Take Aways from Class

The semester is in full swing and this has been my first week back in the Ed.D. program.  Here are some take aways I came up with while sitting in class.

• Students come to school (K12/College) expecting to be engaged, however, when they come to school they aren’t engaged, at least not in the way they want to be engaged. It’s no wonder students drift off to Facebook, Twitter, texting, or even sleep. Sitting in lecture/discussion is not engaging and as the size of the class increases, motivation and accountability to be engaged decreases.
• Just because students stray from lecture/discussion does not mean they have short attention spans. Rather they have better things to do than participate. How engaged would you be if someone talked to you for an hour or more and didn’t interact with you in any way. Saying they have short attention spans and that technology is to blame is a copout for the traditional teacher. See how attentive they are when you engage with them in meaningful ways, perhaps using technology. You might be surprised.

Image Credit: http://flic.kr/p/5y2Uqm

Rote learning: A necessity but not for the classroom

Image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mischiru/2860228008/

At UNI we are still in the transition to Google Apps and the last major transition is from our old calendar platform to Google Calendar.  As I was reading the email I noticed that instead of having formalized training sessions on how to use Google Calendar, there was a link to Lynda.com where users can find training on all apps.  This left me wondering, why aren’t we doing this for all rote training needs we have?

As a technology specialist and educator, I understand that in order to reach innovative use of technology in a course, it is necessary to have some “how-to” knowledge about the technology being used.  Typically (going to generalize here) this is taught in large group sessions in a very rote way.  Click here, this feature does this, and so on.  We’ve all attended these trainings and many, including myself, have led a number of these sessions.  I’m wondering however, if we’ve reached a point where we no longer need to concern ourselves with teaching rote knowledge.  If we have very good tutorials on how to use X or what X is, do we really need to take up time “teaching” this when we are all together?  Wouldn’t we be just as or even more effective if we hand picked the videos we wanted our colleagues or students to watch so they can gain that rote knowledge that’s absolutely necessary for being successful?  Then, couldn’t we spend more time learning about how we can be effective with this technology in our courses?

I believe we have entered a point in society that you have to be a lifelong learner.  You simply cannot function without that essential characteristic.  At UNI, I’d say nearly all the people I work with would more than be capable of lifelong learning and I’d imagine many of you would agree you see the same in your colleagues.  However, as educators, have we truly embraced what it means to be a lifelong learner?  Do we take the initiative to learn new innovations as our organization adopts them?  I don’t think we have and I think we are wasting time organizing formalized training sessions on the latest innovation.  I know I’m guilty of this, we all are.  But I think we have a professional duty, as educators, to learn about new innovations as they become available in an asynchronous way.  I’m not saying you need to be an expert in every innovation, but I do think you need to be knowledgeable enough to either have a discussion about the innovation and/or be able to use the innovation in a basic sense without having to sit through an hour or even a full day workshop.

I’m going to shift gears slightly, but remain on the same topic.  I think we need to begin developing this literacy in our students as well.  How much time do we spend in education teaching students rote knowledge?  When was the Civil War?  What is the atomic weight of Boron?  What is the formula for calculating the surface area of a parallelogram?  We need to stop teaching our students how to do these things in our physical classrooms!  The answers to these questions can be found online and are very well articulated in a variety of mediums.  Why, I ask WHY do we still use low level rote instruction?  We’re good at doing it, but someone else is better and they’ve decided to share it with you for free (usually)!  Send your students to these resources online to learn this knowledge and then in class have them apply the concept they learned at home, the library, a friends house, etc.  It’s the application of the concept that get’s interesting and is where students have questions and is where our efforts as teachers should be.  Helping students apply knowledge in a meaningful context.

I’ll end by saying that rote learning, is necessary, but it shouldn’t be the only kind of learning that takes place.  I remember when I was in student teaching, my university supervisor asked me, “When are you going to develop the low level knowledge needed for your students to be able to answer the high level questions you’re asking them?”  This statement has remained with me ever since.  Before we can synthesize, create, or analyze, we need to first be able to understand the concept in its most basic form.  I think advocates for reform forget this, especially those who are critical of the flipped classroom.  I think flipping is exactly what we need to be doing, but it’s not the only thing.  It’s just one piece in the puzzle.

M.Ed. Portfolio Blog Series: Ethics and Technology

This coming Saturday I will be defending my master’s portfolio and I wanted to share some of my hard work with others who won’t attend my defense.  We often spend so much time creating artifacts of our learning, whether it be a document, video, song, web page, etc., to only have it viewed by a relatively small number of people.  I wanted to do something different and share my work with as many people as possible, because I’ve worked hard over the last three years and have grown tremendously as an educator during that time.  So, every day this week I will post about my experiences and share my reflections, with the hope that some conversation can be created about what I’ve done over the last three years and keep our learning going well past my defense.  Today I’m going to talk about the Ethical and Human Issues and Technology performance indicator.

I felt this was the most difficult performance indicator to talk about, because of the nature of the topic.  When we talk about ethics and some of the human issues with technology, we really are talking about some heavy topics.  Everything from bullying, to cheating, to child safety, to preparing students for the future are all fair game in this topic.  I struggled to find a topic initially, but then I started thinking more about what I felt this competency meant and I came to the conclusion that this is my chance to stand on my soap box and steer the conversation to a place where I thought it was important, where I thought it needed more attention.  So for me, this competency meant talking about three topics: unblocking social networking software, helping students develop an online presence, and helping students develop information literacy.  Influencing my decision was the fact that I hadn’t seen much on a 21st century perspective of this competency in either my conversations with other educators or in my actions.  Instead, I typically saw these topics discussed in a 20th century perspective, which I feel is much different.

I landed on unblocking social networking software, because often we have the wrong reasons at heart when we make decisions to block certain Web sites.  From my experiences as a technology director in a K-12 school, our decision to block social networking sites was based on classroom management considerations supported through the guise of protecting students.  However, what we failed to realize is the shift that is (was?) taking place in how our students learn.  Our students are social beings, but we don’t teach using social tools.  When we introduce social technologies into the classroom there is an inevitable butting of heads.  The easy solution was to block the social technology, when the right solution is to change how we teach to become more social.  Socializing isn’t a bad thing for education, but really is just the next evolution.  Eventually my school began to understand (not that we fully understood) the benefit of changing how we teach to leverage social networking sites.  There was an opportunity to reach our students in a way we had previously dismissed, thus dismissing a part of who our students are.

The second topic I landed on grew out of the first, developing student online presence.  Something we miss when we don’t use social networking software is how students develop their online presence.  Often they are left to do this themselves, alone, which is a breading ground for trouble.  All we need to do to find evidence of this is do a google search for cyber bullying and I all but guarantee the medium used to bully is social.  Here I advocate for teaching our students how to use social software so we can begin to instill our values into this new layer of society.  While some people may think this isn’t the job of school, but when we look at what schools are truly preparing students for, it clearly is being a successful citizen. With social networking sites not going anywhere anytime soon, it’s time schools begin helping students succeed in this arena as well.

Finally, I decided to talk about developing student information literacy.  Knowledge and information is expanding at an unimaginable rate and everyone needs to know how to both search and use that information.  However, by continuing to stick with instruction that doesn’t allow students to search and use that information, this literacy will not begin to develop in our students.  Teachers are no longer the only source of information, but we continue to teach in ways that still support this notion.  My belief is that we as educators have an ethical obligation to provide learning opportunities for students that allow them to be engaged in data and research.  This is likely only possible by drastically changing how we teach and maybe to an extent what we teach.

Ethical and human issues of technology is such an important area in education, but we often don’t talk about it enough.  Here’s your chance!  What’s on your mind?  What do you think is an important ethics or human issue surrounding technology, but isn’t being discussed?  My three certainly aren’t exhaustive.  Add to the conversation and help everyone learn by adding a comment!

Time management and social networking

Picture from: http://blog.firstreference.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/social-time-management2.jpg

I heard about a study out of Harrisburg University on the radio while driving to work today, which said that students were less stressed and got more work done when they gave up social networking sites for a week.  I have to say that I’m not really that surprised that this happens given the number of friends people have and the amount of time it takes to read news feeds.  However, I think this points to a larger problem that I’m not sure we are addressing, time management.  We ultimately are responsible for how we spend our time, whether it be on Facebook or paying attention in a lecture, but how are we really prepared for managing our time?  Is this something we are prepared for in school or is this just something we either pick up or don’t?  I’d wager to bet it is a little bit of both, but how much responsibility is there on schools to provide this to our students before they graduate from high school?  How do we model time management in K-12 schools, or a better question might be are we really modeling time management skills if we fail to provide learning environments that are student-centered?  I think the answer is that we don’t.  Teacher-centered classrooms can provide the opportunity for some time management teachable moments, but students rarely get to experience how difficult it is to manage a number of different tasks when the instructor is orchestrating everything for the class.

We seem to be missing an opportunity to teach our students a very useful skill they will need throughout the rest of their lives.  So as we enter the end of the semester in schools throughout the US, maybe take some time over winter break to think about how you can provide the opportunity for your students to experience time management in your courses.  Find a way to model this behavior in your courses and the opportunity for your students to develop this important skill.

Here is an article about the experiment: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6B963020101210

What’s the value of using technology to mask content students don’t find interesting?

I was reading an article Scott McLeod linked to on Mind Dump, about a teacher and the use of an IWB in the classroom.  The part of that article stood out most to me was when Jamie Long, a math major and secondary ed minor at Stonehill College said: “At the very least it made it more interesting and made more people pay attention.”  While this may be true, this shouldn’t be the role of an IWB or any educational technology.  The technology shouldn’t be the thing that captivates and holds student attention.  Relevance should be doing this!!  Technology in any form is merely a tool used to make learning easier, it shouldn’t be what makes students want to tune in and listen.  Repackaging the same ineffective lesson using technology doesn’t make the lesson any better.  It just makes it an ineffective lesson using technology.  If we are really serious about engaging the students in our classrooms, then we need to make the lesson authentic for them.  It may not be easy and will likely take some time, but if our end goal is to have students engaged in a meaningful learning environment, then we need to elicit passion in the things they care about and put the content in a meaningful perspective for the student.

My thoughts on #IWB

Image from: http://www.larkrise.net/wp-content/interactive-whiteboard.jpg

A few weeks ago, I sent out on a quest to learn more about using interactive whiteboards.  I was primarily concerned with the way IWBs change how a teacher teaches, their pedagogy.  I began my search at ITEC, but was left wanting more, since the sessions I attended seemed to only talk about the features rather than on how the technology changes their practice.  I decided to pull out the research skills I had learned in my master’s program and began consulting research on effective teaching, pedagogy, and, of course, IWBs.  Below is what I have found and my opinions on IWBs in general.

The first major theme that I found emerging from the different pieces of literature I read was that IWBs do not inherently change a teachers practice.  There are many ways that IWBs can change your teaching, but they are often used to maintain current practices (Gillen, Kleine Staarman, Littleton, Mercer, & Twiner, 2007).  In my experiences with IWBs, this has been the biggest problem with their adoption.  A teacher is given the technology but not the skills to make it meaningful in their classroom.  As I look at technology and education, I think we need to look at the advantage of adding the technology to the classroom.  What will this change and is it worth the expense of doing so?  Show me the relative advantage over what I’m doing now.  By-and-large, I don’t think that has been done, which has led to many teachers receiving IWBs with little change in their current practices.

The next theme that I discovered was that IWBs change the classroom environment and the management of that environment.  Schmid (2010) explains that IWBs do not need to be the centerpiece of the lesson, but rather we need to think about how we can use IWBs to enhance the lesson.  How can we make the lesson better by using the IWB.  I was talking with Robin Galloway the other day and he said it best when he said, “Start with one feature of the IWB and then go from there to the next feature once you feel comfortable.”  This is the attitude we need to have when we start using IWBs.  Don’t focus on making a flip chart or some other elaborate way of using the IWB.  Start small and then move from there.  Lewin, Somekh and Steadman (2008) talk about a three stage model of pedagogic change with an IWB that I think fits nicely with Rob’s idea of using IWBs:

• Stage 1: Teachers fitting [IWB] into established pedagogies
• Stage 2: Teachers engaging in collaborative exploration of the new opportunities offered by the [IWB]
• Stage 3: Teachers use IWB skillfully and intuitively in ways that extended or transformed their established pedagogic practices

I think this is a logical way for new adopters to become comfortable with IWBs, which is necessary if they are going to change their practice.

Another theme that emerged that I was a little unsure of when I began was the notion that IWBs make the classroom more student-centered.  Where this takes place is when the teacher stops leading the class at the front of the classroom using the IWB much like they would a normal blackboard.  However, once you begin letting students use the IWB in class, it does open up the opportunity for increased discussion and interaction that might not have taken place when the teacher was “in control” of the class.  What I still have problems with is the fact that the IWB creates this opportunity.  What I believe is happening is that the IWB is merely facilitating a student-centered lesson.  There is little that the IWB is adding that makes the lesson student-centered other than the student having the opportunity to physically use the IWB.  I’m making the argument that the same thing could be accomplished using similar technology or even a whiteboard or chalkboard in some instances.  While the technology is certainly adding a new layer, it doesn’t necessarily mean that layer is enhancing the lesson, or at least not enough to justify the cost of the IWB.  If I can do the same thing with a tablet that costs $400 rather than the hefty $1500 to $5000 price tag that some IWBs cost, then that is the direction I think I would want my classroom and school to head.

What also struck me about the student-centered nature of an IWB is that the rest of the class needs to be engaged in some way when a student is at the board working.  How are you going to keep them engaged?  This comes down to having solid instructional design, which for many teachers and administrators is overlooked when these new, expensive technologies are adopted.  This will also depend on creating a classroom atmosphere that nurtures sharing, patience, and suport, which I think is missing in many classrooms and schools (Harlow, Cowie, & Heazlewood, 2010).

I could go on and on, and if this were a literature review I would.  For now, I will just end by stating that I think IWBs can be a valuable tool for teachers, but they are NOT the be all end all for effective technology integration that they are sometimes made out to be.  There are a slew of different ways they can be used in the classroom and can help students learn, especially when used to provide multi-modal instruction.  However, this doesn’t seem to be the case, at least not where I have observed their use.  If we are going to successfully use these tools we need to have adequate PD that helps faculty move beyond the first stages of Lewin, Somekh, and Steadman’s model.  If I were given the option of having an IWB or the money to spend on other tools for my classroom, I would take the money.  I don’t think IWBs are worth the cost, because the same thing can be completed using similar tools at a reduced cost.  The relative advantage isn’t there for me, but this could be due to my teaching philosophy, which is very project based.  My goal is active student engagement that lasts the entire period, rather than merely an activity that lasts only part of the period.

 

Resources: (Note: This is not the exhaustive list that I researched, only those which I referenced in my post.  If you would like a copy of all the documents I read, please leave a comment and I will be happy to provide you with a copy of the documents)

Gillen, Julia; Kleine Staarman, Judith; Littleton, Karen; Mercer, Neil and Twiner, Alison (2007). A “learning revolution”? Investigating pedagogic practices around interactive whiteboards in British Primary classrooms. Learning, Media and Technology, 32(3), pp. 243–256.

Harlow, Ann , Cowie, Bronwen and Heazlewood, Megan(2010) ‘Keeping in touch with learning: the use of an interactive whiteboard in the junior school’, Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 19: 2, 237 — 243 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1475939X.2010.491234

Lewin, C., Somekh, B., & Steadman, S. (2008, September 24). Embedding interactive whiteboards in teaching and learning: The process of change in pedagogic practice. Education and Information Technologies, 291-303. doi:10.1007/s10639-008-9070-z

Schmid, Euline Cutrim(2010) ‘Developing competencies for using the interactive whiteboard to implement communicative language teaching in the English as a Foreign Language classroom’, Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 19: 2, 159 — 172

The time for talking has ended, we need to start doing the things we are talking about

I’m sitting here in my office at the end of the week thinking back on some of the things I have done, heard, and saw this week.  The one thing that has stood out is the amount of talk about how we should improve, change, and transform education because it isn’t good enough as it stands.  This seems to have consumed my PLN lately, which has made me tune out to an extent, not because I don’t think it is important to talk about how we need to improve education.  I think it is important to do this, but I’ve been left wanting more and more from my PLN and I’m not getting it.  I want to know what others are doing in their classrooms to make education better.  How did it impact your students?  What are your reflections on what you did?  What would you change for next time?  This conversation seems to be missed in most of the blogs and tweets I have been reading in the last few days, and even the last few weeks.  Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places, and if that is the case, please point me in the right direction.  It almost feels like I’ve been sitting in the teachers lounge for the last little while and I can’t seem to get out.  Please help by letting everyone know the great things you are doing!

I’ll start.  This past week I have been working on crafting and promoting our message to various stakeholders for the grant project I am working on.  The goal of the grant is to prepare more highly effective teachers to help boost student achievement.  This is done through the use of a Teacher Performance Assessment, which has yet to be developed, but we have a general idea of what it looks like (see PACT and TPAC).  Before we can begin working with university faculty and K12 faculty, we need to get our message out and let everyone know what we are about, which is what I’ve been working on in an attempt to make education better for the nation’s youth.  Not too exciting, but it’s a start.

Online education: Is it as good as face-to-face education…it can

Image from: https://www.msu.edu/user/egidio/COM001ML.JPG

 

I came across these two questions when I was browsing through my RSS reader this morning, and it made me think about how we can wield distance education to reach the ever expanding clientele schools are educating.  Here are the questions:

• Is it possible to learn as much when your professor is a mass of pixels whom you never meet?
• How much of a student’s education and growth — academic and personal — depends on face-to-face contact with instructors and fellow students?
• For the entire article go here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/us/05college.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

What I like about this article is that it shows some of the problems associated with online education as it is widely done at all levels.  I think of the courses that don’t allow for student voice, feedback, interaction with other students/instructors, etc.  I also think of some of the courses that were offered online from a local community college from my K-12 days as a technology coordinator.  The courses were online courses taught without an instructor, where course materials are available online and students complete assignments based solely on readings and online exercises that rarely require any form of higher order thinking.  When online education is conducted in this manner, I too find the prospects of a face-to-face education much more appealing than the online alternative.

However, it doesn’t have to be this way.  With the range of available online technologies today, there are very few technological reasons to not have a meaningful online educational experience.  The problem lies with poor instructional design for online learning environments.  We cannot simply post instructional materials or as the article mentioned, provide no way for feedback or interaction.  The principles of effective instruction are still applicable in online environments just as they are in face-to-face environments.  For me it all starts creating an environment that promotes interaction and social presence.

Interaction is key for any classroom.  This may seem difficult for online courses, but it doesn’t have to be if the course is designed in a way that promotes interaction in both synchronous and asynchronous methods.  In synchronous online environments, this can be done through the use of video conference software, web cams, microphones, chat rooms, and back channels.  With some simple moderation all of these can be integrated into most online synchronous courses.  In asynchronous online environments, the same level of interaction can be attained through discussion boards, social networks, email, weekly video updates from instructors, or even texting between participants.  While interaction is delayed, it doesn’t mean they are or need to be of any lesser quality.  All of these means of communication also provide the necessary social presence that is necessary for students to perform well in any learning environment.

Social presence is the level at which a participant in a course feels they are received by others in the course.  This can be simply done in a face-to-face course by going to class and interacting with other students and the instructor.  However, distance education makes this a little more difficult since participants don’t physically go to class.  This doesn’t mean that social presence isn’t necessary or possible in online environments.  It just means that instructors have to work a little harder to make it possible for social presence to be established.  There are many ways to go about this, but what I have found to be the best way, from my experiences in an online graduate program through Iowa State University, is to provide a way for students to communicate with each other.  Provide them with a space that is meant just for them.  Let them share stuff that’s going on in their lives, even though it won’t relate to what’s being discussed in class.  Life happens so embrace it and use it to make the connections stronger within the course.  These interactions are necessary for students to become comfortable with each other and lead to more enriched discussions.

Another way to promote social presence is to have a blended learning environment where students actually meet face-to-face at different times in the semester.  This can be done at the beginning of the course, a couple times throughout, or at the end of the semester.  Being able to see and hear what someone else sounds like is a great way to establish social presence in an online course.

When it comes down to it, education is all about the interactions and connections being made by students and their instructors.  If we fail to create a learning environment that promotes these characteristics, then we will not be able to succeed in online learning environments, or at least not at the same level as their face-to-face counterparts.

A classroom activity that is actually engaging