I’m not convinced about 1:1…

Those abreast of trends in education know the fervor with which traditional teaching is criticized. We should throw out our old models of desks in rows, sages on stages, empty vessel filling, and preoccupation with standards and test. I agree. Period. Let’s stop teaching like it’s 1955.

I shouldn’t have to mention it, but criticizing the current paradigm of education is not an attack on teachers or administrators. There are larger forces at play that make it near impossible for well-meaning educators to change things.

(c) Matt Arguello

I’m going to add another idea to the mix. I’m hesitant about the rush to adopt 1-to-1 programs. Here are a few of my thoughts:

1. Why is 1-to-1 better? Why not 1-to-2, or 1-to-3?
2. Wouldn’t one device for two or three students improve information literacy and access WHILE fostering real life collaboration?
3. Are devices becoming the new desks? With desks, students are isolated despite being in the same room.
4. Adults don’t share devices (generally, with good reason). Do we really need to give kids a head start? I don’t believe sharing devices will hamper students’ learning to use them. On the contrary, collaborative learning is often more efficient.
5. Many students have plenty of time to work alone at home. Must we really use precious school time for independent screen time?

Of course there are situations in which each student needs a device, typing essays comes to mind or other individual projects. I’m just not convinced we should be rushing into 1-to-1 use in all contexts.

As will all posts and opinions, I’m willing to be shown the error of my thinking. What good is a blog if one cannot think out loud and get feedback from others. What are your thoughts?

 

Time to think

Do you think instant retrieval of information has impacted students’ willingness to take time to think?

Kids are naturally impatient. That’s fine. Patience is learned and many adults don’t have it. But I wonder if students expect themselves to retrieve and process information as quickly as a computer does. In my math class students are often impatient with other when time is required to process a problem. Sometimes the student doing the thinking is pretty quick to say s/he does not know. I don’t think this is a new problem but maybe it’s being compounded.

We should remind our students that taking time to think is actually preferred to being reactive and providing instant answers.

 

Another awesome CUE conference

What is it about this time of the school year? It seems that every year as soon as Spring hits everything suddenly has more urgency. I suddenly realize that I’m running out of time to finish or start certain projects. Deadlines seem to speed toward me and it all just seems to pile up.

I’m convinced that CUE folks had exactly this in mind when they first decided to schedule the conference for mid-March. It’s the perfect time of year to give teachers that extra dose of motivation or inspiration to finish out the year.

CUE was awesome again this year. It was my first time as a speaker at the conference and it was a great experience to share my knowledge with attendees. For those keeping track, my session was entitled Imaging Basics Using Free Web Tools. I covered some basic techniques and concepts of imaging tools and how these tools can be used in different curricula. As a professional photographer I use Photoshop a lot. It’s a great tool and has almost limitless potential for creativity. However, it’s very expensive. Enter free web tools.

In the past few years many different web 2.0 tools that focus on image manipulation have sprung up. Lately, some of them have begun to rival Photoshop in terms of basic to moderate manipulation. If you’d like to check them out head over to AVIARY.COM or SUMOPAINT.COM. There are others but those are particularly good.

If you’d like to see my slides from my presentation they can be found at http://goo.gl/jxxQj. Additional resources can be found at http://goo.gl/023uh.

The sessions I attended were great as usual. Particularly useful was Bill Selak’s Improving Student Learning by Creating an Online Video Library. I have already started making short videos for my students. It’s actually quite interesting how easily video engages them.

 

Teachers are hungry. Reflections on #EdCampOC

After only a few years being an educator I’ve realized that one of the things that drew me to teaching was not only a love of learning but of sharing. To be honest, I am not very fond of delivering information beyond, “Hey, look! Isn’t that cool?”  The traditional top down model of instruction just doesn’t feel right. There is something powerful about discovery and going deeper, about making those new connections but in a collaborative manner. This isn’t really new. Educators have been saying for decades that the “sage on a stage” model is ineffective. So why is it then that most professional development is structured in this way?

Now I can honestly say that my experiences with PD have not been that bad. But from what I gather after speaking with many other teachers, it’s a scary scary world out there. I mean, are all-day PD workshops on how to use a textbook series really the best use of everyone’s time? And, who wants to sit all day and listen to someone speak anyway? Let’s discuss, debate, and learn together.

Enter EdCamp.

After months of planning by local educators, of which I was one, and community leaders the first EdCamp in California was a success. It’s difficult to describe adequately how invigorating EdCampOC was. But before I make an attempt it’s a good idea to explain what an EdCamp is.

An EdCamp is not a traditional education conference. An EdCamp is an opportunity for teachers from diverse backgrounds to meet up, break out into self selected sessions and learn together. Someone thinks of a topic they are interested in learning about, a note card is thrown up on the board to select a room and time and voila! Instant discussion.  No pre-selected agenda. Just organic conversation about education.

Now, I can spend time describing the day but that can be found elsewhere. Check out Dan Callahan’s post for a great account or see The Orange County Register’s piece on EdCampOC. One thing that cannot go unmentioned was the excellent staff members from The Children’s School in La Jolla, CA and their ingenious idea to bring some of their students to EdCampOC. The TCSLJ students were an articulate bunch of great kids who shared their various learning projects, school experiences, and their Urban Adventures study trips.

There are two primary observations I think are really worth sharing about EdCampOC. First, once the other organizers and I finished the basic setup of the day the event basically took care of itself. In other words, it took little effort to get the attending teachers into rooms to discuss and share. They were clearly hungry for collaboration. Attendees were quick to get to the rooms and often went over the allotted time.

Secondly, I noticed during the day that there was little talk of where everyone taught. I can’t help but think that this is indicative of a shift in education. We’re all educators and we’re an increasingly connected bunch. The traditional model of the self-contained, top-down classroom is on its way out. It doesn’t matter that I teach here and you teach there. We have the same goals and are therefore an enormous asset to each other.

So if you were at EdCampOC, or any other EdCamp, don’t forget the energy of that day. Hold on to it.

 

It’s how you present it…

This was interesting. I have two groups of 7th grade students. This week, we started learning Scratch programming. The first group I taught, I quickly introduced the software, gave them a simple task (figure out how to move their sprite up, down, left, and right with the appropriate keys). Almost immediately, some students were saying that it was boring and that it’s not like video games they know. I tried to explain that Scratch is pretty basic programming and that all video game makers start somewhere easy.

Contrast that situation with the next group. I showed them the video, How Video Games Are Made and gave them essentially the same task. They were a lot more enthusiastic about playing around with Scratch and learning to move their sprite. I think that seeing all the behind the scenes footage and all the work that goes into game making gave them a different perspective.

 

Emerson Quote

I really like this quote. It reminds me of something I read once that posited, “What if every day is a new lifetime?”

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Motivation and the work place [video]

I think this video based on Dan Pink’s talk has some really good points that apply to teaching as well. It’s also useful to think about motivation and students. Like adults, students appreciate autonomy in their learning and work. Thanks to my sister for passing this one on. What do you think?

 

The Natives Don’t Know Nothing

Thanks to the Langwitches Blog for linking to this article. If you haven’t already, add Langwitches to your bookmarks or RSS feed. You won’t be disappointed.

ReadWriteWeb.com has a brief article this entitled, “So-Called “Digital Natives” Not Media Savvy, New Study Shows” . The article cites a Northwestern University study on the media savvy of college students. If you know students, you won’t be surprised by the conclusions the researchers made. Most students cite a web sites search ranking as the primary reason for selection while researching a topic. A full quarter cite the fact that a site was ranked first as their ONLY criteria.

I’m not going to paraphrase the rest of the article. You can read it for yourself. But I think it’s important to say something here.

“Duh!”

If you work with students who do research, and I’m speaking mostly of middle schoolers and up, you see this all the time. The constructed dichotomy of “digital natives” versus “digital immigrants” is, in my opinion, only useful for about the first 30 seconds. Yes, natives can figure out how to use a program/site faster than immigrants. Yes, natives are more comfortable with technology. Yes, natives spend 99% of their lives in front of screen (not an actual statistic). But it basically ends there. It all comes down to comfort. Natives are more comfortable with diving right in. That doesn’t make them smarter, and it certainly doesn’t make them critical thinkers.

My point is I think these labels are at best outmoded and unhelpful. At worst, they threaten exactly what we educators are trying to do: nurture critical thinkers who don’t take everything at face value. Working under the assumption that because students know how to use technology they can therefore successfully navigate the internet for important, trustworthy information is flawed. This lets students off the hook for learning research skills and teachers for teaching them. Students learn to trust information simply because it’s easily accessible and popular.

So how do we rectify this? What is the best way to teach media skills? I’d love to hear what people think about this topic.

 

Teacher Reluctance to Learn/Use Technology

I just read two posts by Tom Whitby entitled No Time, No Funds and Digital Pointers? and was motivated to write on the topic of teachers reluctance to use technology. If you’re unfamiliar with Tom Whitby it’s worth the time (yes, you have some) to read through his posts. He’s a huge educational technology advocate and an asset to new and established teachers. His blog is at My Island View and he can be followed on Twitter at @tomwhitby.

As someone whose job is to help others integrate technology into their classrooms, I spend a lot of time thinking about the best ways of doing so. Do you “plant the seed” and occasionally water? Or do you hold their hand at each step? I’m naturally the kind of person that likes to figure things out or make them more efficient, so I tend to favor the seed approach. Until recently, my assumption has been that if you give teachers tools they will use them. It’s easy to fall into the trap of “I think this is so cool. Everyone is going to love and use this.” Not so. Those that would be inclined to adopt new tools would probably do so anyway. And those who would not be so inclined are not going to with a simple introduction and periodic checking in.

This brings up a very common problem among many adults, fear of technology. And to be perfectly honest, and blunt, I don’t get it. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people say things like, “I’m computer illiterate” with complete comfort and no sense of embarrassment. Now, it’s one thing for adults who are not educators to cling to their techno-illiteracy and it’s quite another for teachers to do so.

First of all, teachers are supposed to be models for students. One of the most important qualities we hope to instill in our students is lifelong learning.  This does not stop once we get to something that plugs in. In fact, it may be more important to demonstrate a willingness to figure things out when it comes to technology. For better or worse, our world is relying on technology more each day. If we don’t attempt to figure out how to work all this stuff we, at worst, place a lot of trust in those that do and, at best, risk being left in the dust.

I wish I remembered where, but I once read a comment to the effect of “Most of us don’t know how our cars work and yet we’re perfectly comfortable driving them daily.” Nobody’s expecting teachers to be able to tear down and rebuild their computers. But if you refuse to learn how to use them to help your students, what message are you sending?

Really, what message are you sending?

 

Teens and social media

There was an interesting article in the LA Times today on teens and social media. According to the article, there is a shift that is occurring in the way researchers are viewing the impact of social media on teens and children. Far from detrimental, the latest research is beginning to show that social media may actually be aiding in the psychological development of its young users.

In fact, children most likely to spend lots of time on social media sites are not the least well-adjusted but the healthiest psychologically, suggests an early, but accumulating, body of research.

The research is also questioning the very present fear adults have about online predators. Most teens are using social media to communicate with people they already know. The interaction with strangers is uncommon. In fact, many well balanced teens include their parents among their online friends, a practice educators should certainly endorse.

It’s an interesting article that presents a lot of important points for educators and parents. Read the full article here.