Noble Pursuits

The Science of One-to-One

This post by Wes Fryer summarizes a recent workshop about the use of 1:1 laptops in a high school science classroom. This class uses laptops everywhere in their science curriculum: everything from digitally analyzing microscope images, to making iMovies, to doing motion analysis. And it was impressive, it sounded like a great presentation.

Then, I just had to smile. I've been running around our school with a video camera recently, trying to document the good things that are going on in classrooms. I was pleasantly surprised to realize that in our science department, our teachers are doing nearly everything mentioned in this workshop, and all in the past two weeks alone!

We have an Anatomy and Physiology class that had the kids use their laptops to film themselves doing a particular movement or motion. They were then able to slow the motion down to study which parts of the body were being used. They then took still frames from the video and drew labels and captions in a presentation program. We found that as long as the light was good, the video from the laptops was fine for motion analysis. One group did a somersault, then ran it forwards and backwards, in slow motion. Very cool!

I had a chance to see some finished iMovie videos that students in an Honors Chemistry class finished. The topic was nuclear radiation. One standout video featured two girls doing a "feel the radiation" rap to the tune of "Good Vibrations". I liked the fact that they really used the built-in iMovie effects for a purpose -- such as using the B/W aged film effect when one of them was dressed like one of us "old school teachers"! The video as entertaining, and the girls clearly had fun making it, but best of all, the Chemistry teacher remarked that the science in it was right on!

One of our Biology teachers invited me in to a class on identifying cell division through mitosis and meiosis. The kids were using digital microscopes to capture images of different phases of cell division, and then using WikiSpaces to create their own page where they could post their images. They were using the microscope software to highlight and label what they had found. What I loved about this class was the collaboration that I saw going on -- one kid would be adjusting the microscope, and the other would be snapping images. The different groups could also visit each others' pages to see different examples of what they were looking for under their own microscopes.

Finally, I didn't get a chance to stop in, but a number of Physics classes had kids using Vernier probes attached to their laptops to measure force and acceleration. I also believe the large lectures are being filmed and put online for kids to view.

So, lots of creative ways that technology is being used to change the classroom dynamic and make the student experience much more inquiry-based and student-centered. I also like the fact that there are so many outlets for students to express their creativity.

I know that as a school, we heavily emphasize writing as a crucial skill for self-expression -- as a graduate, I certainly have seen the value of this. Yet there are so many students for whom writing just doesn't come easily. When we get students to express their observations, and reflect on their process of thinking, the more ways we can provide for students to express themselves, the more flexible we will be to student needs. Some students might use the built-in microphones to express their thoughts, or even use PhotoBooth to record their observations. Others might use video to demonstrate their knowledge. I am happy to see so many examples of this happening in the classes that I visit.

Technology Distraction

We had a conversation in my professional development group yesterday. What bothered me, though, was the way that the consultant framed the discussion either in terms of technology or not in terms of technology. She did latch on to the frustration that many of us feel when the conversation seems to be purely about fixing something that's broken, or that teachers seem to come to us only when there is a problem. What I liked, though, was that she reframed this as an opportunity -- the door is open, and we can get our foot in the door by addressing the "urgency" and then using that as an opening to have a broader discussion. But she still looked at it in terms of whether or not we should be "fixing the printer" -- an example that is used so often by people that it has become a cliché.

I love it when people ask me to fix the printer. Because that's an easy one. It makes it very easy to send them over to IT, where we have a dedicated staff member who Fixes the Printer. Problems like this are easy because they are easily categorized, and we can all agree that as resource teachers, that's not our job.

But I am seeing fewer and fewer of the easily-categorized "break-fix" problems, and more of the "softer" software questions -- how can I use Moodle to grade my kids online? How can I get my different sections of kids all to appear in the same course? How can I make information for each group clearer to them? These questions, for example, have more to do with how to restructure the organization of the course in light of a new technology than they do with "fixing" something. Moodle is working fine, somebody just needs to show teachers how to make the best use of it to accomplish their curricular goals. Does it have to do with technology? Sure -- but really, it's about something else.

Providing clear instruction. Accommodating learning differences. Building collaborative skills. Fostering a student-centered learning environment. The consultant asked us, "Can anyone name a problem recently that didn't have to do with technology?" I related the following story:

A teacher came to me recently about a Moodle course we had set up together. She had enrolled all of her students in the one course, and now wanted to split it up into sections. She said the students were getting confused because they kept reading the wrong syllabus. She was posting a different syllabus for each of the two sections, and had shaded one red, and the other green. This was a great opportunity to talk about visual differences (colorblindness) as well as how she might visually distinguish content (provide audio, provide paper forms, etc.) We talked about all of the options and finally decided to maintain two separate courses because it was clearer for the students.

Great, the consultant said. But that has to do with technology. Does anyone have an issue that didn't involve technology? No one else had anything else they were willing to add. And how could we? We are in a 1-to-1 school, where all the teachers have laptops, and kids are rarely more than a few feet from a computer. You might ask if anyone has ever had an issue that didn't involve electricity. Or air.

This example really had very little to do with technology, and much more to do with looking at a student behavior (not reading the right syllabus) and trying to figure out what the teacher could do to address that. It had to do with understanding a common visual deficiency and finding ways to accommodate different learning styles in a classroom that uses an electronic bulletin board to communicate.

What we do as curriculum resource teachers is always impacted by technology. The trick is not to let technology be the sole focus of the interactions with teachers. It's a facilitator that through its ubiquity, should be becoming increasingly transparent, allowing us to see the good, deep, rich content underneath. Otherwise, technology becomes a terrific distractor.

It certainly was yesterday.

The Curriculum Travel Agency

We have a professional consultant visiting our school this week. I met with her in my professional development group as we talked about our curriculum support model for teachers. She asked everyone at the table,"What kind of request would make your day? I mean, really make you feel like you were useful in the way you want to be thought of as a resource teacher?"

What would make my day? I want to have teachers come to me and say, "I'm embarking on a big, audacious project and I want you to come along for the adventure." I don't want teachers to come to me in the middle of the journey and ask me how to fix something that's broken. I don't want teachers to come to me near the need of the project and tell me they need help grading all of their students' journals because they weren't set up properly at the start of the project. I don't even want teachers to tell me "I know where I'm going, I know how I'm getting there, and I just want you on call in case something goes wrong."

Would I help teachers at every stage? Of course. it's my job. But what would really make my day?

I want our learning support area to be like a Curricular Travel Agency. I want to be the travel agent with the big colorful brochures and videos that encourages passersby to take risks and travel outside of their comfort zones. By finding out what kind of adventure teachers want to have (independent project? global collaboration? immediate feedback for students on tests?) I want to be able to warn them of the dangers ("travel advisories?") give them tips and best practices for success, advise them on the best equipment, and show them evidence (videos? testimonials?) that others have taken similar journeys and lived to tell the tale.

I want our group to always have the experience (and be well-traveled) to advise teachers about what they might not have thought about. I would want us to be able to show them alternate routes than just what might be the most obvious or seem most expedient. More than anything, I want us to be able to show teachers how they might spend their money (i.e., time) so that they and their students have an adventure that shows them more of the world outside, leads them to explore and to discover, and pushes their limits beyond what they had previously thought possible at the beginning of the journey.

Going Paperless

I am trying as much as possible to run a "paperless" classroom. I use Moodle to distribute all of my assignments, and the kids submit their assignments online, where I can grade them and give general feedback. I find it's much easier for them, and me, to keep track of everything. I've never been much a paper file kind of person, even though I basically use the same system when I store my documents online. I sort things, and save attachments into the proper folders. But here, where so many pieces of paper are often used just to send out simple announcements, I often end up with huge amounts of paper that just pile up on my desk. This year, I've decided not to keep anything on paper. As soon as I get it in my mailbox, I apply my rule. If the information exists online, I throw the paper away. If it doesn't exist online, I add it and then throw the paper away. For example, if it's a policy, I read it and throw out the paper (our faculty handbooks are online.) If it's a calendar announcement, I add it to iCal. If it's a request for feedback, I fill it out and submit it (usually by sticking it in someone else's mailbox.) So far, this little system has worked wonderfully and my desk is much less cluttered.

However, I did request a substitute to cover my class for a professional day recently. The attendance office asked me for my class list in addition to my sub plans (which were simply, "Have the kids check the Moodle page.") I was at a bit of a loss. "What did you do with the class lists we put in your mailbox?" they asked. I admitted, somewhat sheepishly, that I threw them out. I just figured the online attendance system always had the most complete class list. This was an unforeseen drawback to my system. Somewhere, I am sure, all competent teachers have a folder with sub plans and a current roster in it. But we were able, in the end, to go into the attendance system and print out a class roster, so everyone was happy. And I actually changed my mind about the lab at the last minute after I had submitted everything, so I went online and updated my Moodle page. Much easier than having to resubmit a sub plan or send another e-mail.

The paperless classroom concept takes a lot of practice and thought. But it has its unexpected benefits. As an exercise, we were asked to think about how we might conduct our classes in the event of a flu epidemic. I was surprised to find that really, not much would change. My kids would still collaborate with each other online and provide feedback, our online textbook would still function and I would still be able to track my kids' progress on the labs and activities, and I would still be available for the ever-popular evening IMs (doesn't any homework ever get done before 8 pm?) In so many ways, the physical classroom, and its fixed meeting times, are seeming more and more like the paper in my recycle bin.

Goodbye Tech Guy

To what extent should technology be a part of teaching and learning, and the development of 21st century skills? I'm part of a group tasked with researching and modeling a process of re-examining and reinforcing effective teaching and learning within a learning community. My role on paper is specifically to look at how technology fits into enhancing teaching and learning, but I find that what excites me most is learning about how my colleagues see the other pieces -- e.g., metacognition, critical thinking, accommodating learning differences -- fitting into the puzzle. It's a challenging process, this building of a new group within our larger learning community. These are the same questions we wrestled with in the last two schools I worked at. To what extent are we support staff? To what extent are we educators?

I've often been seen as the "tech guy" who solves problems for other people, sets up the online portion of their class, and shows them how to be more efficient at the stuff they do daily, such as organizing their online stuff, e-mailing students, keeping track of digital information such as grades, deadlines, etc. But in reality, I think of myself as an educator who understands technology, not an IT person who teaches a class. And I tend to use my time with teachers as way to talk about process and rationale -- the how and the why ("how are you going to use this?" "what's the purpose? what's the context? why will this be useful?"), rather than just the what ("I need a Moodle/wiki/blog.") Technology is often only the starting point, the way into this deeper discussion of process.

Another way I look at it is this: Setting up an online course is much like building a virtual classroom. A preschool classroom usually starts out as a big room, but is set up with a number of defined areas: a reading nook, a discussion area, a teacher desk, etc. Teachers usually come in with a sense of how they want the room to be set up, so they either decorate the room themselves, or call in Buildings and Grounds and tell them specific things: "I want this rug over here" and "I'd like those tables arranged like this." The workmen don't give the teachers pedagogical feedback ("Have ya caught yerself thinking about metacognition?") and the teachers don't expect it.

I don't want to be just the tech guy. None of us does. And we aren't to the point yet, where teachers have enough familiarity with online structures -- a wiki provides collaboration, a journal provides reflection but limits collaboration -- that they can just tell IT what to build and set up. So personally, I see my role as being able to provide both interior design advice ("how will this enhance our learning?") and facilitating the building out of these structures, either custom ("check out these new online tools that I found out about recently, let's explore and learn about this together") or prefab ("Go Moodle!"). As we foster a greater appreciatation and understanding of how online tools transform thinking, teaching, and learning, hopefully we will move to the point where teachers can come to us for a consultation, then go to IT and tell them exactly what they want built. And teachers who already know what they want (and why) can do that already.

What are you Learning?

My son is taking a Flash Animation course at MIT through Giant Campus. One of the resources provided to parents is a "ParentPortal" through which they can view the ongoing projects their kids are involved in. This is his second year taking a course from them and I have always found that they do a great job of giving me a glimpse into the process of his learning from start to finish -- most summer camps only do a presentation at the end of the course. I'm more interested in what problems he struggles with, and how he solves them, than the finished piece (which is always somewhat of a black box to me if I don't have any insight into the process of maing it.)

One of the new features this year is a "Project Log" where students enter one- or two-line updates every so often. Stuff like, "I'm building the space ship but am trying to figure out how to make the fins move," and "I finished the collision detection, now I have to work on adjusting the boundaries."

Students in a class subscribe to each other's updates -- even if students are taking the class in different locations, asynchronously. They can instant message each other with help: "Check out this site for info on the fins" or "Try using the Boundary Editor". It helps kids realize that they aren't the only ones wrestling with a problem. It also shows them that once they solve a problem, they can still use their knowledge to help others.

I'm thinking of how I might try this in my class next year. I might have studets sign up for Twitter acounts and subscribe to each other's feeds. Maybe require them to "tweet" at least once a night over the coruse of a five-day project. I'm also looking at collaborating with another class in Massachusetts next year on projects; this could be a great way to keep ourselves connected!

Krashen's Theory of Second Language Acquisition

I'm reading about the work that Stephen Krashen did in 1981 about second language acquisition. I'm thinking of using it in an upcoming workshop I'm doing on Enhanced Podcasting for Educators. Although the theory is applied to second language learning, I wonder how much of it might apply to our teachers learning about the "language" of technology uses in the classroom.

Basically, Krashen lists five hypotheses for language acquisition learners:

Acquisition/Learning: Basically, there are two modes by which we "pick up" a new language. One is the Acquisition mode, in which we worry less about the nuts and bolts of the grammar, and instead develop a "feel" for what "sounds correct." In the Learning mode, we focus on developing learned rules and patterns to apply toward an understanding of the language.

Monitor: This hypothesis defines the relationship between the Learning and Acquisition modes of language development. basically, the Monitor seeks to apply learned rules to shape how we express ourselves. It is the influence of the Learning mode on the Acquisition mode. I call it the "inner critic" -- too harsh an inner critic cuts down on the spontaneity of the Acquisition.

Natural Order: Krashen determined experimentally that there is a natural order by which learners develop langauge; specifically, most learners develop certain skills before others. Interestingly, he does not advocate the development of a syllabus that follows the natural order of skills progression; rather, he believes more in "natural communicative input" to ensure that learners progress at their own proper pace.

Input: Related more to the "acquisition" mode of learning, this states that people learn best (progress along the "natural order") when they are challenged at a level slightly beyond their abilities.

Affective Filter: Learners have to be comfortable and motivated when they are learning. They need to be in an enviroment that promotes self-confidence and safe risk-taking in order to lower the "affective filter" that can impede the learning process.

Overall, a lot of this is stuff we already instinctively know as teachers: create a stimulating, safe learning environment in which to challenge our students. What I find in this research is a challenge to deisgn such an environment online, and to develop ways to design processes that are authentic and motivating within a real context.

Fifteen Seconds of Fame

My wife and I just did a presentation at my school called "What Can We Learn from Computer Games?" We got more people to show up than I expected, but there were still a lot of people who couldn't make it (it was right after school, which is a difficult time.)

Luckily, we put up a Games Page about our presentation (actually, a wiki masquerading as a web page; it's View only.) I also published our slide presentation, which I was quite proud of, via Slideshare. We just got notified that our presentation is now "Spotlighted" on the Slideshare homepage. We were so excited we were searching for it on our iPhones on the way in to school this morning. We didn't see it anywhere in the Featured category. This is always changing as people upload more stuff, which led my wife to remark, "Maybe this is why you Twitter it, rather than blog about it... by the time people read the blog, it's already gone! Maybe instead of fifteen minutes of fame, now it's more like fifteen seconds of fame." (!)

It's up now, though, in its own category. But ironically, it's not the easiest to follow without our sparkling personalities and wit to accompany them. I was surprised that it seems rather lifeless, just the slides alone.

I am reading Nancy Duarte's book "Slide:ology" which is a fantastic book about re-imagining the PowerPoint presentation. Her point is that we should use visuals to complement the words, not simply put words up on a slide that the presenter uses as talking notes. I really tried to take this to heart as we designed the presentation. I discovered a few things:

1. Citing images is super important. I still am not sure that I cited them "correctly" but it's important to me that I was pretty careful about noting where I got each image. I found most of them using Flickrstorm, a great search engine that finds high-quality Flickr images that are all Creative Commons licensed.
2. It took me two or three times as long to make a Keynote presentation that had many fewer words in it. In fact, I tried to tell the story through pictures as much as possible. I didn't even use animation, which would have taken even longer.
3. I tried to follow Duarte's "three-second rule": Your audience should be able to get the point of your slide in three seconds, no more. I had about three times as many slides in this presentation, mostly because I gave myself the permission to use three of four slides where I would have just put everything on one slide in the past.
4. Co-presenting is fun! My wife focused on the web site, and I focused on the slides. And we work well together.

The last bit of irony is that we used the slides to complement, rather than supplant our talk, and it worked well as a whole. But then when we uploaded it to Slideshare, it made it really hard to follow (what do all these pictures mean?)

Humanity in the News

As happy as I am with the outcome, I have to admit that I have perceived a very liberal media bias on behalf of Obama, and to the detriment of McCain. With the proliferation of blogs and podcasts, it is now much more acceptable to let your feelings and biases show themselves in the process of reporting news. It seems that with blogs and podcasts the idea is to let your personality shine through; it is one of the things that differentiates you from others.

I vividly remember an episode of Late Night with David Letterman, broadcast shortly after September 11, with Dan Rather as the guest. The newsman broke down for an instant while recounting a story of watching firefighters running into the towers just before they collapsed. They cut to a commercial. After the break, Rather apologized profusely to Letterman, saying, "That should never happen." He was clearly mortified that he had allowed his feelings to show. Letterman responded with, "Hey, you're human. It's all right."

I hadn't realized how deeply ingrained it was, for an old school news reporter, never to let his feelings gt in the way of reporting the news. It should be just about the facts, not open to interpretation, not open to emotions or editorializing. Certainly the change in technology, the democratization of information, has fundamentally affected how we report world events. On the eve of perhaps the biggest presidential election in my lifetime, I wonder how it has affected the results of the event itself.

Finding Your Way

I just had a neat conversation with some colleagues who are developing an online version of a history textbook. Their observation, mirrored by my own, is that students don't like to read lots of text online. In fact, if they have to scroll through the text, they usually don't read all of it.

Is this because students don't like to read the text online, or just that students don't like to read? Something I wonder about is whether the medium, i.e., the computer, is a tool that students see as essentially non-linear -- they are used to reading hyperlinked text, and by habit most of their web surfing doesn't involve reading more than one screen at a time. (Who looks beyond the first few pages of a Google Search Result?)

I asked them where their online textbook fit along a spectrum of texts, with traditional books at one end, which are essentially linear, and whatever is on the other end -- perhaps a collection of resources with no particular order or links. Their answer was that their textbook is essentially linear, in chronological order, but could have points where it branches off so students can trace particular themes of interest. They are looking at some possible solutions from the Center for New Media at George Mason, which is headed up by Dan Cohen (whom I had the privilege of presenting with a workshop in Lexington last summer.  Small world.)

Maybe the reason web-based texts are a hassle to read are that they try too hard, and too poorly, to emulate what is essentially a linear reading experience, and fail to capitalize on the non-linear nature of the web experience.

Oddly enough, I hate to read books on the computer, but I don't mind reading online newspapers (yesterday the Christian Science Monitor just announced they were going online-only after 100 years!)

But I do have a Sony e-reader, which is a bit like a Kindle, that I just love to read books on. It is closer to the traditional metaphor of reading a book -- you turn pages by pressing a button, it feels like a paperback in your hand, the text looks like ink on a page (no backlight) etc.

I used to work as an online course developer at a startup, where we developed courses that were essentially linear in format, but the viewer was encouraged to jump around. We wanted there to be an element of exploration and discovery in the course, and we wanted the experience to be user-guided -- the order of the course elements should be determined by the learner, as opposed to the teacher.

I love the experience of browsing maps on my iPhone. You have the vast landscape spread out in front of you, but you only see a little of it at a time. You can swipe and move the window around in whatever direction you want to go, or use the Search to find someplace specific. You can always press the crosshairs button to immediately show you where you are. If you want to go someplace special, you can see a purple line that shows you where you need to go. As I described in an earlier post, this is a wonderful interface that fulfills the cardinal rules of navigation interface, as articulated by my former CEO, Steve Henn:

An ideal interface should always, at any point, tell you:

• Where you have been.
• Where you are.
• Where you need to go.

If you can always access this information, you can't get lost. It encourages play. It encourages user-guided exploration. Suppose course content were laid out the same way? Instead of a linear textbook, you could swipe, or drag, your viewer to see the content you most need to access to answer essential questions? You could zoom in to view primary source documents, or follow hyperlinks to other documents, and you would always know where you were with respect to the course.

How cool would that be?