the edge of education

THE FOLGER AND SHAKESPEARE

2016-04-11T16:25:00.001-07:00

Teaching Shakespeare?

Get acquainted with The Folger Shakespeare Institute and its truly useful and illuminating resources.

I had the good fortune to be a Teaching Shakespeare Institute NEH Fellow in 2012 and spent the month of July studying under its expert mentors.

Here are just a few links to get you to start navigating the Folger online universe of Shakespeare resources:

Start Here

Teaching Modules

Folger Digital Texts

lifehacker

2014-08-09T22:27:00.001-07:00

I use the site lifehacker at least once a month to get concise, vetted information that helps me sort through the paradox-of-choice world of tech solutions. If you've never visited, go there now. Something you need is waiting for you. Promise.

Project-Based Learning a.k.a. Problem-Based Learning

2014-04-12T16:18:00.004-07:00

http://tinyurl.com/nl8mgfj

Neat summation of the value of project based learning here.

Neat summation of setting up a problem-based course/unit here.

The Value of Efficiency with Blogger

2014-04-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

If you're a teacher looking for a quick way to set up a website that can serve as a base for discussions, showcase student writing, enable students to comment on each others' writing, enable video and image incorporation, etc., etc., you don't necessarily have to use Edmodo or other LMS platforms. I have been using Edmodo for quite some time, but I find that I run into its limitations more often than I'd like. For one thing, Edmodo can't handle threaded discussions. While students can reply to a post, no student can reply to a reply. As a workaround, I've had students have one long linear conversation, using @student name to reference earlier replies, but the result is that students often have to scroll for fairly absurd amounts of time to get to where they want to go. Another thing I don't like about Edmodo is that I cannot add links or pages to feature static information I need to feature for my class. So for years, I've turned to Blogger. The fastest way to set up a blogger account to feature student work is to invite students to your blog and then have each student label (Blogger's tag feature) each and every post they ever make with his or her name. Then go to Layout and make sure you add a gadget for labels to show up on the main blog page. As a result, you'll get a neat list of student names. Click on a student and the blog instantly features only that particular student's posts. This is a simple, elegant solution for not just a class page, but for projects of limited length. Ideal for a unit. For example, right now, my juniors are using a blog I created just for their study of The Great Gatsby. I have pages for video, historical context, etc. We are also using it for an online Socratic Seminar (something I've written about here on this blog before). Finally, students use it to complete reading notes. The publishing aspect of the blog really pushes students to up their game re: effort and quality control. And of course, Blogger is free.

Even though Blogger has fairly robust features that remove it from search engines and only allow invited authors to contribute, I still sometimes wish for a bit more security. Recently, I stumbled across this great breakdown of how to make a Blogger blog password protected. Here it is.

Happy Blogging.

DON'T USE IPADS OR LAPTOPS IN THE CLASSROOM UNTIL...

2013-09-04T21:26:00.001-07:00

image by Barker

the students have been educated about media literacy

the teachers have been educated about media literacy

the students have received significant training in cyber safety (and no, signing an Acceptable Use Policy Agreement that makes the IRS code read like 50 Shades of Grey by comparison is not sufficient)

the teachers have received significant training in cyber safety (and no, signing an Acceptable Use Policy Agreement that makes the IRS code read like 50 Shades of Grey by comparison is not sufficient)

the students have received sufficient training in using Internet-enabled devices and the training emphasizes techniques for the student to learn how to complete linear tasks while avoiding engaging in multitasking that impedes learning

the teachers are competent in classroom management and have a plan for how to foster a blended learning environment

the teachers have a clear conception of how and when the devices will be used (i.e. has already planned how much screen time vs. face time will take place, and have already tied the use of the device to important pedagogy goals)

the school has a program in place that addresses inappropriate use of the Internet and this program has been proven effective in educating and empowering students through the use of clear boundaries, expectations, and enforceable limits

the students at the school are included in the process when the aforementioned program is being designed

the teachers have collaborated enough and aligned their methods re: the devices so that students do not encounter an endless array of teaching styles that ask them to switch to a new platform and work flow model five times a day

All of the above takes time

But it is time well invested

Time that will pay many dividends

Time that will save time

"It's not being corporate, it's being passionate."

2013-08-31T12:40:00.001-07:00

It's not shouting, it's listening. It's not being corporate, it's being passionate. That's what the honey- voiced narrator of this British Council video suggests in laying out the rationale for social networking. But is it Propaganda or Important Cultural Exchange or an untease-able admixture of both?

The British Council - Social Media & You - Infographics from binalogue on Vimeo.

This video is a great starting point for conversation about social networking and social media in general.

It really begs the question, Does social networking connect or separate people? And, does it go beyond separating people from each other; does it separate people from their own critical thinking? Are social networks a proxy for a generation of people who now find the world too complex to sort out independently?

Even more intriguing/perhaps troubling/ironic, is the fact that the British Council is an organization whose historical function has been mainly as a propaganda machine for Britain. Perhaps a less derogatory way of saying this is that the British Council's main thrust is to put the best face possible on Great Britain through cultural exchange. But it is propaganda. It's propaganda because it is executing a systematic plan to influence opinion about a particular government and culture. Think, for example, about the surreally perfect families vacationing and frolicking in current television commercials that are designed to attract tourism to specific U.S. States -- the commercials that leave you baffled as to their intent until the last Voice-over and credits, which invariably say something like, "Pure Michigan" and you realize the entire last 30 seconds were designed to lead you to believe that, rather than being a state where there is massive economic depression in major cities, where over half the year is what most people call "winter," Michigan is a place where the sun always shines on always happy people always doing happy things.

The British Council video says that we are making emotional connections when we see posts and Share, Re-tweet, or Pin. But do we really take time to think critically about the information we are passing along, what agenda lurks behind it -- even agendas the original poster is unaware of? Does sharing raise consciousness or perpetuate agenda-driven, corporate interests? If we Share or Re-tweet or Pin the Pure Michigan ad (and I mean earnestly, not including sharing of it in an ironic or satirical or point-out-the-hypocrisy way) then what are we sharing? What are we perpetuating? What are we ignoring? And more troubling than these types of explicitly distorted self-serving messages (read All Advertising), are those we messages/agendas we promulgate without our permission.
How do we become savvy users of social networks without participating in agendas we don't approve of? See Douglas Rushkoff's reasons for leaving FB as Exhibit A.

Innovative Curriculum Design

2011-09-05T10:13:00.000-07:00

I am working on creating an innovative curriculum design for 7th Grade English. What does that entail? That's the question I am asking myself over and over, all day, every day.

Here are the voices in my head so far:

Students are tasked with working collaboratively to find solutions to real-world problems/challenges.

The problems/challenges necessitate critical thinking and access to skills that appear across curricula.

Problems/challenges will necessitate contacting experts via Skype, social networks, etc.

Social networks will be used to consolidate information for analysis.

Credibility of sources and management of information are crucial.

Assessments for student performance should be formative and summative.

Student reflection, via social networking, blogging, vlogging, etc. will be key component.

The learning outcomes will be focused on principles that can be employed in the 21st century job market, and should resist being relegated to formats that will be outdated by the time students graduate.

Cutting edge research skills, data collection, and ability to analyze data effectively, should be key component. St

Students will demonstrate understanding in a variety of modalities, including multi-media presentation, Socratic dialogue, exit interviews (from project), formal reflection, etc.

The lessons/unit developed by the teacher should be based on an ongoing feedback loop and exploration of the content should serve as the basis for students gaining background knowledge, as opposed to such knowledge being "dispensed" by the teacher.

Some 21st century skills: empathy, critical thinking, information management, research skills, cross-curricular synthesis, entrepreneurial potential, leveraging social networks, anticipation of global connections...

More to come.

Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats - ...

2011-01-29T11:04:00.000-08:00

Socratic Seminar Online with Meta Blogging

2011-01-24T14:46:00.000-08:00

The image above contains a chart that details how a face to face Socratic seminar could be enhanced by having an outer ring of students blogging synchronously with the conversation.

The seminar would have an inner ring of students taking part in the face to face discussion. On the outer ring, seven students equipped with laptops would be blogging about the conversation.

Here are the roles of the outer ring students:

1. Process Summarizer
This student blogs about how the process of the seminar is moving along. Comments can include analysis of the group dynamic and recognition of what kind of energy there is in the room as the discussion flows from one topic to the next. This is a challenging role that involves higher order thinking. The blogger should be dealing with questions such as: Is the order of the questions effectively soliciting ideas? Could the flow of the discussion be improved in some way -- either by the content or delivery of the questions? What kind of group dynamic is forming as a result of the questions?

2. Content Summarizer
This student blogs about the questions being posed and the ideas being generated in the discussion. Twitter would be a good tool for this, but it could easily be done on blogger or any blogging platform.

3. Image Collector
This student scours the Internet for images that are relevant or evocative of the discussion. They compile the best images and post them to the class blog.

4. Question Generator
This student listens carefully to the discussion and writes questions that are suggested by the conversation. Questions should be developed to dig deeper than the current conversation is permitting.

5. Link Generator
This student scours the Internet for useful websites that are relevant or evocative of the discussion. The compile a list and create hyperlinks to these sites.

6. Video Generator

This student scours the Internet for useful videos that are relevant or evocative of the discussion. The compile a list and create hyperlinks to these videos.

7. Project Manager

This student walks the outer ring and checks in with each blogger, troubleshooting problems and doing quality control.

8. Teacher

The teacher runs the inner circle discussion.

Depending on the length of the seminar and the familiarity the students have with the roles, students can be asked at certain intervals to switch seats and move from the inner ring to the outer ring, or vice versa.

Blogging Thoughts…Again

2011-01-17T12:09:00.000-08:00

from huffingtonpost.com

Blogging Thoughts from Weblogg'ed...

Great analysis of the difference between pretend blogging and actual blogging.

HOW TO BLOG, or Okay, my students have blogs. Now what?

2011-01-16T15:18:00.000-08:00

BLOGGING IS COMMENTING
The essence of blogging is commenting and having others comment on your comments. That is to say, blogging is commenting. In an educational setting, comments that have value meet two essential criteria:

A. the comment is authentically that of the person making it
B. the comment serves the discussion by contributing new content or questioning or clarifying previous comments.

STUDENT COMMENTS ARE ON A CONTINUUM
Students essentially make comments before, during, and after the introduction of a stimulus. The stimulus might be a mathematical equation or a modern short story. Regardless, there is always an opportunity along the continuum for students to make comments. Blogging (commenting online) should be availed of the same opportunities.

BLOGGING BEFORE
Blogging before explicit instruction serves two crucial purposes:
A. Activates prior knowledge.
B. Engages students to the task.

BLOGGING DURING
Blogging during a lesson serves two crucial purposes:
A. Activates metacognition.
B. We remember what we think about (see Willingham).

BLOGGING AFTER
Blogging after a lesson serves two crucial purposes:
A. Creates environment for clarification.
B. Reinforces content.

All three phases have a key strength: blogging is naturally multi-modal; students engage visually, aurally, and kinesthetically with the material.

What should students be blogging about? About the material. Specifically, student bloggers should be:

asking questions about the material
making conclusions about the material
discovering connections between other topics and the material
creating visual, video, and audio representations of their thoughts
finding and listing sources where there is more specific information on the topic or related topics (hyperlinking)
editorializing about the material

The Fierce Urgency of Eventually

2011-01-11T06:42:00.000-08:00

Take this article, add Ken Robinson's speech from my earlier post, and shake. What do you get?

The Fierce Urgency of Eventually

Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms | Video on TED.com

2011-01-09T18:02:00.000-08:00

Brilliant and brief summation of divergent thinking and

how education needs to reform.

Analyzing Credibility of Digital Sources

2011-01-06T10:31:00.000-08:00

It is difficult to articulate to students just how to decide if a source on the Internet can be trusted. Credibility operates on a continuum and depends on context. If I am having students write a biography on Martin Luther King, Jr., it definitely matters whether or not they rely on personal web pages or blogs with a slant vs. more well-known references. What if a student is reading a thinly or thickly veiled racist remark about Dr. King and doesn't realize it? How can I give students the guidance they need to distinguish writing that has an agenda from more credible sources?

I recently came across this excellent list of TIPS to help deal with this challenge.

Generating or Exploring?

2011-01-03T15:08:00.000-08:00

GENERATING OR EXPLORING, or WHY DO WE HAVE THE LAPTOPS TODAY?

It is easy to get overwhelmed when you are trying to incorporate technology in the classroom. A simple way to zoom out and gain perspective is to ask a few simple questions before you begin work on anything from a mini-lesson to a full unit of study. Specifically: Do I want the students to generate or explore? Or both? Generating = making stuff. Exploring = researching and learning about stuff.

Questions to help lesson planning:

GENERATING
1. What is the end, culminating project supposed to look like?
2. What existing models can I use as examples?
3. How much scaffolding is required?
4. What does the scaffolding look like, step by step?
5. How long should the project take?
6. Can students work on any or all of the project from home?
If the above questions seem too general, try pretending that you are asking these questions about an iMovie students are supposed to make in which they create a Public Service Announcement. Imagine how you would answer the questions. If that hypothetical doesn't work, plug in your own.

EXPLORING
1. What is the purpose of the research? What do I want students to learn/accomplish?
2. How structured is the exploration? Am I providing links? Or are students conducting their research from scratch?
3. If I am providing links, what are they, and where do they lead?
4. If the students are conducting their own search, do they have criteria for determining credibility of sources? How much scaffolding is required?

5. What does the scaffolding look like, step by step?

6. How long should the project take?

7. Can students work on any or all of the project from home?

Of course implementation and differentiation of lesson plans is highly complex. But the above is suggested as a way of backing away for a moment to see the overarching purposes of using technology. At the end of the day, the laptop and all of the millions of destinations it promises, are only as useful as the plan in which they are embedded.

Are the students generating or exploring? Or both? Once I know the answers, I can plan.

Students Need Their Own Laptops: Top 4 Reasons

2010-12-31T10:41:00.001-08:00

1. Keyboarding has replaced handwriting.

Apple, Dell, iPhone, BlackBerry...they all have one thing in common: a keyboard. While much has been made about the impending death of the hard copy book, the more drastic change has occurred in writing. Pens and pencils are more in danger of obsolescence than are books. Regardless of their life expectancy, pens and pencils have been largely replaced by the keyboard. Keyboarding skills are a must for 21st century employment. Students need especially to learn how to type with sentence variety and correct punctuation, as distinguished from texting. Wars fought between cyber slang and academic language are fought for the wrong reasons. The historical moment doesn't call for black and white choices; rather it asks us to teach students how to code switch.

2. Electronic Reading.

Google eBooks are in the millions. The speed with which books are making the journey from the page to the screen is accelerating exponentially. While the Kindle and iPad are not technically laptops, they are included in this mix as well. Benefits of reading material on a computer are many. Blogs have become the main source of news for millions of people. Wikipedia has replaced the phalanx of over sized Britannica's my mother bought from a door to door salesman 40 years ago. And unlike that set of books, Wikipedia is continually updated without the necessity for buying a new set. Trees are saved. Access is instantaneous. Electronic reading is here to stay. Again, it does not have to represent a replacement for traditional reading; it serves instead to enhance, expand, and enliven our reading experience.

3. Research.

The world's libraries are a click away. Microfiche has been replaced with google. As mentioned above, encyclopedias, both general and specific, are instantly accessible. While much has been made about the dubious credibility of blogs and other news sources online, the fact is that more eyes and more words has a democratizing effect. Misinformation does not have a long life online, and the savvy digital native is keen to find sites that disprove or clarify information from parties with an agenda. As with keyboarding and electronic reading, this isn't a black and white situation. While professional journalists are upset by the mass dissemination of amateur viewpoints, the truth is that students today are given an extraordinary opportunity to develop critical thinking skills in relation to the research they conduct. The credibility of sources is not a new issue; it is merely one brought into harsher light by the Internet.

4. Self-Publishing.

Students today can create radio shows (podcasts), movies (iMovie), presentations (Glogster, iMovie, PowerPoint, Keynote, VoiceThread, etc.), journals and digital portfolios (Blogger, Edublogs) and a myriad of other products that represent and reflect their learning. The pride of ownership involved in publishing their own work increases effort, compels editing and proofreading, and boosts motivation. The show-and-tell diorama of days gone by has been transformed. Every student is now their own news, entertainment, and scholarly production company. While all of these tools can be mishandled (just like real tools can) by allowing students to focus too much on form instead of function, the truth is that the tools necessitate teaching of responsibility, prudence, and critical thinking.

New Year's Wish List for Students

2010-12-30T09:18:00.000-08:00

Every student has a laptop.
Every student learns how to type.
Every student learns critical media literacy.
Every student learns cyber etiquette.
Every student uses social media to make global connections.
Every student can distinguish levels of credibility for online sources.
Every student creates a digital portfolio of their work in-progress.
Every student creates a digital portfolio of culminating projects.
Every student works with multiple forms of digital media.
Every student learns how to use the cell phone as a learning device.
Every student participates in making a podcast.
Every student does independent reading on and offline.

STUDENTS AS CONTRIBUTORS

2010-12-27T10:38:00.000-08:00

Alan November's thoughts on students as contributors in the 21st century classroom.

Myths and Opportunities: Technology in the Classroom by Alan November from Brian Mull on Vimeo.

The Novel vs. The Computer

2010-12-25T15:15:00.000-08:00

Does it have to be a battle? The novel is the basis of my English class. I also like to have the students use laptops 2-3 times a week. I don't see a contradiction. I see a new marriage, trying to get its sea legs.

Others see an enemy. The antithesis of literature and learning. A monster made of zeros and ones. And they see no need to let this monster have a seat at the table.

After all, the novel is the original portable device. Handheld. Easy interface. No glare in sunlight. It has been in the spotlight for centuries. But, lest we forget, when books came on the scene people saw it as the enemy. Plato decried that people would cease remembering things on their own, because they would be able to "find it in a book." Communication media like the phone, the radio, and the television, all faced similar pessimism.

The Internet-enabled laptop is not as elegant as a novel. It's cumbersome to carry. The interface (with due deference to Apple) is not always seamless. And there is the glare and the resistance to nature. Sand, for example, is no friend to the laptop.

So what do they have to offer each other? Everything.

The novel is the springboard for all manner of lessons in the English class: we analyze characters, we reflect about their plight, and we inhabit them and their point of view to increase empathy. Along the way we garner vocabulary, examine sentence structure and variety, and speculate about themes. If a laptop is nearby, here is a very very short list of the many many things it offers in support these endeavors:

dictionaries
thesauruses
encyclopedias
grammar quizzes
websites devoted to great literature
blogs on which to write our reflections and insights about literature
multimedia applications like Glogster and iMovie and VoiceThread and Animoto and a hundred others that can be used to create presentations, role play, and expound
social media sites on which to co-construct meaning, share meaningful links, and build community
webquests
advice on: essay writing, sentence composing, reading to learn, learning to read, building background knowledge, improving communication skills, etc. etc. etc.
practical and free applications by the dozens to help all types of skill building (My students regularly access a BBC typing practice website that features a cow with a Scottish accent).

The laptop is a super charged notebook filled with millions of libraries worth of information to reference, analyze, accept, reject, and investigate.

Like most relationships, this one is going to get complicated. We've been through the infatuation (Web 1.0) and now the hard work begins (Web 2.0).

Let us be done with the question Does technology mean the death of the novel? All signs indicate the novel is alive and well and whether it continues to exist in all of its current forms or not, it isn't going away. Nor is technology. Nor is technology in the classroom. The questions are:

What do we do now?
How can we do it well?
Why are we doing it?

In other words, marriage. Speak now or forever hold your peace might be a bit strong. Web 2.0 ain't about holding peace. But it is about union. There will be no divorce. And to extend a tortured metaphor a bit further, please, please, let's not wind up sleeping in separate beds.

SOCRATIC SEMINAR ONLINE

2010-12-21T10:23:00.000-08:00

HOW TO HAVE A SUCCESSFUL ONLINE SOCRATIC SEMINAR

CREATE THE QUESTIONS

Develop 4-5 provocative, open-ended questions regarding the text or topic you will have the students discuss. Use more or less questions, depending on the subject matter and your needs.

POST THE QUESTIONS

Post all of the questions as separate posts on your blog. I create a separate blog that is dedicated to online discussions, so as not to crowd my regular class blog. This can be done quickly and with little effort on Blogger and other blogging software. Make sure students are invited as authors to the blog.

PROVIDE WARM-UP/THINK TIME

Have a brief face-to-face warm-up conversation with students about the subject matter. You can ask the same questions or merely work around the edges. This gives students time to order their thoughts before having to publish them. I often hand out the questions a day or two ahead of time and encourage students to write out responses and notes beforehand. For my seventh graders, this is essential. Your needs may vary, depending on the grade level you teach.

POST GUIDLINES FOR...POSTING

Provide posting guidelines for students -- a brief checklist of how to behave online during the discussion. For example:

Post your original, unique thoughts
Do not merely agree or disagree with a comment without offering concrete reasons
Support your ideas with specific examples from text or other sources
Link to other websites when it can help expand the discussion
Do not use slang or emoticons
Spend time reading and reflecting on other comments
Post at least one comment for each question
Post clarifying questions as well as direct responses

BE A PRESENCE

Join the online discussion as the instructor and help guide, clarify, and provoke deeper discussion as it proceeds.

PROVIDE A RUBRIC/CRITERIA FOR SUCCESS

Give students a rubric that allows them to know what is expected of them in terms of quality. Make the rubric straightforward and easy to understand for the students. It should be equally useful for the instructor and the students. For the instructor, it enables data collection and accountability; for the students it should provide a road map for how to succeed.

ANALYZE THE RESULTS

After you do these things, sit back and take time to analyze the results. You will have probably tripled or quadrupled the amount of responses possible in a face to face Socratic Seminar. Students can continue the conversation for homework if you wish. You will be surprised by reticent and shy students who normally remain silent in class but suddenly have a lot to say. You will have time to review and analyze the responses carefully, rather than having to guide the conversation and assess at the same time, as in a traditional seminar. You will see the democratizing effect an online discussion has.

Online Discussion - Paradox or Art?

2010-12-17T06:56:00.000-08:00

There is a paradox that shadows almost all online activity: it is both isolating and bridging. We sit alone and we collaborate. We are individuals and a worldwide collective, simultaneously. When we endeavor to move classroom learning online, we are faced with this contradiction. Are we providing a fertile ground for collaboration and connection, or are we removing students from the potency of real-life, emotional and expressive interaction? One might ask, going back before social networking came on the scene, how would this question be applied to telephone conversations? To pen pal correspondences? What seems most true, is that connecting, collaborating, and growing can happen face to face and it can also happen through other mediums. That is, in essence, the function of art; to provide an alternate face through which we experience other dimensions of communication from the sender or creator. And it is not a stretch to consider the act of social networking as art.

In the classroom, students engage in a social network (an online discussion or collaboration) not to replace face to face interactions, but to enhance and enrich them with the nuanced and otherwise hidden elements that are only able to come to the fore in a non-linear, digital environment. This asynchronous learning environment is a model of constructivist education. Students learn best when their ideas and experiences collide. Nowhere is this collision handled with more elegance and flexibility than in an online discussion. Consider the difference between a verbal Socratic seminar and one that is held online:

Verbal: one student speaks at a time
Online: everyone can "speak" at any time

Verbal: listening is difficult to measure unless a student responds directly to another student
Online: listening is memorialized through commenting and responding

Verbal: impact of contributions is hard to quantify
Online: all contributions are quantified by number, length, and quality of comments

Verbal: non-answers and ineffective rhetoric can be masked or compensated for with emotional expression
Online: all answers are on an equal playing field and are judged on their merits within the constraints of written expression

Verbal: students can dominate discussion or recede entirely
Online: students are not able to dominate and shy students often contribute with enthusiasm

Verbal: students get one chance to make their communication come across
Online: students can backspace, delete, and edit their comment as they form it

Are there down sides to moving a discussion online? Certainly facial expressions and elocution in general are worthy of focus in the classroom discussion. Online discussions should not and cannot replace face to face interaction in this respect. But they can serve as a necessary supplement in light of all of the above.

Oftentimes, when a digital tool is proposed as a classroom solution, other teachers rightly pose a question, which is inevitably articulated as some version of this:

Couldn't we do the same assignment without the computer and achieve the same effect?
In other words, So what?

When it comes to online discussions and their value, there is a satisfying response to the So what question.

Online discussions are purely democratic.
Online discussions are non-linear and as a result produce more comments.
Online discussions can be reviewed and continue to live after the classroom session is over.
Online discussions require students to organize their thoughts formally because they are being published and viewed by the entire class community. Written expression is held to a higher standard than verbal expression.
Online discussions require students to synthesize many disparate comments when responding.
Online discussions provide the teacher with a document to analyze; teachers do not have to split their focus during the discussion (making notations about contributions while simultaneously leading the discussion).

Online discussion is the cornerstone of social networking. It should be leveraged in the classroom to increase motivation, increase participation, and deepen understanding. It is the most cost-effective method available -- the biggest net we have to catch the thoughts of the students all at once. What expresses as clamor in the traditional classroom becomes an elegant piece of art that all students collectively create and respond to.

Social Networking and how it benefits students

2010-12-12T15:26:00.000-08:00

I can't say it better than this...

Great post from Box of Tricks

Three tips for using technology in the classroom

2010-12-11T12:40:00.000-08:00

ONE: BE PREPARED

The plan

We’ve all had days when we came to class unprepared. In most likelihood, the “lesson” we delivered on that day neatly reflected our lack of preparation. I am not an overly-organized teacher by nature. I enjoy following tangents and finding teachable moments. I often stray from my original plan. However, if I don’t have a plan to begin with, I’m just wandering around in the dark. To stray from the plan with some sense of integrity and grace, the plan must be in place to start. And so it is with technology. Here are the things I do before I use technology with my students:

The hardware

I make sure I have the equipment and that the equipment works. This includes checking the wireless signal, testing if the student laptops are functioning and have battery power, and making sure that the site or software I’m about to use is accessible on the student laptops.

The software

I test it. If using software with students, sign in as a student or set up a dummy student account and get familiar with what the students are going to see. Often the student interface is different than the teacher interface when using a particular program, especially in blogging platforms.

FAQ

I develop an FAQ for students before letting the students use the program. You know your students. Anticipate their questions ahead of time. Once your lesson is in full swing, it becomes counterproductive to spend your time fielding such infamous queries as “It doesn’t work” and “Mister B. mine won’t go.”

Checklist

I have in the past handed out a list of things for students to try before coming to me for help. For example, connectivity is often an issue. Give your students a list that includes suggestions for how to test and reconnect to the Internet: shut down the computer and turn it back on; turn the wireless off and on a few times; try a different browser – some browsers don’t work well with certain programs, etc.

Guidelines

I also give students a set of guidelines to help them manage their time. Doing an iMovie presentation? Let them know you frown upon spending 90% of the class period fiddling with iMovie Sound Effects and where you expect them to focus their attention. For example: I often tell students they cannot add pictures or sound to a multimedia presentation until they have written all of the content first. In this way, the seductive parts are left as carrots.

TWO: BE ZEN

Allow for mess

Using technology, especially in the early stages, is necessarily messy for the teacher. For the K-12 teacher, this is especially true. It is an unwieldy endeavor. Getting 20 or 30 or 40 students to log on and use any piece of software can seem like herding cats. Inevitably, students will be operating at different paces, in part due to technological processes, in part due to the natural differentiation of style and ability found among the students. “Where do I click?” “I don’t see where to go.” “Mine doesn’t look like that.” These kinds of comments can come in flurries or storms once a project is underway.

One thing at a time

Be Zen about it. Take one question at a time. Enforce classroom guidelines like “Three and then me” where students are directed to ask three classmates to help troubleshoot a problem before asking the teacher. Assign some particularly tech savvy students to be captains and help with troubleshooting. Have your FAQ and Checklist on hand for the students to access so they can develop their own problem-solving skills. Ride the wave. Stay calm. Embrace the chaos. Part of using technology is agreeing to enter a non-linear field. You are the glue that holds that field together. Be Zen. More importantly, remind yourself that you are going to be Zen about things before the lesson starts.

THREE: BE ON TIME

Control what you can control

Because learning curves vary and technological glitches occur and students find ways to mismanage their time on computers, it is quite challenging to gauge how long a project should take. Because of this, you must start with what is controllable: your intended outcome.

A few years back I wanted my students to make an iMovie commercial. They were to invent their own product and then cast and shoot a 60 second commercial, using sound effects, voiceover, images, and live action. At the time I congratulated myself on having the foresight to restrict the project to a 60 second commercial. Well, cut to five class days later and a 70% incompletion rate, and I was left doing some heavy reflecting. When I attempted the same project with another class, I was armed with storyboard handouts, strict checklists about how many sounds and images could be used, and the new goal was to create two 5-second slides with a caption, voice over, and one sound effect. We were able to complete the project. In two days. Yes, two days for a 10-second commercial.

In future posts I will talk about how to balance learning, engagement, and media literacy while trying to decide if each of your projects is a cost-effective use of class time.

50 ways to use Skype in the classroom

2010-12-10T12:33:00.000-08:00

From teachingdegree.com - 50 ways to use Skype in the classroom.

Building Automaticity

2010-12-10T06:33:00.000-08:00

From Core Knowledge.

Why memorization gets a bad rap.

Building Automaticity