Monday, February 28, 2011

It's All About the Kids

On Webogg-ed, Will Richardson has excerpted out a part of his new book coming out in May 2011 called PERSONAL LEARNING NETWORKS: Using the Power of Connections to Transform Education at:
http://weblogg-ed.com/2011/personal-learning-networks-an-excerpt/. It looks like a great book!
In this excerpt he sites a teacher (Clarence Fisher) working in a very remote place who has connected himself and his students virtually via the internet and how it has significantly changed his classroom. He notes the power of a personal learning network to become "a connected learner." The students skype with other students around the world, watch Youtube and other videos and while doing so are involved in a virtual chat.

This teacher says his classroom is "thin-walled" to denote the ever-changing and shifting way that students gain knowledge. Fisher wrote on his own blog, the following:
"The connections have had very little to do with me. I’ve provided access, direction, and time, but little else. I have not had to make elaborate plans with teachers, nor have I had to coordinate efforts, parceling out contacts and juggling numbers. It is all about the kids. The kids have made contacts. They have begun to find voices that are meaningful to them, and voices they are interested in hearing more from. They are becoming connectors and mavens, drawing together strings of a community. They are beginning to expect to work in this way. They want to know what the people in their network are saying, to hear about their lives and their learning. They want feedback on their own learning, and they want to know they are surrounded by a community who hears them. They make no distinction about class, about race, about proficiency in English, or about geography. They are only interested in the conversation and what it means to them."

Richardson goes on to note the overwhelming amount of knowledge we have at our fingertips as compared to before the web. How, do we as educators, share the knowledge with our students? We can't spoonfeed them as was done in 19th and early 20th century paradigms of education. Instead, we must teach students to think about the journey of knowledge--where to find, access, define and use all of this accessible information. Richardson further notes that the old system of education--one size fits all, classrooms based on ages, traditional evaluations and assessments just don't work anymore. I agree. Richardson notes, "For each of us as learners in the world at large, the fundamental change is that we can be much more in control of the learning we do." The changing shift is that students and teachers can, should and need to be connected to one another in sharing knowledge. Personal Learning Networks like Delicious, Google Reader, Twitter and more make us one step closer to the knowledge each one of us has and each one of us is passionate about. So, as Facebook tells you: like it or share it. See you online!

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Tech Kids Unlimited for Spec Needs Students



I recently just completed a 3-day tech workshop for kids with learning challenges called Tech Kids Unlimited.  I started this camp a year ago and this is the fifth time running it.  Kids who have various special needs sign-up via the JCC and spend three afternoons in the media lab creating their own animations using IStop Animation software.  Kids work in groups, collaborate, create and draw their own characters and sets and then animate.  One of the highlights of the workshop is seeing all the kids unique talents--some are interested in Blues Clues, others created their own characters which come to life on the screen.  Kids become producers rather than the usual consumers they are!  I have a wonderful artist-in-residence who leads the workshop and I always get high school and college volunteers who work with the students 1:1 for a really nurturing experience.  At the end of the workshop, we have a presentation of all the student's works for the parents, families and babysitters.  What fun.  Here are some pix from the latest workshop.  I will post the videos to my vimeo soon.  This parent feedback just in!:
HE BENEFIITED FROM SO MANY IMPORTANT DYNAMICS SIMLTANEOUSLY: WORKING IN A GROUP, COOPERATING, BEING CREATIVE, ASKING FOR HELP APPROPRIATELY, TAKING TURNS, SHARING, FEELING PROUD OF HIS WORK/EFFORTS!

No More Textbooks Or, A Digital Curriculum

This post:
http://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/part-1-going-digital-ten-points-to-consider-when-transforming-towards-digital-curriculum/
from Michael Gorman's 21st Century Educational Technology and Learning Blog (http://21centuryedtech.wordpress) should be a must-read for all teachers and administrators.

If you're attached to your Kindle or Ipad--and your kid uses it too in his spare time after school or on the weekends,  then you may very well know that books and yes, textbooks are from a by-gone era.  I recently went into a Borders where everything was 20 to 30% off.  I was excited to walk around the store and see what I could get for a discount.  As I looked at the shelves and aisles of books, I was struck with this thought--why do I want to buy these books when I could easily get them on my Ipad Kindle App and carry all of them around with me in a slim/sleek tablet?  I wandered over to the knick-knack area where there are bookmarks, pens, pencil cases and notebooks hoping to find something to purchase.  There wasn't anything of interest there--I have a Droid phone so all lists and To-Dos are easily stored on my phone.  So, while it's sad that Borders is going out of business and/or filed bankruptcy and is closing many stores, I honestly thought--are bookstores, things of the past?  Will we look at them in years to come like people wearing hats and gloves in the 1950s--where did all the milliners go?

Michael Gorman notes that curriculum for centuries in education has been driven via the textbook.  Whether you were lucky enough to get a new textbook in your school or a ten-year old one--that is what you got in your classroom.  I remember when my daughter entered elementary school ten years ago and the motto of her school was--"we don't use textbooks!"  That was new, different and quite revolutionary for teachers to structure learning around xeroxes, novels, science experiments and museums in the 90s.  In today's world where information is king, it is really unrealistic to use textbooks in the classroom.  How can a student of today study about the recent Egypt revolution?  Is their a textbook for kids about the meaning of people's changing relationships via technology--or, why the phone may not ring in your home anymore?--but, your cell phone is beeping and vibrating.

Gorman notes that it's not easy to "go digital." You need professional development for teachers, access for schools, time, familiarity with PBL, STEM and the ISTE standards, among other things.
I especially like Gorman's no. 10--"A digital curriculum must allow students to be at the center of their education with the teacher actively facilitating and orchestrating real student learning.  Such a curriculum allows students to contribute and design outcomes. It gives students the necessary ”Drive” (Daniel Pink) to become actively involved and take charge of their education."  What do you think?  Are textbooks dead?  Should all schools go digital?

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Social Media Week in NYC & Higher Education

I went to the Higher Education panel of Social Media Week last week which was held at the McGraw Hill publishing offices in mid-town.  The McGraw Hill presenter talked about "the nexus between social media, data analysis and workflow tools" and so I was excited to see what the event would be about.  After this brief presentation about what McGraw Hill is doing in the world of technology, visitors were invited to a poster session featuring various tech companies.  McGraw Hill's own platform is called GradeGuru.com and it is basically a website where college students share their notes with other college students.  They are given incentives--prizes--for putting their notes up online.  Their literature says that GradeGuru is a "ready to use study network where students can: join their school and class communities, share study materials and collaborate with their peers, create and share class study materials, build their academic profile, set class goals, track progress and keep motivated."  Wow.  Sounds kind of impressive, but let's remember that most college students are already on Facebook or Twitter and are sharing ideas and materials through those platforms.  I asked a MH representative why students want to share their notes with other students (and probably only the smart students who are good writers would be even interested in this gameplan)....and he said that it relates to the era of sharing.  It seems, in some way, that MH is just really trying to gain access to the college population.  I know no one who has ever used GradeGuru.com and I teach and work at three universities in the metropolitan area.  Hmmm.  Next, I skipped over the guys from Google Apps for Education and the Skype table which was making a big sell about how professors are now using their software to skype with students.  I love skype and use it all the time, but I think Blackboard and other university software has chat/stream capabilities on most major campuses already.  I then went to Unigo.com which is another MH website where college students and experts tell you what the colleges won't about certain colleges.  Sounds like a guide to colleges by students, to me.  That has certainly been done before.  Next I talked to another bunch of guys about their website Jatched.com which apparently connects college students to certain brands.  I asked them--"shouldn't college students be studying and not going online to get things sold to them"--and the guy laughed and said--well, in between studying, they could go to the site.
All in all, I have to say, I was highly disappointed by the offerings at this Social Media Week event for higher education.  It seemed like companies just want to have the niche of the audience of college students to "sell" them something---becoming motivated to get good grades by posting their notes, branding consumer products to them, etc.  It was so frustrating to see that, ultimately, the interpretation of Social Media Week for Higher Education amounted to--what can we sell to college students because they are such a great niche market.  I found very little creativity in terms of what students really want or need in college.  I felt like every young entrepreneur there was trying desperately to have that million dollar idea that could be ultimately bought up by a bigger company so they could make tons of money.  I'm not sure what I expected--I guess I wanted some rich and original content around thinking about higher education and combining social media with it--but, that's not at all what was there.  I wish all of those companies a lot of luck.  It's clear the only one which is really doing meaningful work for students is Google Apps for Education.

The Best iPad Apps for Kids With Special Needs - Expertise - SavvyAuntie.com

The Best iPad Apps for Kids With Special Needs - Expertise - SavvyAuntie.com

Friday, February 11, 2011

Technology Vision Statement from a Private School in NYC

I was recently going through some emails and noticed that at one of my kid's schools, a private school in NYC, they have a Technology Vision Statement which was crafted in 2004-5.

Here's the statement:


The school's vision is to create a community where students can search, experiment, serve others and grow in an atmosphere of mutual respect, cooperation and trust.  We are committed to educating each student intellectually, aesthetically, spiritually and physically.  Each student is offered a challenging education that develops intellectual abilities, ethical and social values.
The use of technology at "the school" expands these educational aims and values.  Its goal is to help create a learning community in which students work with computers to develop a new ways of learning and thinking.  Technology thus serves as a medium of thought and expression and is broadly integrated into the curriculum to provide students with the ability to:
Explore
  • Gain an awareness of the appropriate and ethical use of technology, with an emphasis on intellectual integrity
  • Use their curiosity and perceptions to help develop the skills necessary to access, interpret, evaluate diverse educational reference materials and resources
  • Internalize their learning by actively working to gather, interpret and process authentic information to solve actual problems
  • Participate in many different learning situations in the same classroom: group projects, individual pacing and differentiated instruction
Express
  • Become fluent in the use of software applications that encourage the development of their critical thinking skills and problem solving abilities
  • Facilitate their development, organization and  presentation of ideas
  • Communicate with teachers so that the instructor becomes a facilitator in open-ended learning activities, where students and instructors can learn from each other
  • Creatively express themselves verbally, in writing and through the use of multimedia presentation tools
Exchange
  • Use diverse modes of collaboration and communication in order to encourage and facilitate peer to peer cooperation rather than competition
  • Access appropriate educational and research communities worldwide to sustain an expansion of inquiry beyond the classroom and the school itself, thereby making the world’s resources part of everyday educational activity
  • Take advantage of global community resources, become exposed to diverse cultured and have the ability to publish their own accomplishments, projects and thoughts
  • Make advance research a part of their daily school life
Technology empowers teacher to meet diverse learning need in a stimulating hand-on approach to learning.  When technology is efficiently integrated into the curriculum, it enables students to meet current learning goals while helping to prepare them for a life in the twenty-first century.
I really like this statement for a variety of reasons.  Even though it was written more than five years ago, it shows that the school was ready to take on the responsibility of incorporating technology into their school curriculum.  I notice that a lot of times my child has to do an assignment at school which consists of, for example, using PPT or using comiclife.com to create a report.  When I watch her work on these assignments, I can tell that there is an enormous amount of pride in her developing computer technology skills.  In fact, I think she tackles these assignments, possibly, with more rigor and creativity than just a regular word document paper.  If I was to add something to the statement for 2011, it would be to cover the use of social media--blogging, RSS, etc. and to write something about students learning to be producers of technology culture, not just consumers.
Overall, I think the committee did a really nice job, years ago! of having a tech vision for the school.  I'm excited to see what they come up with for 2011.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Can blogging change the traditional classroom?

Educators cannot teach one way, test another way, and expect positive outcomes.--Patricia Deubel
Blogs and testing are two controversial topics in educational learning for the 21st century.
What do blogs do for the student in the classroom?

1. They encourage students to write and reflect about a topic.
2. They break down barriers between student and teacher and home and school time.
3. They may be motivating in terms of their access to technology.
4. They engage readers in a conversation about the content/topic.
These are all good things.  These are all ways for students to explore content and new technological advances in learning technology.  Who wants to write in a black x white composition notebook anymore?  
Here's a good example of how a blog can be motivating to a student.  My own child, J, who has learning disabilities recently spent the past week at home due to cold and flu season.  After a few days, he was utterly bored consuming television and watching Youtube videos.  As I was putting together the template for this blog, I asked him if he would like to start a blog about his favorite things.  I had forgotten that back in 2008 his sister had actually set up a blog for him and lo and behold as soon as he signed onto blogger, his blog appeared!  He hadn't touched it for two years, but was eager to update it with three reviews of his favorite DVDs.  Wow!  He is not a writer.  But, he loves his computer and everything about it.  He spent about an hour writing his short reviews--three separate ones--and pushed the publish button.  An incredible sense of satisfaction came over him--not just in seeing his words in print online, but in updating his blog, making it even more fun with new design elements and automatically sending it to family and friends.  Hours later when he went on his email, he received numerous congratulatory notes from his fans letting them know that they had read and enjoyed his blog.
The anecdotal story above, I think, illustrates the power of technology for students and especially for students who DO NOT learn in traditional ways.  In "Educational Blogging" by Stephen Downes EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 39, no. 5 (September/October 2004: 14–26) the author notes that a blog, "in its purest form, the core of what has come to be called personal publishing."  The blog is the ultimate form of hypertext--"the capacity to link to new and useful resources."  Blogs can, according to Downes:
1. replace standard class web pages; 2. provide useful links and resources; 3. can organize in-class discussions; 4. can organize class lectures and summarize reading; and 5. act as vehicles for reflection. All of this is clearly a great way to engage students on a topic.  
However, this new form of software as used for educational purposes is not without its problems as Downes notes with these questions:  What happens when a free-flowing medium such as blogging interacts with the more restrictive domains of the educational system? What happens when the necessary rules and boundaries of the system are imposed on students who are writing blogs, when grades are assigned in order to get students to write at all, and when posts are monitored to ensure that they don’t say the wrong things?  By telling students they have to write on a blog for a grade--do we get unthoughtful blogs full of spelling and grammatical errors just to complete the assignment?  And, if students are "prompted" to write via specific assignments, does this really count for a blog?  I want to note that, if assigned properly, blogs can and should extend the learning and knowledge of a student by asking or maybe, forcing, them to dig further on the subject matter topic.  By writing about a specific topic about, for example, Rome, students can then attach pictures of what a gladiator looks like, link to a view of The Colosseum and more.  I think this is a much richer way of learning about a topic than by filling out a xeroxed sheet about Rome (which was a recent assignment for my child).  
If blogging is ultimately a way of the future--engaging, motivating, fun for the student and allows him/her to be in charge of accumulating and assessing knowledge on a topic--how do we now view testing a student with an online mechanism?  The answer is: vastly different.  In "Are we ready for testing under common core state standards?" by Patricia Deubel from The Journal on September 15, 2010, she notes that there are challenges with asking students to perform well via online testing methods.  Deubel states, "There are two major concerns in connection with the rise of CCSS online testing. First is the need to expand the technology infrastructure within schools. Second, learners need greater opportunities to engage with technologies they will encounter within the online testing environment. Given that teachers play a key role in learning and preparing learners to succeed on state standardized tests, regular technology use in classrooms will be essential for success of online testing."  So, we are faced with a double-edge sword--students can be using technology--at home and/or in school, but still, if the school is not updated with a well-equipped computer lab, network, and teachers who feel confident about using technology in the classroom, then, ultimately students will not be able to perform adequately on standardized tests using an online format. She notes, "If instruction does not involve all teachers integrating technology, then the playing field for learners to have had sufficient school-time experience with technology use is uneven, which might then impact learners' ability to successfully complete questions of an online test. There's nothing new in saying that teachers will need help with technology integration. We've been saying this since computers were first introduced in schools. However, new national assessments involving online tests that will be developed by SBAC and PARCC make this more imperative than ever."
In all, we can facilitate technological learning for our students by asking them to use it: practice makes perfect.  However, if the classroom learning environment is not adequately supported with teachers who feel confident in using new technologies and with classrooms that are well-equipped and supported with new computers and softwares, then we are ultimately failing our students.  Using technology for students and then testing students in an online format, must go hand-in-hand if it is to work properly.  Ultimately, the more students can use technology, the better off they will be in actually functioning in a digital world.  Daily life for everyone is being technologically changed--from banking, to libraries to checking out at the supermarket--all people must use technology and have a certain amount of comfort and ease using it.  If we don't expose our students to the latest in technology, they, ultimately, will not be able to function as independent adults in life.  And, that's even more important than performing well on a standardized test.