Education with Technology

The Power of Visuals to Persuade: An Inconvenient Truth and Teachers' Images

2006-10-25T10:19:00.000-04:00

Last night I had the opportunity to watch Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. I realized how powerful his visuals were. His images showed the impact of global warming through charts and through simulations. As he was talking, I did not doubt him but I felt unconvinced. However, as I saw a simulation of the impact of global warming on icecaps and the potential flooding in areas like Florida, I saw the horrible possible future. I was moved. His images were convincing.

I wonder how powerful are the images that teachers use in the classroom? Are they compelling images? Do those images move students to new view points? To greater understanding? To more higher level thinking skills? Or do they just decorate a presentation?

What is your truth about visuals in your classroom? Can they convince students as to what winter is the Northeast is like?

YouTube Shows Bad Teaching

2006-10-18T16:52:00.000-04:00

In getting ready for a presentation, I spent several hours on YouTube. I found some amazing things for use in a classroom such as other students' or classes' production of Shakespeare.

However, the thing that shocked me the most was all the cellphone videos taken of teachers. Almost all of these depict teaching at its worst – boring, off of topic, wasting time, etc. From the descriptions I sense that the teachers were not aware of being recorded. It hurts to see such "bad" teaching. Maybe if we are thought that we were being recorded then we would teach better.

Flickr Hints, suggests that “You can't take pictures of people and post them on the web without theirpermission – at least, that's the position in the UK.”

Flickr Third Party Links for Classroom Use

2006-10-18T16:37:00.000-04:00

Here are some Flickr links that you might find valuable for using Flickr in education

Flickr

http://www.flickr.com

FlickrLeech—see all of today's thumbnails

http://www.flickrleech.net/

Flickstorm sorts by topic rather quickly

http://www.zoo-m.com/flickr-storm/

Woophy Geotagged flickr

http://www.woophy.com/map/index.php

Airtight Interactive --See other tagging connections

http://www.airtightinteractive.com/projects/related_tag_browser/app/

Add Bubbles to a Picture or Series of Pictures/ See Archives

http://www.pimpampum.net/bubblr/

Flickr Tools Listing

http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2005/03/great-flickr-tools-collection/

Flickr vs Google: Educational Application Analysis

2006-10-11T08:47:00.000-04:00

The following chart shows a quick analysis of Flickr vs Google for using in an educational setting.
At this time Google has more images but the last few pages of Google images probably contain many icons or non-instructional images. Flickr's images are more realistic and better resolution but they contain more "see Juan at the falls" type images than Google. Flickr has a growing number of third party apps that promise to make it much more powerful such as geo-tagging in woophy. Which is better for the classroom? I would select Flickr.

Woophy and Flickr: Finding a Good Visual in Time?

2006-10-09T12:32:00.000-04:00

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then how long should a teacher or student search for a meaningful image to communicate an idea?

Yes, Flickr has a search engine.

Yes, Woophy searches Flickr through a map or a search.

There are a host of other searching flickr sites.

Flickr is a wonderful site that contain many images. However, the question still remains how long will a teacher or student be searching for an image?

I've been preparing a presentation on Visual Literacy and I've been using Flickr. I can verify that I have spent much time in finding the image that communicates the idea I want. For example, I want to give a quick overview of the geography of Mexico. When I search Woophy for Mexico, geography there are 102 images. Many of them do not show geography; for example, I see racing cars, models, traffic jams, a wall, etc. It is the search engine that is showing me geography or Mexico? It is that the pictures were tagged with geography? There is no way to see all of the images at once so I have to scroll down and see ten and then scroll to the next ten. Eventually I found what I needed but it took a long time. Do teachers and students have that much time in the classroom?

Time on Task: Minimal Computer Time Maximum Thinking Time For More Student Learning

2006-10-06T08:06:00.000-04:00

A collleague observed many school groups in a museum and she noticed how little time they were actually on task.

I realize that educators can use technology to keep students on task. Students can be very busy when they are on the computer. I am unsure if we have measured how much time studens are engaged in actual content rather than the beautification of the presentation during a technology-infused learning project I am unsure if we have measured for how long students search for “just the right” image when the image does not add any new information to the digital report. I am not sure if we have measured how much students are off task even when they appear to be on task such as reading a website.

I have found that when students are given minimal time on the computer and maximum off-computer thinking time that their learning increases. I have done a one period research project in which groups of students had to give a one minute report on a certain topic at the end of the period. I gave them 10 minuteson the computer to find critical information and 20 minutes off the computer to organize the report. It was amazing that each month we did this project the students increased the amount of different information that they found even though they had the same time. They found much richer information. They were more focused and more on task when they were online so they learned more.

How do you maximize student learning that involves technology-infused learning?

Increased Student Accountability Through Eportfolio

2006-10-04T21:41:00.000-04:00

Students select what they put in their eportfolio. They do not put in teacher prescribed activities but they select from many possible activities the one that best shows their progresses in the standard.

Students can include more learning examples than they would on a state benchmark or exam. For example, on the NYS 11^th English Language Arts Regents there are only four different tasks.

Students can include more comprehensive examples. The teachers can have students include two examples for a specific subset of the standard.

Students can frequently review their eportfolio on a quarterly basis. They can examine what they have put in and what they might put in. Do they have a new example that is better than one they previously have put in?

Students can include insightful reflections that show what they have learned and what they still need to learn about the standard.

Online Conversations: Good Pedagogy or New Technology:

2006-09-28T09:51:00.000-04:00

I recently heard a person describe a new conversation tool that the person is helping to develop. The more I heard about the tool, the more I realized that what was needed was not a new technology tool but good pedagogy.

As teachers, we create the online learning environment. We orchestrate how students will respond to questions or prompts. We set our high expectations for how students will respond. We assess them on thoughtful well-documented responses, not on the number of responses. We expect them to read and understand what other students have written and to respond by adding new information or exploring different aspects of the topic. We, the educators, make online conversations to be effective learning experiences, not the technology we are using.

Analyzing Technology Integration Professional Development Workshops

2006-09-26T09:22:00.000-04:00

Where is your professional development focused?

What percentage of your professional development focuses specifically

on learning a subject area skill through technology?

learning a new software program where most of the focus is on the program?

(Time each part of the workshop and then look at how much time is spent on learning the program and how much time is spent in talking about student learning, seeing examples of student learning, or developing classroom materials)

What percentage of your professional development focuses on why this is important to the students' learning, supplies numerous real student examples and shows multiple ways to improve a given content skill through this technology?

What percentage of your professional development focuses on the teachers developing specific material for their classroom? (The lower the number, probably the least likely they will use it.)

What percentage of your professional development focuses on implementation issues? (If a workshop does not help teachers to foresee possible problems then if teachers have a problem, they may stop using that technology.)

Does any workshop that deals with a specific technology only teach the most commonly used classroom aspects of the program and start with the most commonly used one first? (People falter in their focus very quickly if they do not think that what they will be learning is useful to them in the classroom.)

Top 10 reasons not to use professional collaboration program

2006-09-20T09:36:00.000-04:00

10 I don't have time to check the online site since I'm too buy creating materials.

9 My stuff is not good enough to share.

8 I don't want anyone else using my great writing technique.

7 I've heard that blogs and other collaborative programs like that have porn so I'm staying away from them.

6 Othere subject area teachers don't teach like I do so their materials or ideas won't help me.

5 I've used the same materials for the last 20 years and I won't change now.

4 I have all the transparencies I need.

3 Once I close the door, it is my private world.

2 I am an expert in my subject area.

1 My students like to listen to me lecture each period.

A Shakespeare Play in English Class: Then and Now with Technology

2006-09-15T08:05:00.000-04:00

I grew up in a text based school environment. We read Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream word by word, line by line, page by page, scene by scene. I struggled just to understand what was happening, let alone the themes of the play.

Today's students can

	Listen to the play as read by professionals
	Watch commercial products on DVD
	Watch parts of local productions' emovies of it
	See pictures of how various directors “dress” a character to portray the character
	Do an online text analysis to see which theme words show up where in the play
	Make an emovie about their interpretation of the play
	Take pictures of students doing poises from various scenes
	Use concept mapping to compare MSND with another play such as Man of La Mancha
	Find poems online that have a common theme and compare them
	Have a videoconference panel discussion with other classes about how well MSDN relates to their own lives
	Read blogs about various interpretations of the play
	Make a 1 minute movie version of each scene
	Download the text of a scene and rewrite it as if based in the school or someplace in the community
	Compare their acting out of a scene with that of another class in a distant location with videoconferencing
	Interview an actor or director who has done MSND via videoconferencing

Most of these technology-infused activities allow the students to be fully engaged and to be doing higher level thinking. Are English teachers in your school text based or technology based? You can use the first column as a check list. Teachers can help their students to better understand any play through technology.

Analyzing Visuals in School Learning and Promoting Elmo and Smartboard Use

2006-09-13T08:52:00.000-04:00

I have been a fish on dry land during all of my schooling. I am a visual learner in a non-visual learning environment. I took notes and more important, drew symbols or shapes, to help me “see” what the teacher was saying. I can remember only a few subjects or courses in which visuals were used (not counting Friday Social Studies movies). In classes that did visuals, the visuals were often used to decorate the written information. Teachers did not use visuals as the primary source to communicate information.

As I reflect on my experiences in public education, I realize that the amount of visuals that are used in schooling is inversely proportional to the grade level. The greatest number of visuals are used in the lowest grade levels. Likewise, the least amount of visuals are used in the highest grade levels. The graph represents my view of the use of visuals in education.

Why do written materials carry more meaning in education than visual materials?

Teachers can use devices like an Elmo or a digit camera hooked up to a projection device to show visuals in the classroom such as students' drawings of a scene from a story, a handful of different seeds that student groups sort as the other students watch, having student groups show the similarities between different geometric shapes, and combining hand drawn webs to show the big view about a country. Teachers and students can use a Smartboard or equivalent to make learning more visual.

Please help your students to “see” your content and express their answers visually.

Better Learning and Expressing of Learning through Visual Literacy

2006-09-07T17:24:00.000-04:00

Our cave ancestors were visually literate; their lives depended on how well they could visually read the world around them. Today our students are visually literate within their world of “electronic images” such as TV, videogames, and the Web; they want to be visually literate in their school which is often devoid of visuals.

One major component of 21^st century skills is Digital-Age Literacy. This literacy consists of scientific/technological literacy; visual literacy; and cultural literacy. Visual literacy is the ability to see, to understand, and ultimately to think, create, and communicate graphically. Students can use images that are realistic or abstract. They can use an image by itself or any image with words or sound. They can use one image or a series of images. They can use visuals to express their voice, their views, and their conceptualization of a information. They can learn to read and express themselves from the knowledge level up to Bloom's evaluation level using visuals. They can work with visuals individually or in groups. However, the ability to read a visual depends on the student's background knowledge. We can help students to learn visually in school through providing them with a variety of images.

We can start with helping students learn to read and to express themselves with still a single visual. The students can:

Identify the basic content of the picture
Get information from the picture
Put an item into its context through a visual
Learn new words from visuals.
Analyze an image for its media impact
Depict the meaning of written materials through a created or chosen visual..
Write about a topic due to the power of a single visual
Analyze information from a chart or graph

When teachers and students use a series of visuals, students increase in their learning through in-depth analysis and understanding. A group of visuals may be in visual series where the main object and background change or visual series where only the main object changes. Studens can:

Tell a story through structured visuals
Write through structured visuals
Show changes over time using a series of visuals
Represent the many steps in a process or an event
Compare and contrast several images of the same event
Ilustrate the many different perspectives of a single event through many visuals
Show a discrepancy or misconception through multiple images.

Teachers can help students to read visuals from other cultures, countries, and time periods. Students can:

See up-to-the-moment images from a country
View many images rapidly to get a visual overview of a country's geography or of a topic
Compare how different cultures deal with the same event through visual comparisions
Contrast paintings of the same event from different time periods
Discover that a visual may look like one thing when really it is portraying something very different unless they know the culture or time period.

Teachers and students can obtain and produce visuals easily. They can use:

A digital camera or digital camcorder to record class, school, and community images
Inspiration like programs to create graphic organizers that consist of visuals
Word processor and insert graphics from the Web or from the digital camera
Use iMovies (Mac) or Window Movie Maker (PC) to produce their own movies.
Web sources such as Google.com and Flickr.com for still images
Web sources as a GoogleEarth for geographic images
Web resources such as Youtube.com for movies

Teachers can employ meaningful visuals in the classroom and can have students express themselves visually so that students can demonstrate their deep knowledge about a topic.

Some Resources:

http://flickr.com/creativecommons/by-nc-2.0/

Shows photos that can be used by students and teachers as long as they give credit to the authors (about 56,000 photos)

http://www.jakesonline.org/visual_lit.htm

Focuses on the use of Flickr

http://www.woophy.com/map/index.php

Allows students and teachers to locate images by geographical location

http://www.ivla.org/portal/intro.htm

Is the site for the International Visual Literacy Association

http://www.museumca.org/picturethis/visual.html

Has many visual literacy activities especially historical photos

http://k-8visual.info/

Demonstrates good examples for K-8

Assessment in Technology Rich Classrooms: Accountability through EPortfolios

2006-09-07T16:39:00.000-04:00

Educators can insure a comprehensive and an in-depth accountability of each student's progress toward specified standards through the use of eportfolios (electronic portfolios) that are a student's self-selected purposeful limited collection of evidence toward the progress of a standard.

Teachers realize that eportfolios show accountability since the eportfolios focus on the teacher, school, district, state or national standard. A ninth grade English teacher may structure the eportfolio around the four New York State English Language Arts Standards. The teacher decides which of the standards and which of the subcomponents the students will be responsible for.

Educators use eportfolios since they usually are very comprehensive. The New York State English Language Arts (NYS ELA) 11^th grade Regents may only briefly measure three out of four standards while an eportfolio can measure all four.

Not only are eportfolios comprehensive but they can show more in-depth work than a final or state benchmark. The NYS ELA Regents only four standards-based tasks. Based on the teachers' expectations, the students may have to include evidence of many different subcomponents of any one standard or they may have to provide several examples of a particular subcomponent.

Students develop life long skills in accountability as they do eportfolios since they select which of their work best document their own progress. The teachers select the standards and the subcomponents and the students select which of their many already done works or artifacts they will use for their documentation. The evidence is not prescribed by the teacher. Students are accountable for their own documentation and the selection of which work provides greater accountability for the students.

Students show their ability to understand their teachers' criticism of their work and to make the indicated changes in eportfolios. The students can demonstrate their changes through such techniques as a different color coding for their changes or by labeling their changes on the side of a project. They can do side by side comparisons of the original work and their thought-out revisions. They see their own growth in very obvious ways.

Likewise, students demonstrate accountability by reflecting on their work for each standard. Often students use a modified KWL which is KLW; they state what they knew before, what they learned about this standard, and what more they want to learn about it. Their reflections demonstrate their ability to be accountable for their own learning.

Some teachers use eportfolios as ongoing accountability during the year. Students periodically review their eportfolios such as on a quarterly basis to decide if they have better evidence for any given standard; if so, they put in the new evidence.

Students who know what they have to include in their eportfolio will see class work, assignments, and projects as contributing to a bigger picture of learning. They focus on the standards. They think of the quality of work they have already done and decide if they need to do better in future projects.

Teachers often use an eportfolio as a final since the eportfolio provides a comprehensive and in-depth accountability for the standards. This thorough assessment provides a better picture of student learning than an on-demand two hour final. Also, since the teachers have already seen the original work and the revisions, the teachers focus on the reflections to see what the students have identified as their learning and areas for improvement's students have already done most of the work, with the exception of the reflections, that will be included in the eportfolio during the year so their final task is to compile the eportfolio.

Educators usually include in the eportfolio template a summary page in which they provide a rating and brief comment for each standard for the student. This summary page provides the next year's teachers with a solid base line on the students' progress toward the standards.

Teachers have a choice about what eportfolio media they want to use. They can use general programs such as word processing, PowerPoint, webpages, or linking programs. They may want to use a non-commercial web-based eportfolio application such as SAKAI/OSP or they can might want to use commercial eportfolio programs such as LiveText or StreamTask. All of these programs will help provide student accountability.

When teachers start to use eportfolios in the class, they will want to start small with one standard and decide what different types of evidence they want to see. They will make sure that students do several different examples of these types of evidence as part of their regular classroom work or homework. They will show the students a completed eportfolio and model the reflection process.

Students do well on achieving standards when they have the accountability of eportfolios.

Visual Literacy: Solid Education or New Technology Focus

2006-09-06T08:39:00.000-04:00

I do many presentations and workshops on topics such as visual literacy. I am constantly amazed at how teachers want to hear about the newest and best technology but they do not want to hear about good educational approaches that involve technology. If I mention a new-to-them website such as a site that allows them to find pictures from various locations such as http://www.woophy.com/map/index.php there is excitement in their eyes. I hear an “Awww” from the audience. If, on the other hand, I show them how them how they can use digital images to develop higher level thinking in their students in their subject area, I see the boredom. They will admit that they have not done any of these in their classroom and that they did not know about scaffolding within visuals. They even admit that they did not even know of these uses but their eyes still gloss over as I go over the educational-based learning approaches to using visuals as I am using vivid images.

Visual literacy, particularly using visuals of all sorts to learn from and to express learning is such a rich area for the classroom P-university. Visuals can be used to teach new vocabulary(body parts for health), to clear misconceptions (is a trench a little curved area on the side of the road or a very deep hole used in wars?), to show concepts that are hard to understand (chaos theory abstraction vs shoreline from high above), to promote “what next” or “what if” thinking (two pictures and predict what will happen next) to show changes (a plant growing over time), to see current up-to-the-moment culture from another country, to compare two items (such as two flowers).

Create a visually rich learning environment that does not depend on new technology!

School Communication and Collaboration: A simple solution

2006-09-05T13:23:00.000-04:00

Recently I had an emergency trip to the hospital. I was infuriated when I was asked the same medical background question by five different people. There seemed to be a lack of communication.

I visited with a high school teacher who was bemoaning the lack of communication in his school. I thought back to being in a very small department and in a large department; both had a lack of communication.

Why do schools not use an online collaboration tool to communicate within the school? All announcements can be sent out and archived for future reference. All forms can be accessed at anytime. Surveys can be given out and the results instantaneously produced for everyone to see. Department meeting notes can be posted so that future meetings do not cover the same ground. Progress or lack of it on long term curriculum projects can seen easily. Teams can keep track of “at-risk” individuals more closely.

It is time to change the present school culture to be an information sharing and growing one.

Digital Camera and the Classroom Websites: Visual Learning Irony

2006-08-28T13:24:00.000-04:00

I have been preparing a presentation on using the digital camera to improve student learning in the various subject areas. I found tons of websites about the topic such as http://www.glenbard.net/Glenbard_North/pages/library/2005/services/audio-visual/help/digicam-sites.html

Most of them described a multitude ways in which teachers could use digital cameras.

However, I find it highly ironical that when a website tells about how teachers and students can use a digital camera in the classroom, it does not show actual photographs. If a website is emphasizing visual learning, then the website should use visuals! This seems to be the same as describing the Mona Lisa instead of showing her in an Art class. Imagine if a math teacher could not show students what a square or triangle looked like!

Students can be engaged in learning through digital cameras. Their abstact learning becomes very real when they have to demonstrate their learning. Students already know how to use cameras and probably the only thing for them to learn is how to reduce the memory size to make their PowerPoints or webpages

The following photograph taken in Tijana, Mexico can serve as

a writing prompt for descriptive writing for ELA students
a writing prompt for comparison writing (the man and the statue) for ELA students
an analysis picture for Social Studies students of the Mexican culture
a speaking prompt for Spanish students.

Online Collaboration Tools: Theory and Reality

2006-08-24T12:57:00.000-04:00

A university developed an online collaboration tool based on a constructivist framework. Instructors have used this tool for more than ten years. Recently an analysis of its use was done. The reality was that most instructors used it for students to submit their homeworks and some used it for online discussions. Most instructors did not grade the discussions and many of those that did grade tended to grade the number of entries in the discussion. Students did have a virutal shared work space in which to work on prescribed assignments. These uses do not reflect a constructivist envionment

A public school librarian told me about the blogs in his school. Again, they used an online collaborative tool mainly for students to post their thoughts on topics but with no interaction among the students. Each student got to put in one thought about the topic. The contents of the blog were not studied in class and the students were not tested on the content of the blog.

The question becomes “How can we promote in-depth learning through online collaborative tools?

Technology Integration Questions

2006-08-22T12:53:00.000-04:00

My position has changed this year so that I will be working with public schools in technology integation. I am excited since I have done this before about nine years ago. I will be interested to see how much technology integration has actually changed in P12 schools. I know that there has been an influx of technology into the schools and that the newer teachers know how to mechanically use technology.

The question is "How can I help teachers to improve student learning through technology?" I do many workhops and conference presentations for P12 teachers so I have some idea. There is a drastic difference between technology use and improving student learning through technology. Also, there is a drastic difference between improving student learning through technology and meeting school's goals through technology use. I have done many in school inspections where I analyzed technology inspection and student learning.

Some questions I have for myself for this year are
How closely related is the teacher's technology use to the stated student learning? It the particular use an effective and efficient one?
How many different technology use strategies do teachers employ in their class?
How many teachers want their students to interact with people from other states and nations so their students will be global students?
How willing are teachers to use data to measure student learning on a weekly basis?
How willing are teachers to change how the presently use technology if those uses are not focused on building or departmental goals?
Do teachers only focus technology use on the "big tests" or do they focus on 21st century skills?
How often do teachers model good technology use in their presentations?
How often is technology used to foster higher level thinking skills as opposed to lower level memorization skills?

Eportfolios with Comprehensive Proficiency, Artifact, and Caption

2006-05-20T10:58:00.000-04:00

I see students' proficiency eportfolios as a three legged stool for demonstrating the proficiency

The first leg is their ability to focus on the proficiency in a comprehensive way. When a proficiency has five different subparts and the students show a limited knowledge of the proficiency or only one or two aspects of the proficiency, then their stool leg does not support the proficiency.

The second leg is their artifacts or evidence that illustrates that proficiency. A picture of a student teacher administering an informal assessment is not as strong a support as a picture of the actual assessment.

The third leg is the captions that connects the artifacts to the proficiency. A caption such as “cooperative learning” is a weak support while “Engaging students in inquiry science through lung creation cooperative learning activity” provides a solid support.

Eportfolios Show Students' Proficiency Discrepancies

2006-05-13T15:26:00.000-04:00

Recently I watched numerous students show their eportfolios based on the university's proficiencies. I was very impressed with all the great activities the students showed. I was not impressed by how they proved that they could demonstrate the proficiencies.

In our proficiency on assessment, students will show: many different assessments; pre, during and post assessments; use of assessment data to plan for and adapt instruction for individuals with different needs and abilities; and use of assessment data to plan instruction for groups and whole classes

All the students showed that they knew many different types of assessments and they knew how to use pre, during and post assessments; very few students showed how they used the information gained from these assessments to modify instruction for individuals and to modify instruction for the whole class.

Due to the compact nature of the eportfolio, it was easy to see the discrepancy between knowledge of and understanding the real reason for assessment.

Videoconferencing in education: Students, Administration, Faculty, Community

2006-05-07T10:50:00.000-04:00

Students

Collaborate with students in other schools who are working on the same learning project such as pollution.

Peer critique students from another school who are working on the same standard.

Share an expert ( a university professor may work with students from several schools)

Take a courses within the school district (one AP teacher for the 10 students in one school and 13 in another). Likewise, take a course with other districts. One Latin teacher for several districts.

Do research by videoconferencing with experts in their universities, labs, business, or museum

Join a cultural celebration such as a

Have an expert assess your project. A corporate business person can review ads created by art students

Practice your new language with people from that language area.

Teach a topic to students from another school (no need to travel or to limit where the students are)

Attend class even if hospitalized or at home.

Do portfolio reviews where the reviewers are there via videoconferencing. Same for science projects reviews.

Inquire about a college by interviewing with a recruiter and students from that university.

Interview for a job in business.

District/Administration

Have many district wide meetings through videoconference so faculty do not have to drive to other distant schools.

Special Education Diagnosis can be done with experts from one location talking to a student in another location.

Interview teacher candidates or future administrators

Meet with lawyer or contractors.

See student or faculty Board presentations when the students or faculty are in a far away school.

Professional Development:

Provide professional development from one site to all the schools within the district.

Have a virtual expert teach a professional development even though she lives on a different continent.

View sample lessons using a specific technique. Teachers can watch a classroom teacher as he/she actually teaches using the technique; after class they can talk with that teacher.

Faculty:

Can co-teach a course over two buildings. Build on the strengths of both teachers.

Ability to interact “face-to-face” with teachers of the same subject area to plan a common course, lessons or assessments.

Community Events:

Sister school or sister community exchanges

For large areas, have videoconferences to bring all the people together to discuss a topic or celebrate a special day.

How do use technology to scaffold student learning?

2006-04-30T08:29:00.000-04:00

Jamie McKenzie's writing on scaffolding http://fno.org/dec99/scaffold.html

made me realize that there are two types of scaffolding: 1) to successfully learn a concept and 2) to climb up levels to more complex learning about a concept.

We can have students go to website in which they practice a certain math formula through breaking the formula into its subparts. The website scaffolds the process so that they can correctly use the math formula. The students have succeeded in learning the formula.

We can have students go to another website where they have to figure out which math formula to use and apply it to real life situations. If students want help (scaffolded learning), they can go to a section which asks them questions about each formula and its use. The students have succeeded in learning information at a higher level through the scaffolding.

Another image is between a web scavenger hunt for facts and a higher level thinking webquest in which students compare and contrast information.

How do we use technology to scaffold student learning? To learn the lower level of a concept or to explore the higher more complex level of the concept?

Videoconferencing's Purpose and Place in a Learning Unit

2006-04-20T11:42:00.000-04:00

The educators' academic purpose for videconference determines where the videconference fits into the learning unit:

an introduction to the unit
an activity during the unit
several activities during the unit
the main activity during the unit
the only activity in the unit
an end of the lesson summary
a follow up activity to the unit
and a special motivation.

So where do you place your videconference in your learning unit? Why is that an effective location? How does your assessment reflect that learning purpose?

Wiggins, Assessment/Feedback, and Technology Use

2006-04-18T08:12:00.000-04:00

Grant Wiggins stresses that teachers spend too much teaching and covering content and not enough time in assessing.

He asserts that good feedback systems

are quick and ongoing,

are contextual,

address individuals,

model desired behaviors,

are specific,

break tasks intosubparts,

provide multiple opportunities for retrying,

are descriptive,

include what learners did and did not do,

and have a shared vocabulary.

(Wilcox, John. “Less Teaching, More Assessing” Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development Education Udate Feb 2006 Vol 48-2, 1-8)

So how do we build these features in when technology is used? For example, how do we include these feedback features when our class videconferences with another class or with an expert? Is the videconferencing about teaching content or about assessing students' learning? One way to answer that question is through a series of feedback questions:
How often is everyone assessed?
What type feedback is each person given?
If the answer is often and formative, then student learning is the focus.

Learning, Videoconferencing, and Assessment: Part 2

2006-04-05T09:06:00.000-04:00

Several people emailed me about my previous blog. They disagreed with my views:

Their points and my response:

1) Videoconference learning does not need to be assessed since it is simply one activity in a bigger unit. My response: How can you proceed in the students' learning if you do not know what they have or have not learned? Madeline Hunter was famous for her “monitor and adjust” as critical part of the learning process before students could move on in their learning. Frequent embedded assessment is a major issue in education now.

2) The students' discussion during the videoconference shows that they understand the topic. My response: How did you assess the students' individual comments and questions during the discussion? Did everyone participate? At what higher level of thinking? Or did you get “a general feeling” about the understanding of the topic from those students that volunteered?

3) When students enjoy something such as the videoconference, they learn better. My response: I do not disagree that students enjoy videoconferencing. I want to see tangible learning results rather than just smiles. I have no problem with affective learning is that is the stated primary purpose of videoconferencing. How will you measure their emotional responses?

4) They learned so much about other students' culture through the videoconference. My response: Wonderful. Was that a major goal of the project or did it just happen? If it was a major goal, than how did you structure the videoconference to increase global awareness? What cultural attitudinal changes did you want to happen?

5) They learned so much factual information. My response: Couldn't they have learned the same amount through a good encyclopedia entry or an educational “movie”? I would hope that when we bring experts into the classroom, they can help our students to use higher level thinking skills in that topic.

Videoconferencing and Learning: Candy or Carrots

2006-04-03T08:28:00.000-04:00

Candy or Carrots

Sweets or nutrition

Melting in mouth or crunching and chewing

Instant pleasure or body nurturing over time

Sugar high or slowly building up

Do educators see videoconferencing as candy or carrots?

I'm been researching articles and websites for some chapters I'm writing on videoconferencing. I found tons of candy: “My students really enjoyed it”, “They liked seeing the elephants”, and “My students learned a lot about videoconferencing.”

Only a few of the articles and websites even mention the carrots of learning. Occasionally, there are questions like “Did this videoconference meet your educational goals?” There are many general statements like "My student learned so much!" The detail or proof is very sketchy. "We predicted what would happen." Did someone check each student's prediction or did some students volunteer? Was a whole group assessment done?

Do educators in your educational institution use videoconferencing as candy or carrots?

How can you decide? Assessment is the key.

Do your educators assess the learning from the videoconference immediately or the next few days?

Do your educators have students do follow up performance tasks based on the videoconferencing? Do they assess those tasks?

Eportfolio: Student Accoutability and Student Choice

2006-03-30T09:22:00.000-05:00

“As future teachers, we want you to be decision makers in your own class.”

“In your pre-service teaching eportfolio, you will include the following assignments.”

“We believe in constructivism.”

“Put these things in the boxes in your electronic portfolio.”

“You are to include these five assignment.”

“I have another assignment that I know better shows my ability to assess students based on my placement.”

“Tell why these prescribed assignments are meaningful to you.”

“You told me to do them; they do not have any meaning for me.”

“Reflect on why you included this assignment.”

“You told me too.”

“Reflect on this assignment.”

Do you want how much I liked it or what I learned from it?”

“Show us many pictures of your placement.”

“I'ld prefer to only show a few with well chosen captions.”

“We've got a record of all your scores.”

“How do I show my passion for teaching and my love of students?”

Eportfolios: Digital StoryTelling and Proficiencies

2006-03-28T11:20:00.000-05:00

Joe Lambert and Helen Barrett emphasize the importance of digital storytelling. “A story can be as short as explaining why you bought your first car or house or as long

as War and Peace. Your own desires in life, the kinds and types of struggles you have

faced, and, most importantly, the number and depth of realizations you have taken

from your experience all shape your natural abilities as an effective storyteller.” http://www.storycenter.org/cookbook.pdf

What is the role of digital storytelling and proficiencies?

A story focuses often focuses on a critical revelation or turning point about yourself.

For example, a student would be high in storytelling and low in proficiency based if she tells of the sadness of leaving her placement. She might tell about the great relationship she developed with students from another culture when she started out afraid of them.

Another student may be high in proficiency and low in storytelling if he shows how he did several prescribed subproficiency.

Storytelling and proficiency can be combined. Charlotte, a pre-service teacher, tells the story of how she realized in her placement that Jose was not doing well in school due to his writing skills. She tells of how she noticed that he seemed dazed everytime he was given a writing assignment and how he struggled for a while and then gave up. She relates that she wanted to help him. She describes several classroom writing assessments that she has used and desribes how she analyzed those assessments to find out more about the students in general and Jose specifically. Her pivotal moment was when she discovered Jose's lack of organization in writing. She tells of how she worked with Jose and a few other students to use graphic organizers on the school's computers and notecards at home. She shares Jose's ups and downs in dealing with organization. She shares her joy at seeing Jose begin to organize his ideas and notices how he seems so less stressed over the writing. After many weeks of work, Jose hands in a well organized writing assignment and Charlotte is so excited and happy for Jose. Charlotte has told a story and at the same time demonstrated several proficiency such as those for Assessment (knows of several different assessment, uses pre, during and post assssments; informs classroom learning based on assesssments).

The big picture of student learning: Eportfolios

2006-03-10T08:56:00.000-05:00

a few pebbles from a beach

three city lights

a pen and a piece of paper

None of these tells the whole picture. Most teachers' tests and quizzes focus on a discrete part of the curriculum and often those assessments focus on the most easily measured but not the most critical parts. For example, a teacher may give a quiz on A Midsummer Night's Dream that has the students identify what actions the major characters did in the scene but the teacher does not ask how that characters' action illustrate a major theme in the play.

Students can present the big picture of their learning through eportfolios as long as the eportfolios do not chop up the learning into tiny pieces. In most assessments the tiny pieces do not create a combined whole; they are a holding tank of tiny discrete items. For example, some learning institutes (K12 schools and universities) have picked certain proficiency subparts to measure. A proficiency may have four parts – A, B, C, D. The students do each part but they do not show how they four parts become the whole proficiency. The dots do not connect.

When students focus on the big picture of their learning (the whole proficiency) such as how they show that they can critically analyze literature (ELA Standard 3, New York State), they can show many different kinds of critical analysis. They can show examples from poetry analysis, from watching a play, from comparing two novels, and from their feedback on another student's writing.

Go from a microscopic view of learning to a wide-angle lens of student learning.

It's about teaching, not technology!

2006-01-26T15:43:00.000-05:00

Technology is only an amplifier of teaching. If a teacher is a good teacher, then when he or she uses technology than that teaching is amplified. If a teacher is not an effective teacher, then when he or she uses technology that ineffective teaching is amplified.

“All technology is an amplifier...and what happens when you give a bad guitar player a bigger amplifier? Ouch!” Mr. Big as quoted in Ohler's blog.

We should focus our efforts on good teaching, not on technology. We are spending far too much time and money in technology training; we need to spend much more on improving teaching.

Our leaders should be educators, not technology gurus.

State Benchmarks, Weekly Data Collection, Life long learning

2006-01-20T12:13:00.000-05:00

The other night I was on a conference call with people around the state. I heard the comment about how much testing is being done in school and how much data collection is being done. Several people felt that collecting the data (taking state benchmarks) was interfering with instruction.

I have several reactions to the statement.

1) If we give benchmarks once a year, then we are only collecting a snapshot that probably is not a big enough picture to inform instruction. For example, for students to write two essays in three hours in an English Regents means that each essay is really a draft, not a finished product.

2) The benchmark results are transformed into data that is supposed to help improve instruction. However, with most benchmarks, the students in that year's class have gone to the next grade level; the data should go to their next year's teachers, not the present year's teachers.

3) Teachers need to build formative standard-based assessments into their weekly instruction so that as they assess part of the state standard, they can build in adjustments (Remember M. Hunter's Modify and Adjust?) I believe that unless we do this on a weekly or very regularly basis, then we will not truly improve student learning. Cramming at the end is not educationally sound. Gradually improvement (building on success) is sound.

4) Teachers need to have students collect their own data on how well they are doing. For example, how many students monitor their vocabulary strategy to see if it is effective for them? How many students monitor the words they write in a daily journal to see if they improve on the quantity of the writing (getting in the zone)? I have done both of these and find that students like to be able to monitor their own learning and make improvements. Sounds like life long learning to me ( I remember when that was a purpose of schools.)

Proficiencies, Eportfolios and OSP

2006-01-20T12:07:00.000-05:00

The School of Education students had a much more in depth Proficiency Portfolio which they had put into the Open Source Portfolio (OSP) system. The students included a narrative, a statement explaining how they demonstrated the proficiency, many artifacts of their public school students' work to demonstrate that proficiency, and a reflection on their growth in each proficiency.

This semester three faculty reviewed in depth each students' eportfolio and gave a rating to each part of the portfolio that they reviewed. The faculty accessed the eportfolios from their home or office. In addition, many faculty met to discuss the students' portfolios after they had looked at the students' portofolios individually.

For the first time there has been an in depth review of the students' eportfolios by multiple reviewers.

The students in School of Education will continue to build on their previous eportfolios as they go through the School of Education program. Each semester the students show greater progresss in the School's proficiencies.

Eportfolios Public Presentations and Review

2006-01-16T12:06:00.000-05:00

In December, students in the School Of Education's Undergraduate Inclusive program of Block 1, Block 2, Student Teaching and the Graduate Elementary program used electronic portfolios to demonstrate their progress in the School of Education's five proficiencies. Those proficiencies consist of Critical Reflection and Explanation of Practice; Content knowledge; Inclusive and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy; Assessment of Student Learning; and Professional Conduct and Collaboration.

The students presented a brief overview of their portfolios at Public Portfolio presentations that Supervising Teachers, university faculty and teacher preparation students attended. Students from Block 1, Block 2, Student Teaching, and Graduate Elementary saw a condensed verision of each other's eportfolios. Those students in the beginning of the program could see the high level that the Student Teachers had achieved in the proficiencies. The Student Teachers could see their own proficiency progress as they watched eportfolios from earlier blocks.

Those attending the presentations gave some feedback to the students. All the reviewers gave written feedback and most also gave oral feedback. The reviewers asked for clarifications, probed for more details, gave suggestions for improvement, and offered praise with specific reason.

Dependent or Self-Sustaining Technology-Infused Learning

2005-12-14T14:39:00.000-05:00

I heard a state education leader talk about a school district that once was considered to be a national model. The district had an abundance of the newest technology in each classroom. Teachers were doing exemplary technology-infused learning. The superintendent left the district and within a few years, the technology emphasis became minimal.

In a school building, there was a computer lab assistant who created powerful learning experiences using a wide variety of technology. When he left for a teaching position, his replacement taught keyboard and word processing skills. Now very few teachers do technology projects.

It is good to analyze your building and district for the people who are the leaders in using technology. If a key person left, what would happen to technology use in your building or district?

Have teachers embedded technology-infused learning activities into their curriculum so that they are self-sustaining and even constantly improving? Or is technology use dependent on people outside the classroom?

Industrial to Information Age or Status Quo

2005-11-28T07:56:00.000-05:00

Technology as Ecosystem

2005-11-26T10:53:00.000-05:00

Recently I heard Alan November and Will Richardson talk about new technology tools such as flickr, fliction, skype, furl, etc. Yes, they were enthusiastic about them. Yes, they gave an example of how each could be used in education. However, I wonder how widely accepted and used these technologies will be.

I thought of a speech I had heard about technology as part of the ecosystem of schools at the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education 16^th Annual Conference. (Can't remember the speaker's name but here is an article on it) The speaker argued that technologies would be accepted by educators if they easily fit into the existing ecosytem of the classroom. Those technologies that do not seem like a natural fit or the usual way of doing things will not be accepted. If a technology disrupts the usual way of doing things, then that technology will probably not be accepted.

I think of all the technologies that we have introduced into the ecosystem of schools in the last ten years. Two technologies stand out, to me, as being the most easily accepted and commonly used in the classroom. Teachers find that PowerPoint is just like writing notes on the chalkboard except that it is electronic. It is easy for them to accept the idea of PowerPoint and to use it in the classroom (except for needing a projection device!).Using PowerPoint was an easy adoption. They simply put words on a screen and show it to the students.

The other technology that has caught on the most, in my opinion, is the use of United Streaming, a wonderful service of the PBS stations. As soon as teachers see this technology, they instantly “get it,” understand how to use it in the classroom, and begin to use it almost immediately. For teachers this is an online version of the movies or TV shows that they used to show in class. I did hear a Social Studies teacher say that he was glad that they had the whole movie instead of having to show the smaller instructional blocks of the same movie.

Just because the technology is easily accepted and is used in the classroom does not mean that it is transforming learning in the classroom. Those easily accepted technologies continue old ways of learning. We need disruptive technologies that shake up the education ecosystem.

Misconceptions About Learning and Technology

2005-11-19T18:31:00.000-05:00

I just read Robert J Marzano's Building Background Knowledge for Academic Success: Research on What Works in Schools (ASCD, 2004). I appreciate his blend of theory and practice. One school gives a daily reading tip based on Marzano. Marzano points out the misconceptions that we have about vocabulary learning. He shows that word frequency it not a valid indicator of knowing a word since jellybean occurs very rarely but it is easily recognized by readers. Also, he demonstrates that giving a definition of a word does not lead to knowing what a word means; student have to translate that word into their own meaning. Furthermore, he shows that assuming that students will learn vocabulary by simply reading more is not valid; unless they encounter the same word in different contexts, they will not understand the word.

A science friend says that his students have more misconceptions that solid conceptions about science.

I wonder what misconceptions we have in education and technology?

Maybe it is a misconception that we teachers....

Know more about a topic than our students can easily find on the Internet?

Can explain things more clearly than a Internet website can?

Know more about how to integrate technology into our classes than our students do?

Think that the written word is exciting to today's multimedia students?

What other misconceptions do you have to offer?

Still Trying to Transform Schools... Hopefully With Technology

2005-11-12T10:49:00.000-05:00

Alan November has a wonderful speech on the need to transform schools. He convincingly cites many business examples of Friedman's The World is Flat. (MIT has a movie of Thomas L. Friedman giving a speech on his book.) Alan gives examples of how some schools are transforming to meet today's world. Alan urges all schools to change.

I thought of Alan's speech as I was going through some old books. I found one from 1989, Anne Lewis' Restructuring American Schools (Arlington, VA: American Association of School Administrators). I remembered that the New York State Association for Computers and Technologies in Schools (NYSCATE) had a “Restructuring & Technology Newsletter” for numerous years. Each of these had convincing arguments as to why and how schools should change.

As I began to think about the 1989 restructuring movement, I thought about the most famous example of why schools should change. A wonderful fable called “The Saber-Tooth Curriculum” by J. Abner Peddiwell (a.k.a Benjamin Bloom) tells about a curriculum that no longer served the needs of the school; tiger-scaring was a critical element of the curriculum even though there were no longer tigers to scare. His powerful 1939 tale could be told today. Unfortunately, this witty tale did not cause schools to change their curriculums.

Are schools finally ready to transform? Is technology going to be the catalyst or tipping point to make it happen? Do we show our colleagues that technology allows their students to work with students in other parts of the world just as easily as working with a class next door? Social Studies students can email paragraphs on what freedom means to students in other countries and those students can react. Science students can videoconference about erosion in the local geography of a place thousands of miles away. English students can use Skype to talk with students in other countries about a common theme such as discrimination in The Chosen. Math students can create web pages comparing local prices of common foods with students in other countries.

Transforming Schools...Hopefully, it will happen through technology.

A Flickr Fliction: Not Bright Enough for Me

2005-11-02T15:52:00.000-05:00

A Flickr Fliction: Not Bright Enough for Me

When I started teaching Spanish in 1968, I used transparency pictures for class writing, conversations, oral comprehension and quizzes on a daily basis. (The overhead was a new technology back then!) Yes, it was a big pain to find the right picture from magazines or newspaper and then to make transparencies of the pictures. Yes, sometimes the transparencies melted (cheap transparencies and hot overhead machines). Also, I used a slide projector to show cultural pictures that I had taken in Spanish speaking countries. In 1975, I wrote an article (“Using Visual Material in the Foreign Language Classroom” Learning Resources, Vol 2-5 ,Feb. 1975, 9-13) on improving students' language and cultural skills through fifty uses of visuals in the Foreign Language classroom. In addition, I mailed (not emailed) pictures of our area to students in Spanish speaking countries who asked us questions about our area. I made handouts of pictures for students to use in a variety of group activities within the classroom.

The basic educational concept has not changed throughout the years. Many students are visual learners and they react well to visual images. Can you say Millenial students? The students are engaged when visuals are used.

So, what would I like from Fliction? I want it to do more than I could do with the overhead, slides, handouts or mailing pictures. I want a more powerful learning technology. So far, based on the two presentations I have seen on Fliction, I have only seen one story attached to one specific picture and one comment on that writing. What about multiple stories to one picture? What about “continue my story” approach?What about two contrasting pictures to create higher level learning about a topic? What about a series of pictures showing a local community or topic? What about multiple comments to the multiple stories? What about a dialogue between the picture presenter and the story writer? What about writers role playing different people in the picture and having a conversation. For example, in above picture which I took are the two people happy or sad? What are they saying to each other? What are they saying about their location? How might the location represent their relationship?

Visuals are rich learning resources. I want students to have rich responses to them and to be able to respond to the pictures easily.

I'll wait for a better developed learning-embedded technology image than Fliction. I'll wait for a brighter use of technology to help students express their in depth ideas.

Millenials in Your Classroom

2005-10-27T20:13:00.000-04:00

Millenial Students

1979-1994

Multitasking

Highly engaged

Assertive

Know IM address, not phone number of friends

Globally connected

Accepting diversity

Technology connected

Constantly communicating

Creating and contributing

Goal oriented

Skilled information management

Wanting to make a change

Spiritual

School Classrooms

1700-2005

Singular task

Low engagement

Passively listening

No IM, not even email

Teacher only connected

Forbidden to communicate except when told

Limited class diversity

Computer lab technology

Do the worksheet goal

Little information to manage

Do non-relevant classwork

Prepare for work world

Are you millenial savvy?

Have you changed your classroom to accommodate them?

Will they learn in your classroom?

Based on

Mike Muir's The Millenials: Who They are and How They Learn

Luolo Hong's Millenials, Mayhem, and Miracles

The Millenials

Why do we have NETS when we don't have NEC (National Educational Curriculums)?

2005-10-26T08:44:00.000-04:00

I am amazed at all the partners that worked on or agreed to the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS). The list of partners is very comprehensive.

However, I am very concerned that so many partners could agree on National Educational Technology Standards, while the USA does not yet have national curriculums for English, Math, Social Studies, Science, Art, Music, and Physical Education. We cannot truly talk about technology integration in students' learning until we know the curriculum or stated purposes of subject area learning.

If we really believe that technology integration exists to improve student learning, then why do we have NETS when we don't have NEC (National Educational Curriculums)?

Let's have the same organizations come together and have them establish national curriculum that all agencies accept in the same way that almost all agencies, even down to the school district level, have accepted NETS.

I realize that each national educational organization such as National Council of Teachers of English/ International Reading Association has its standards but they are not acknowledged as the curriculum that all students in all states are to follow. I know that in New York I do not hear any P-12 teacher refer to the NCTE/IRA standards; they do refer to the “New York State Learning Standards” for English.

How can NETS be so prevalent when national curriculums are not? Is technology more important than curriculum?

Improving Teaching Skills Through “Technology Integration” Professional Development

2005-10-23T16:23:00.000-04:00

A school district hired me to do some professional development with its staff on the use of LCDs in the classroom since those teachers did not have LCDs in their classroom. These teachers would be sharing the LCD with a team or grade level. The technology director did not want his teachers to use an LCD just for lecture as some of them had done with the overhead.

I agreed to do the professional development as long as I could be creative. I changed the professional development from using LCDs to creating activities that engage students in high level thinking skills. Robert Marzano’s Classroom Instruction that Works. (ASCD, 2001) became my model. His research states that the technique of “similarities and differences” produces the greatest gain of any strategy in student learning, a 45% gain.

Each session I presented 15+ activities based on comparing and contrasting skills in their subject areas. Each activity involved high student engagement. I used the LCD as a catalyst for helping these 6-12 teachers to think differently about learning through the use of technology.

The Technology Director has arranged this professional development to be a series of sessions. After the teachers viewed and created some activities in the professional development session, I had the teachers try one technique in their own classrooms using the LCD and report on it the next session. As teachers reported their success with the short activities (developing the comparing and contrasting skill within one or two PowerPoint slides), other teachers commented that they wanted to modify the just presented technique for their classroom. One teacher acknowledged that she had not previously thought of using comparing and contrasting in her subject area and now she realized how easy it was. She had done three highly engaging higher level thinking activities when I had requested one to be done.

Many teachers will not go to “Improving Your Teaching” professional developments. However, each “technology integration” professional development can become an teaching improvement opportunity. The best way to improve how educators use technology is to improve their teaching skills first. As the teachers focus on high student engagement and higher level thinking skills such as comparing and contrasting, they use technology in very different ways than those who focus on low engagement and lower level thinking skills.

Do your “technology integration” professional developments develop teaching skills or technology skills?

Learning or Technology First?

2005-10-19T15:36:00.000-04:00

I am fascinated with inconsistencies between concepts and talk in terms of learning and technology. I have conducted many interviews about learning and technology in classrooms with K12 teachers.

I have noticed that many educators say that technology is only a tool and that learning is the true focus. I often hear statements like “I concentrate on their classroom learning not their technology use” or “I don't care about the technology, I just want them to learn math.”

Then the educators go on to describe what their students do in terms of learning and technology. I usually hear statements like “My students use PowerPoint to show the decline of Spain,” “They searched the web for information on plants in space,” “I have my students take digital pictures to show the steps in their lab,” or “My students use email to exchange math problems with students in France.” Their words show a different focus. I notice that in each statement the technology comes first and then the learning. “My students use PowerPoint to show the decline of Spain” has a different focus than “My students show the decline of Spain through PowerPoint.” Often the educators' words show that they are still fixed on the technology.

The vast majority of teachers place the technology in the front part of their sentence and then the learning afterwards. Frequently, when I ask about learning and technology in their classes, I just hear the technology such as “My students search the web” without any indication of the specific subject area learning. I do not feel an educational focus in such statements about technology.

Sometimes I hear myself talking about learning and technology and I notice that I have put technology first. I usually stop and rephrase it instantly. I want to focus on student learning. Listen to how other educators describe learning and technology and see where their real focus is. Listen to professional development presenters or professional speakers and hear where they focus really is. What is first in your statements and theirs – learning or technology?

Deliberate Learning and Technology

2005-10-17T11:46:00.000-04:00

In July of 1978 I saw a demonstration of a desktop computer (a Radio Shack TRS 80). Immediately I thought of ways of using it in my middle school Spanish classroom and so I bought it. However, I quickly learned that I had to program it; there were no commercial programs. I had to decide whether the student learning was worth my time in creating the individual programs. As I thought of each lesson that I was going to teach, I would decide if the computer was a useful tool for presenting or testing information. I found that I could develop meaningful vocabulary, grammar, written conversation, and cultural lessons. Once I decided to use the computer for a specific lesson, I had to be very precise about what I wanted the students to learn, how they would be quizzed, and then how I could structure the learning activities for students' success; today we call it Understanding by Design. Then I would write the computer program for that lesson.

I included the computerized lesson as one of the learning stations in my Spanish classes. Usually the computerized lesson provided a follow up to the previous day's introduction of a new concept or it reviewed a topic covered the past week such as vocabulary. Students would huddle around the computer; they took turns answering the questions. If a student was not at the keyboard, he or she wrote down his or her answer before the keyboarder entered the answer. Students were thrilled by the computer program since they knew instantly whether they were right or wrong. If the keyboarder was incorrect, then the computerized lesson provided some remediation. I felt like I had a partner in the room.

Structuring student learning for success through technology was a laborious yet rewarding task for me. Now, as I visit classrooms in many schools and have pre-service teachers report on their supervising teachers' classrooms, I wonder how deliberate teachers are in helping students to be successful learners through technology.

I find that many teachers have their students use technology since the teachers can use the technology with very little effort. On the other hand, I have found that some teachers' technology embedded learning activities result in much classroom time and little subject area learning. I feel that sometimes there is a disconnect between the selected learning and the students' specific technology use.

If teachers can be more deliberate about the specific learning they want for their students and how they will assess that learning, they will create appropriate technology embedded learning activities that allow their students to be successful learners.