Reinvigorate your presentations

I have been reading some media theory recently (I know, I need to get a life!), and there is an interesting tread in the research that suggests we (that means humans) pay more attention to (that means we learn more from) novel presentations. This explains why PowerPoint was so well-received by students a decade ago, but why students yawn at those presentations today.

For educators, that means we need to continue to learn and use “the newest thing,” if we are going to continue to engage students with the ideas and information we teach. It also means that simply changing the format of a presentation may help students pay more attention.

One tool I have used to update some presentations that were getting tired is Prezi. After creating an account, users can create presentations that follow paths to different sections of a large canvas. Along the path, the user creates content (add text, upload images... typical presentation stuff). Navigating the Prezi (their name for a presentation) involves following the path and zooming in on the content.

Taking a presentation and making it into a Prezi does several things for teachers:

1) You get to revisit the content, update it, add new images, etc.

2) You get a more engaging product for your classroom.

3) You get to work at learning something new!

Visit Prezi

The World Wide Web is almost old enough to vote!

This images comes from Wikimedia Commons:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_Web_Server.jpg

In the December 2010 issue of Scientific American, you can find Tim Berners-Lee’s article entitled “Long Live the Web.” Berners-Lee is now director of the World Wide Web Consortium, but in 1990 he was working at CERN in Eurpe, when he developed the protocols and browsers that have since become the World Wide Web. His article in the new SA is introduced with a startling observation:

The Web is critical not merely to the digital revolution but to our continued prosperity- and even our liberty. Like democracy itself, it needs defending.

In the following pages, Berners-Lee reminds readers of the basic ideas upon which the Web was built, and also points out recent actions that may challenge those ideas.

Universality-- Because all content is based on the same protocols (hyper text markup language at it most fundamental level), any content can be linked to any other content. Consider this: Your middle school soccer team web site is as available on the web as any giant online retailer. Universality is one feature of the web that allows for innovation; anyone can create a service on the web that can then be connected and reconnected by anyone . Berners-Lee suggests that some of the social networks that allow information to be used only within the site is a threat to universality.

Open Standards-- The web is built using protocols and rules that are available to anyone to use without the need to pay anyone or seek any one's permission. Although you are free to create a model in which you use those standards and then charge for access to the model (membership driven web sites for example), you cannot sell the protocols. Berners-Lee uses iTunes as an example of a service that uses the Internet, but not open standards; access to the iTunes store is controlled by Apple.

Net-neutrality-- In recent years there has been a good deal of chatter about the rights of an Internet service provider (ISP) to make deals with content providers to provide preferential service. (Imagine a web where is was easy to get to Amazon, but hard to get to the web site of your favorite local book seller.) Berenrs-Lee points out this is contrary to the concepts of democracy, free-exchange of information, and science that created the web.

Intrusion-- Berners-Lee is very concerned about developments that allow (both technically and politically) for ISP’s to monitor what information you are accessing (once that information has been collected it can be bought and sold as well). So, your employer or your insurance company or your neighbor who does not  like you can find out what web sites you (or any one who has access to your connection) visit.

In our schools, we have some responsibility to protect our students and to ensure our web use is for the purposes of our institution. (It should be noted that this post is made on “cyberMonday” the day in which we use our work connections for holiday shopping!) So, we do have some rules and conditions on out web use that are imposed (quite reasonably) by our employers. At the same time, we need to make sure our students are exposed to the fundamental ideas that resulted in the web becoming the resource it is today.

Berners-Lee concludes his article by observing, “[n]ow is an exciting time. Web developers, companies, governments, and citizens should work together openly and cooperatively, as we have done thus far, to preserve the Web’s foundamental principles, as well as those of the Internet, ensuring that the technological protocols and social conventions we set up respect basic human values. The goal of the web is to preserve humanity. We build it now so that those who come to it later will be able to create things that we cannot imagine.”

Sure seems to me that educators have an essential role in ensuring this happens.

The article can be found on the Scientific American web site:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=long-live-the-web

Deeper Learning Principles

The sources of advice for educators to consult as the design curriculum and deliver instruction is expanding. In recent weeks, I have been interested in the literature for those who design online learning environments for higher education. Although I have been interested in this field for some time, it was not until I read a Instruction and Technology: Designs for Everyday Instruction that I saw just how informative this could be for K-12 educators.

In 2002, Colleen Carmen and Jeremy Haefner (see the link below) reviewed some of the then-recent research on human learning and articulated Deeper Learning Principles, explaining how these can be addressed through online classrooms. Their work still deserves attention not only because it does identify how online classrooms can be used to support education, but because they identify and define five Deeper Learning Principles:

1) Learning is social: Beyond "cooperative groups" or "having students work together," Carmen and Heafner point out that interaction between students and faculty and among students is key to learning. Feedback is example of social interaction in learning, but they remind us that rich feedback (that middle school educators have been doing for decades) is key.

2) Learning is active: Active learning depends on real-world and complex problems; simply having students "do projects" is not sufficient for active learning.

3) Learning is contextual: Contextual learning includes students' preconceptions and build upon their experiences, and becomes connected to and demonstrated within the students' worlds; as students learn, they add to their frameworks.

4) Learning is engaging: Students are engaged by diverse instruction, high expectations and challenge (but non-threatening!) classrooms.

5) Learning is student-owned: Allowing students to reflect on their experiences, plan for next steps, and organize and apply their learning all promote ownership of learning.

Most good middle school practitioners will see their classrooms as spaces in which these principles are realized. Of course, we sometimes need to be reminded of what we mean by these words, and we need to be able to point those who "talk-the-talk" but do not "walk-the-walk" to scholars who clearly and completely define the vocabulary we use:

Mind over Matter

Read Bill Ivey

Bill Ivey is a friend of NELMS who I have not seen in a few years. We are FaceBook friends, and he posted a link to his blog, specifically his post in which he suggests the familiar calls for education reform are (as Bill puts it) "so close and yet so far." All I can say is "right on," Bill. See what I mean by reading his post:

http://isenet.ning.com/profiles/blogs/so-close-and-yet-so-far

Finding Tech Help

In the most recent issue of PCWorld, I stumbled upon a column giving business leaders advice on finding good tech support. As I read it, I thought how appropriate the advice is for school leaders as well. (It is also unfortunate that we sometimes need to take this advice when dealing with those who provide tech support in our own buildings!)

The main points of that column that seem of particular importance for education leaders:

1) Look for tech support that focuses on the goals and activities in your building, not just on technology. Surely, there are differences between how we configure servers that must handle a large number of connections in a brief time (think of the connections established in the first few minute or two of a class period!) or a printer that must handle a large number of print jobs in a the last few minutes of class and the server in business that handle a large number of users, but in much different use patterns in business.

Consider also the unpredictable nature of educators' (and students') access needs. We need to be able to connect from many different places and have access to constantly changing information. In business, most users need access to the same resources every day. These are important differences that affect how educators design and maintain our information systems.

2) Make sure the scale of the technology is appropriate for your needs and your budget. Consider wireless Internet access. If your school does not have this yet, there are many ways it can be installed in your school. Managed wireless throughout your school may costs tens of thousands of dollars to install and ongoing maintenance fees (maybe thousands of dollars per year). A wireless access point can plugged into and existing Ethernet network and be configured in a matter of minutes for a couple of hundred dollars (a one-time fee). Of course, the capabilities of these two systems are much different. School leaders must understand the differences and make reasonable decisions.

3) Beware of buzz words and sales people. I am always happy to see school leaders at technology conferences, but I am worried when I see school leaders at technology conferences. What worries me most is when I see school leaders wandering through the vendors at technology conferences.

I understand technology is not within the area of expertise of many school leaders. I understand it changes too fast for many adult minds to understand (this is not in any way denigrating school leaders, it is a statement supported by much recent research). School leaders must look at this state of affairs, and find trusted and reasonable translators: someone who can communicate technology terms and products into education-friendly terms and someone who can translate educational needs into technology terms.

Poetry...

So I have spent my morning with a teacher and his English classes... they are beginning a unit on poetry. Our idea was to use YouTube videos of  poets (we choose to start with Billy Collins and Taylor Mali) reading their own work.

The teacher told me that kids seemed more interested and the students told us they were more interested in poetry with this introduction. We didn't make poets out of any that were not already, but we did use technology to engage kids to a greater extent than we would have without technology.

We are counting that as a small success... I'll take those everyday.

Everyone's favorite poem of the day:

Technology Acceptance

For the last two years or so, I have been looking at and thinking about the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and wondering how it can be applied to K-12 education. Basically, TAM says that technology that users perceive to be easy to use, useful, and used by others who are doing the same task will be more used.

Seems kind of a "no-brainer," that we should try to design our computer systems in schools to be easy to use, and useful, and widely used if we expect every teacher to use it (I know that seems redundant... but stick with me). Unfortunately, educators seem to have missed the boat on this one. The research in business and industry is full of thousands of articles in which TAM was used to measure people's perceptions of ICT systems. The research in education has maybe a few hundred.

I have been working to develop a tool that we can use to measure technology acceptance in K-12 educators (actually, I have been working on a slightly different model, but the idea is the same). Check out the details, including a draft of my current survey here... please note the survey has not been validated, but it can be used for action research... if anyone is interested in doing a pilot study and perhaps validating the survey, drop me a line!)

Research-- Let's use the term only when appropriate!

Recently I attended a meeting of a committee comprised of school board members, administrators, teachers, and a few community members. Our purpose is not important; I want to recount what happened and comment on how we need to be very careful about what we call research and how we handle professional information in today's digital world.

For our task, the committee needed a set of questions to evaluate some aspect of our school. Similar questions are used in schools all over then place and our task is a common one for education communities. When it came time to begin building our list of questions, a central office administrator stated "I did some research today, and this is what I found." At that point she distributed a collection of question lists she had printed from the Internet. The pages were complete with the poor appearance common when web pages are printed (the advertisements embedded in the pages were perhaps the best appearing sections of the hard copies she distributed) and the URL's and a date and time stamp (suggesting this "research" had been done minutes before the meeting started) were all on the photocopies handed out.

On first glance, this seems a reasonable action to take: We need questions and others have written similar questions, why not find what they have done? Well, I think this situation raises two important issues about professional educators and their relationship to information today.

First, looking something up on the Internet is not "doing research." Research is what we do when we have an unanswered question. Research includes gathering data, analyzing that data, and suggesting an answer to the question. All steps are conducted in a systematic and reasonable manner, and all decisions are recorded so they (and our conclusions) can be evaluated. We all check facts and get ideas be "Googling," but that is a much different information task than researching.

Second, why do we assume someone else's answers are better than our own and why do we spend hours (and hours and hours) looking for someone else's answers to our questions when we can generate our own answers (based on our education, our experience, and our knowledge of our local situation) in far less than time than is necessary to generate our own answers?

The task of our committee is important, but pretty ordinary. With the insight of our diverse committee, we could have generated our list of questions in far less time than it took for us to review the bland questions printed by the administrator who took the leadership role for generating our list of questions. I would hope any educator would be able to generate a list of questions that once answered would be provide information essential to evaluating important aspects of school life.

By relying on the Internet for answers to questions that we are in the best position to answer, we are both accepting the same superficial answers that have too broad an appeal and we are devaluing our own experience and skill.

Rewired-- finished for now

Here is the last of the series in which I have commented on Rosen's 11 recommendations for educators:

10) "Recognize that the Internet provides a global perspective." Sure, this cannot be denied   but it is accurate (as with all modern information technology) if we use it... we all have great connectivity, but if we connect with no one, we must wonder what it the point? (Please comment with your descriptions of how you do connect globally...)

11) Teacher who want to rewire have lots of support on the Internet. Need more evidence? Contact me... gary@hackscience.net ... visit my web site... http://www.hackscience.net 

Rewired- continued again again

One more time with my take on Rosen's recommendations for educators... if you have seen the posts... he makes 11 recommendations for educators of the iGeneration... in earlier posts (scroll down), I commented on 1-3, then 4-6.

7) "iGeners may be media savvy, but they aren't media literate." The duty of educators to help youngsters become skeptical and demanding (in terms of reliability and credibility) users of information takes on greater importance in the digital world. Unfortunately, many educators shy away from helping students out become critical users of digital content because the educators feel unprepared to evaluate that which they do not feel comfortable managing and manipulating.

8) "We can no longer talk about the three 'R's.'" Rosen adds a fourth R-- realistic technology. That R is not necessary; his point that we can no longer focus on traditional media and ignore the technology-rich culture around us if we have any hope of being relevant to the iGeneration.

9) "Actively seek out support from techie students and teachers." In recommendation #9, Rosen makes two important points for educators: First, educators must be active in their learning; sitting back waiting for someone to tell you what to do or what to use is not going to result in your becoming a confident and competent user of computers. Second, we are surrounded by "experts" (defined as someone who can show you how to do something new and useful) and educators need to take advantage of this expertise.

Rewired- continued again

To continue with Rosen's 11 recommendations for educators (you may want to scroll down to read the previous posts on Rewired):

4) "For most teens and pre-teens, writing is a chore tantamount to an afternoon in the dentist's chair." Rosen's reasons we (educators) insist our is the only method of writing and that the shorthand they use when they communicate is ignored by educators. His observations seem spot-on, his reasoning is sound; let's develop strategies for helping young people become skilled communicators, and if that means we swallow hard and allow text shortcuts in rough drafts, so be it. But let's insist they do make the step to academically polished writing too!

5) "This generation believe in feedback and lots of it." Rosen leaves unanswered the obvious question of how the teacher with 100 students gives constant feedback... maybe we seek help... maybe we help all students learn how to give and take good feedback... hey haven't good middle school teachers been doing this forever?

6) "While Baby-Boomers believe in 'process,' including frequent meetings to discuss issues, iGeners believe in 'product' over process." I think I am firmly in the iGeneration on this one. As I have become a user of ICT, I find I am less interested in talking about how we are going to do what we are going to do, and more interested in what we create (although I also find the process is becoming product as well-- I think that is because learning how to manipulate information and technology is important to me-- skills have become a product with value). My wife suggests my growing aversion to meetings is that I am becoming a disagreeable old man!

(check back for more of Rosen's recommendations, complete with Ackerman's commentary soon)

Rewired- continued

Last week, I posted some thoughts on Larry Rosen's book Rewired... I indicated the book deserves more of our attention, so...

Chapter 9 of his book is entitled "Rewiring Education," and as the title suggests, he gives educators his advice. In this post, I will begin to summarize (and comment on) his 11 recommendations:

1) "The iGeneration is a creative multimedia generation." Yup, this is very obvious... YouTube, iTunes, are sites these people visit... all the time. The question for educators is to decide how to recognize this and use it to our advantage. When I was in middle school, movies in class meant nap time. That is not true anymore (if we chooses and use video well).

2) "Education must respect and mine this generation of 'content creators.'" Writing papers? Sure, we need to help kids get really good at that, but we also need to help them get good at creating media... and maybe we can even get kids to write if we use the media with wisdom.

3) This generation thrives on social interactions, but not just talking amongst themselves in class or at recess." This (I believe) is the one defining difference between "adults" and the iGeneration; and it is also the one that has potential to cause the most conflict in schools. I am not going to suggest that we should allow students full use of their cell phones during class, but I am going to suggest we develop strategies for accommodating this characteristic of the iGeneration in a non-disruptive manner. [My three rules are simple and students seem to appreciate it: 1) When someone is talking to the class, either adult or student is talking to the group, no phones. 2) When we are working on project-- yes, it easier for me as I am a computer teacher who has a project-based curriculum-- you may read messages. 3) When doing #2 do it without drawing attention to yourself or talking about the message.]

(to be continued...)

Brain Rules

John Medina wrote Brain Rules in 2008, and I had moved on to a few other books and ideas in the last couple of years, but then he published Brain Rules for Baby earlier this year, so there was some chatter about his original book on the 'net. That chatter reminded me of how informative his book is and I figured I should contribute to the chatter as well.

In this book, Medina reviews the recent brain research and articulates 12 rules that parents, educators, and employers need to understand if they are to design home, classrooms, and workplaces that are friendly to brains and that allow brains to work to their highest potential.

The rules are simple and well-known to most middle school educators. The publisher has made some excellent resources available on the book web site, including an excellent summary of the rules.

Rewired

Larry Rosen’s Rewired addresses a number of “hot topics” of interest to today’s educator. Because his work focuses in particular on young adolescents, the book is especially important for middle school educators. He does consider a number of themes (a sufficient number that I intend to focus on the book in multiple blog entries), including multiasking and wireless mobile devices (WMD’s).

An interview with Larry Rosen that was broadcast on National Public Radio is available here.

Multitasking is the mythic capability of young people (and others) to be able to perform more than one task at a time. A youngster who is instant messaging a friend on his or her computer, carrying on a text message conversation with another, and listening to music all while doing homework is multitasking. (So is his or her parent who is talking on the cell phone while driving.) Several years ago, there was some suggestion that young people where able to multitask better than adults; more recent research has questioned youngsters’ ability to do more than one task at a time. Rosen looks takes a closer at the evidence and suggests that youngsters are not multitasking, but they are quickly task-switching. He also concludes that educators must recognize this facts of young people’s lives and must develop strategies for accommodating this into expectations (he argues that “multitasking” youngsters will still accomplish tasks equally too youngsters who do not, but that but will take longer).

Rosen does use the acronym WMD to describe wireless mobile devices, which includes the cell phones, BlackBerries, iPhones, and similar devices students carry today. The emotional resonance of the terms is not list on the audience and Rosen does suggest these are having profound effect on how humans access information and how humans interaction. Again, Rosen recognizes the need for educators to develop strategies for surviving the effects of WMD’s on schools.

10 Commands for Digital Age

As I walked out the door this morning, I heard the announcer on Vermont Public Radio give a promotional announcement for a program to be aired later in the day... the topic sounded intriguing, but I was in the middle of class when the programmed aired, so I did the next best thing... I Googled the bits of the announcement that I recalled, and found the book that went immediately to the top of my “to read” list.

Douglas Rushfoff’s Program or Be Programmed, seems to raise important issues for those of us who care about the future of society and those of us who see a role for humans (all humans) in deciding our individual and collective future. I am intrigued by both the argument he makes in the YouTube video promoting his book and in his 10 Commands for the Digital Age that show up in the table of contents of his book:

I. TIME

Do Not Be "Always On"

II. PLACE

Live in Person

III. CHOICE

You May Always Choose “None of the Above”

IV. COMPLEXITY

You Are Never Completely Right

V. SCALE

One Size Does Not Fit All

VI. IDENTITY

Be Yourself

VII. SOCIAL

Do Not Sell Your Friends

VIII. FACT

Tell the Truth

IX. OPENNESS

Share, Don’t Steal

X. PURPOSE

Program or Be Programmed

This sure seems to be the outline for any good “healthy living in the digital world” lesson for middle school classrooms. I am hopeful that others interested in the issues raised by Rushoff (or who have read his book) continue the discussion...

VoiceThread

Blogging is a familiar activity today: The blogger posts to the blog (in text or pictures or video) and visitors to the blog read (notice that verb) the post and write (notice that verb also) responses... the conversation on a blog is all text-based.

VoiceTread (http://www.voicethread.com) is like all other blogging tools, except that it makes it far easier to post and respond with audio. The blogger posts text, a picture, or video and then records the post. Others can then post responses using their computer microphones. Other options for posting (including via phone) are available, but I have had the best luck with simply using audio posts and responses.

The usual caveats about using care when exposing children (especially those under 13 years) to these sites apply here and the usual note that the site may be be blocked by school Internet filters applies as well. VoiceThread is worth exploring, however, as it will engage students in a way that traditional blogging may not.