst nightmares. These samurai would use mostly katana and are devastating foot soldiers. An example is Age of Empires series.
The concept of a samurai, as opposed to that of a knight, has lead to a major gap in how a fighter or a hero should be especially in a Role-playing game between Japan and rest of the world. A samurai does not have to be tall and heavily muscled to be strong. He can be barely five feet tall, seemingly weak and handicapped. He can even be "she". This means equating size with power and strength does not appeal to the Japanese aesthetic.
This article was derived in part from an article on Wikipedia.org. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.


We all have an obligation to undertake this inquiry to better understand our individual identities and our collective identity as Canadians sharing this land.
These materials and ideas are part of this journey.
May we find joy in this journey. May our youngest students see vibrant communities and strong people first, before they are introduced to the darker sides of our Canadian history that we must all face if we are to reconcile and make peace with the past.
My grade 3 students are learning about soil. The first lesson I teach is a Smartboard lesson where I provide 7 reasons for soil. Here is the Smart Notebook file if you are a Smarboard user.
At the end of the lesson, students are given 8 pictures and are asked to retell the 7 key reasons for soil. Students who need more support get the pictures below because they have the sentences on them. Most of my students get the slides without the sentences.
Once students have these images in the camera roll, then we can open iMovie and bring these still images into a new iMovie project.
Next, have students use the microphone and record the main point for each picture.
Here is a link to examples:
YouTube Playlist of student work: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmteZ8LJoFVewE40Z3jFqERVoLFW_TkSG
What is Computational Thinking (CT)?
Mitch Resnick and Jeanette M. Wing are the two main people who best describe Computational Thinking (CT).
Mitch Resnick, Director of the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab and creator of Scratch published this paper with Karen Brennan in 2012. Computational thinking has three main parts: Concepts, Practices, and Perspectives.
- Concepts are the actual computer science ideas.
- Practices are the ways of thinking and problem solving.
- Perspectives are beliefs about oneself and having a mindset that is open to being a computer scientist and/or thinking like a computer scientist.
Jeanette M. Wing, head of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, explains Computational Thinking in a 2006 article
Here are Wing’s everyday examples of people using computational thinking:
When your daughter goes to school in the morning, she puts in her backpack the things she needs for the day; that’s prefetching and caching.
When your son loses his mittens, you suggest he retrace his steps; that’s back- tracking.
At what point do you stop renting skis and buy yourself a pair?; that’s online algorithms.
How do Completely Automated Public Turing Test(s) to Tell Computers and Humans Apart, or CAPTCHAs, authenticate humans?; that’s exploiting the difficulty of solving hard AI problems to foil computing agents.
Prefetching and caching, back-tracking, algorithms, and solving AI problems are all computer science concepts. All this takes place in your daily life.
Wing suggests that computational thinking is not just about programming computers but thinking like a computer scientist. A computer scientist is a creative human problem solver that thinks with computers, not a boring human who tries to think like a computer, says Wing.
Who is Teaching Computational Thinking?
As coding and computational thinking have been written into curricula around the world, we are seeing people working to understand what it means. Here is a collection of sites and projects of people making sense of CT.
Coding and CT in the United Kingdom
Computing At School Barefoot (aka CAS Barefoot) is an project in England designed to support primary school teachers to understand and teach computational thinking. Here is how they define and explain CT.
What does it look like in UK schools?
Marc is a teacher and Apple Distinguished Educator in the UK has been integrating coding into his early years curriculum for several years. Here are some examples of the activities he has been doing:
Unplugged Activities February 2, 2015
Programming Apps for Early Years July 13, 2013
He also has a book Enabling Environments: A Computing Curriculum Beginning in Early Years
And, here is a blog post if you are looking for apps for teaching coding from a teacher in the UK.
Coding and CT in the United States
33 states allow students to count computer science courses toward high school graduation.
Google is conducting research in the area of computer science education in the US.
Google has also put together a course on Computational Thinking for Educators.
ISTE has compiled many resources to support educators and parents in understanding CT.
Coding and CT in British Columbia, Canada
British Columbia has recently launched a new curriculum that explicitly includes coding and computational thinking. Coding and CT are found within the new Applied Design, Skills and Technologies (ADST) curriculum, last updated June 27, 2016.
Questions I have about Coding and Computational Thinking:
- Is it a requirement to teach coding in order to teach Computational Thinking?
- In Ontario, should we be teaching computational thinking and coding even if it is not in the curriculum?
- If we decide to teach coding and CT in Ontario, do we have to cut back on something else? If so, what are we cutting back on?
- Many subjects have habits of mind that we are trying to develop in students. In math we want to develop powerful math thinkers, in social studies we want critical thinkers, in language we want to be able to express ideas in sensitive and culturally responsive ways. How does focusing on CT help or hinder these existing habits of mind and ways of thinking that we are already trying to emphasize the in the existing curriculum?
- Computational thinking and algorithmic thinking are all about logic and being highly systematic. Dr. Donna Kotsopoulos has asked whether this is counter to what we have been saying about divergent and creative thinking relating to 21st Century skills. Does computational thinking run in opposition to 21st Century learning ideals? In what ways does computational thinking compliment or detract from the 6Cs: character, citizenship, communication, critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity?
- How often do we lead coding activities that teach coding concepts like sequencing and debugging but do not go deeper into thinking and beliefs? How do we go beyond the pure computer science concepts and into deep thinking?
You should run a Google CS First Coding Club for kids. It’s easier than you think. Here’s what I learned from running a club at Stoney Creek Public School.
First, listen to what my students had to say about the club:
What is Google CS First?
CS stands for Computer Science. Google CS First is a computer science club that is run through Google with everything you need. Google has created a portal that you and students will log into that keeps everything organized and holds all the content. There are 9 different themes like storytelling, animation, fashion and sports. Each club takes about 10 hours. Students will code using Scratch.
Here is a video to welcome you to Google CS First. Click on the image below:
How to get started?
Go to Google CS First and sign in or click on “Start a Club Now.” Click on the “Start a New Club” button and follow the prompts. It takes 5 minutes and you will:
- Pick a theme
- Create a schedule
- Order materials (US only) or print materials
- Bonus: Find a Guru which is someone who will help you during the sessions. I was lucky to get a parent from my community who is a developer for IBM.
Promote your club by putting up posters that are provided once you have picked your theme. Consider having an information meeting where you can show the slides below. Be sure to personalize and edit the slides before the meeting. Click on the image to see the Google Slides:
Tip: Be sure to think carefully about the schedule. Do not just put in random dates. This is because the activities are linked to the dates. When students login, they will get the activity assigned for that date. So if your first club meets on Monday, December 12th and if you correctly entered December 12th in the schedule then students will login and get the Day 1 activities. If you get these wrong, kids will be looking at the wrong activities.
What does a typical club meeting look like?
My club ran for 8 weeks on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school for 20 students in grades 4-8. We met from 3:30-4:45pm. Students came to the library and logged into a Chromebook or desktop computer with the Google CS First username and password provided by the club (these are generated automatically and can be reused if kids join another club). Once all the coders had arrived, here is what the day looked like:
- Showcase Selector: Two activities get randomly selected at the end of the last club meeting. We start each time with looking at two students’ Scratch projects.
- Self-Paced Learning: Students then work at their own pace watching videos and working in Scratch. The leader and guru (the adults running the club) circulate to help students.
- Wrap Up Video: We would end the club by collectively watching the Wrap Up video. Every day has a video that recaps the key computer science concepts and relates those concepts to the real world and real people’s jobs. We would watch these as a group, though you could have kids watch on their own too.
- Showcase Selector: The last task is to do the Showcase Selector to pick two projects to kick off the next club meeting.
3 Tips for Running a Successful Coding Club:
1) Manage Student Expectations
Many students came to club expectations that they would learn how to make an app or become hackers. One of my club members was on HackerTyper.com instead of working through the activities. It is important to set reasonable expectations so students aren’t disappointed that they aren’t taking over the Internet by the end of the first club meeting. Explain the goals and what computer science concepts will be taught up front.
2) Get a Guru or it’s all you!
Get a Guru! Having another adult there was so helpful. Having another adult with a background in computer science was tremendous. The students were able to get a lot more out of the club because Mr. Rozon was able to explain what they were doing and why it was important.
If you can’t get someone to help who has experience in coding, make sure to do all the activities ahead of time.
3) Emphasize Collaboration
One thing I did not like about the Google CS First Coding club was that it felt a lot like I was supervising some sort of call centre. I looked out over a library full of students all wearing headsets and plugged into computers. It was quiet and students largely worked alone. Next time, I want to emphasize more collaboration and team work. I want to force everyone to stop every 10 minutes and talk to the person next to them. I want to have more time to share more projects and get students to give each other feedback.
How to give feedback on Scratch projects?
Helping students improve their code can be tricky. They can make their projects more complex by using more sprites and fewer more powerful blocks, but even this advice doesn’t always work.
Check out Dr. Scratch. This is a website that analyzes projects. You enter in the URL associated with the Scratch project and paste it into Dr. Scratch. Dr. Scratch provides feedback on the program, like this:
**Updated January 4 2017 with information about artsy.net and seeing more Miro art.**
This blog post includes a 5 minute video, a lesson plan and examples of student that show integration of visual art curriculum and Computational Thinking in my grade 3 classroom.
Thank you to Bea Leiderman, Carolyn Skibba, Douglas Kian and my experience at the Apple Institute in Berlin for this idea. Using Keynote and Kandinsky is Bea’s idea. It’s brilliant. Bea, Carolyn and I went to the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin where we saw Kandinsky’s work. We also had in depth workshops on Keynote. The combination of these experiences at the Apple Institute in Berlin lead to this idea and a project. Bea, Douglas and I are currently working on a project where we are investigating how these ideas of art, coding, and Computational Thinking might fit together. This is the early stage of this team project.
This video gives an overview of the lesson and a chance to peak inside my grade 3 classroom:
Visual Arts Expectations
These are the expectations from the Ontario Arts Curriculum that apply to this lesson:
Elements of Design:
• line: variety of line (e.g., thick, thin, dotted)
• shape and form: composite shapes; symmetrical and asymmetrical shapes and forms in both the human-made environment and the natural world
Principles of Design:
• variety: slight variations on a major theme; strong contrasts (e.g., use of different lines, shapes, values, and colours to create interest)
Creating and Presenting:
D1.1 create two- and three-dimensional works of art that express personal feelings and ideas inspired by the environment or that have the community as their subject
D1.2 demonstrate an understanding of compo – sition, using principles of design to create narrative art works or art works on a theme or topic
D1.4 use a variety of materials, tools, and techniques to respond to design challenges
Reflecting Responding and Analysing:
D2.2 explain how elements and principles of design are used to communicate meaning or understanding in their own and others’ art work
Exploring Forms and Cultural Contexts:
D3.2 demonstrate an awareness of a variety of works of art and artistic traditions from diverse communities, times, and places
Computational Thinking Goals
Karen Brennan and Mitch Resnick published a paper in 2012 describing a framework for teaching and assessing Computational Thinking (CT). I learned about this paper from a presentation by Julie Mueller at a CT event for teachers in August 2016. Based on this framework, these are the CT goals of this lesson:
Coding Concepts (actual computer science concepts): Sequencing and Debugging.
Practices (thinking habits): Being incremental and iterative, testing and debugging, reusing and remixing.
Perspective (beliefs about self): Using technology to express oneself.
- iPad with Swift Playgrounds, Keynote, iMovie, and Seesaw
- Mac with Keynote and iMovie (for the teacher)
- Example Keynote File (this is Bea’s creation): Example Miro Kandinsky Art.key
- Colouring Pages
- Pictures of Kandinsky and Miro Art
Source: Wassily Kandinsky [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Source: The Smile of the Flamboyant Wings, 1953 by Joan Miro
For more information on Joan Miro, check out this artsy.net site here. Thank you Louise L. for letting me know about this site.The page I have linked “provides visitors with Miró’s bio, over 400 of his works, exclusive articles, and up-to-date Miró exhibition listings. The page also includes related artists and categories, allowing viewers to discover art beyond our Miró page.” The rest of artsy.net is very much worth looking at also.
Teacher Prior Knowledge/Experience:
Student Prior Knowledge/Experience:
- Time to play with Keynote
Lesson Part 1:
Bell-work and Minds On:
As students enter the classroom, give them the option of taking either a Miro or Kandinsky colouring sheet. While the students settle and the teacher takes attendance, students colour the colouring sheets anyway they like.
Introducing the Project and Meeting Miro and Kandinsky:
Introduce the project by showing an example. This was created by Bea:
Next, show examples of Kandinsky and Miro works. Ideally show the same art work as the colouring pages and several more.
Explain how the art is abstract. Show how the example has movement that happens with just a single click.
Go over the success criteria:
Teach Art Concepts:
Have students compare their colouring pages to the actual artists’ works. Notice the main differences. Miro uses curved lines and primary colours whereas Kandinsky uses many different colours but has more geometric shapes and straight lines.
Teach Coding Concepts:
Introduce the coding concepts of sequence and debugging.
Working On It:
Now it’s up to students to create their own Kandinsky or Miro style art, or a mixture of both. You should model how to find shapes, lines, and how to add animation. There are two ways to animate and they are shown in the screenshots below.
Or, tap on the object you want to animate and tap on “Animate.”
Warning: Many students will figure out how to add the animations but won’t be able to link them together. I skip telling them this step so they are confronted with having to problem solve and debug. Once they have a need for this information, I show them how, though many figured it out on their own. The screenshot below shows how to link the animation. To sequence the animation tap on the object, then tap Animate, then tap the heading to get the options you see in the screenshot. Notice that you have to change “Start Build” from “On Tap” to “With Previous Build” or “After Previous Build.”
Once students have completed their projects ask them to share the Keynote files with you. You could do this by using Airdrop or having them save the Keynote file to Google Drive.
This is the end of the first part of the lesson. Now you will need some time to convert those Keynote files on your Mac to mP4. This part was time consuming. I wish I could export keynote files to iMovie on iPad. But, at this point you can only send a copy As Keynote, PDF, or PowerPoint.
Teacher’s Homework Prior to Part 2:
This part is not fun.
- Open each file in Keynote on a Mac and export the file as a Quicktime. (File>Export To>QuickTime…)
- Then, open each file in iMovie and export as MP4.
- Share these files with students. I used Google Drive.
Lesson Part 2:
Bell-work and Housekeeping:
Give students instructions to retrieve the MP4 file you created with the Keynote files. Ask students to open the file in iMovie. Review the success criteria.
Teach Art Concepts ~ Reflection:
Students use iMovie to create a voice over audio recording explaining why Miro or Kandinsky would like their art work. Review the key elements and principles of design for each artist. Give students time to do their reflection and upload videos to Seesaw.
Teach Coding Concepts:
When students are finished uploading their art reflection, have students use Apple Swift Playgrounds Learn to Code 1 to reinforce coding concepts. Have students work on the Command puzzles.
Examples of Student Work:
Here are examples of the animations prior to students adding reflections.
Here are examples including the reflection:
What is Swift Playgrounds?
Swift Playgrounds is a free app that runs on iPad, as long as that iPad is running iOS 10 or later. It’s such a large and powerful programming app that it needs the power of an iPad to run. This is why you can’t get it on a Chromebook and why it is not web-based.
What makes Swift Playgrounds special?
- It will help your students bridge the gap from block based coding to real programming. Working with block based programming tools like Blockly and Scratch is a great way to get started, but how do kids learn to write actual lines of code? Swift Playgrounds is designed to solve that problem. Users can tap on lines of code and drop them into the project or use a keyboard to actually type out commands.
- Swift Playgrounds is a modern programming language designed to be simple and intuitive yet powerful. You can develop an app completely on iPad using Swift Playground except for the final step of preparing the app for the app store using XCode.
- Swift Playgrounds works on both an iPad and Mac. With Swift Playgrounds, you can start a project on iPad and transition to using a Mac.
How to get Started
In Swift Playgrounds you can develop your own Playgrounds from a template (I found this too hard for me at this stage) or you can interact with pre-made Playbooks. Start by downloading Learn to Code 1, 2 and 3. Each one is a series of puzzles that you need to solve using lines of Swift code. The objective is to get Byte or one of the other avatars to move through a 3D world to collect gems, toggle switches and more.
You and your students will learn:
“the fundamentals of Swift, the programming language used to create apps for Apple products.”
Fun fact: I’m working through Learn to Code 1 and I have completed all the puzzles for the following computer science concepts: Commands, Functions, and For Loops. Next up: Conditional Code.
Are there lessons and resources?
Puzzles are grouped by computer science (CS) concepts such as Commands, Logical Operators and Conditionals. At the beginning of each set of puzzles there is a mini lesson explaining to the user the CS concept. In addition, there are free Teacher Guides and an iTunes Course that include complete lessons, videos and Keynote slides to help teachers guide students through learning computer science concepts in Swift Playgrounds. The Teacher Guides also include all the solutions to the puzzles.
The Learn to Code 3 Teacher Guide has just been released too:
Hour of Code
There is also a Facilitator’s Guide for the Hour of Code:
What do students say?
I ran a Swift Playgrounds coding club for 8 weeks and here is what some of my students had to say about learning with Swift Playgrounds:
What else can you do in Swift Playgrounds?
If you know about Tickle then you already know that you can use other apps to program robots and smart-toys. Just like Tickle, Swift Playgrounds can be used to interact and program robots. Wonder Workshop, the makers of Dash, have created a Playbook that works with Dash called Dashbook. Read about and download the Playbook here. Below is a screen shot of what the Dashbook looks like:
This is one of the activities I will be doing this week with my class to celebrate Computer Science week which is December 5-9 2016.
Going even Deeper with Swift
Computer Science Education Week is December 5th-9th. Classrooms across Ontario, throughout Canada and around the world will be diving into Hour of Code activities. As we do this, I would like to ask a couple of questions:
1) Should students learn to code?
2) Should teachers teach coding?
3) Is coding in the curriculum?
1) Should students learn to code?
What would your students say if asked? Members of my coding club share their thoughts in the video below (their answers may surprise you):
2) Should teachers teach coding?
Yes: We should use coding as a teaching tool if we think that it is the most powerful and efficient tool to teach a concept. John Hattie says that almost every single intervention and tool in education can be found to be effective. He encourages us to “Ask not what works, but what works best.” Listen to John Hattie’s keynote from the Education On Air event held on Friday, December 2nd 2016 (watch from 19:23-19:50) to hear these very words and other related ideas:
No: We should not be using coding as a teaching tool if there are other more effective ways to teach the curriculum expectations.
Yes: We should teach coding because it is an opportunity to develop computational thinking. Computational thinking is modern problem solving. George Polya’s four step problem solving method was introduced in 1945. Remember these four steps:
- Understand the Problem
- Make a Plan
- Carry out the Plan
- Look Back
This method for problem solving has been effective for teaching math for a long time, but will it be an effective model of problem solving for the future? The problem solving skills and habits of mind listed below are more fruitful for the current world we live in and the types of problems our students may face now and in the future:
Yes: By 2020, there will be over 200,000 unfilled jobs in Information Technology says ICTC. 50% of those jobs will be indirectly or directly related to app development. If one of the roles of education is to prepare our students for employment, then we should be giving all students opportunities to learn to code since students are likely to get work where they are either coding or working with a developer/programmer. It is up to us to ensure that all students, including ones in my video above, to understand that learning to code is relevant to their lives.
3) Is Coding in the curriculum?
The short factual answer is no.
If you look more creatively at the curriculum the answer might be yes.
The only place I found anything close was a reference to computational strategies, which is not the same as computational thinking.
However, teachers can use coding as a tool to teach the curriculum, just like you might use a chocolate sundae making activity to engage students and teach about procedural writing or you would use a ruler when working on measurement.
According to people like Dr. Julie Mueller, coding and computational thinking is “hiding in plain sight” in the curriculum. This is a perspective that was presented by Dr. Mueller and her research collaborator at a session in August 2016. The same thinking and problem solving that is foundational to science, math, inquiry in social studies is also foundational to computational thinking. Also, some have found that there are many expectations in many documents, such a math, that can be explicitly taught with and through coding. See for example Integrating Coding into the Elementary Curriculum by Lisa Floyd, secondary school teacher.
And, while coding is not in the curriculum, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has written an open letter to the minister of Education Mitzie Hunter encouraging educators to dip a toe, ever so gently, into computer coding:
Show Up and Refuse to Leave Keynote
Net Smart by Howard Rheingold
Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks by Nicholas Christakis
Presence by Amy Cuddy
Mindfulness by Ellen Langer
Websites/Apps: (Also mentioned in Demo Slam)
GoNoodle Body breaks and meditation for kids
The Hidden Influence of Social Networks TED Talk by Nicholas Christakis 21 minutes
Your body language shapes who you are TED Talk by Amy Cuddy
Let it Go ~ Think About it by GoNoodle
GAFE and iPad: BFFs 4EVR
This is a beginner session. Please bring an iPad.
View GAFE and iPad: BFFs 4EVR slides here or at bit.ly/gafeipadbff
Get your own copy of GAFE and iPad: BFFs 4EVR slides here
Get Google to Give you Time ~ Productivity Tips
This is an Intermediate session. A lap top or Chromebook is recommended.
View Productivity slides here or at bit.ly/GAFEgivemetime
Get your own copy of the Productivity slides here
Copies of Book Talk assessment (to use with Autocrat Mail Merge) here
Assessment and Pedagogical Documentation with iPad
This is a beginner session. Please bring an iPad.
View Assessment with iPad slides here or at goo.gl/ToU8rS (Case Sensitive)
Get your own copy of the Assessment with iPad slides here
Thank you Lucy Gray, Steve Hargadon and your colleagues for organizing this event. I suspect that Julie Lindsay also helped out, so thank you goes to you too Lindsay!
Thank you to these people for pushing my thinking.
This was my first visit to any kind of Global Education event. The day alternated between ignite talks and round table discussions. I have organized my notes to share some highlights from the day. You’ll get some quotes and key points from the ignite talks and round table discussions that resonated for me. I hope you enjoy them too.
His message was that Global Education should be for all students. He would like to see more people engaging in global education. He believes it should be integrated throughout the grades and curriculum. Key points from his talk were:
- Very few students have the opportunity to engage in global education despite the desire from the world of work to have workers that are globally engaged, aware and active.
- Global education should not be an add-on, it should be the lense through which we teach and learn everything at school.
- All teachers should teach from a global perspective.
- Technology allows us to bring global education to all.
- Digital badging can provide acknowledgement of skills developed in this space.
Lisa Parisi‘s ignite included these gems:
- “At first it was about the technology, then it became about collaboration and globalization.”
- “It is impossible to ignore the global issues we face each day.”
- “People study in schools about animals, climate and other things from other countries but almost never about the people.”
Round Table Conversation
Leader: Julie Lindsay
How do you support discussions between students from classrooms all over the world? Do you communicate asynchronously and synchronously. Do you have teacher directed conversations or less structured time for kids to be kids and just talk? Perhaps not surprisingly, the experienced people in this group believe that a balance of approaches is ideal. Due to time zone challenges, sometimes a synchronous conversation is not possible. Some teachers would have evening events at their school with students and families to Skype or Google Hangout with other classrooms. I thought this was a clever solution. As for the conversations, students need some unstructured time to be themselves and let a bond develop. However, participants in the discussion warned that you need to get past the “I like pizza, you like pizza” type discussion and into deeper topics.
Near the end of the time together, people talked about Student Personal Learning Networks. “Who do you have in your online network that you don’t see everyday?” Is a question Julie Lindsay thinks all students should be able to answer.
Terry Godwaldt from The Center for Global Education and Bob LaRocca from Primary Source were also part of this round table. These are new-to-me people with new-to-me organizations. Later in the day Terry talked about Taking It Global.
Near the end of the hour together, Julie talked about A Day in the Life. She says she puts students into a virtual classroom for synchronous communication. But also has students connecting asynchronously through various blogging and social media services. I love how she said: “It all works, *just*.” Time zones are a challenge, probably the biggest.
Someone in the group asked where to get in touch with people to get started. Here is what people shared:
Cultural Relay Fitness for young girls!
Julie Lindsay’s ignite was titled “Putting the Global into Online Collaboration.” She has lived and worked in six different countries. She is global, and yet, she has a dilemma with the term. Her supervisors for her doctoral program told her to drop the word ‘global’ from her dissertation. So, she has been thinking about what global really means. Is the use of the word ‘global’ acceptable, necessary or redundant when talking about learning online. Great question.
Favourite Quotes and thought bites:
- What does the word ‘global’ add to online learning.
- Is ‘global’ a mirage?
- What happens when we put ‘global’ into online collaboration? What is different? Is there a new understanding of time differences, cultural and daily life?
- Global is all-embracing and covering the entire world.
- ‘Global’ and affirmative action.
Julie proclaims that the ‘Global’ in ‘Online Global Collaboration’ is not redundant.
Then, she got ground level and practical by outlining the Norms of Online Global Collaboration:
- Being prepared to connect and communicate.
- Having a purpose shared outcomes.
- Paraphrase use clear common language.
- Perceive: ask for help and share knowledge.
- Participate and be visible online.
- Positive and encouraged DC, build empathy, assume best intentions.
- Produce. Productively co-create and encourage learners to compare, contrast and create.
- Be open to the potential and serendipitous learning that will happen if you let it.
Up next was Amy Shaffer from Connected World. She is intelligent and also quite darling. Her slides are here. “Do you consider yourself as a creator?” she asked right off the top. She believes that when you bush buttons and see things happen, that we then build faith in the world around us. She uses doorknobs as an example. The doorknob is a button you bush everyday, and it works every time. So you trust that it works. This is the idea behind The Wonderment. “It’s a space that gives kids that button to push” she says. A sense of belonging is important in working to make change. And this is the ethos behind The Wonderment.
Amy Shaffer wants to give kids a way to actively engage in their own world at their level. More great quotes from Amy:
- You can’t leave behind the possibility for genuine human interactions.
- The world is waiting and wanting to hear from our students.
- Education without action is like food without exercise.
Round Table Conversation
Topic: Beyond Mystery Location Calls
Leader: Billy Krakower (Who brought his own power cord!)
- Pro tip: Use TouchCast to practice Mystery Skype. Use a green screen to upload a different picture so it appears that you are coming from another country.
- When mystery Skyping, have students keep the same job for 3 times.
- Skype around the world in two hours.
- If time difference is a challenge have the Skype at night and make it an event with parents!
- Link to check out Sharks for Kids
Friends I was delighted to see:
New connections and First Face2Face Meetings:
Do you use the Daily 5 and CAFE in your class?
Perhaps you are familiar with this series of books:
I attended “Hacking the Daily Five” presented byVictoria Olson MsVictoriaOlson and Sara Boucher @MsGeekyTeach. Victoria and Sara demonstrated how to integrate technology with the Daily 5. They focused on Google and iOS Apple tools. To get session resources, go to the links below:
They gave a Daily-5-Disclaimer saying they don’t follow every aspect of the Sister’s Approach. They hack it. Victoria and Sara do stick with the 5 parts of the program. In each of these areas, I learned something new.
Read to Self New Learning:
- Literably A website where students can read text and the online service provides a running record. I think this is pretty cool, but I like that Victoria emphasized that nothing beats the classroom teacher sitting down with a student. Nothing.
- Google and Explain Everything: Victoria fills a Google folder full of books she has downloaded from Reading A-Z. Students can then bring those books into Explain Everything and record their reading. The key idea for me was the idea of using Google and Explain Everything to make a library of things for students to read. I would like to put in shared reading from the previous week, books I have written, classbooks, as well as texts I have access to use.
Read to Someone New Learning:
- Have two students record their reading and then switch iPad devices.
- Invite guest authors via Skype and Google Hangout or even invite parents to read to students if they can make a short break during their work day!
Listen to Reading New Learning:
- Tools and Websites for Listening to Reading:
Work on Writing New Learning:
Word Work New Learning:
Websites for Word Work:
- Spelling City (also an iOS App)
- Funbrain and play Mad Libs
- Florida Center for Reading Research