Literacy in the 21st Century

Challenger Learning Center STEM Bootcamp 2014 9-12 Reflections

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 20:22:00 +0000

Over the next three days I am going to be Blogging out my experiences and reflections of the Challenger Learning Center STEM Bootcamp.

The sessions I will be attending will cover a variety of STEM topics and the titles of the sessions are listed below:

Little Bits (Engineering session)
The Radix Endeavor (An MORPG from MIT)
Renewable Energy COSM
From filaments to Build Plates (3D Printing - I think...)
Agile Engineering
Systems of System Engineering
Mind Over Math
How to Hack a Banana
Aspirin Synthesis and Purity
Science of Flash Floods
Paper, Ink, and Deception

As I attend each of these sessions I will be updating this blog with information on these topics. More to come in the upcoming days.

Embedding

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 05:18:00 +0000

Untitled Document
Sometimes I get scared. The things that frighten me are many and some of them are actually terrifying. On my list are sharks like the Carcharodon Megalodon and its smaller version the great white, as well as more mundane fears like falling off of a ladder or being sideswiped while riding my motorcycle. While I know that the likelihood of being attacked by an ancient and extinct cartilaginous creature of the seas is zero and the likelihood of being attacked by the smaller version is also zero in the mountains in which I live, I still have this part of me that is terrified anytime that I am in more than two feet of water I can’t see through. The likelihood of me meeting my other fears head on is not much greater on a day-to-day basis, but my fears are an ingrained part of my identity. I can imagine the fear felt by characters in Jurassic Park or the awesome might that the concept of a balrog has.

One thing that you will not find me afraid of though is a glowing white dot chasing people through the screens of the 1960s.

This isn’t really a post about that…but it is. Why is it that I can sit in wonder and look at the balrog or the rancor without losing my sense of rapture in the media but when I look at the white dot of terror I can’t help but laugh at the futile attempts of the couples on screen to avoid becoming a part of that burn on the negative? Why is my expectation of the media I interact with so much greater that I can’t view the 2D version of Avatar in the same way as the 3D version but I can watch a 2D version of other movies without losing a part of the experience? I think it comes back to that word: experience. I have built up in my mind an expectation for what the media I interact with should be based on my past experiences, and I have had a lot of experience throughout my life with media. In fact, my entire life has been in some ways defined by the media I have consumed from Sesame Street to Aliens to The Five People [I will] Meet in Heaven. From birth to high school to college to career to seasoned life to death, I have seen and experienced lives vicariously that have determined in small and significant ways the life I actually live. But I will never be afraid of a white dot…unless that dot is the beginning of an outbreak; my experience with media has surpassed the fear of the negative dot running amok.

That has implications though. When we think about media, and the ways to include it into courses we develop, instructors need to move beyond the media negative classroom and into a classroom experience that provides the same kinds of stimulation that people desire and expect in a digital age. The media has to be more than simply included though; it needs to be good. It needs to be included with purpose, design, and style in mind if it is going to become a valued and valuable resource in the online classroom. Media has the ability to bring to life concepts and ideas, to give voice to the faceless experts whose words in books inspire professors who inspire students, to provide accessibility of ideas to students who struggle with traditional learning mediums, and to add depth to a learning experience in the way that multiple cameras can add depth and breadth to a cinematic experience.

There is more to incorporating media in the classroom if the experience is going to be a change. It has to be more than a simple box thrown on the screen and played through. It has to be supplemented with sound and controls and user interactivity. All of this is flash though. It reminds me of Professor Gilderoy Lockhart from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. If all I have is the style without substance, the media does more harm than good. Nor do I simply want Snape though, whose knowledge of content was extensive but who scared me through his inability to engage his students and his dry focus on the content only. Students need something in between these if they are really going to get the most out of media embedded in the classroom.

The same is true for technology and different tools that can be used to extend learning. The tools must be selected for the right reasons and those reasons must be aligned directly with the learning objectives of the course. This adds interactivity to the classroom but also adds complexity for both the learner and the instructor. Each has to become skilled with the use of tools and the application of tools to learning tasks. Often times this is more of a challenge for the instructor, especially when the instructor allows the students choice, which can be a good practice. Each tool and media experience an instructor can incorporate with purpose and with quality is a window or a door or a knothole that students can use to gain entry into the content the instructor wishes to impart.

That accessibility is arguably more important than ever, given the enormous advantage technology has provided in equalizing the opportunity for students to gain access to instruction. More students and more types of students are taking more classes on more platforms from more locations than ever before. Students are no longer forced to attend a geographically convenient school nor are they confined by the barriers of language, gender, race, or time. The students are used to being given tools and media in a variety of formats and have come to expect that the learning environment will be as stimulating, if not more stimulating, than the interactive, media-rich world they live in day in and day out.

Or at least, they should have that expectation.

As an instructor it is difficult to live up to that standard for long and many times I am not able to pull it off…but give me the budget to avenge and I bet you I could make my classroom pretty darn impressive every day. Alas, I don’t have a budget of $220 million or even the modest budget of a movie whose negative space sphere scared the dickens out of the couples at the drive in. Instead, I make it through with tools like Camtasia, Prezi, Mindomo, Diigo, SharePoint, and my Office suite. These tools are great for what they do; they provide me with a way to begin conversations with my students about the role of interactivity and media in classroom instruction and allow me a way to bring learning to life in the real world.

Jaws helped cement my fears of the bigger fish in the sea and Aliens helped me remember my fears of the dark. Though the effects weren’t great by today’s standards they came from a time in my past where a plastic trashbag really could make a monster come to life. The groundbreaking effects of Star Wars have been eclipsed, but the media helped create a religion. Pong was lightyears ahead of its time, but it can’t hold a candle to Call of Duty or Spore.

You see, we have hit a point with media and interactivity that it is difficult to go backwards from. While we can appreciate the lectures of great professors, in an online classroom we expect the wealth of experience and depth of perception that media and interactive tools allow. And while, on a philosophical level the concept of a giant void that can erase your existence in an existentially, dreadfully visceral way is mind-blowingly intense, it is not the burned spot on a negative that makes us afraid of the world, or makes us change our religion, or makes us picture ourselves on a world where giant blue natives soar with the Mak Tao, it is the inspired, designed, developed, and produced media and tools that envelop us with ideas that we embrace. What is the power of media and tools in a classroom? If constructed and implemented in just the right way, it is the difference between:

and

...

Instructional Clarity

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Fri, 18 May 2012 07:09:00 +0000

There is that moment of anticipation right before your lecture starts and you realize that your students will form their opinion of you based on the first set of words that come out of your mouth. Actually, you realize that many of the students have already made up their minds about you based on your previous students’ comments, ratings, and/or reviews on Rate My Professors. Then comes that next sweet moment when you remember that you are teaching an online class and your lecture can be prerecorded, cross referenced, and perfected…and your students will love every minute of it…if you can get them to watch it at all…

Wait a second; isn’t an online class supposed to be easier for the instructor and a walk in the park for students? Isn’t all that you have to worry about copying and pasting the assignment guidelines and due dates into the learning management system and then you can kick back and wait for all of their eagerly prepared assignments to come dropping into your box like presents at a holiday party? Of course, if it was that easy, wouldn’t everyone being doing it?

It is not that easy and an online class does not pilot itself. In fact, in some ways, creating the sense of community that one finds in a face-to-face environment is more difficult online than people assume. The asynchronous postings and geographical separation that occurs in many online environments makes the crafting of assignments and community building more important, arguably, than in a traditional brick and mortar classroom. In addition, cultural and linguistic differences can influence interactions in ways different from a physical classroom. That is why these kinds of classroom interactions need to be structured, clear, and personalized.

To make students feel a sense of belonging in the course, it is important to make them feel included by reaching out, inviting them to participate, constructing experiences that are engaging, reference them by name, and make them feel valued as individuals by taking an interest in their stories while providing them opportunities to have fun in the first few weeks of the course according to Dr. Rena Palloff and Dr. Keith Pratt, authors of at least three books on online teaching methods and strategies. While these are important elements to make students feel like their participation in online courses is valued, they also need to get to know their professor through a variety of text based and multimedia elements. This helps to personalize the professor and humanize the learning environment.

None of this is possible without the instructor having a clear set of instructional objectives, knowledge of the tools at his/her disposal, and clarity of communication for student behavior. An intimate knowledge of how to operate the technology that is available for the online classroom and how to select the appropriate technological tool for the instructional job at hand is important to make sure that all instructional tools are aligned with the instructional tasks required of students. It is also important to make sure that the instructor understands how much experience the students have with the new technologies being required of them so that the instructor keeps students from feeling cognitive overload during tasks.

If the instructor is not careful and cognizant of the ways that students feel in the beginning of the course and sets up the course in a way that the students feel overwhelmed or devalued, their participation and continued presence in the course will diminish and they may drop from the course. Introducing students to an online course and building community is more important than in face-to-face environments. The separation of the students from the instructor and from one another can be a barrier, but when effectively planed for by an instructor, an online class can be as meaningful as a traditional class.

Online Discussion

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 03:45:00 +0000

King Arthur was a legendary character that created a round table in order to standardize equality among his knights. While his idea of creating a table that equalized the playing field is nice, many have argued over time that his ideal is just that...an ideal. In some cultures, some people are more equal than others. In American culture there is an ideal of equal opportunity. For many years there was nothing that really equalized the playing field for everyone, but one could argue that new technologies have changed that because limitations of geography have been minimized and information access has improved.

With that in mind, answer in your discussion board response for this week the following questions:

1. Arthur's idea had been that by having a round table, everyone would have an equal voice and there would not be anyone with more power than others when discussions were taking place. Explain why you do or do not think that the Internet has become a round table.

2. Have new technologies equalized the playing field for many and if so in what ways? If not, why do you believe that they have not?

3. Reflect on the two items above and explain why you believe that we have or have not moved towards equality with the invention of new technologies.

By Thursday: You need to respond to the prompt above. There is no set limit on the number of sentences, but you do need to include enough information to fully answer the prompt. Remember that this prompt has multiple parts to it, and you will need to answer them all. Also, please remember that your responses must be based on research articles and outside resources from the class readings and beyond.

By Tuesday of next week: You will need to respond to at least two of your peers. Your response must do one of the following:

- Pose a question for further conversation.
- Provide an insight that could further the conversation.
- Provide an answer or clarification sought by the initial poster.

Comments like the following will receive NO credit:
"I agree"
"Totally!"
"You read my mind."
"Great post!"

Please make sure that you have checked for spelling and grammar errors.

The discussion board rubric can be found at this link.

Um...could you explain what cheating means?

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 05:46:00 +0000

Cheating. This is a word that seems to strike fear into the hearts of instructors on a regular basis, especially when combined with the words distance education. There seems to be a general sense of insecurity with the idea that students will be academically honest and show integrity when interacting with course content from a distance. Styron and Styron (2010) explain that cheating is nothing new and that academic dishonesty can be traced back over 100 years; they go on to explain that even though cheating is old, new ways of cheating show up with new technologies. Styron and Styron (2010) go on to state that overall evidence of cheating has increased in recent years but that it is difficult to say whether or not the incidences of cheating in online environments is significantly higher than the average classroom.

This sentiment that online cheating may not be more likely than in regular classroom settings is supported by Hollister and Berenson (2009) as well as Kidwell and Kent (2008). What is interesting about many of these studies on cheating is that they are based, most often, on student self-reporting (Styron & Styron 2010). What was most interesting to me was the variation of responses to what students and faculty even consider to be cheating, a topic studied by Higbee, Shultz, and Sanford (2011). I find often times that the real questions that my students struggle with (and that I find myself pondering) are really what cheating is in an age of connectivist learning (Marais 2010).

I usually attempt to limit cheating by having students develop original creations and allowing them to make up assignments in many cases. Granted, I teach at a high school and this may not work as well in other environments, but allowing students to retest over time provides me with a low anxiety environment when it comes to tests. Grades are still put in, but the students have a limited window where they have the opportunity to prove that they know the information. This is not much different from the real world where learners can test multiple times for a certification, pay to take an ACT like test multiple times, or where learners can retake courses.

Of course, I got away from connectivist learning there for a second and need to go back to it. My classroom looks very different than most when it comes to major assignments because my students spend a lot of time talking to one another, sharing ideas, and crafting collaborative demonstrations of their learning. I still have tests and quizzes, but more often than not the students try to create projects and products that demonstrate their learning. Some people say that I allow my students to cheat because they spend so much of their time communicating with and supporting each other, but I think that in a networked world the true test of their abilities will come out through their interactions with others. They need to be able to perform certain tasks and specific skills individually, but in a globalized world they also need to be able to construct solutions with others in real time across an indeterminate space. So, I struggle sometimes with a narrow view of what cheating is. Like many things, I think that our technology has enabled us to move beyond the definitions that used to apply.

References:

Higbee, J. L., Schultz, J. L., & Sanford, T. (2011). Student Perspectives On Behaviors That Constitute Cheating. Contemporary Issues In Education Research, 4(10), 1-8.

Hollister, K. K., & Berenson, M. L. (2009). Proctored Versus Unproctored Online Exams: Studying the Impact of Exam Environment on Student Performance. Decision Sciences Journal Of Innovative Education, 7(1), 271-294. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4609.2008.00220.x

Kidwell, L. A., & Kent, J. (2008). Integrity at a Distance: A Study of Academic Misconduct among University Students on and off Campus. Accounting Education, 173-16. doi:10.1080/09639280802044568

Marais, N. (2010). Connectivism as learning theory: the force behind changed teaching practice in higher education. Education, Knowledge & Economy, 4(3), 173-182. doi:10.1080/17496896.2010.556478

Styron, J., & Styron Jr., R. A. (2010). Student Cheating And Alternative Web-Based Assessment. Journal Of College Teaching & Learning, 7(5), 37-42.

Community

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 05:07:00 +0000

Community. This is an important aspect of human life as humans are social beings. In the classroom this is a word that captures an idea and helps to determine both the depth of interaction and levels of learning that a student can achieve. In an online classroom it can be the difference between an enriched learning experience and one that is tedious or complicated.

So, why is it that community can play such a huge role in the online environment? Boettcher and Conrad (2010) discuss the differences between the community that forms in a face to face classroom where students have more casual contact and the requirements for more structured and intentional community building because of the fact that students can be separated by space and time. Community in an online environment is important because it sets the stage for information sharing and creating an environment of support (Boettcher & Conrad 2010). According to Boettcher and Conrad (2009) this kind of environment can be created and maintained by active planning on the part of the course designer, maintenance of presence by the instructor, and the creation of spaces for student sharing. Students maintain that this kind of community is important (Ouzts 2006; Xiaojing, Magjua, Bonk & Seung-hee 2007) though the manner of the community and the role of faculty is still something to be researched.

Some essential elements are dialog, grouping strategies, and presence of both the instructor and the other learners (Boettcher & Conrad 2010). In addition to these essential elements, some researchers argue that utilizing specific learning theories as a backbone of design and implementation can increase a sense of connectedness, specifically constructivist learning theories (Ouzts 2006). Additionally, different activities can lead to a better sense of community as Perry, Dalton, and Edwards (2008) discuss; in fact they explain in their conclusion that now that community has been shown to be important to learning experiences, it is the duty of instructors to look for additional ways to increase student engagement.

Over time a community can be sustained online through design and facilitation. The specific learning goals and the instructor's presence can help to inspire the community to support each other and the learning activities and groupings can bring students closer together. Students value a sense of community and a variety of technologies can help to provide students with multiple ways to connect. In the end, the success of the online community will fall back on the intentional design of the course and the meaningful facilitation of the instructor.

References:

Boettcher, J. V., & Conrad, R. (2010). The online teaching survival guide: Simple and practical pedagogical tips. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Ouzts, K. (2006). Sense of community in online courses. Quarterly Review Of Distance Education, 7(3), 285-296.

Perry, B., Dalton, J., & Edwards, M. (2008). Photographic Images as an Interactive Online Teaching Technology: Creating Online Communities. International Journal Of Teaching & Learning In Higher Education, 20(2), 106-115.

Xiaojing, L., Magjuka, R. J., Bonk, C. J., & Seung-hee, L. (2007). Does sense of community matter?. Quarterly Review Of Distance Education,8(1), 9-24.

Sample-istic Society

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 05:35:00 +0000

Photo courtesy of Joe Pemberton

They look at me blankly as if what I said was in a foreign language. Perhaps it is not that it was foreign in terms of the words, but the concept seems to be at odds with their everyday experience of the world. Then there is a tentative stutter as one of them reaches through the veil to clarify the concept, “Wait…so…um…so, even though I bought the CD and paid to be able to play it whenever I want to I can’t actually use even a piece of it – what I paid for – in the background of my YouTube video?”

“Well, in short, no. You can’t. You could, if you were going to be reviewing the song or album, but only a certain amount of time from the CD, like less than thirty seconds…and that might be pushing it. But other than that, not really…well, unless you were talking about the author’s life and it was important to the story you were telling. Well, except that there is a difference when you are a student and you are going to be using it as part of a project, but only if you are going to turn it in for the teacher or play it to the class and a wider audience is not going to be able to see/hear it. You see it comes back to the issue of copyright infringement which is really unclear right now in the courts with the–“

“Wait, Mr. W! The courts don’t know what is copy whatever but we might get in trouble? What about the other music I downloaded? the movies I torrented? the files I copied? the Wikipedia article I used in my paper? (I mean, we don’t even know who the heck wrote that so I can use that right?)”…

And so began my discussion of academic (and real world) honesty in the seventh grade classroom. Since then, I have had the same conversation with every age group from middle school to graduate school. At each step along the way I have had numerous questions from the students but also from my own experiences culminating in a final varied view of what it means to be academically honest and where the concept of academic honesty falls in the realm of the classroom (and the instructor’s responsibilities). This leads us to today’s topic: Plagiarism and more specifically plagiarism checkers.

There is no doubt that plagiarism is a potential problem in the information age (of course I would check the stats twice myself so I knew where they came from – oh wait, they aren’t cited appropriately...oops). The fact that students are growing up in a world where information is literally available on just about every technological device and many times reposted without attribution begs students to consume and resample information. What then is to be done, especially in distance learning classes where the instructor is removed in time and space from his or her students? In fact, this smorgasbord of content without clear guidelines about usage can be difficult for students to understand.

To make sure that we are clear, perhaps what we need to do first is agree on what academic honesty is. This may be a little difficult as even schools who are members of the Center for Academic Integrity differ on the language used to define academic honesty. While the main points are the same, the details can differ. So perhaps we need a better explanation for exactly what constitutes fair use and copyright infringement. A quick search for fair use landed over 4,600,000 results among which were many sites like this one from Columbia University that attempted to give an idea of various fair use examples for students to look at. So perhaps fair use is a more confusing concept in practice than on paper. In any event, we should be able to agree on the fact that taking someone’s work without attribution and trying to pass it off as one’s own is against the standards of the academic community. (Unless we consider different culture’s approaches to the idea of learning, look at different disciplines, or at different purposes for the publishing, all valid points raised by Bob Jensen or people on his discussion).

Okay, so now that the water is significantly muddy, let me try to form a clear picture of the idea of plagiarism and checking for plagiarism in the 21^st century. I believe that to take another’s work without citation, reference, or credit is inappropriate and undermines the quality of discussion in an academic setting. I also believe that student’s should be taught to be responsible with work done by others. Students should be taught the value of thought and to this end it makes sense to check their work for signs of plagiarism.

At the same time I say those things, I also believe that using one of the myriad of online plagiarism checkers out there (this resource gives a great description of their capabilities, therefore I won’t copy it here!) in some ways undermines the very quality in students that we are looking for, especially when it is found that those plagiarism checkers have flaws (Heather 2010). It is interesting (and ironic) that plagiarism checkers like TurnItIn routinely take students’ work regardless of whether or not the choice to submit the work was the student’s in the first place. Of course, the courts have agreed that this is okay for these for profit institutions to do – as Turn It In tells us proudly in detail. So then, how do we rationalize for students the allowances made for those checking for plagiarism while telling them to avoid the same behaviors themselves?

Perhaps the issue is not with the plagiarists so much as with the assessments those students are asked to complete. I would argue that as instructors it is our job to understand and support our students, to tap their creative potential and produce innovative creations. If instructors create assessments that require creative and critical thinking perhaps the students will be unable to simply copy and paste their way to a better project. Perhaps the construction of assessments should be tailored to individual students à la personalized learning. One of the components of that particular resource is the fact that the learner must be engaged and that the instructor must be involved. If all learners were engaged (participating) and instructors were involved (monitoring) the instructor would get to know the student and be able to comment and guide the student without the need for plagiarism.

With this kind of system the learning might be more relevant, tailored to the student’s Zone of Proximal Development (Boettcher & Conrad 2010), and plagiarism would be more difficult for the student to attempt (or at least less inviting as an option). While the capabilities of plagiarism checkers (comparative databases, phrase and keyword searches, and archival structures) are a quick fix for the instructor worried about plagiarism, perhaps more care should be put into the teaching of academic honesty than the punishment of academic dishonesty. Perhaps instead of making every student turn in every paper they write to a plagiarism checker, a common practice in many institutions, campuses should follow the example of Princeton and focus on their honor code.

I might be an idealist, but at the core of academics and (life) is the tenet that students will take the right action more often than not if they find that action to be clearly defined. As an instructor I would hope that I could explain to my students the reasons that their own work is important, the reasons that work by others should be cited, and what a quality product would look like. In addition, I would also hope that students would feel they had support throughout the learning process and that they could ask for help or clarification on their own ideas instead of sampling the works of others. Part of being a great instructor is being able to inspire students to take risks and to be proud of their own accomplishments. Should we check for plagiarism when we are convinced there is a reason – absolutely, but maybe we ought to know and support our students so well that they have no need to plagiarize in the first place.

References:

Boettcher, J. V., & Conrad, R. (2010). The online teaching survival guide: Simple and practical pedagogical tips. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Heather, J. (2010). Turnitoff: identifying and fixing a hole in current plagiarism detection software. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35(6), 647-660. doi:10.1080/02602938.2010.486471

A Pastel Approach to Tech Integration

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 04:39:00 +0000

Picture courtesy of px1666

In the north eastern corner of the art store there is a section of colored miniature bricks that my wife understands holds the potential to create images from the well of creativity. Landscapes, characters, and still-life's could be brought into being with a series of purposeful strokes, subtle blends, and dustings of shallow breath. Every one of the colors, shades, and textures has a role as she would craft those images I can only grasp at. She swears that with practice I could breathe life onto the canvas, but I am not sure that I believe her. Every image I have ever tried to create with those pastels is an abstract and nightmarish version of the scenes in my mind's eye. The pastels are not any different in my hand than in hers, the colors are no different, the pressure is the same, the canvas the same, and yet at the end of the session she has a product of beauty and I have a product of twisted, asymmetrical abstruseness. Both images leave me with the same feeling, sublime awe; hers through the unseen vision and beauty, mine through the absolute and utter lack of talent.

The same is true in many other aspects of life. A master can make a product or idea come to life where a layman may make such a misstep as to cause an observer question the validity of the medium as well as the one wielding it. technology integration is a prime example in education. In the hands of a master instructor technology tools and multimedia can make a learner's experience sublime in a good way and add layers of complexity, depth, understanding, and purpose to a lesson. In the hands of an incompetent the technology and multimedia can add layers of discord, frustration, anger, and complexity. Notice that complexity is used in both a positive sense and a negative sense in the example above because for a learner who needs extension complexity is a great concept, but to someone who is overwhelmed and purposeless, complexity can create additional obstructions to the learning experience. So, what then is the role of technology and multimedia in an online course? A simple and yet complex question...

Picture courtesy of px1666

In fact, it is not only a question for instructional designers, but I would argue that it is the question for instructional designers and instructors. As a writing teacher I have instructed my students to figure out their purpose for the piece they are going to embark on before ever putting the pen to the page or the key to the...um...switch? See, setting a purpose and understanding that purpose is the key to having effective and intriguing writing (something I am not entirely sure I have achieved in this piece up to this point). Understanding a technological tool and understanding your purpose for weaving it into a curriculum is also important and will determine the effectiveness and impact of the tool in the course. This is partly because many tools offer a variety of functions and different layers of application. It is much the way that a pastel can have different tones, moods, shades, and hardness of pressure line depending on the hand wielding it. Prezi can be used as a way to make people motion sick, as a substitute for PowerPoint, as a way to collaboratively work with others to create a variety of products, or as a way to metaphorically layer information for impressive and symbolic representations of information. The purpose and depth of the experience will be determined in large part by the instructor's purpose and skill at integrating the tool into the classroom.

This means that the designer/instructor needs to understand the capabilities of the tool within the learning context and in terms of the audience of the class. A tool will only be as effective as the user of the tool whether the tool is being used by the instructor to produce content for the learner or the learner is producing content for the instructor. In fact, Boettcher and Conrad (2010) encourage instructors to chose (wisely) a handful of tools that support their learning goals and focus on those tools until they are well known. This speaks, in some ways, to the idea that instructors need to understand the purpose and functionality of a tool before beginning to use it in a class. While they begin with an overview and analysis of different approaches to technology integration in learning environments McCabe and Meuter (2011) conclude the results section of their paper with a discussion of the waves of technology integration in instructor approaches. They argue that these waves go from the first where the instructor uses the technology to process parts of the class to wave two where the instructor replicates a traditional environment to wave three where the technology adds functionality, depth, and creativity to the learning environment. This must be intentional on the side of the instructor though or it can lead learners to be distracted or overwhelmed (McCabe & Meuter, 2011).

With this in mind, the most important elements that an instructional designer/instructor must keep in mind are the purpose of the tool, the pedagogical use, the expectations, and whether or not the tool adds an essential function to the learning environment (Boettcher & Conrad, 2010). In addition to those items, the instructor's familiarity with the tools and the cognitive load of the tools on the student are important factors according to Boettcher & Conrad (2010). When implemented well, these tools can be used to increase student learning or their perception of their learning (Davis, 2011); as Pang (2009) showed, multimedia can be as effective if not more effective than a face to face environment. This is true when the use of the multimedia is intentional, well done, and provided with clear expectations. Without these qualities the tool becomes the same to a student as the pastel when held in my hand. It becomes a tool with great potential but that is unclear and mysterious. As we look towards the eventual goal of making content and learning experiences accessible to an ever increasing audience, the role of technology will continue to increase especially as it relates to mobile technologies (Johnson, Smith, Levine, & Haywood, 2011). New technologies make content available to a much broader audience than in the past and have increased the functional use of tools in the classroom.

Picture courtesy of verzerk

Of course, this does not mean that all instructors or all students will share the same preferences for the tools available. Just like my wife (as an artist) has a range of tools that she prefers from the art store and is therefore masterful and selective in her approach to the artistic process and the types of pastels that will produce a specific effect, I am selective in my use of tools as a designer and instructor. It is safe to say that if I were given a soft pastel versus a hard pastel versus a pencil pastel versus an oil pastel I would simply use them the same for the job without knowing the specific functions, benefits, drawbacks, and techniques (much to the chagrin of my wife); my wife, if the situation were reversed would do the best that she could in terms of picking the best technology tool for a classroom situation with probably the same approach and probably the same result. We would end up with an abstract version of something that could have been very powerful if we had had a better idea of what we were doing.

That having been said, I would include a variety of technologies in an online classroom. I would use a content management system like Blackboard, Angel, or SharePoint in order to organize course information in a central location and run class discussions. I would also use video hosting from a site like YouTube, TeacherTube, or Screencast.com in order to provide students with videos/multimedia associated with class. Because of the way that blogging and microblogging have changed the face of online publication I would post to a blog on a site like Blogger or Wordpress and utilize Twitter. I would also use demonstration programs like Prezi, Capzles, Brainshark, or SlideRocket to provide students with information in a visual and text based form. Audio recordings hosted on a site like Podbean or Libsyn could be powerful as well. I might even use concept mapping programs like Mindomo to provide students with a single resource on a topic or a site like Delicious or Diigo (I love the annotation features of Diigo) to house collaborative resource libraries that could grow and adapt throughout the course and be available beyond the course's conclusion. I love to include widgets for fun on my sites as a way to engage the learners and would use social networking on a site like Facebook to interact with students on their mediums. This does not include email, the programs I would use to create the images and multimedia (Photoshop, Illustrator, Garageband/Audition, Camtasia, etc.), or the collaborative technologies (like wikis, Cover It Live, Elluminate, etc.). All of this is, of course, dependent on the learning goals, the student proficiency, and access of the students in the course. I am pretty tech savvy though and am probably not the best person to explain the use of technology without a clearly defined audience and course purpose. In any event, the tool is not as important as the intentional use of the tool for the specific purpose required in each specific element of the course. I strongly believe that each technology component in a course should be used intentionally and as part of an overall vision where each piece of technology used strengthens and deepens the learning experience and understanding of the rest of the tools so that each component is not a tool scattered around the garage but is part of a cohesive toolbox.

When I look at my wife's art supplies I am overwhelmed, but when I look at her pictures/paintings I am awed. I can see the strokes, the gentle movements, and the blending. I can appreciate the craftsmanship, the attention to detail, and the artistic vision. When I know the tools that she used and the time that she invested in each piece I can appreciate it more, but knowing the capabilities of the tools that she used is not necessary for me to see past the two dimensions of the original canvas and be caught up in rapture at her creation. That she is an expert and knows the right tools to use and how to use those tools allows me to see a glimpse into the content she works with, the soul of the artist, and her mind. In the same way, technology integration in a class should allow the learner to be caught up in the content, to learn the beauty of knowledge, and to see into the instructor's mind. The tools should be captivating and transparent at the same time unless the tool is the focus of the learning objective. Each tool has layers of application and each tool has functions that make it a good choice or a poor choice for any given educational situation. Each can be used to create a variety of products and a variety of learning experiences; the power of the tool though comes from the intentional use of it by the instructor/designer. If you give me pastels I will make a fool of myself and leave you thinking I am disturbed in significant ways, but I just might be able to leave you reflecting if given a choice of technologies and freedom to create; as always, the biggest impact on a classroom a does not come from the curriculum, the technology or the content management system, it comes from the instructor who is the master artist in the room.

References:

Boettcher, J. V., & Conrad, R. (2010). The online teaching survival guide: Simple and practical pedagogical tips. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Davis, R. (2011). Socreates can't teach here! Faculty and student attitudes towards technology and effective instruction in higher education. Review of Higher Education & Self-Learning, 3(10), 1-13. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Johnson, L., Smith, R., Willis, H., Levine, A., and Haywood, K., (2011). The 2011 Horizon Report.
Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

McCabe, D. B. and Meuter, M. L. (2011). A student view of technology in the classroom. Journal of Marketing Education, 33(2):149-159.

Pang, K. (2009). Video-Driven Multimedia, Web-Based Training in the Corporate Sector: Pedagogical Equivalence and Component Effectiveness. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 10(3), Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

What's in the distance for distance education?

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 05:04:00 +0000

The slogan for my district is, “Every student prepared for a world yet to be imagined.” It was interesting this last year as I served on a committee that attempted to re-envision an educational system that would actually do just that, and yet our facilitator, a consultant named David Gregory from Gregory Denby and Associates, brought up the point that if we can’t predict the future then we can’t prepare our students for it. I feel that this is kind of the same situation that we are in for distance learning. If asked what distance learning would look like in ten years, five years ago I would have had a very different prediction for the future of distance learning than I would if asked the same question today. With the pace of technology inception/production/integration and the interplay between the lowered costs widespread adoption of different platforms, the future of distance education is somewhat difficult to predict. That having been said, I think that there are some predictions that can be made with some certainty.

First and foremost, the role of distance education will continue to grow as new technologies allow the connection of disparate groups of people. This is something that Siemens (Laureate, 2011) discusses. He also talks about the ways that new capabilities for communication and new tools that allow a variety of interaction types have led to more widespread acceptance of distance learning as a viable way to learn. With these new technologies universities, businesses, political organizations, etc. have the ability to economically address the needs of a wide variety of audiences in a multitude of ways (Laureate, 2011).

One of the biggest shifts that I see coming once new technologies allow for an increase in communication as well as an increase in the modes for communication is the fact that more and more powerful technologies are being produced in smaller, easier to carry packages. When looking at mobile computing and the amazing evolution of phones, it is not hard imagine that in the next ten years mobile devices will be able to substitute for powerful desktop machines. This is an idea supported by the Horizon Report and others. Though relatively new as a platform (so new in fact that the technology seems to have changed by the time empirical evidence on its effectiveness can be gathered and verified) mobile devices like smartphones and tablets have already made a fairly large change in the way that both students and educators of all levels are viewing content.

Tied to this increase in mobile communicative technologies is the idea that a wider audience now has access to the kinds of distance learning experiences previously only seen by a privileged few. As more schools, both higher education institutions and K-12 schools, begin to adopt distance learning as a core part of what they offer, more students will have the opportunity to experience distance learning and to form opinions about the effectiveness of distance education for them as individuals. This individual response to distance education is something Schmidt and Gallegos discuss in their study as being instrumental to the success or failure of a distance learning experience. As more students are exposed a greater percentage of them should find that they operate well in a distance learning environment, especially since many of these students will have been taught some strategies for self-direction earlier in their scholastic careers.

The biggest issue facing proponents of distance education right now though is not a question of technology, capability, or the potential for awesome learning experiences. The biggest issue facing distance education right now is the branding and marketing of distance learning as a substantial force in education with the rigor, relevance, and depth expected in traditional educational experiences. As it stands now this branding issue has led to some concerns about distance learning because of the perceived lack of quality (even prompting a section on the US Department of Education website that starts off with, “Not all online degree programs are diploma mills.”) The implication that distance learning can be less rigorous than traditional forms of education is something that needs to be addressed both by the students who have had successful experiences and the instructors and instructional designers who develop, implement, and evaluate learning experiences in a distance setting. In another ten years I do not think that this will be the case; I firmly believe that within the next ten years distance education will be a staple of learning environments as opposed to an offshoot of traditional schooling.

To do this though, distance education must continue to adapt to new methods, new technologies, and new expectations/capabilities of students. As an instructional designer, one has the responsibility to continue to enhance offerings according to research, pay attention to new capabilities, and speak up for the value of distance learning as a viable platform for a number of students who would potentially be unable to learn in another format due to spatial or chronological separation. While distance learning is a fact of life in America and many western countries, this is a new phenomenon in many “third world” countries around the globe. As technologies in these countries begin to allow it, many of these countries are beginning to look for educational opportunities that they would not otherwise have. The instructional designer, therefore, has the unique responsibility of both arguing for the power of distance learning as a viable resource for those who have become used/skeptical to it and arguing that it is a valuable resource for those who have never seen education delivered in any modified format.

As an individual currently involved with both instructional design in face-to-face, blended, and online learning environments, I see my charge as being an advocate for all types of learning. There are places and times for just about every educational platform/method available to us. At the end of the day, instructional design is really a balancing act of knowing when to use what strategies with which audiences and for what specific purposes. Once this has been determined it is also the role of the instructional designer to explain and promote the learning experiences (especially distance learning experiences) that he/she has designed so that others will begin to see that they have been given a powerful learning opportunity. This is especially important with distance learning experiences so that they are no longer just considered convenient but also valuable. Students need to be able to consume these educational experiences, but they also need to be able to provide feedback and guidance on the requirements of distance learning experiences. I see it as my duty to bring a whole new level of consciousness to high school and adult students. Once we empower the students of tomorrow with the ability to shape their learning experiences through thorough analytical and evaluative processes, they just might truly be able to prepare themselves for the world that they imagine and instructional designers will be able to craft learning experiences that encourage and support them.

References:

Laureate Education, Inc. (2011). “The future of distance education”.

A Paradigm Shift or Simply Something Shiny?

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 08:21:00 +0000

It is interesting that in a world of K-12 standardized testing that is dumbing down our youths' natural curiosity, higher education institutions are offering learning to the public for the simple pleasure of learning. Is just offering content the same as providing an education though? This is the crux of the matter in terms of instructional design, and it is no small question to ask. The idea that teaching is something that requires little skill or preparation is an old idea, as Bernard Shaw tried to point out in 1903, yet even in a digital age there is more to learning than simply being shown content. So what is the validity of the design of courses being offered through iTunesU and the like for free online?

To answer this question I looked at some of the courses offered by Stanford University through iTunesU. Specifically, I looked at a course on Virgil's Aeneid. The content of the course is very good if one strictly looks at the information being presented. The professor is well informed and provides a lot of information on the topic in a series of five segments. It is important to note that the information contained in the class was not the item I was looking at though; I was looking to see if this course offered high quality instructional design of the kind that Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, and Zvacek (2009) describe.

Unfortunately, on that account, the course failed. While the average user now has access to the information about the Aeneid and though the information was presented by a scholar, the course itself was little more than a lecture recorded in a face-to-face setting. In this sense, this was not a course at all but rather the equivalent of a recorded book online. Without any visuals to help the learner, without interactivity, without feedback, and without assessments, all items referenced by Simonson et. al (2009), it is difficult to see how this is actually an online course. There are no outside references to additional resources and there is not even a link provided to the actual work being discussed...even though a five second search on Google showed that the Aeneid is available for free from the Gutenberg project.

While a quick search on the Internet can turn up any number of assignments for this work of literature (storyboards, summer reading, etc.) none are provided from the actual institution offering the course. It is hard to see how offering a simple set of five two hour lectures is good instructional design. In addition to the glaring issues of this course, providing the information in a block of two hours is itself questionable. As Dills and Hernandez (2008) explain, classes that meet more often provide better results for student learning. While the length of the online offering may be somewhat mitigated by the fact that students can pause, rewind and fast-forward through the lecture, I would postulate that by structuring the course in two hour segments the ability of students to interact with the content is limited by the design of the lecture.

Even, Kupczynski, Ice, Wiesenmayer and McCluskey (2010) who point out that direct instruction can be an important educational tool in distance learning do not discount the active role of feedback and interaction with the instructor in the learning processes of students. With many of the Stanford courses, and indeed many of the other online "courses" offered in iTunesU, all you are really getting is content delivery of face to face lectures. A lecture does not included any interactivity for the learner and therefore he/she becomes a passive party in the room. While this can happen in a regular classroom, the student on a roster is still able to interact with the instructor in meaningful ways if he or she desires to. With the lecture based offerings on iTunesU the learner is only able to get out of the class what they are able to figure out and understand on their own. I wonder if this kind of course offering will lead to a misinformed populace over time as people who think they are capable of understanding scholarly approaches to topics are partaking of the offering and then redistributing their own understanding of the information on the Internet as stated facts.

In any case, higher education institutions providing content for the general population for free is a very exciting prospect. I hope that over time the content will be provided using sound instructional design principles in addition to the direct instruction that is currently being found online. I have faith that as technology use and capabilities expand we will see additional models of information become available online and as more instructional designers become skilled in multiple aspects of the process of instructional design, more media rich modules will find their way onto the screens of learners. I hope that over time the decision to support curiosity will eventually lead the general population into support of learning for learning's sake in our public schools because then we might get to the point where students could produce meaningful content for the masses. Imagine a world where students were taught to produce high quality content for others; they would be learning to be critical of both the content and format of online instruction and it just might help make a general population qualified to utilize and improve a resource like the iTunesU of today.

References:

Dills, A. K., & Hernandez-Julian, R. (2008). Course Scheduling and Academic Performance. Economics of Education Review, 27(6), 646-654. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Kupczynski, L., Ice, P., Wiesenmayer, R., & McCluskey, F. (2010). Student Perceptions of the Relationship between Indicators of Teaching Presence and Success in Online Courses. Journal of Interactive Online Learning, 9(1), 23-43. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Augmenting Reality

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 04:45:00 +0000

With the horizon of augmented reality and mobile computing just around the corner, I wholeheartedly believe that we are on the verge of a new phase in education. The possibilities of these technologies are awesome in the true sense of the word. New avenues are available that have never been available before and have made me reflect in real ways about the potential benefits of these technologies for the regular classroom teacher. I was presented, in a course on instructional design, with a series of scenarios to look at and one of them closely mirrors a situation that I may find myself in. So, I started thinking about the possibilities of these technologies, and others, in a situation like the following:

"A high school history teacher, located on the west coast of the United States, wants to showcase to her students new exhibits being held at two prominent New York City museums. The teacher wants her students to take a "tour" of the museums and be able to interact with the museum curators, as well as see the art work on display. Afterward, the teacher would like to choose two pieces of artwork from each exhibit and have the students participate in a group critique of the individual work of art. As a novice of distance learning and distance learning technologies, the teacher turned to the school district’s instructional designer for assistance. In the role of the instructional designer, what distance learning technologies would you suggest the teacher use to provide the best learning experience for her students?"

The possibilities for learning here are numerous for everyone involved, but I think that some of the best tools to use in a situation like this would be a communication tool like Skype, a screen recording program like Screencastomatic, a wiki site like Wikispaces, a blogging tool like Wordpress, and a citation site like Bibme. I say like these tools because depending on district policies not all of these tools would necessarily be available, but all of the specified tools are free and can be adapted for a variety of purposes. As an overview, these tools would allow the students to interact with the museum staff, record the interaction on video (with the ability if software was available to break out the audio stream separately), post combined research to a collaborative workspace, cite that research in a common bibliography, and then post a finalized review on a class run blog that could be used to further conversations about the artwork while synthesizing all aspects of the project into a common information distribution tool that provides an authentic audience. This would be an interesting project to be involved with and would address numerous state standards as well as the International Society for Technology in Education NETs-S and the American Association of School Librarians Standards for 21st Century Learners. This would be a kind of real world preparation that we often times do not see in traditional high school classes.

Blogging can be a powerful learning experience (Halic, Lee, Paulus, & Spence, 2010). Though studies have mostly been done at the level of higher education, these kinds of studies show that technologies like blogs have begun to be used in academic settings. Wikis can have the same kind of usefulness in an academic setting if properly implemented and students can see the value of using the tool (Guo & Stevens, 2011). Citing sources is becoming an important skill for all students to have due to the fluidity of information on the internet so a citation machine of some sort would help students to keep track of resources and raise the level of their academic discourse. Using a screen capturing software would allow the students to archive the discussions with the curators and their virtual tour. Of course, the main tools of the day would be the distance communication platform...more about that in a minute though. All of the tools that I specified above are free, relatively easy to use, and have lots of tutorials available online that have already been produced and posted online for free.

Without a tool like Skype though, the entire day would be a bust. I picked Skype as the main tool for this experience because it would allow the classroom teacher to use a single computer, webcam, microphone, and projector or a computer lab with a one to one setting or to arrange for his/her entire history department to be involved at multiple locations within a school allowing the teacher flexibility to address the learning outcomes. In addition, Skype is now available on multiple smartphones and allows face to face videoconferencing on the move over wireless or cellular networks. That means that the curators at the museums (and other museum goers) could literally lead a tour of the exhibits in real time with the students and direct cameras to the locations students have questions about. These cameras and microphones would allow students to augment their reality and the curators could point out research topics that students could work through during the course of the videoconference or "tour". Skype is relatively easy to set up, to use, and to find tutorials for.

There are a host of issues that could arise on the day including poor connections, technical difficulties, loss of power, and a host of other issues, but many of the tools I selected have relatively stable uptimes. Each of them could be substituted for another tool if policy or circumstances required so.

I would encourage the teacher to scaffold the learning experience by having students research the artists, museums, artistic movements, cultural/historical significance of the exhibits, and other information ahead of time so that students could prepare good questions to ask on the date of their "tour" and could help guide the tour with informed and thoughtful contributions. All information over the course of the unit could be collaboratively posted to a common, private wiki. Once the students had experienced the tour and synthesized the information into their wiki, they could work to write their reviews on a public blog where their global audience could about their learning experience as well as their review of the exhibits. Assuming that the teacher in question gave enough time to prepare, we could hopefully run through a test of the software before the official day. This kind of learning experience could be at the forefront of what K-12 education will look like. As a matter of fact, I just might look into trying to do this kind of experience with my students this year.

References:

Guo, Z., & Stevens, K. (2011). Factors Influencing Perceived Usefulness of Wikis for Group Collaborative Learning by First Year Students. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 27(2), 221-242. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Halic, O., Lee, D., Paulus, T., & Spence, M. (2010). To Blog or Not to Blog: Student Perceptions of Blog Effectiveness for Learning in a College-Level Course. Internet and Higher Education, 13(4), 206-213. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Johnson, L., Smith, R., Willis, H., Levine, A., and Haywood, K., (2011). The 2011 Horizon Report. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

Mapping a Definition of Distance Learning

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 05:34:00 +0000

Distance is an interesting concept. Our understanding of the concept is one that changes based on our frame of reference. So what does that mean? Well, it means that over thr course of years or shifts in our understanding the way that we see distance can change. When paired with the term education or learning a monumental shift occured in the last twenty years with the amazing increases in computing power and the ability of the masses to access technologies. In fact though, distance learning has been around for the whole of human history and possibly before. So how is it that we have forgetten just how long distance education has been around?

I think that part of the issue is that we have a tendency to redefine old words in order to make it seem new and cutting edge. We also have a tendancy to forget that previous civilizations were also advanced and intelligent and to forget our history when that history allows for the ubiquitous adoption of ideas. Nowadays most people would not consider a pencil or a piece of paper technology. Distance education though began with the invention of writing. To be able to educate from a distance requires nothing more than being able to capture ideas and transmit them beyond the moment and location that one occupies. In this sense, distance education has been around since the beginning of history, which is simply the record of what has happened at a specific place and time. Writing is so ubiquitous that many people have convinced themselves that it has always existed.

Now, over the past two hundred years there has been a variety of more organized approaches to distance learning. From written correspondance courses to the invention of broadcasting mediums to televised classes to online interactive courses, new delivery mediums have opened up new learning opportunities and expanded the audiences for distance learning. So with a multitude of potential definitions and applications, what does the term distance learning mean to me?

Before starting my current course, distance learning was a field of study for my father at Nova Southeastern University. We often discussed the idea that distance education was simply education removed from the confines of a traditional schoolhouse and traditional schedule. As I was getting my teaching credential I took classes from Brigham Young University and Lousiana State University through correspondance based distance learning classes. Then, I earned my MS Ed. through Walden University with interactive web based classes. After learning a fair amount in that program I began to design my own distance learning experiences as I began planning blended classes for my high school students. I have also read a fair amount and engaged in video conferencing and podcasting as well as subscribing to some amazing physics lectures from Berkeley's Physics for Future Presidents vodcasts (an amazing intro to physics that was presented by an amazing lecturer, Professor Muller).

Mindmap on distance learning

So distance learning for me is any educational experience that allows one to learn at a time or location different from one's instructor and/or peers. Because my experience with distance learning has been manyfold, my definition for distance learning has not changed. The definition that I have always held incorporates many of the ideas presented by Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, and Zvacek (2009). There have been shifts in the way that different instructional design elements have begun to be incorporated so that the instructional designer has more responsibility than in previous iterations of the field (Moller, Foshay, & Huett, 2008). This leads me to believe that instructional design is becoming a more fluid field with one person taking on more responsibility than in the past. What makes this possible is technology.

That leads into thoughts about where instructional design is headed. According to the Horizon Report (New Media Consortium, 2011) mobile devices and gaming are going to be huge technologies for society in the coming years. I believe that these technologies will have an enormous impact on the field of instructional design and distance learning. When even supreme court justices are on the forefront of using games for learning (Friedman, 2011), you just know it is going to make a huge impact on the field. Mobile learning is going to be just as big with mobile devices allowing for anywhere anytime access to information but also allowing them to interact with apps and allowing the learner to literally augment the world they see with additional information on the go. Both of these will change the way that instruction is deigned, produced, and consumed by the masses. With the price of powerful mobile devices going down and the power and access going up this is where the majority of distance learning opportunities will be in the next ten years in my opinion.

We are finally living in an age when an individual will have the freedom and access to find information that will make every moment a learning opportunity.

References:

Friedman, Danielle. (2011). "O’Connor’s Video Game Revolution." Newsweek . Newsweek, n.d. Web. 3 July 2011. <www.newsweek.com/2011/07/02/sandra-day-o-connor-on-her-american-civics-video-game.html>.

Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 1: Training and development). TechTrends, 52(3), 70–75.

The New Media Consortium. (2011). The Horizon Report. Retrieved July 03, 2011 from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/HR2011.pdf

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.)

Links for My Presentation

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 16:07:00 +0000

Here is a list of links for the presentation today and a number of the tools I use and showed:

Presentation on Prezi - Has links to research, extra sites, resources, videos, ect.

Questions during the presentation: Linoit
Social Bookmarking: Diigo, 21st CenturyTechbox (a place for us to share resources)
Advanced Searching: Google Searches, Hakia, Wolfram Alpha
RSS Reading: Google Reader
Blogging: Edublogs
Professional Development: Twitter, My Twitter Account
BackChanneling/Chat During Video: Cover It Live
Video: YouTube, Screencast.com, TeacherTube
Concept Mapping: Mindomo, Webspiration (unfortunately now a subscription service)
Calendar: Sharepoint
Discussion board: Sharepoint
Shared Document Library: Sharepoint
Wikis: Wikispaces, Example of Wikispaces
Satellite Photos: Google Earth, Lit Trips
Presentation Software: Prezi, Brainshark, VoiceThread
Visual Literacy: Glogster
Timelining Software: Capzles
Creative Commons Pictures: Stock Exchange, WikiMedia Commons
Doherty Staff Resources: Doherty Exchange

Professional Networking: Sean Wybrant

So here it is in a nutshell:

Getting your staff to come along with 21st Century Teaching is a matter of showing them the dire need for including technology in education because of the changes that are coming. At Doherty we had a phased approach that included the following steps:

1. Form a group of people in the building that are interested in sharing ideas about 21st Century Learning and that are open to new ideas.
2. Define a vision for what that would look like at your school.
3. Make the commitment to devote part of your professional development planning to 21st Century Learning.
4. Do a needs analysis with your staff and find out what they are most interested in.
5. Develop opportunities for staff to select their own professional development on 21st Century Skills and provide that PD at various levels of proficiency.
6. Check in with your staff and highlight great uses (Celebrate the successes)
7. Provide resources and connections for sustained PD and a network of teachers to provide a safety net.
8. Encourage the staff to have fun and continue to create an environment open to and supportive of risk taking.

That is what we tried to do at Doherty. We also archived our PD for people to look at later and review.

It started with showing the staff the kinds of technology that are coming and pointing to the research explaining how pervasive technology use is going to be. We started with questions and then provided solutions to the barriers identified by our staff. We also provided a teaser PD where we introduced a variety of tools and asked for feedback on which additional pieces the staff wanted us to look at.

Then, a few of us started showcasing what we were having students do to show people what was possible.

At the end of the presentation I was asked about what I do in my class. That was the overwhelming direction people wanted to go, so I talked about it...but it was a little disorganized. So here is how all of my tech was rolled out and connected:

I introduced email and my classroom calendar so that my students had the ability to contact me and look at classroom resources and plans. After they knew how to do this, I asked them to participate on discussion boards across classes so that they could communicate on classroom information and collaborate on ideas from/for the class. Then, I introduced my dropboxes so that they could turn in traditional assignments like word processed docs or PowerPoints. All of these steps were fairly traditional and worked off of the Sharepoint platform. I included screencasts of all the steps to access these tools so that students could review on their own time or when necessary. The selling point for your staff is that all documents and student assignments are housed in one location that can be collaborative and all resources are archived so that students can check in/review the work being done in class.

Then, I went to web tools. I showed them how to do concept mapping online so that they could organize thoughts for their discussions, work on vocabulary, and organize thoughts for their reflections/class writings. We then signed up for blogs and the students started publishing their information. I had them post the feeds to their blogs on a wiki and then created a reader account on Google so that I could subscribe to their blogs. They started doing weekly blog postings and set up reader accounts of their own to subscribe to each other. I then showed them creative commons media sites so that they could include visuals on their blogs. We then worked on citing sources using an online citation maker and we discussed the differences between written and embedded citations. After this, I worked with them on advanced searches on Google and other search engines. The students then learned how to use different presentation tools like Prezi and Brainshark to visually communicate ideas and wrote reflections on the process on their blogs.

All of these tools led to the use of a wiki and online forms to organize their information for each other. Eventually we talked about ways to research and share information and that a wiki was a good way to inform others about information that has been found but can become cumbersome when you want to share something quickly on the go, so I taught them how to share resources through Diigo. I showed the kids how to take the information from their advanced searches and share them quickly with tags and groups. I also showed them how to access programs that would allow them to podcast like Aviary and Podbean.com. We also learned about file conversions using online conversion sites. We talked about the differences between a presentation and a poster and used Glogster as a way to share information and resources interactively. Then, we talked about microblogging as a way to share resources to subscribers, a way to provide status updates, and a way to engage in social marketing.

All of this was in preparation of my end of year projects. My students created presentations for the class where they identified issues that they cared about (after using the appropriate tools above to conduct research) and they tried to persuade their peers to select their projects for us to do as a class. In these projects the students gathered resources, conducted additional research, made a plan for events to share out their research with authentic audience, partnered with community/business groups, created an online presence for their groups, and worked to address social issues in real and meaningful ways.

They are discussing the projects, interacting with self-made calendars, mapping their proposal processes, using email to engage each other/outside groups, using social bookmarking to share resources, taking pertinent information and sharing it on wikis, taking that same information and repurposing it on classroom blogs, providing status updates with Twitter, creating group pages on Facebook, conducting surveys using forms, making presentations on various platforms and making audio/video files to highlight their issues.

Each of the tools I taught in order made it possible for them to create a whole marketing campaign for authentic audiences on real issues of importance to them. Each step in the process helped give students a better understanding of the complexities of communication across platforms and audiences. At the end of the process they will be relating the process and steps to the academic content from my classes and using a web editor to create an online portfolio that highlights their skills.

In the future I plan to bring in distance learning experiences as well...

but I am a little out there. It is important to have a big picture though so that your staff knows how these pieces work together. The way I did it might not work for everyone, but it worked for me (mostly) and allowed me to take the students to a new level with their content and the interactivity in my class. As I showed what I was doing, others in my building came on board with pieces and parts. It is a long process though and it must be intentional.

It starts with the vision. I knew from the outset what my eventual goal was going to be. That is where you start with your staff and then you address their fears one at a time until you get through them all. You also need to work things slowly...it goes one step at a time.

Weaving?

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 20:36:00 +0000

So last night I was thinking about a series of assignments that one of my coworkers was having her students do and thought I might give it a try. The assignment was to write a poem in the same fashion as The Lost Generation and produce it in a video like this. The poem had to be a palindrome and had to be meaningful. In some ways I thought it would be easy; it wasn't. Creating a poem that has meaning and can be read down and up with different meanings is really difficult.

This is my first crack at it. I wanted to get across the fact that a focus on tools and a focus on external responsibilities is not acceptable in a true 21st Century classroom. I had two people proof it and they gave me the thumbs up...so here it is. Any comments would be appreciated!

Challenging

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 22:40:00 +0000

A challenge was thrown down yesterday. In some ways it took me by surprise and left me feeling like I'd been punched. As a parent, hearing about the loss of a daughter, a friend, a niece, and a unique soul hit me in a way that I have never experienced before. I just kept thinking, "What if it was my daughter?" The thoughts left me reeling as I walked out of the auditorium talking with our band director about the ways that people deal with loss. I can only hope that I react the way that Rachel's family did. That was the challenge: Make a difference with the life you have.

I am reflecting today about how that message has influenced my life, before I ever heard the challenge. Last year my students saved lives in Africa. This year, my students have been arranging a safe driving campaign with the same goal, organizing a musical aid event to benefit the Japanese, and planning to make wishes come true in partnership with the Make-A-Wish foundation. I am part of that process and it makes me contemplative on a day like today. Listening to my students arrange for these events, I can't help but feel amazed that we are able to change the world when we decide to. I am actually awed that when we have a cause to rally around, that we tend to. My goal in life is to make a difference and to "start a chain reaction" in those around me. I want to pay it forward and help to save the world.

A few weeks ago we had "SuperHero" day at school. I did not dress up like Spider-man on that day...partly because I feel like a superhero every day. I don't save the world every day, but I try to save a piece of the world every day. I wonder what would happen if we all tried to save the world every day, even on the days that we felt beat down and overworked, maybe even especially on those days. When looking at my students, I think that they would be inclined to do so if we gave them the chance.

I accepted the challenge, internalized it, and it is a part of who I strive to be. In my classes this year, I have had my students choose their own hero projects. I haven't really told them that I have my own. Teaching them how to be heroic is my hero project. The funny thing is, I don't think I am very heroic myself...so perhaps I am not the best person to teach this quality to the students. At the end of the day though, I don't know if anyone else will step up to do it and the consequences of no one trying to take on that responsibility outweigh the benefits of waiting for a more qualified candidate...so I try to save the world one piece at a time by guiding my students towards doing so and hope that when all the cards are dealt I've made a difference and started a chain reaction that I will most likely never get to see.

The future?

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 18:47:00 +0000

He stared at the broken pencil tip with the intensity of someone who saw the final hope for salvation suddenly snuffed out. The graphite tip of his last number 2 pencil was laying next to the thirty-fifth row of bubbles. It was a final chance to prove himself for his teacher, one of the few women in his life that he completely respected and wanted to perform well for. Unfortunately, he had been so eager, so overzealous, that he had pressed too hard; he had doomed her. His failure would be the axe that brought her down. The tears began to flow freely, making moist spots on the rows for the other sixty-five capsules waiting to be filled with knowledge on the paper. It was too late though; in this high stakes society he had already fallen behind, there was not enough time left to make up for the mistake.

He heard sometimes, from his great grandparents, that occasionally learning had been fun when they were kids. They talked of colors and crayons, glue and felt, wooden blocks and something called recess. As they talked about this fantasy, fairytale version of school, he could not seem to put it together in any way that made sense to him. It was so different; it was so…varied and chaotic that he did not understand how anything was ever accomplished with students always talking and working together. How could people possibly, ever, get anything done when they were allowed to work on projects? How did they show understanding without answering questions with only one answer? He couldn’t comprehend it.

What he did comprehend was the fact that his teacher would be executed for his failure on the test. His great grandparents had said that when they had supported the accountability movement they had not realized that eventually teachers would be punished with execution based on the scores of their students. At one point they had talked about making teaching competitive and rewarding teachers for helping their students perform better than their peers, but over time they realized that with the push for ever increasing standards, the only way to truly get teachers to bring every student forward by leaps and bounds was to make examples of those teachers whose students with subpar performance. After the first round of executions, they found that both teachers and students were motivated to a much higher degree.

Eventually it became standard procedure to take the top ten percent of graduating classes in college and force them into the teaching profession. The bottom ten percent of the teachers in the school system at the end of the previous testing term were removed from the classroom and executed in front of the school through evisceration, racking, and eventual beheading on the first day of the new term. This provided both a reminder to the students and the staff about the importance of reliable data and the necessity of ever increasing productivity. In addition, the removal of the bottom ten percent made space in the ranks for the best and brightest coming in the door. By mandating the top ten percent of graduating classes to go into education and placing them in the areas of highest need, society and the students were best served.

He self-consciously raised his hand and waited for the cameras in the ceiling to pick up the movement. Then, he placed his hands on the top of the desk with his palms down and waited for the designated male officer to enter the room. It had to be a male; the number of students caught with notes or microchips in their clothes had made it necessary for all students to take their tests stripped to their skins. That way, cheating would be stamped out completely. Each room was monitored and taped using the best audio and video recording equipment available so that it could be analyzed at a later date by teams specifically trained in the most subversive cheating techniques. He remained completely still to make sure that there was no reason for them to suspect him of anything suspicious.

The door slid open silently and the security guard came in with his taser raised and pointed toward Blake’s back as he sat with his palms flat and his head lowered, eyes on the broken tip. The guard came around the front of the desk and looked at Blake as if he were a caged, feral animal. Blake waited until the guard motioned before looking up toward the man. The guard wore a tag that identified him as 545661 though Blake was sure that he had a name, even if society did not remember it now. The guard put a finger to his lips and motioned Blake to stand and place his hands on the pat down circles painted on the wall. Then, a group of test monitors in sterilized quarantine garb entered the room and examined the test that Blake had been working on. He heard the sharp intake of breath as the monitors saw the fine dusting of graphite dust that coated the answer bubbles for questions thirty-five to forty. They observed the broken tip of the pencil and removed it from the desk with tweezers. The tip was carefully put into a test tube and sealed with Blake’s identifier scribed across the seal.

Then he heard the gasp and the mutter as their eyes feel across the wet smears on the page. He could feel their heads turn in his direction and the weight of their stares crushed him. It was like an avalanche and finally his reserves broke. The tears began to leak out more quickly and he felt his chest begin to heave. The guard’s eyes went wide as he saw the sudden movements of Blake’s shoulders and heard the beginnings of a sob in Blake’s throat. He threw his arms around Blake and threw him out of the door before the sound was able to distract the other students in the room.

Blake tried to look back as he was shoved from the room. The guard’s eyes met Blake’s before he calmly raised his taser and fired. Blake’s last thought before the pain racked his body was how sorry he was for falling behind. The world went black.

None of the other students even paused in their test taking.

Taking Learning Online

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 17:16:00 +0000

Online Learning on Prezi

Mixed Tapes

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 19:10:00 +0000

Seeing the cassette recorder nestled onto the back shelf teased out memories of sitting in my bedroom during my teenage years spent listening to Chicago and K-Lite 106.3 and recording mixed-tapes for the young ladies I wanted to woo. Inserting the magnetic takes into the player and hitting record seemed like a magical process and I did not ever think that I would look back and describe the process in the same tone of voice my father had when he talked about eight tracks. It was a painstaking process, but that gave it an air of romance. Creating a podcast and a playlist just doesn’t say, “I love you,” in quite the same way, but technology moves ahead and some technologies must be left behind.

Of course, schools have to purchase the technologies that they can afford when they have the money and often times these technologies are held onto by school systems long after they are obsolete because schools can’t afford to get rid of every outdated technology they have without a steady influx of technologies to replace them. That is why I found myself looking at an outdated cassette recorder on the back shelf of our in school technology graveyard. We now have access to technologies that can do the same thing, but we aren’t quite ready to give up what we had.

In a world of iPods, cell phones, digital recorders, and pocket camcorders a simple cassette recorder doesn’t make sense. The fact that my iPod can store the equivalent of 120,000+ audiocassettes in a space that is roughly equivalent and has more uses makes the decline of audiocassette recorders easy to understand. Even a compact disk, another technology becoming outdated, has more versatility and more application than a simple audiocassette.

By using an audio recorder like GarageBand or an audio library tool like iTunes a user is able to create their own recordings or use another’s to make playlists and populate an iPod, the technology that signaled the final deathblow to the magnetic audiocassette. The ubiquitous adoption of MP3 players and the sheer variety of MP3 players has truly transformed the market. There has even been a move towards using audio programs on phones to take the place of the type of recorder I found in the cupboard at my school. The most recent iPod touch offers not only the capability to manage playlists, record audio, and share these creations, it also offers the ability to take photos and high definition movies. In a world like this, the good old-fashioned mixed tapes I made as a young man are a thing of the past, at least in my world.

As Thornburg points out, there is more than one definition of “emerging” that can be used when talking about technology (Laureate, 2009). In some part of the world, the technology of the mixed tapes I remember may just be emerging because it has not inundated the market and the technology that replaced it, the iPod, may not be feasible. It all depends on the perception of the market and the population that is interacting with the technology.

In my classrooms, I have tried to bring in iPods and podcasting as a way to engage my students. Having those students interact with content on tapes would make them curious I am sure as some of them have never actually seen an audiocassette; it wouldn’t make much sense though. Instead, I am trying to bring in the kinds of programs that allow them to interact with content and allow them to record with the technologies that are relevant today. When it is all said and done, maybe making a playlist or a podcast is still a romantic thing to do because the intention is the same. Regardless, I have never looked at my iPod with the same kind of smile that the audiocassette recorder brought out.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). New and Emerging Technologies. Baltimore: Author.

Reflecting on PLNs and EDU 6714

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 15:59:00 +0000

Photo courtesy of geox.

I am only one man. This seems like an obvious statement to make, but I think that many times I forget that statement and take on more than I should. I think most educators do. That is why developing a personal learning network (PLN) is so important these days. With so many resources out there, it is important to think about how to leverage our professional relationships in order to develop networks of resources. That is one of my takeaways from EDUC 6714.

Throughout the course my fellow students and I brought together our combined efforts in a “differentiation station”, a library of resources on differentiation in the classroom. We tackled a major topic in education and the combined effort led to a much broader range of resources than any of us would have been able to develop independently. This differentiation station has provided me with a number of high-quality, practical resources to explore and share with my colleagues.

Photo courtesy of mzacha.

Each of these resources helps provide a window into how to make Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Differentiated Instruction (DI) a cornerstone of tier one instruction in the classroom instead of an unmanageable mandate from a power on high. With access to resources like those found in our differentiation station, each of us is a more formidable force in the classroom, assuming that we use the resources. This kind of instruction is research based (CAST, nd) and is what is best for all students (Laureate, 2009), but often times feels overwhelming to the classroom teacher. Resources that make the process easier by providing tools, by providing research, or by providing examples all make this an easier process to engage in on behalf of our students.

I was already engaged with many tools in the classroom that provided students with a variety of choice, so this has only helped to clarify some of the additional options and expand on the research for allowing variety in my classroom. The biggest take away for me was the power of creating and maintaining a network of professionals that are committed to bolstering each other’s professional practice. As we move forward I plan to continue developing my PLN through resources like Twitter, Google Groups, Facebook, LinkedIn, Diigo, Blogs, Wikis, and Nings so that I can stay involved with resource sharing and the exploration of new frontiers. Even though I am only one man, I can be an integral part of a group and can benefit by giving and receiving the gift of knowledge.

References

CAST: Center for Applied Special Technology. (n.d.). CAST: Center for Applied Special Technology. Retrieved October 3, 2010, from http://www.cast.org/

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Reaching and engaging all learners through technology. Baltimore: Author.

Designing for Learning

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 03:00:00 +0000

Photo courtesy of danzo08.

LEGOS were my favorite toy growing up because there were a million different ways that the pieces could be put together and instruction booklets that came with each set allowed for multiple construction projects. Each time the new plastic smell drifted out of the box, my mind was filled with a multitude of ways to engage in creation. I could break down a castle and make a spaceship with the same pieces. No matter what I wanted to construct though, there were the same building blocks for each project, and what made the variety was the planning process and intent of each of the projects I embarked on. My varied interests, the pieces that I had at hand, and my prior knowledge all had an impact on the types of constructions I was able to form. This is the same kind of process that EDUC 6714 taught me to go through when planning for a differentiated learning environment.

Each student will approach the class in a variety of ways based on their unique backgrounds, their interests, and their abilities (Rose & Meyer, 2002). My job as an instructor is to help them to access the content of my class. This is only possible if I know my students, and gathering information from students is something that is far easier today than at any previous time in human history. Technology has provided teachers with all sorts of tools to gather information about our students. Tools like interest inventories, learning style surveys, multiple intelligence tests, learner profiles, state assessments, and a host of different data tracking systems like EASy all make getting to know the abilities, interests, and preferences of our students easier than ever.

Once we have all of this information, we have the ability to select from a variety of different tools and a variety of different resources in order to provide those students with the learning experiences that they desire and deserve. If we think about all of the different ways that we could differentiate from the beginning of our planning, like Universal Design for Learning says (CAST, n.d.), then we can truly begin to talk about how to differentiate our instruction. Using technology can help us to create learning environments that are inclusive of all learners and offer a variety of challenge and engagement (Laureate, 2009). This technology can be used to provide all students ways to access the content, show their understanding of the content, and choose what aspects of the content appeal to them. By allowing these kinds of choices, students’ different learning networks are engaged (Rose & Meyer, 2002).

Of course, this kind of learning environment requires that teachers know that a variety of tools exist that learners can use and that teachers are comfortable with allowing students to address their unique learning needs. This environment also requires that teachers actively plan for differentiation using some sort of method like the Cast Lesson Builder guides teachers through (Howard, 2004). By planning for a variety of different kinds of assessments (blogs, wikis, Prezis, podcasts, videos, etc.) from the beginning, each student has the ability to contribute to the learning environment. Teachers can make this an easier task by creating rubrics for the different types of activities ahead of time.

This type of classroom looks and operates very differently than a traditional classroom though. Teachers must engage administrators, parents, colleagues, and the community in creating a supportive learning environment where all students are provided with the access and tools that they need to be successful. A variety of communication platforms should be engaged (Twitter, Facebook, email, shared calendars, transparent online classrooms, online grading programs, etc.) so that parents have a variety of ways to access information about their children’s learning experiences. As their children begin to expand their educational awareness, enjoyment, and experiences, parents and students can begin to explore education as a vital and meaningful part of these young people’s lives. As individual learning experiences address individual learning gaps, parents, students, and the community will find classrooms and schools to rally around.

This can only become possible with a plan of action that values students as individuals. It can also only become possible with a plan of action that addresses current available technologies and emerging technologies. It is the responsibility of the teacher to stay informed on new trends in technology and new tools/capabilities that would meet the needs of the diverse learners in the classrooms of today. Conducting research on new technologies, using Personal Learning Networks, and joining professional communities like the International Society for Technology in Education are all ways to ensure that teachers are staying current as new technologies emerge. Taking this information and combining it with research on how the brain learns can provide a teacher with the credibility to weigh in on school and district committees regarding technology plans.

Each piece is vital, but each piece can be viewed multiple ways. As we try to address the specific and diverse needs of our students in the 21^st century, it is extremely important that we plan to use a variety of tools that satisfy a wide range of students and allow for different platforms of communication with the entire spectrum of people served by our efforts. If we do this well, we can create a learning experience for our students that is appropriate, inclusive, engaging, and rigorous. This is a lot like opening that tub of LEGOS and looking at all the possibilities. A standardized approach to the complex task of learning does not allow for the range of experiences available in the real world of the 21^st century. A complex, varied, multimodal learning environment invites our students into a complex, varied, multimodal world and this is the world that our students already live in.

References:

CAST: Center for Applied Special Technology. (n.d.). CAST: Center for Applied Special Technology. Retrieved October 3, 2010, from http://www.cast.org/

Howard, K. L. (2004). Universal design for learning: Meeting the needs of all students. International Society for Technology in Education, 31(5), 26–29. Retrieved from the ERIC database.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Reaching and engaging all learners through technology. Baltimore: Author.

Rose, D., & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching Every Student: Information & Ideas. CAST: Center for
Applied Special Technology. Retrieved October 3, 2010, from
http://www.cast.org/teachingeve

Duty, Power, and Responsibility

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 22:57:00 +0000

Photo courtesy of br0.

It is elusive now. That moment when I knew I wanted to teach children has blended into the very marrow of my life. It has become a part of the essence that makes me complete, but I know that there must have been a specific moment. Perhaps it was the time my 6th grade teacher, Mr. Hawkins, took me into the hall to give me a lesson about what it meant to grow into a man someday. Maybe it was the moment that Mr. Lamphear made me believe that I had I needed to use my potential because I had a duty to my fellow human beings. Maybe it was the first time I heard Uncle Ben whisper to Peter, "With great power comes great responsibility." Or maybe it was the host of teachers who were Silvertounges and made the fantasy worlds in books come to life through the power of their words. They made the truth spring out of the thin air and they taught me to look for the commonalities that bring us all together. Each of those was a moment that could have been the one that made me want to recreate that experience for a new generation.

I am not sure though that it can be that neatly defined; perhaps that is the reason the specific moment I decided to enter the classroom eludes me. There are some moments like the first time I really met my wife, the birth of my children, the passing of my father, that were burned into my soul in an instant and changed my life with their vibrance and power, but the commitment to my profession has been built upon a lifetime of experiences that have brought me to where I am now...and that is part of why I am writing today...

The commitment that I made to become a teacher was not undertaken lightly. I weighed very heavily what I had to offer before going down this path. The consequences of having a poor teacher in the classroom are too heavy to play with. I thought long and hard about whether or not I would be setting students up for success better than the other people around me. I wanted to make sure that I would not be harming children by entering the classroom. I wanted to make learning come alive. I wanted to read the characters out of the book, like SilverTongue, and engage students in the world that they are living in, a world that has so much to offer.

So, here I am writing a post about educational reform and have spent half the time talking about my past...but, you see, the past is important. You, just like my students, need to know who I am and why I am here before I tell you what I see in the future. You need to know that I am a passionate man with a family, children of my own, a lifetime's worth of experiences, and a die-hard commitment to my profession. In a time where teachers are seen as others, it is important to see the people beneath the titles, because we are all human. In a time of political ads that focus on the negatives and what the other side isn't doing, it is important to stand up and explain who you are instead of who the other guy isn't. I am a teacher, I am a parent, I am a student, I am a hero to some, and on midterm day I can be a very scary individual. I am also an idealist.

In my graduate program we talked a lot about Universal Design for Learning (UDL). The basic premise is that our students are all individual learners. If we can accept that fact and drink in the unique strengths and weaknesses of our students, we can imbue our instruction with opportunities for all to succeed. We also talked a lot about Differentiated Instruction (DI) which is the practical application of UDL. DI is creating opportunities for students to access and demonstrate content knowledge in a multitude of ways. Technology is what allows this to happen easily within a classroom because technology can help a teacher modify an assignment for 33 students in a single classroom.

Okay, this has been around for a while though right? The idea that learners are different, that they have different needs, and that technology can help us meet those needs, those ideas have been around for decades. So if it has been around for decades, how can we call it reform?

Photo courtesy of edududas.

Re-form to me means to take something that has been around for decades and to make it better by adjusting the way you approach it. To some people right now, reform means going towards a standardization model...for others it means to allow for complete control by small groups...to others it means allowing corporate interests into the schools... I think that we need something else. I think that we need a new understanding of what an educated individual looks like. We need to look at more than the content someone knows. We need to look at more than what the curriculum is. We need to look at more than what we have done in the past. We need to take education and look at what could be and stop complaining about why our dreams can't become realities. We need to re-form our schemas to allow for an optimistic future.

In that vein...here is my vision:

Imagine for a moment a classroom of students debating the nature of literacy in the 21st century. They are asking to sit in circles and talk in small groups about a novel that deals with access to information. They are debating the benefits and obstacles of school filtering systems and are discussing whether or not their blogs should be public. They are looking at what Montag stands for in Fahrenheit 451 and whether or not they can find a Creative Commons image that truly captures the essence of who he is. They are relating the struggles of this character and the conflicts of this book to the real world topics of censorship and Google and questions being raised by real people about the power and purpose of information...they are posting quotes that symbolize characters on a common wiki and then they are updating their online concept maps so that they can arrange their information in visual ways that show the connections between these various topics...They pull out computers to independently search for information that supports their opinions and they ask each other for support instead of asking me for answers...they reach across the aisle and point to each other's screens and explain how to give real world credit to a source in addition to using correct MLA citation (because this is what is on the test)...

Oh wait...I said I was going to be visionary. What I have described above is my classroom on Wednesday of last week. That isn't really reform...that is reality. So we need to move past the reality I strive for on a daily basis...the ins and outs of creating multifaceted and multileveled activities for my students...the daily balance of individual work to collaborative work to group discussion to individual reflection...the balance of real world versus the standardized testing minimums...the constant struggle between the need for and the lack of resources in my building...and we need to move into a realm where the vision I see in my head can become the future for my students. You see, what I am doing is okay...but it isn't enough...

So...let's try this again...

Education is what our students live and breathe every day. Reforming education would mean that we were making content, presentation, and production of information relevant and meaningful. Our students would be moving past the "Why do we have to learn this?" to the much more powerful, "What kinds of practical applications of this information would make my world/society/school a better place to be and can I try to address those issues for my final exam?" They advocate for themselves and seek out pathsin which to apply this information/knowledge we present to help others locally and on a global scale. They ask for guidance but more often they propose solutions in a variety of ways. The students are asked to help write the tests that measure progress so that they have a voice in making the tests meaningful and relevant to future student populations. Or better yet, the students propose that their worth as students is judged based on their ability to solve issues in the real world with their skills and knowledge.

In a world like this, the students would be held to a much higher standard and they would be making the world a better place while showing that they understand the information they are being presented with. They would synthesize the information from their various classes into a cohesive product/production that would be aimed at providing the world with model citizen scholars. The students would have something substantial that they could continue to contribute to...

And when you come down to it, isn't that what we want? Don't we want our students to contribute more than a simple bubbled in form? Don't we want them to invest in their world and give back? According to centuries worth of observation and current brain research, each student has something to offer that is unique and special, and if we took the time to really let each student give that little piece of themselves, wouldn't we all be better off? There is nothing standard in the amazing and awesome. That is part of what makes amazing and awesome such powerful concepts. Isn't that what we want our students to be?

Photo courtesy of enimal.

So...re-form...Perhaps the place it has to start is with us, the educators and parents and coaches and models...Maybe we need to remember that bucking the system is how the system got started in the first place. It is time for a revolution. It is time for action. It is time for commitment. We have a duty to our students. "With great power comes great responsibility." We need to invent the ideas to put on the page and play SilverTounges to bring them out into the real world. We need to stand up and say that accountability that loses humanity is not enough for educational reform. Our students are students with valuable contributions to make...true educational reform would imply that we were willing to give them the opportunity to help create the world that they are going to be living in. True educational reform would allow students to contribute in meaningful ways with each other to solve the real issues that they are going to be faced with. As Chris Lehman said at ISTE 2010, "What if we stopped telling kids that high school is preparation for the real world and conviced them that it is the real world?"

True edcuation reform would give students the motivation, the freedom, and the support they need to become active participants in their world. True educational reform would focus on bringing the laughter back into the classroom...because learning should be exciting, challenging, and fun.

You see, what made me want to be a teacher wasn't my test scores and accountability for my actions as a student. What made me want to be a teacher was truly believing that I could make a difference and that I could pull those ideas and characters from the pages of the books they lived in. What made me want to be a teacher was having the opportunity to apply my knowledge to the world as a student. What made me want to be a teacher was realizing that education was about people and connections, not the number that signified my knowledge base.

Last Wednesday, my students made a small impact on each other. They interacted with one another and the rest of the world with the intention of coming to a clearer grasp of the importance of words and ideas. They reformed their understanding of what a literate citizen looks like and they enjoyed the deep thinking that they were asked to do. They felt that their individual needs were being met and they felt like they were more than simply sophomores with a score on their backs. They felt involved...they felt engaged...and they felt that that day was a beginning...perhaps it was a moment that will be part of their core...and they will look back and realize that they can't define the moment they felt that they needed to be involved with scholarly conversations about real world issues...

Photo courtesy of hhsara.

Educational reform begins with the belief that we can make difference in the world. It begins with a conversation that focuses on what is possible. There is a moment that is difficult to define, but that sinks into the very core of who we are as we stand up and say that change must happen. That moment becomes one of a number of moments that changes the very course of our lives and the lives of those who must coexist in the world with us. Our students deserve a better education than the established system provides and they deserve to be participants in their own futures. Chris Lehman said it best, "Students should never be the implied object of their own education." We have a duty to our students. They deserve to be the driving force in educational reform and we have the responsibility of creating educational experiences that meet their individual needs. To do that, we need to be able to openly discuss, with complete honesty, the possibilities of educational reform with a positive, optimistic, student-centered focus. To accept the status quo would be to break the promise we made to students when we took up the mantle of educator scholars.

Stealing Fire

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 13:50:00 +0000

Picture from hadler at
http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1279067

It wasn’t until I became a father that I truly understood the sacrifices that Prometheus was willing to make for humanity. To steal fire from the gods was a sacrilegious act that he knew he would have to pay for; at the same time, he understood that what he was doing was right. In a time of educational reform that has seemed to move further and further away from educating the whole child at a level that is appropriate to him/her, looking at the relationship and research behind Universal Design for Learning (UDL), Differentiated Instruction (DI), and technology is a welcome change. While the role of these different approaches to education are symbiotic in many ways, they are not necessarily aligned to a one-size fits all approach to education that our standardized testing culture seems to value. In this way, I feel like a modern Prometheus, in the non-Frankensteinean sense, bringing light and knowledge to my colleagues and students.

Of course, in order to bring knowledge to the masses, resources must be found and referenced. Tools must be gathered. Information must be presented. That is what Smith and Throne (2007) do; they provide information and ideas that prepare a teacher to look for the resources and tools to provide students with learning experiences tailored to their preferences, needs, and unique abilities. The purpose of DI is to allow students from a variety of backgrounds to access information and become successful learners (Smith & Throne, 2007). UDL provides the framework for a teacher to plan DI activities within a single classroom(Rose & Meyer (2002). Technology may be the best way for teachers to effectively create a DI environment that provides resources for each student’s optimal learning experience (Smith & Throne, 2007).

So, understanding that this is a valuable practice to bring into the classroom is only one step in the process. Teachers need to have tools that they can reach out to in order to apply UDL principals to their instruction. One of the best ways to find these kinds of tools is to look at a site like Tech 4 D.I. This is a resource that provides teachers with a number of different resources. The site has links to tools, links to research, links to definitions, and links to presentations on the relationship between technology and DI. Because this site is comprehensive in scope and reaches out to so many outside resources, it is a great site for teachers to learn more about these concepts. It does allow a teacher to address the needs of students by linking teachers to a variety of tools and explaining how these tools can be used for different purposes depending on the specific learning experience desired. One could argue that this resource could support the readiness, interests, and learning profiles of students by providing the teacher with the research, resources, and tools to make those experiences a reality.

Another reason that I appreciate Tech 4 DI is that it is run on Wikispaces.com. A wiki can be a great way to vary an assessment based on the readiness, interests of students, and learner profiles. By allowing the students to use this kind of multimedia platform, all students can interact with information that they find meaningful and valid, show that learning through the presentation of information in a variety of mediums, and operate at an appropriate level for their abilities. By having teachers access Tech 4 DI they are accessing a resource that can be used as a model for the kinds of products students could use.

Of course, as a teacher it is nice to see a list of tools that can be used for a variety of purposes. One of the most thorough and yet most concise list of tools I have seen is the Box of Tricks blog. On this site each tool has a description of its main function and why it might be useful in a classroom. One could find a tool for just about every learner profile, interest, and ability level. Some of the tools referenced on this site that could be used for addressing different learner profiles include Aviary (a multimodal suite of cloud based applications), Ning (an online social networking site with multimodal capabilities), and PBWorks (another site that supports a variety of learning preferences). Some of the tools that could support student interest are YouTube EDU (an educational video host) and WordPress.com (a blogging service with a multitude of content). Tools referenced that could allow for differences in readiness are Alice (a multimodal platform with easy controls specifically designed to allow a wide range of students to interact with information) and Save Skelly (an interactive flash game generator). Each of these different tools, as well as the others listed on this site, could be used to allow teachers a variety of ways to differentiate their instruction.

Technology allows for each teacher to play the modern Prometheus by bringing in tools and resources that make it possible for each student to access content at his or her level and in a way appropriate to his or her specific learning profile. Resources like those listed above are the kinds of resources that teachers can use to affect their classroom instruction in positive ways by learning how to differentiate instruction though careful planning for the inclusion of technology. By looking at the research on sites like Tech 4 DI, using tools like Wikispaces to differentiate assessments/content delivery, and using a variety of other tools with intentionality like those listed on the Box of Tricks blog, teachers can light the metaphorical fire of learning in each student.

References

International Society for Technology in Education. (2007). National education standards for students (NETS-S). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/content/navigationmenu/NETS/forstudents/2007standards/nets_for_students_2007.htm

Rose, D., & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning. Retrieved from http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/

Smith, G., & Throne, S. (2007). Differentiating instruction with technology in K-5 classrooms. Belmont, CA: International Society for Technology in Education.  Retrieved from Education Research Complete database.

Standing in the Clouds

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 04:14:00 +0000

The water was crystal clear and completely still. I was standing in awe as I saw my future wife standing at the edge of the fountain and I knew that it was a moment that would be imprinted on my mind for the rest of my life. In black and white it is a captivating site; in color it made the world stand still. What made it such a powerful moment was difficult to define or to explain to others. At that exact moment, the rest of the world was animated and spinning...it was going about the business of life. For me, the moment was frozen in time and every second was an eternity full of possibilities.

I have often thought back to that moment as I have grown older. It seems to me now that one of the most powerful aspects of that frozen moment was the fact that I seemed to be seeing the same sight with all of the various sides of myself and I was drinking in the moment from multiple perspectives.

At the conclusion of this course I am beginning to feel as if the same kind of awareness is beginning to dawn in my mind. For years I have wanted to be in the classroom with kids, so I see the lessons from these masters classes through the eyes of a classroom teacher. This is a view that I am comfortable with and I can see how a GAME plan can be a valuable asset to a teacher in the classroom. The fact that this kind of planning requires the teacher to set goals, take action, monitor progress, and evaluate the effectiveness of what they have done (Laureate, 2009) makes it a valuable way to approach the planning of lessons. The teacher is directly involved in preplanning and metacognition both of which can be powerful learning experiences for a teacher when considering what is best for students.

I can also see the value of teaching students to create their own GAME plans. The whole process makes them actively think about the way that they are learning. While based on a small study, Janice A. Wiersema and Barbara L. Licklider (2007) found that this had a major impact on both the way that higher education students and instructors looked at education. I find that this is true for me as well. I think that one of the biggest changes in my understanding of problem based learning is that by having students actively engage in creating a GAME plan, they are more likely to engage in this kind of deep learning experience.

In some ways though, it was difficult to look at the GAME plan as a way to engage with students, since I didn't have any students to engage with until four days ago and the lessons I created were for later in the year. Many of my classmates found this frustrating, but I think that it was a more powerful lesson for me without the hustle and bustle of having students in the classroom everyday. I was able to focus on each of the roles I fill and think about how the process showed up in each one of them. This was a type of PBL and allowed me to really look at what individual needs I had as a learner that might be different from those of my classmates or colleagues. Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer (2009) point out that each of our students may need something drastically different from the others when focusing on PBL lessons.

And that takes us to the most massive change in my understanding of this process. This change has been on a totally different level though. I find that for the first time since entering this profession, I am seeing a totally different reflection of myself. I have never been interested in administration or professional development until this year. This class has made me reconsider my position. I started out with a plan for engaging students in the environmental impacts of humans through problem based learning, but over time I realized that the real GAME plan I was engaging in had very little to do with the lessons I was creating. The real GAME plan focused on my understandings as an instructor and involved me really taking to heart all three levels of ISTE standards. The administrative, teacher, and student standards have similarities and should all be embraced by teachers who are interested in the true power of technology in the classroom because it takes an understanding of all of these to make real change in a school or district possible. Sometimes looking at a situation through one role means that you lose the power of the overall image. By forcing myself to look at what I was doing from all three roles and through each set of standards made me really reconsider my role within my building and district.

I now see myself as being a true teacher leader within my building. A week ago, on the first professional development day of the school year I gave this presentation on 21st century skills to the staff as a way to introduce the professional learning community that will be driving staff development this year. At the conclusion of the presentation I had many teachers ask how they could use Prezi in their classroom. I then gave a short demo on Wallwisher and was pleased to find out that some of the people in attendance are using the tool to communicate with their students. I have been asked to provide professional development on technology to our fine art department in mid-September, engage with a group focused on mentorship within the building, weigh in on websites for teachers at our district, work with the professional development office for induction, and set up blogging as a common tool for members of my English department. I understand better now that a GAME plan is not just a way to plan out lessons, it is a way to really engage at multiple levels in my profession. Would I have volunteered to present to the staff before engaging in this class? Probably. Would I have been eager to do so? Probably not. But now, I see that it is my responsibility to pass on the information that I think will help make classrooms in my school more engaging for both students and teachers. Really defining my goal as a professional educator throughout this course has made me want to engage and drive change in my building.

Reflections allow us to see ourselves in a world that might be different than the one that we think we occupy. We can see many things the way they are, but sometimes we can see more than that. Sometimes we can see the possibilities in the reflections. That is what I saw when I really started looking at myself towards the end of this class; the possibility that I could affect change on a more massive scale than simply helping my 160 students. For each teacher I reached the possibility of them affecting their students exponentially increases my potential impact. That potential is what makes reflection so powerful. When we take the time to really think about what we are seeing through all the various parts of ourselves, we can find a deeper meaning in the vision before us. I realize that this is really the same process I experienced earlier in my life. A GAME plan is all about seeing the possibilities that are out there and determining which of them you are going to shoot for. You see, those possibilities are what made me stop in my tracks at that abandoned prison in Tasmania. When I looked at that vision of my future wife standing on the edge of the fountain, I saw my soulmate and the possibility of a life shared with an angel. As I looked at her and her reflection I realized that she was standing on the stone just like me, but her reflection was standing in the clouds and yet they were the same. It was like seeing the soul and the body at the same time. In that moment I found the same truth that I found during this class: If we can allow ourselves to truly see the possibilities and are committed to taking action, we can make them realities...and after a while you stop needing to plan out every step because seeing the possibilities and making them real becomes the way you live your life.

References:

Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use: A Standards-Based Approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas. Baltimore: Author.

Wiersema, J., & Licklider, B. (2007). Developing responsible learners: The power of intentional mental processing. The journal of scholarship of teaching and learning, 7(1), 16-33. Retrieved 22 August 2010, from ERIC.

Community Chest

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 05:29:00 +0000

At the tender age of ten I bought my first house. Then I bought a hotel. I managed them, speculated on real estate, and collected rent from people who needed a place to stay. I bought a railroad and an electric company and eventually bought the bright lights of Broadway. I collected $200 every time I passed go and even got thrown in jail. It was okay though, because I had enough money in savings to post my own bail...and there was always the chance I would roll doubles.

It seemed like an easier life back then. I didn't have to worry about my sink breaking or pipes busting in the crawl space under our slab. I didn't have to replace appliances or water heaters or carpet. All I had to do was observe the board and come up with a plan. After I had a game plan it was easy to run the board. All I needed was a little luck and a lot of dedication and eventually I owned the board. The only thing about a game plan is that in order to have any fun, and in order for your game plan to be effective, you need to play with other people. What makes the game intriguing is having other people with other game plans in place so that you can learn and share strategies.

So here I am thinking about my GAME Plan again and I am coming to the realization that just like when I was ten, I need to share the experience with others for it to have real value. The idea of a GAME Plan can be effective for my students in the same way it is was effective for me. In fact, it will probably be even more helpful for them to create their objectives, take action, and reflect on the process than it was for me. I have spent my whole life doing this kind of planning. I have students who haven't had the benefit of my upbringing though and they might need a more explicit modeling of the process to prepare them for the demands of innovating, communicating, collaborating, and engaging with real problems. These are some of the standards for students defined by ISTE.

The most powerful idea that I think I have come across while looking at my GAME Plan has been the crystallization in my mind of the story behind the GAME Plan. You see, each GAME Plan has a story behind it that tells you the values, beliefs, and history of the person creating the plan. Digital storytelling can be a powerful way to express an idea to your audience (Laureate, 2009) and a powerful way to cement understanding of a topic in the mind of the presenter. By telling a story we engage with others in a visceral way that creates a common bond between us. But in order to tell a great story we first need to make sure that we have done all of the work necessary to make that story powerful (Laureate, 2009). That is what the GAME Plan is, but if we know that we will eventually be turning it into a story for others, we can approach the GAME Plan on a number of different levels from the beginning. We can look at the research for credibility but also think about how we would visually depict it to others. We can think about how certain phrases might look on different scales for effect. This is part of the visual literacy described by Abrams (Laureate, 2009).

So when I look at the NETS-S, I am thinking about all of the standards in terms of digital storytelling. I am thinking about ways to have students develop GAME Plans that specifically address how they will create a story that communicates with others in a collaborative environment the information that they have responsibly researched on their own in a problem based learning environment that they have approached with critical thinking skills. A great template should allow them the freedom to address their own self-defined issues in a constructive and thorough manner. Providing them with tools to take their research and make it relevant can make this process even more powerful.

When I was little each game had a story to it and each story built on the last. This meant that each time we opened up the board and vied for a special piece we were really just continuing to play out parts of the GAME Plan that we had paused at the end of the previous game. That is how our students should look at their GAME Plans too. Each time they begin to look at a problem it should be with the understanding that they already have a fount of knowledge that they can build on and use. One of the best ways to get them thinking this way is to remind them that they have a story to tell and that they have the tools and resources available to make their stories both entertaining and powerful.

References:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas. Baltimore: Author.

Adoption

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Wybrant) — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 23:50:00 +0000

This image was retrieved from the Geek and Poke blog - while they in no way endorse my blog you should check them out for some very funny graphics on the toils of the technologically inclined.

When I was about 12 my family tried to adopt a little girl. We went through the better part of the process before we found out that the process itself can take an extensive amount of time. Sometimes you make the decision to adopt before you really realize how complex the process is. In many cases it seems like there are roadblocks in the way just to make it difficult, while many others are in the way because of miscommunication by people with the best of intentions. Often times, these obstacles make it difficult to really understand how the entire process works and what an individual's role is in that process. Like many families, mine never did adopt that little girl because the process was so overwhelming.

So here it is at the end of the week, four days after I should have posted my initial response to my Game Plan progress, and I am still not sure how to react. I am a little overwhelmed. Last week I decided that I would change the general outline of my Game Plan so that it was more in line with what would be supported at my district. I reworked aspects of the plan so that they would align. Then, on Monday, the Colorado State Department of Education decided to adopt the national core common standards in English and Math. I have been trying to wrap my head about what that means for the better part of a week (and even asked my building English facilitator) so that I would be able to modify my Game Plan yet again and align it. But, as in many cases of adoption, the answers are not easy to identify, grasp, and understand. There are conflicting statements about what this adoption means in the classroom. There is misinformation on the Colorado CDE website where the old standards are posted next to the newly adopted (and newly discarded) Colorado standards without the benefit of an explanation about how the new common core standards will be woven into, or replace, the existing standards.

One of the NETS-T standards is that teachers should take charge of their professional growth and leadership. I have been attempting to do this by attending conferences, memorizing and mapping the standards I am supposed to be teaching, and trying to find authentic ways to assess my students by using technology. Right now though, I feel as though I shouldn't be working too hard on some of these pieces because there are changes being made without thorough public explanation on how teachers are supposed to enforce or teach standards. There seems to be a, "We'll figure it out as we go!" kind of mentality and that is frustrating to me as I am in my trench. I feel like I am running in circles without the guidance of those who know how these reforms are supposed to play out and without the power to control what I have access to and what I don't.

I have been working toward both of my initial goals surrounding digital age learning experiences and fostering creativity. On both of these fronts I believe that progress has been made. I have created online learning environments (Laureate, 2009) and outlined various activities, but I am still not quite where I want to be. I ran into a roadblock in terms of which tools I can access from my school network. I have worked around this in a few ways, by changing the tools I was going to use in one case and identifying procedures for students to follow from resources outside of the district network. I also asked for a few sites to be approved and am waiting to hear back on those currently. I also went ahead and set up social networking sites for my students so that they would already be ready to go when we use the tools in the coming weeks. In addition to setting up certain accounts for them, I read an article about how to use screencasts for student responses and have set up my ScreenCast.com website with folders for each student.

In this way I hope to be able to model digital age work and learning. I have been reaching out to my social network to find answers to questions that I have. I joined the ISTE Young Educator group in order to find like minded people I could learn from. I am trying to reach out to others who might have a different view of a situation, but I am finding that approaching a problem from a new angle doesn't necessarily make it seem like a different problem or like less of a problem. There are simply not answers right now to the questions that I have.

So I am modifying my Game Plan again to make sure that it is aligned as best as I can align it right now. I am trying to make the model fit into the ambiguous shape of the standards I have access to. I am not changing the goals that I have, because I still believe that digital experiences and creativity are two areas that I can continually explore. I am, however, modifying my approach to these two areas in order to be more prepared for and aligned with the goals and standards of my district. Unfortunately, right now, those goals and standards are in a state of undefined flux. It is kind of like when I was 12 and we made the decision to adopt. Sometimes the process of adoption can leave you in a state of limbo, where you aren't sure whether to move forward or not. You can not cease acting in any case though, because life goes on.

References:

ISTE NETS for Teachers 2008. (n.d.). International Society for Technology in Education Home. Retrieved August 6, 2010, from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_for_Teachers_2008.htm

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas. Baltimore: Author.