The highly anticipated first-day of school in the brand new Fort Couch Middle School has arrived! So it begins . . . the trepidation was palpable, and I”m not just talking about the 7th & 8th graders lost in a brand new and at first confusing building. “So it begins” was the status update on a few of the teacher’s GChat accounts today. Even the most veteran teachers felt like they were starting a new job, with a whole new layout, uncertainty about the availability of some of basics that we take for granted. We all survived day one in the new school, and I imagine that it will only get smoother as we go on. Though I’m pulling for A/C tomorrow!
I’ve been appending a series number to my posts since the beginning of this new school year, wondering how long I can keep this up. I would love to blog about something each day, and so I suppose it is time to count up the number of workdays that I could blog in the 2010-2011 school year. Well, the school calendar saved me the trouble of counting them up. Teachers work 197 days this year, while 183 of those will be student days.
With over 75 brand new Promethean Boards in our new building alone, and around that amount going into the other middle school, today’s six-hour training gave both an instructional overview of the tools and the time and collaboration with subject-area colleagues on developing content for instruction in the coming year. This is the model that teachers are always clamoring for, we need time! This will be followed up at a number of points throughout the year as we use faculty and further in-service time to collaborate on technology integration with colleagues. It was well received by the staff. I had the pleasure of participating in a session led by two colleagues of mine, Pat Corr & Brad Wilson. They took on the task of mastering the basics of the Promethean Board in a short time this summer, and becoming comfortable enough to share that knowledge with the staff. Well done to them.
The German Room is starting to look a lot like a classroom, if not quite a German classroom. Like any new construction we are implored not to put anything on the walls. Where did these people go to school anyway? I’ve nearly been squished by various construction equipment on my way into the building, so here’ s to hoping for safe passage next week.
Recently I had the opportunity to to take the Gallup survey that is at the heart of the Strengthsfinder 2.0 book as part of a professional development session about individualization and personalization. The concept was that to knowing something about your students helps you to tailor instruction to them, and experiencing that firsthand was a first step toward driving that message home.
The test consists of 122 questions in rapid-fire succession. You have to choose, on a Likert-like scale which of two options best describes you as a person. Though sometimes I wanted to choose both, or neither. In the end, I was amazed that the result was as accurate as it was! Each person who took the survey got a custom 22-page report with in-depth analysis, ideas for action and case-studies that are eerily familiar.
We also looked at and continue to explore tools for students to use for similar feedback. There are plenty of surveys about learner styles for older kids and adult learners, but not much online for younger students to use. As we strive to individualize each student’s experience and learning, what are some of the best tools out therefor gathering this type of data?
The first emerging technology as it regards education is the ubiquity of connected mobile computing devices among students. At USC this is especially true among our students. Middle school students that I casually poll often show near 100% own an iPod (brand) device, and increasingly they report owning an iPod Touch, and beg incessantly for the wifi password so that they can get online during (before and after) the school day. Without any formal data on the subject, I would hazard a guess that over 90% of students have a cell-phone with a texting plan of some kind by 8th grade and more and more seem to report having a 3G internet enabled Smartphone like an iPhone or Android (Google) Phone.
The report considers mobile computing to include smartphones, netbooks, smartbooks, laptops and other more specialized devices that can access the internet via WiFi or 3G Data networks. “Users increasingly expect anytime, anywhere access to data and services that not very long ago were available only while sitting in front of a computer linked to the network via a cable.“ Additionally, as more and more services are moved into the “cloud”, students need regular access to the network to manage their personal data, share and collaborate with other students, all on the move without having to check into a static workstation.
This increased ubiquity of mobile computing devices presents its own set of opportunities and challenges for K-12 and post-secondary institutions. Just take a look at how many of my Top 13 Tech Tools are cloud-based or dependent on connectivity to the internet.
Opportunities:
One of the items in the strategic plan is to investigate the feasibility of a one-to-one computing environment in our school buildings. I would argue that we are probably a lot closer than we think to one-to-one if we count all the devices that students are dying to use (for reasons both good and bad) but are prohibited. In USC many of our students are blessed with the financial resources to own and use these devices at home. Institutions of all kinds are doing all sorts of belt-tightening, probably not the opportune time to recommend the investment of many tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars on a new one-to-one initiative. Perhaps it is time to investigate some of the benefits (and risks) that could come of changing the rules somewhat.
Challenges:
We are still the cell-phone police in our school. The kids are just getting better at concealing their phones, illustrating just how important a life-line that these devices are becoming. It’s pretty obvious that kids are texting and using their phones during school. (How many parents walk in the office and say, “you don’t have to call her down, I texted her that I am here.”?) By banning the use of cell-phones during school-hours, but tacitly approving their concealed possession, we set up an unwinnable challenge. Obviously we don’t want kids yapping away on their phones in the hallways when they are en route to class, but just like we expect our staff to avoid playing Bejeweled during a staff meeting, there is an appropriate way to use these tools. Maybe that needs to be taught explicitly. For something like this to work we would need to actively educate students about the limits, etiquette and appropriate use of devices during the school day.
Additionally there are other technical, legal and equity challenges that present themselves. First, allowing hundreds of student devices on the network presents infrastructure challenges from the bandwidth and capacity of the system, to the challenges of verifying users as they get onto the network, and protecting against malicious software and viruses. Filtering traffic that we serve to students isn’t such an issue, but as wireless broadband access becomes cheaper and more ubiquitous we have no ability to filter the content viewed by students. Who is responsible for illegal or unethical content that comes across the phone company’s 3G service into the school building? Finally, the question of the haves vs. the have-nots. Would allowing the use of private devices come across as a message that we expect students to purchase a device for use in school? Would we be putting those that can’t afford, or don’t want to provide a device at a disadvantage?
Action Steps: Lets get some good data. Ask kids:
What classes of devices (and connectivity) do kids have access to?
How would they see their learning change if they had access to the internet whenever they needed it?
What would they suggest as reasonable controls on their use in the school?
The Horizon Report’s definition of Open Content is pretty broad, the coming of age of the “Internet as a global dissemination platform for collective knowledge and wisdom.” But in the K-12 world we know that there is “a lot out there.” But as educators we struggle sometimes with finding, evaluating and implementing what we find. Open Content means even more in the way it is presented in the report, including the use of open content for “learning for the sheer joy of discovery.” Isn’t that one of the main things we want to instill in our students, life-long learning?
Opportunities:
For most many disciplines, the Internet has provided an explosion of content (some great, some not so great). The problem is not the availability of the content, but rather the curation of that content. Open Content repositories are available in all kinds of disciplines. Some allow instructional resource sharing, evaluation, and commenting.
Challenges: Instructional materials are just the start. Do our students know where to look if they have a passion about something and want to learn simply of the joy of it? Do they know how to plan out and assess their own learning and truly be life-long learners? Are we ready for an era where a student asks to design a customized course of study as independent study in the arts (MIT offers free photography lectures and coursework), languages (Free Resources in 13 languages available through the Allegheny Library Network), or even a specialized science course?
Action Steps: Actually, we are already doing some of this in small pockets — using a blackboard course we have been curating curriculum relevant materials – a decent, but not the most collaborative approach to the project. I worry that our focus could get hung up on finding supplementary materials that back up the ‘sage on the stage’ instead of opening up venues for unexpected learning experiences. We should ask ourselves what it would take for us to become more open in sharing our own content instead of just consuming content. In today’s world we are all content creators, but just passive consumers.
This week, you will design two technology-based learning activities for your target group of learners. In the Learning Activities section of the wiki, find your page and post to it a description of two learning activities you design for your learners. Explain 1) your learning goal or what you hope to accomplish with each one, 2) describe the technology you will use, and 3) justify your choice of technology or technologies based on the cost, usability, and how well it addresses your learning goal. Provide links and descriptions of any Web-based resources you will use.
Activity A — Vocabulary Wiki Activity
(1) Vocabulary acquisition is central to all levels of language learning, and especially at the early stages, such as I teach at Fort Couch Middle School. In middle school German Classes it is easy to reduce units of study to lists of words to be memorized for the upcoming quiz. This is a dangerous area, as students are experts at rote memorization for an assessment, only to immediately discard all of that ‘learning’ as soon as the test is done
Additionally, students in my classes do not have a ‘textbook’ per se. Students know how to use online German-English dictionaries such as http://dict.leo.org but these results are often too ‘raw.’ It turns out that middle school students are pretty bad at using the dictionary to help them find German words. They can look up the meaning of German words with some success because they understand the context of the English words that are offered as meanings. When faced with the opposite scenario, students just grab at the first word that appears in the results, often using the word in the wrong context.
By using a student-generated wiki as a resource for content appropriate and previously learned vocabulary and grammar, students will be provided contextually appropriate definitions and examples of use that have been created and vetted by their classmates.
My learning objectives are:
Create a usable student generated reference
Find and correct errors in the wiki
Use “fair-use” content to enhance the vocabulary wiki entries
These objectives directly address the Communications Standard of the National Standards for Foreign Language.
COMMUNICATION
Communicate in Languages Other Than English
Standard 1.3: Students present information, concepts, and ideas to an audience of listeners or readers on a variety of topics.
CONNECTIONS
Connect with Other Disciplines and Acquire Information
Standard 3.1: Students reinforce and further their knowledge of other disciplines through the foreign language.
COMPARISONS
Develop Insight into the Nature of Language and Culture
Standard 4.1: Students demonstrate understanding of the nature of language through comparisons of the language studied and their own.
For each entry, students are required to provide the English meaning for their German word, provide relevant grammatical information (gender of nouns, stem-changing verbs if any, verb conjugation tables), a sentence using the word, and a fair-use picture to enhance the definition.
(2) For this project I use the Wiki tool that is included in the BlendedSchools.net delivery of BlackBoard. This wiki features an easy to use WYSWIG (what you see is what you get) editor, and an intuitive clean looking interface. By nature the wiki is a ‘walled-garden’ accessible and editable only by registered students.
Other tools used in this activity are: Online Dictionaries, Creative Commons image search, and class resources, either online or in the classroom. For teaching about what a wiki is and how it works, I use the instructional video: Wikis in Plain English by CommonCraft.
Since the wiki is included with the existing software, the cost of this learning activity is not an issue. Other free wiki websites are available for educators such as pbwiki.com or wikispaces.com.
(3) This activity addresses my learning goals above, only if it is regularly updated and used by all members of the class. Time must be dedicated during class for students to get into the habit of updating the dictionary and some sort of accountability must exist for such a project to take off in the classroom. At first, I offered extra-credit for students who contributed to the class wiki. I found that this resulted in high-quality entries, created by a few hard-working dedicated students, who frankly didn’t need the bonus points to begin with. When I required everyone to contribute a minimum amount, I found that there were many more errors, and as they ran out of new ideas, the entries became less and less contextually relevant. I feel that the latter situation is preferable, especially of part of the assignment is to find and fix errors in the the wiki.
Students, especially in my middle school, are not accustomed to this style of collaborative work, where everyone’s contribution builds value for the group. Working in a loosely structured group like this is a skill that needs to be taught to students.
Today one of my six 8th grade German classes (and a few who kids who I sprung from science & social studies classes to join us) spent about 15 minutes talking to SacschaDenzinger. I found Sascha a few weeks back when KDKA radio was interviewing Steelers Fans around the world. Sascha is the webmaster for PittsburghSteelers.de. I had not heard the segment, but one of my brilliant colleagues, Pat Palazzolo told me about it and suggested that I contact Sascha to try to arrange a contact with my class. She thought he sounded like someone who would have fun with it. She, as usual, was right. We split our conversation into a German Q & A session, followed by a bit of follow up in English. We talked about where he was from in Gemany, found it on the map & also talked about the Steelers chances in this Sunday’s superbowl, The kids were thrilled to make contact with an American Football fan in Germany and a steelers fan at that. Thanks to Sascha for the time and experience that he gave us!
I had hoped to record the segment to share on my BlackBoard class site, but somehow did not record the conversation properly. Better luck next time.
COMMUNICATION
