Classrooms Are Not for Squares

BP24_01112011_E-books: A Fresh Alternative or The Devil's Plaything?

2011-01-11T09:17:00.000-08:00

Standing outside in the cold on a dark January evening, my newly-met companion explained the superiority of paper books to an e-book reader: "I like the feel of a book in my hand. I like to smell the paper. I like to turn the pages."

Doesn't sound so quaint when you read it in a technology blog does it? Who are these people? Who is it that sits at home in the dark sniffing their books? Who gets a thrill hearing paper rustle? Ball State University has an idea who they are, based on a series of studies performed by graduate students in the university's school of education.

Those who prefer paper books to e-books are [drum roll]: people with little to no experience with e-books. Research subjects were tested on the speed and accuracy of look-up using an electronic dictionary. Those with the slowest times tended to be Baby Boomers, whose children were among the first to learn and produce using computers, while those with the fastest times tended to be those raised with the contemporary ubiquity of computer screens.

Those of us in the older generations (I am a Gen Xer) have sometimes adapted to the newly invented technologies of the new day, but the younger generations have known the cell phone, the internet, wireless access, online classes, the X-box, Wii, and other platforms as part of life, as things that have "always been there." They are what Marc Prensky accurately called Digital Natives. They speak the e-book language already, since they have already mastered the cell phone and smart phone, texting, e-mail (which is so 1999), social networking, Call of Duty 5, and the netbook.

Now here's the kicker: the Ball State study was completed before 2006. E-readers have made it into popular consumption, by way of the Kindle, the Kobo, the Sony e-Reader, the Nook, and others. Five years ago, we knew that students raised in the digital age were making the transition to e-readers with little difficulty. The past five years have seen the introduction of smart phones, affordable e-readers for consumers, the iPad, and more screens on more devices for young people to look at.

So, really. Go ahead and sniff the leaves between the covers, hold that hardcover in one hand until your elbow gets numb, revel at the sound of paper passing paper. For the rest, we'll carry a library with us at under half a pound, while your fancy hardcovers weigh two pounds per inch of paper.

BP23_01032011_Do New Things in New Ways

2011-01-03T08:40:00.000-08:00

Regarding technology in the classroom in the 21st century, there are only three options:

To use new technologies to implement old assessments, projects, or assignments.
To use old technologies to implement new assessments, projects, or assignments.
To use new technologies to implement new assessments, projects, or assignments.

The recommended course of action is the last one, to implement new technologies in a new situation that reflects the learning styles and technology savvy of 21st century learners.

Consider these examples:

Mr. Barnes uses end-of-chapter review questions, quizzes, and tests to assess his students' understanding of historical periods in the United States. He has recently converted all of his questions, quizzes, and tests to online versions, using Moodle and GoogleDocs. His classroom is now virtually paper-free.
Mrs. Lammers has embraced project based learning, but her A.P. Statistics students still submit their work by pencil and paper, because Mrs. Lammers fears her students might cheat if given the chance to collaborate online.
Ms. Samil uses real-time data from NASA for her students' statistics project. The project findings are recorded using GoogleDocs spreadsheets, and the conclusions are presented in a Prezi, complete with photos of students participating in the project, taken on smartphones and uploaded to their student drive on the school server.

Mr. Barnes is the classic example of using new tools to do old things. The learning activities have not changed; the pencil has been replaced by the keyboard. Has this changed the level of thinking in the classroom? While some students may be engaged by the opportunity to use the computers, the level of thinking required remains level.
Many teachers fear that collaboration will become cheating. Mrs. Lammers thinks that requiring students to submit work with old tools (pencils, paper projects, etc.) will prevent that. The drawback here is that while the real world application done in Mrs. Lammers class is noteworthy, no publication is possible outside the classroom walls, and the document will fall victim to the recycling bin and disappear forever before long.
Ms. Samil uses project based learning with a real world application and allows students to use tools they have grown up with. Ms. Samil is neither a GoogleDoc expert, nor a Prezi user, but knows her students can help each other figure out these tools where questions arise. Because both GoogleDocs and Prezi applications are shareable, these documents can be saved for student portfolios, published to the web, or retained for use later in college or in the student's personal life.

BP22_11032010_GoogleDocs Forms and Formative Assessment

2010-11-03T08:19:00.000-07:00

"Class? Class! I would like you to answer this question for a warm-up," Mrs. Jones said, immediately putting a third of her class back to sleep, frustrating another third who must apparently quit texting the boyfriend or girlfriend or mother or brother in order to pick up the pencil, and providing the rest with enough safe material to anticipate the teacher's desired response and mimic that as closely as possible.

But enough about boring classes with boring assignments in boring classrooms taught by ... real professionals who just need a little extra guidance. Teachers recognize the importance of activating prior knowledge from students, or checking student attitudes or opinions regarding a topic before engaging in the lessons. This kind of activation makes it more likely that the information of the lesson will be integrated and stored in long-term memory.

While the concept of the "warm-up" is an old one, GoogleDocs Forms can be used to create a more meaningful, more fully participatory environment. In this setting, students maintain a sense of safety through anonymity when necessary, and are encouraged to participate in the survey questions without fear of identification or reprisal.

Because the interface collects your data for you, and the results can be seen in pie and graph charts, it is not necessary to view what each individual in the classroom said. No one has to report out what the people in their group said. No one has to risk looking foolish or worse in front of her peers.

Using GoogleDocs Forms is a quick and easy way to assess student knowledge, understanding, and opinions. Teachers can share data collected by the Forms instantly with their student populations: to clarify a point of knowledge, to discuss a major concept, or to debate the opinions expressed in the Form.

For a tutorial video (not my creation), please visit

BP21_09272010_Virtual Gallery Walk with GoogleDocs

2010-09-27T12:40:00.000-07:00

Ye Olde "Old Way"
Have you ever participated in one of those classes where someone brings in a bunch of big, unwieldy sheets of colored or white paper and asks you to use markers to record your ideas? The markers squeak, they smell bad, and you're not really motivated to write more than a few words on the crinkly paper. Then you walk around the room and look at what others have posted on their posters.

Maybe you use this procedure in the classroom. And why not? It can be a useful and thought-provoking procedure. But I wonder how much the physical tools used for this procedure are de-motivational for students. And we should stop and ask what kind of thinking this activity promotes.

Maybe there are times when those huge pieces of paper and markers are enough. But what about when you want something beyond the level of knowing, comprehending, or brainstorming? Is this the best tool for working with higher order thinking skills? Hint: the answer is usually "no."

A Web 2.0 Solution
We all know that GoogleDocs provides an easily accessible tool for sharing documents, editing another author's work without sending items back and forth via e-mail, but it also allows for participating in a kind of virtual gallery walk, where GoogleDocs replace the sheets of paper, and students have both the space and engagement necessary to delve into meaningful questions that prompt them toward higher order thinking.

Recently, my students read an article which examined how "deja vu" operates to establish a central theme within Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22. Students were asked to become experts on particular questions. Using Moodle, we posted each group's combined efforts, which became our gallery.

The video presented here shows how students used a whole-class GoogleDoc to collect shared ideas and unique perspectives gained from their gallery walk. Each time you see a bar appear, a new student is editing the document, in real-time, and synchronously with other users. If the video does not play here, you can watch the same video on YouTube.

The Best Part
Instead of those large sheets of paper hanging in the back of the room until they become as invisible as flowered wallpaper, or filling up the paper bins to be recycled, we have created an artifact that will live permanently on our Moodle Course page, and may be accessed whenever we desire it.

Note 1: I used my "mobile communications device" (what we used to call a cell phone) to record what you see here, so forgive me if it's a little shaky. Note 2: To make sure no one would be "writing over" another user, I assigned each group part of a table, labeled with group number (e.g., 1A, 2B).

BP20_09202010_Using Web 2.0 technologies to promote HOTS

2010-09-15T06:55:00.000-07:00

How do teachers promote higher order thinking skills (HOTS)? The conversation may begin with teacher questioning, or with an examination of where current practices fit within Bloom's taxonomy. While Bloom's taxonomy has been part of the educational lexicon since 1956, web technologies of today can be employed to help teachers and students achieve in ways that simply were not possible before.

Within the updated taxonomy, the highest order of thinking is Creating. Below the level of creation is the level of Evaluating. In the past, these were reversed: creating (then called synthesis) was below evaluating (then called evaluation). The reversal reflects the change in what has become important not only within the world of academia, but within the world of work as well. The careers of the new century, we are reminded, will be about creating something new, not simply working with what is already present at hand.

The language of the revised taxonomy matters here. What was called Knowledge is now Remembering. What was Comprehension is now Understanding. Application has become Applying. The shift from noun to verb signals a shift in the focus of education from a goal to be achieved to a period of through through which learners are constantly evolving.

So how can we apply web technologies to meet the new concepts of the taxonomy? First, we can understand how the tools we use in the classroom fall within the taxonomy. Certain web technologies are about retrieving information, such as online flashcards, glossary information posted on Moodle or another CMS, online study guides, etc.

Web 2.0 technologies, however, by their very nature, tend to promote higher order thinking skills.

Creating a blog, such as this one, requires the author to bring together information from various sources, sort through the information to deliver a cohesive message, and speak from a position of expertise.
Creating a photostory incorporates more levels of creating, as students select representative images, and in some cases, create their own images to associate with the information they present.
Students who create, administer, and evaluate the results from questionnaires and polls, such as those that can be made in GoogleDocs are engaged in HOTS of many types.
It may be old-school with a new technology, but using GoogleDocs to comment on another's writing engages the student in evaluation. The difference, of course, is that the document gains a sense of authenticity once made available through the web.

Using computers in the classroom does not promote higher order thinking skills. Asking students to answer "comprehension questions" online is no more thought-provoking than when you hand them a photocopied page of questions. But web 2.0 technologies can be employed to promote HOTS, if done consistently and with the understanding of Bloom's updated taxonomy.

BP19_04072010_Twitter Feed on Your Moodle Page

2010-04-07T07:14:00.000-07:00

Okay. So maybe this is a simple, obvious tip. Or maybe it is so obvious that you just never thought to try it before. The short version is that you can create a Twitter Widget and embed the code into your Moodle class page to create a news feed that can be updated in a matter of seconds, without going updating the whole page, or editing your news forum, or starting a new discussion that you hope your students will see.

The Widget maker allows the user to determine text color, frame color, tweet background, and more options, although it does not yet allow the user to determine font size or font style. The user can select from an automatically scrolling window to one with a scrollbar or one that only shows the last few tweets--the number to be determined, again, by the user.

This has been a wildly successful tool in my course, and while only one of my students actually follows the Twitter feed, all students access the feed every time they log into my Moodle course page. (Click on the image to see a larger view of this resource.)

Customize your look to fit your school colors. If you are unfamiliar with color codes search for "html color codes" or use a site that provides with both a color palette and a selection of web safe colors, such as the one at http://www.quackit.com/html/html_color_codes.cfm

BP18_03192010_Automatic Page Numbering (MLA Format) in Google Docs

2010-03-19T08:36:00.001-07:00

Update: GoogleDocs no longer supports the ability to "Edit HTML" in the headers. I will leave the posting up in case Google reintroduces this option.

Yes, you can include automatic page numbering for a Google Doc in MLA format. To accomplish this, all you need is to do is insert a header, "Insert HTML into Selection" (right-click inside the header box to get this option), and then paste this code:

&nbsp puts a space between the name and the page number, so make sure you don't delete that.

The next important step is to save the document as a PDF document. This creates a document with the author name and page numbers automatically inserted in the upper-right corner, starting with page two.

Why a PDF? Because you wouldn't need the code if you were editing this in a traditional word-processing program.

BP17_02162010_One Minute with Glogster

2010-02-16T08:31:00.000-08:00

BP16_02162010_Glogster: Posterize Yourself!

2010-02-16T07:35:00.000-08:00

Glogster has all the advantages of multimedia presentations in a fun, easy-to-use interface. Students may already be using this application to make posters of their favorite books, authors, musicians, or to create collages of their pictures of friends, events, family, etc.

Teachers across the disciplines can also harness student interest in this multimedia tool by allowing students to create within Glogster and present these creations within class or within a peer review group.

For this example for Spanish Language class, students gathered images, inserted text, and even embedded a video for their "Viva a Puerto Rico" poster. Creating posters has been a part of the teacher's toolbox for years. Now, we can give students a digital method of creating high-quality, content rich posters that can include both sound and video.

Brandi Reynolds, 8th grade history teacher and Technology Curriculum Coordinator in Traverse City, Michigan, said, "This is a great way for learners to creatively display their learning that does not involve glue, posters, or markers. Learners no longer have to worry about their artistic or creative ability. Glogster allows them the freedom to use audio, video and images to demonstrate what they have learned about a topic."

Glogster's tools pane is easy to use, intuitive, visual, and best of all, fun to use. Templates and a huge library of imagery make creating visually interesting posters more likely than handing the students posterboard and a set of magic markers. The key, of course, is to insist on the development of content prior to the use of the tool to avoid students getting lost in the "play" element of using this tool. However, because the tool is online (and soon to be shareable), these projects can be changed, improved, and played with at home prior to final submission.

Combined with free, legal sources of music like Freeplay Music, students can create rich multimedia projects that can be published online for an authentic audience. In addition to previously created audio and video sources, students can record their own narration using the tools within Glogster.

BP15_11152009_One minute with Google Docs Forms

2009-11-15T18:17:00.000-08:00

BP14_11112009_Jam Legend from Xavier

2009-11-11T19:05:00.000-08:00

Note: This was originally posted on Xavier's BlogJam Legend-Web 2.0 Tool in the Classroom

Jam Legend

Watch out Rock Band, here comes Jam Legend!!! Jam Legend is great way to get the video games into the classroom. If you are like me, then you realize that gaming can be very educational. Not all school districts allow the use of video games, but now you can have the video game feel in your classroom. Jam Legend is very similar to Rock Band and can be very beneficial in learning music.

For those that have played Rock Band or Jam Legend, you know that it takes much rhythmical thinking in order to play. What a great way to teach down beats! The beginner levels of Jam Legend would be a wonderful way to teach students how to feel the downbeat in the songs. It would also be a great reinforcement tools when teaching rhythms to your students. As the levels continue, the teacher can begin to introduce upbeats and what that feels like for the students.

The great thing about Jam Legend is that it has multiple levels.Students are always in different spots, and these levels would be a great way for students to challenge themselves. As students begin to master the levels they can move to the more difficult levels, allowing them to slowly learn the new concept.

This would also make for good friendly competition in the classroom!If the instructor would break the class into groups, this could be a great way to build relationships as well as build self-confidence.

This is a great tool and will really challenge and capture the attention of the students! The more we incorporate games into our teaching the better the students will learn.

Rock on!

1 comments:

Mr. HD said...: I must agree that challenging our students with interesting games and activities is a great way to keep them engaged and exploring. I find teachers that use this type of teaching method reach their students on a deeper level. This is a great idea.

1 COMMENTS:

David Noller said...: Great tool. When I read your post, I was reminded of our Brain-Based Learning lessons. I could envision students playing this game, even if only for a few minutes at the start of class, in order to rev up their brains and get them prepared to learn... well, whatever they're learning that day. I wonder how I could incorporate the idea of learning beats in my poetry instruction? Perhaps connecting the idea of listening for downbeats in the music can "prime their ears" for listening for the accented syllables in the lines of poetry. And by "perhaps" I mean, "I bet it will!"; NOVEMBER 11, 2009 6:59 PM

BP13_11112009_Kuler from Cathy Palmer

2009-11-11T18:45:00.000-08:00

Note: This post originally appeared on Cathy Palmer's Blog

Review Web 2.0 Tools: kuler

http://fontstruct.fontshop.com/

Kuler is a dynamic color-theme generator. It uses structured methods of color relationships and/or intuitive methods of visually choosing colors from an image or spectrum color wheel. The visual color information is easy for anyone to access, and very intuitive to use without knowing any code or specifications. The technical color information is useful cross-media data for print designers and web developers, and works well as a conversion tool between formats.

Main sections of the kuler website include Themes, Create: From a Color and Create: From an Image.

The community features let you browse the color themes posted by others for creative inspiration or share your own color themes with a team. Tags posted by the color theme creators make them keyword searchable. Comments and star ratings are enabled, and the number of downloads is tracked so that the themes can be ranked by popularity. There is even a Community Pulse area that visually shows the popularity of all colors by how many times they have been included in a theme.

There are many benefits of this free color-palette-generating service in that it is cross-platform (Mac or PC), cross-media (print or web), and it offers both visual and technical information for design and production. Kuler functions are also built into the InDesign CS4 and Illustrator CS4 applications of the Adobe Creative Suite software. A drawback of kuler is the need for a separate Adobe I.D. registration to use online, as well as a Flikr account to upload images because the Color Extraction feature can only access images uploaded to Flikr. Color Extraction has difficulty with CMYK-mode images, and this feature does not support color management, so associated color profiles of uploaded images will be ignored.

kuler could be used in a classroom lesson for design inspiration, print or web color gamut specification, or understanding relational color theory.

Help and more information about Kuler is available at http://kuler.adobe.com/links/kuler_help.html

1 COMMENTS:

David Noller said...: Good day, Cathy!As a Technology Curriculum Coordinator, I am charged with working with all of my teachers to help aid their instruction. This tool will be one that I will share especially with my publications instructors (who use InDesign 4) and with my art instructors, especially our Computer Art staff.The concept is fascinating: sharing color palettes within a community of designers as a way to inspire and collaborate. Student designers have the opportunity to see what other designers around the world are using within their own work. This is such a great, simple idea. I just wish I knew what "relational color theory" is--I guess I'll leave that one to the designers. :); NOVEMBER 11, 2009 6:43 PM

BP12_11112009_Yaca Paca from Shelly Pinkowski

2009-11-11T18:38:00.000-08:00

Note: This review was originally posted on Shelly Pinkowski's Blog

BP9_2009112_Yaca_Paca_Web2.0_Review

http://yacapaca.com/
Wow! How excited I am to have come across this Web 2.0 tool. By the Chalkface Project, Yaca Paca is a free online assessment platform for both teachers and students. Their mission statement reads: "To make the best teaching ideas available to every teacher in the most practical way" (yacapaca.com). I could not believe how comprehensive and thorough the site and its materials were as I clicked around on it. I am an English teacher, so I naturally looked over the information under English. There are printable and reproducible worksheets and teaching packets on punctuation, parts of speech, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and many other topics that most English teachers use. I went to the technology link and found lessons and worksheets on "Using the Internet as a Tool for Learning." There is a blog section with lots of interesting articles and blogs dealing with all kinds of subjects. I checked out a YouTube video entitled "Do you teach or do you educate?" Under the archives section, there appeared to be articles, materials, and the like going back to 2004. I am very impressed with my newly-discovered Web 2.0 tool.

I clicked on the "I'm a Student" button to see what would happen. It appears that the teacher must have an account and log-in password which she/he gives to the students. I will most definitely be bookmarking this site's URL and re-visiting it in the coming days. If it is as good as I think it is, I hope to be giving my own students a password so that they can begin exploring the site, also. I need to learn more about the student aspect of the site. I will have to let everyone know what I discover as I experiment more with yacapaca.com

1 comments:

David Noller said...: Hi, Shelly. I'm excited to explore the YacaPaca site. I'm always looking for new ways to assess traditional content, and it sounds like there are some very useful tools for us English teachers. I am in the middle of teaching Hamlet right now, and I'm really looking forward to seeing if I can find some cool stuff to keep them engaged.One of the great aspects of Web 2.0 tools is that they often are constantly evolving, as it sounds like this one is. With archives going back to 2004, the tool certainly sounds well-organized and well-rounded.Thanks for a great reference.; November 11, 2009 6:35 PM

BP11_11112009_Broadcasting with UStream.tv

2009-11-11T18:23:00.000-08:00

What if you could broadcast your class to the world, or at least to that sick kid at home, and include the discussion and questions raised during your presentation? What if you could host a podcast with the opportunity for your live audience to make comments, ask questions, and participate in real time? Wouldn't that be awesome? The answer you are looking for is "Yes."

Ustream offers educators that opportunity--free of cost and with minimal hardware requirements. All you need is a computer with high-speed internet access and a webcam/microphone combination.

The first time I saw this tool demonstrated was in a room with over 300 fellow educators. Leslie Fisher, AKA My Tech Goddess, delivered a presentation on educational Web 2.0 tools at the 2008 MACUL Conference in Detroit, Michigan. By simply providing the link to her presentation, audience members who had internet access through either laptops or other mobile devices were able to join the text conversation that appeared to the right of her broadcast.

Fisher's image appeared on the large projection screen as she faced her webcam, and audience members posted responses to her poll questions, offered ideas, and asked questions about the material. The entire broadcast was recorded, allowing for the opportunity for those not in attendance to view not only her presentation, but the audience's participation as well.

The great benefit for educators who take advantage of this tool is that an entire lecture, demonstration, discussion, or other presentation can be recorded for those students who miss our classes for all the myriad reasons we hear about every day: home sick, gone for a sports event, attending a music festival, or staying home for the newest release of their favorite video game franchise. I had that last one today.

Ustream is collaborative, shareable, and free. What more could you ask for?

References

[Untitled Screenshot] Captured Nov. 11, 2009 from http://www.ustream.tv/channel/WEB-2-0-Literacy-Tools-Transforming-K-12-Education

BP10_1182009_One Minute with Edmodo

2009-11-09T10:11:00.000-08:00

BP9_1182009_From Scrapbooking to Scrapblogging

2009-11-09T09:08:00.000-08:00

Remember when English teachers used to ask students to cut pictures out of magazines to create a collage to represent either the student or some character from literature? The students would flip through magazines that appealed to their interests looking for something they thought represented their interests, or more likely, looked for images they thought were cool and then came up with a reason for including the image. Such examples often came through as "I like snowboarding so I put a picture of Shaun White (The Flying Tomato) on my collage."

When I used to use this activity, students struggled to move past the literal level of meaning, which is why the collages often ended up being a collection of "likes" rather than a picture of the student's personality. I stopped using this activity due to the frustration of hearing "I like..." statements all day long.

However, using both Flickr and Scrapblog, this activity is ready to be revived. Instead of flipping pages in a magazine, students can search conceptually. What images are returned when one searches for "stubborn" in Flickr? These are only two of the images that are returned using this search. Students can be as literal or as symbolic as they wish, depending on their needs and intentions.

Within Scrapblog students can create scrapbooking-style pages that can be used for autobiography of the student, for the student to create a biography of a particular author through images and text, or to create a character analysis or summary.

Other activities could include explorations of historical figures, an artist's scrapbooked portfolio, or a student creating a scrapbook based on a virtual or real-life field trip.

The tool presents students with a variety of templates, which are customizable, and the students can share the resource and results with fellow students and with teachers. Creating the Scrapblog is relatively simple, and users will find that importing pictures is as simple as dragging and dropping into a part of the template. The result of the Scrapblog is a shareable, fun artifact that students will engage in. One example of a student-created scrapblog page is this one from a French-language student.

References

[Untitled screenshot]. Captured Nov. 9, 2009 from http://www.flickr.com/photos/44306447@N03/galleries/72157622768626244/

[Untitled screenshot]. Captured Nov. 9, 2009 from http://www.scrapblog.com/viewer/viewer.aspx?sbid=16579

BP8_1182009_Do You Edmodo?

2009-11-08T21:00:00.000-08:00

Students are brand aware. They know that a pair of jeans from one store may be no better than another, but will pay the extra money for the little seagull on the pocket, or for the big W stitched into another. As much as students say they want to be independent, and claim to follow no one but their own sense of fashion and style, we know that everyone has a uniform.

One piece of Web 2.0 technology all students agree on, regardless of who made their jeans, is Facebook. The ubiquity of facebook is unchallenged, and since it's been made an app for iPhone, it is ultimately portable. Students love it. They love the look of it and are so loyal, that when changes either happen or are rumored to be happening, groups of users "against changing whatever" pop up like dandelions.

Opening up facebook on school campuses might be more than the average secondary principal could bear. But a tool is available that looks an awful lot like facebook, works like updating one's facebook status, and remains private, with access only possible through a code assigned by the teacher.

Edmodo.com acts as a collaborative space for a class outside of school hours. Students might post questions about homework, continue a conversation started in class, suggest an idea for later class periods, or ask another student for the day's homework. The teacher can create polls, upload files for students to download, and monitor the discussion to make sure it doesn't cross from collaboration to copying.

Students in my class are not required to use the tool, but it is available for whenever they need it. It is secondary to our course management software, but welcomes them as a comfortable space when we can't meet in person. When several students missed class due to a fast-spreading illness, we used edmodo as a method to communicate with our missing classmates.

The final benefit is personalization. Because students feel comfortable in the space--in part because it reminds them of facebook--I have seen students raise questions and issues they would not in the classroom due to fear or a lack of confidence speaking out loud. For some students, this is the greatest benefit of all.

References

[Untitled Screenshot]. Captured from http://www.edmodo.com/home/

BP7_1182009_Google Docs Forms

2009-11-08T20:33:00.000-08:00

While the entire suite of Google Apps tools is useful across the curriculum, Google Docs Forms can be especially motivating for students who may otherwise be hesitant to participate in the classroom process.

Students can create quizzes, surveys, polls, and so on, and do so collaboratively (with a partner or group up to 10 members). Surveys and polls can be intimidating to students in classrooms, where teachers get to know the handwriting of the students, or where students are required to raise their hand and speak in class in order to express their opinions. Google Docs Forms allows students the safety of anonymity, while also encouraging 100% participation in the activity.

As a teacher, I have used the Google Docs Form as a formative assessment at different times during the class period: as a warm-up, as a check for understanding, and as a survey of opinion both before and after a lesson. Never has a student refused to answer a question. Sometimes, I suspect a student may not have answered truthfully, but the vast majority do, and the process allows those who don't normally contribute a chance to influence the "opinion outlook" of the group. Their votes count just as much as the most verbose student in class. Best of all, I can access their responses instantly.

Because I teach the same subject as others within my school, I have shared this document with those teachers, who can then create a new file for themselves, edit it for their own purposes, or use it as I created it. By opening the sharing with colleagues, using Google Docs (and especially, Forms), a new kind of collegiality has opened.

See also:

Palm Breeze Cafe: Google Docs Forms Video
Google's Instructional Video
A Student's Perspective Video

References

[Untitled Screenshot]. Captured November 8, 2009 at http://spreadsheets.google.com/gform?key=0AjFX-xfLm_AxdENJUTd4aFJIVG1qeGM1eGJhVzdhcXc&hl=en&gridId=0#chart

BP6_1182009_Has Social Bookmarking Killed the Research Paper?

2009-11-08T19:42:00.000-08:00

The model of the research paper--five paragraphs, lots of notecards and sourcecards, generally irrelevant subjects--was created more than one hundred years ago. Back when this was originally considered a good idea, the first two numbers in the year were 1 and 8. It is safe to say that the research paper has truly run its course and needs to be replaced--but by what? That is not what this post is about.

What this post is about is how social bookmarking, or social scholarship more generally, can create educational opportunities for both students and teachers.
Christine Greenhow (2009) suggested that teachers can use the collaborative power of sites like Delicious to share resources on best practices and share research sources discovered during professional development opportunities. Such a process would encourage and develop a "scholarly approach to teaching" where the collected knowledge and wisdom could be not only saved for each teacher's future use, but shared with her colleagues across the world (p. 11).

So what about that research paper? Don't students need to analyze, organize, and synthesize? Sure they do. But perhaps there are other avenues to the competency than through the same old product. I don't know any teacher who thinks knowing how to do a research paper is the primary skill or competency that comes from completing a research paper. Teachers talk about ordering information from most relevant to least, about analyzing information for its reliability, organizing information into meaningful chunks and in a meaningful order.

Guess when else students are doing those things? While they are tagging. When students tag an item in a social bookmarking (or other technologically mediated) setting, they are getting to the essence of the resource. Cosimo Cannata (2009) suggested that students are affectively engaged in internet tools, and especially with tools, like social bookmarking sites, that encourage tagging (p.29).

The claim is not that tagging will or should replace the entire research paper process, but teachers might find students more willing to engage with the resources from a perspective of social tagging, rather than through the perspective of the "official library subject headings." The Ann Arbor District Library (Michigan) incorporated user tagging into its collection listings in order to provide descriptors that make more sense to the local consumers (Rethlefsen, 2007). The following example demonstrates the tags feature in the bottom left corner of the image.

The implication of all of the above is that students are more likely to engage in tagged resources, and enjoy participating using tools that are dynamic, interactive, and provide some sense of personal engagement. Tagging allows students some element of input, and thereby, some sense of ownership. Tagging allows students to arrange information into categories that make sense within their own world.

Students think critically during this process; they analyze; they compare and contrast; they reduce ideas to their essence. Aren't these the competencies we hope they get from the process of writing a research paper? Maybe it is time, after all, to bury the old boy.

References

Cannata, C. (2009). Folksonomy, tagging, and taxonomy for effective learning: Perspectives of learning 2.0 in the XXIst century. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning, 4(2), 26-32. doi:10.3991/ijet.v4i2.657

Greenhow, C. (2009) Tapping the wealth of social networks for professional development. Learning and Leading with Technology, 36(8), 10-11. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ842796&site=ehost-live

Rethlefsen, M. (2007). Tags help make libraries Del.icio.us. Library Journal, 132(15), 26-28. Retreived from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=26692224&site=ehost-live

BP5_1182009_Flickr Shines in ELL

2009-11-08T17:43:00.000-08:00

In classrooms across the disciplines, students explore ideas, discover meaning, and draw conclusions from experiments and other experiences. English students break into groups to apply lessons from centuries' old literature to today's cultural, economic, and social realities. Chemistry students observe reactions and draw conclusions about what's happening at the chemical level. Math students attempt to discover the principles that underlie formulas. The concept of encouraging students to discover for themselves, to create meaning for themselves, and to apply their learning to their own world is familiar enough.

What would this kind of learning look like in an English Language Learners (ELL) classroom, and how could this be supported with technology resources? Is there a way to encourage students to use technology in a kind of discovery method?

In a lesson uploaded to Scribd, Ekaterina Tolstova describes a process for teaching new verbs for English language learners. The lesson plan presupposes that the students can recognize the English alphabet on a keyboard. Students are instructed to enter verbs like "run" or "swim" into a Flickr search, and then to try to determine the meaning of the verb from the images that are collected. The screenshot below shows a selection of the images that are returned searching "run."

The images returned for this term include both animals and people engaged in some form of running. Other images are included that do not feature running per se, but one image (not shown here) showed all the gear needed to run a marathon, including shoes, watch, iPod, heart-rate monitor, t-shirt, and more.

The strength of the lesson plan is in both the visual nature of vocabulary acquisition, and the mediation of meaning. "To run" can mean everything from "jog" to "sprint," and the variety of images returned from a Flickr search offers enough ways of meaning to allow the learner enough context to interact with meaning, and to arrive at a conclusion contextually, instead of merely textually.

References

[Untitled Screenshot]. Captured Nov. 8, 2009 from http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=run&w=all

BP4_2009112_Web 2.0 Tools: Introducing "Middlespot"

2009-11-02T18:52:00.001-08:00

Give a kid a tool with the ability to do "mashups," and they'll likely know what you mean, even if you don't. While students may have experience using multiple music files to create mashups, they can serve an educational purpose as well, such as those that can be created using Middlespot.

Mashups, semi-loosely defined, combine information or functions from multiple sources in order to create a new product. In the case of Middlespot, students employ a virtual canvas onto which they can save, organize, label and mash their research sources, including web pages, images, music, video, files and more, into one central location.

Figure 1. Middlespot: Leadership Lessons from Shakespeare's Hamlet

The Middlespot mashup above would be created by students in eleventh grade language arts classrooms in Michigan, where the State Curriculum suggests connecting the lessons on leadership, both positive and negative, to Hamlet's course of action throughout the play.

A document within a "stack" will pop open when the cursor hovers over it. The user can then expand their view while remaining on the mashup canvas, or click the source to go back to the web page from which it was retrieved. The three webpage stacks in Figure 1 are collected, from left to right, into encyclopedic information, reviews from performances (including a linked video), and connections being made in the world of leadership and politics to leadership lessons from Hamlet.

As an educational tool, the mashup acts as a one-stop resource for students who sometimes struggle to keep all their references in one easy place. Certainly, students can bookmark their reference sites using Delicious, or create folders within Evernote, but Middlespot allows all those references to be collected on one workspace, allowing the student to quickly access any and all of the information they have researched literally at the touch of a button.

One of its great advantages lies in the fact that students at my school more and more report being visual learners. This kind of aggregation and organization plays directly to their learning styles. Instead of struggling with stacks of notecards and source cards, or creating outlines which, for today's students, are a great mystery compared to idea webs and the like, this kind of information aggregation is right up their digital sleeves.

References

Middlespot: Leadership lessons from Shakespeare's Hamlet [Screenshot]. Captured Nov. 2, 2009 from http://middlespot.com/search.php?wpKey=8cHP5KD4QP7dYkP2WQJyP5&wpName=Hamlet:%A0Leadership#

BP3_2009111_5 Blogs Worth Subscribing To

2009-11-01T20:18:00.000-08:00

Do yourself a favor and check out these great blogs...

A Geeky Momma's Blog is hosted by Lee Kolbert, a tech geek I've followed on Twitter (TeachaKidd) for a long time. She hosts Palm Breeze Cafe, a vodcast in which she discusses, debates, and explains issues associated with educational technology in the schools.
Steve Dembo, a popular presenter at national technology in education conferences, hosts Teach42 where he blogs about current issues in educational technology, and relates much of his own research to contemporary news features. When I accessed his site on Nov. 1, 2009, Dembo had commented on an article from The Telegraph (UK) regarding the use of mobile phones in schools for educational purposes. The site also includes links to related blog posts as well as blogs recommended by Dembo.
Scott McLeod is Dangerously Irrelevant. McLeod focused the educational technology lens on leadership and administration and their role in improving technology integration in schools (or sometimes standing in the way of it). Why Dangerously Irrelevant? Because we are trying to implement new realities in institutions that cannot accommodate the new reality. The terms of the new reality may seem irrelevant within the present institution, but are actually dangerous to the survival of the institution itself.
If you have a short attention span, or just want a tidbit of useful information every day, discover Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day. Jane Knight presents visitors with useful tools, with tools for teachers and students, covering the spectrum from collaboration to design. A recent favorite of hers (and mine): 100 Ways to Use Facebook in the Classroom.
Peer collaboration is the greatest part of Teachers Teaching Teachers. TTT is a weekly webcast channel where teachers talk about how they have integrated Web 2.0 (and other technology-related) tools into their classrooms and provide advice on how to do it on one's own. Associated with the National Writing Project, a recent webcast featured the author of The Digital Writing Workshop, Troy Hicks, discussing elements of his book.

BP2_2009111_iGoogle_ScreenShots

2009-11-01T18:22:00.000-08:00

Screenshots from iGoogle:

BP1_2009111_The Purpose of Educational Blogs? Yes.

2009-11-01T14:28:00.000-08:00

Ten years ago, if I wanted my students and I to collaborate with other student journalists and advisors, I had to do a fundraiser to pay for all the travel expenses necessary to fly or drive to the national conference site, to stay in a hotel, and to keep the students fed. Most of the time, students and their families ended up picking up a significant portion of the cost.

Today, from conferences to conference calls, and from class-specific discussion boards to public blogs, teachers and students can participate in learning communities that span the globe. As in the image to the right, taken in my classroom, students can increase their participation in learning, and share their knowledge and insights with any who choose to monitor their blog spaces.

Just after breakfast this morning, on a cool, sunny, fall morning in Northern Michigan, I “attended” a conference in Xi Hu, China by way of Wesley Fryer’s blog Moving at the Speed of Creativity. Here, Fryer has posted his notes and reflections on Carl Owens’s presentation “Collaborations between the Teacher Education Technology Programs and Rural K-12 Schools” as well as on the other sessions he has attended to day. The conference continues another two days. Owens is an Apple Distinguished Educator and Director of Technology at Tennessee Technological University.

Another blog I visited during lunch today took me all across the country, linking to and commenting on stories posted on other blogs from California to Pennsylvania. On Joanne Jacob’s blog, the author collects and comments on several topics, but seems to focus on charter schools, Teach for America schools, and related content. Two of the first components one finds on the page are ads for the book she has written. Even so, the information available both within her own comments and through the posts from other sites provide a wider insight into the state of education in the nation.

Steve Dembo, one of the premier presenters at technology in education conferences around the country, offers his own content, links to news items related to technology in education (including connections to his own previous posts related to these news items), and methods of connecting to him and to those other bloggers whose opinions and expertise he values most. His blog, which I perused over a few pieces of my daughter’s Halloween candy, Teach42, can be graphically overwhelming to those who have Attention Surplus/Sedentary Disorder, who need to be able to focus on only a limited number of elements. “Normal” learners will appreciate the graphical variety and the multiple entry points into the blog.

In fairness, not all educators appreciate the opportunities available within the blogosphere. William W. Savage, Jr. (2006) wrote that “blogging is akin to vanity publishing” and that bloggers “may write about whatever one pleases, without fear of vetting, editing, or anything else destructive of one's ego.” I wonder if Savage ever actually visited a blog. He might be surprised to find that for many blogs, the comment section for an article can run longer than the original article itself; that within the comment section, other interested parties offer not only their own perspectives, but offer additional references to news, other blogs, or even research; that those who post comments often ask for clarification of ideas, terms, or data in order to better understand what is presented.

Savage ends his diatribe against blogging with the following observations: “the medium seems to exist to encourage nitwits and crackpots to believe that somebody out there truly cares about their opinion” and “I support blogging for the professoriate, simply because so many of its members produce caca de toro under the rubric of scholarship, and that material should be consigned to the oblivion that I deem cyberspace to be.” I guess he’s got us all pegged.

So, what is the purpose of blogs in education? Yes. The purpose of blogging in education is to blog about education. The blogger may be student, researcher, teacher, administrator, parent, or outside observer. The audience may be no one, or the audience may be anyone--and that, to paraphrase Robert Frost, can make all the difference.

References

Noller, D. (Photographer). (2009). Student bloggers [photograph]. Original work.

Savage Jr., W. (2006). You can't spill mustard on a blog. Journal of Scholarly Publishing, 38(1), 47-51. http://search.ebscohost.com