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| Wikimedia |
We all know what comes next: spring fever. Students feel the renewal too and complacency soon transforms into springtime mania. Longing looks out the windows, bubbling excitement for 4th quarter and summer vacation and the bizarre outbreak of shorts all soon appear. Teachers redouble their efforts to close out 3rd quarter and principals sigh at the upcoming need to revisit the dress code. I think the same story plays out every year at this time in every school in the U.S.
In light of the upcoming warm weather, we rejoice that winter is on the way out and that we don't live in Canada.
On to the tech tools...
Infographics for Social Studies
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| Pew Research |
When looking for engaging infographics that spur discussion and debate, we often turn to textbooks and other standard curricular materials. Yet, what happens when your current event topic is a lot more current than your text?
It can be difficult to find good charts, diagrams, and other images that help explain or describe the important facts and elements of a topic. In the past, we made photocopies from a newspaper or printed off an article from a website. This approach worked for some time but there is a better way.
Now, many think tanks, research centers and pollsters offer infographics available on their website. While similar graphics still appear in newspapers, you are limited in the scope and breadth of topics; essentially, the newspaper has to be reporting on it at that moment. Research center websites offer a wider range of topics that include both acute and longterm issues and interests. Additionally, many topics are presented in a more holistic manner with multiple data points presented scientifically free (or almost free) of bias.
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| Pew Research |
While one could argue that these types of graphics are most useful to high school students, I would argue that charts like the one to the right present complex topics in a simple enough manner to be very useful in classes all the way down to upper elementary. Graphics can really help us make an otherwise overwhelming topic digestible for younger students.
Buzzword Breakdown: Blended Learning
Blended Learning is the educational practice of creating a learning environment that uses both traditional, face-to-face content and digital content. Content means curriculum including activities, lessons, assessments and so on. The biggest benefit of 'blended' is the ability to take one teacher and have her in 2, 10 or 30 places at once; that is, a teacher can provide individualized instruction meeting the needs of all learners in a classroom rather than having everyone in lockstep.
This is a big deal since we all want our students to succeed but there's only one teacher per classroom. Blended environments make meaningful differentiation possible. Students can work independently at school and when they're at home, it's like you are there with them doing homework help.
Also, keep in mind that blended learning looks different for every teacher in every school. It's all about finding what works for your students so that they feel supported both in the classroom and doing homework at home.
Here's a short intro video from Edutopia that provides a great overview and includes some examples.
Product Spotlight: Documenting Progress with Three Ring
A lot of classes have a homework check; it's that time when the teacher walks up and down the rows, gradebook in hand, checking last night's assignment. Sometimes those assignments are graded in class ("Pass your paper the person behind you") and sometimes they're handed in. In all of the cases, what happens? The work is evaluated- either by teacher or peer- assigned a value (usually points) and returned. The student looks at the grade and files their work in the recycle bin. Repeat ad infinitum.
If we want a way to document progress and show growth (i.e. learning) over time, this process doesn't work well; the students don't reflect on their work and that sample of learning is lost to the garbage.
What if you're class/subject doesn't do worksheets or problem sets? What formative assessments or "quick checks" can you do to document learning and later show a progression of growth to the student or their parents? You really need something that can record video in classes like music, industrial arts, and physical education.
Three Ring might be a good tool for this problem. It takes pictures, audio and videos from your tablet or phone and archives them to an account like a portfolio. Evernote and Dropbox can do this too but Dropbox doesn't allow annotation and Evernote doesn't like video.
From a teacher standpoint, the app gets the pics/video off of your camera roll and into the cloud where they can be sorted and shared easily. So now the homework check includes documentation that can be brought up later and discussed with students, teachers, administrators, etc. In the end, you have a trove of pictures, video, and audio recordings that constitute a portfolio of work. Cool!
Available for iOS and Android. You can also bring it up in a web browser. Three Ring comes in both free and paid versions.
Reflections on Invisible EdTech
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| Flickr:Marian Beck |
Finally, I recently read an article on Medium talking about EdTech's visibility in the classroom. The author summarizes his on-going posts about EdTech's role in the classroom by providing several tools he uses. Yet the most interesting part of the article is how he feels about technology's place. He sums it up with a borrowed quote from Joe Sparano which really speaks to how I feel about educational technology as well.
Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent
From my observations, we don't spend a lot of time on furniture integration in the classroom. We don't vet the best pencil and markers available. We don't schedule all staff PD on calculators (even the complicated graphing ones that only the math teachers know how to use). Why?
In my opinion, it is not because these things only play a supportive role to the mission-critical task of learning. It is not because everyone already knows how to use them to their fullest potential. No, it is because they are ubiquitous to the educational landscape. They have become so interwoven into the fabric of school, so invisible, that our eye no longer recognizes them as entities unto themselves. Rather, they're just things we use and things we do (along with lots of others) to do our jobs of educating kids. We use them in varying ways to solve problems that arise without a second thought. As these tools and products are improved or changed over time, we simply adapt to and integrate the changes all the while innovating as a result of these improvements. There is a profound synergy there amongst all the items of academia that is driven by the mission. It's also worth noting that this synergy is invisible. We would notice the sudden absence of these tools but we seldom acknowledge or cherish their existence.
Education technology has almost always been apart. Broken off on its own, it is very visible. Even though other products, services, tools and approaches evolve organically over time, the world of EdTech is seen as a dizzying maelstrom of new devices, programs and apps that can never be understood by the layperson. It is regarded as something to be feared rather than something to be embraced. It requires different approaches to discovery and integration than other academic items and demands levels of skill and time few teachers have. I do not subscribe to this common understanding and I believe that a lot of the anxiety regarding EdTech circles back to the quote above.
Tech giants have focused on being obvious; that's a good business model. One needs to be noticed and once noticed, one eventually becomes needed. Yet, in a school environment, the brash 'disruptive' culture of the tech world limits integration by constantly setting itself apart from all of the foundational elements of the 21st century classroom. Tech is great but it is not a panacea, nor will it ever be. All of the elements that have existed before and alongside educational technology support the mission as well. Thus, for true integration, the walls have to come down and educational technology has to become as ubiquitous and invisible as the desk, the whiteboard marker, or the school bus so that we don't wring our hands over its presence but would grieve its absence. This requires very strategic planning and thoughtful design because if it all goes wrong, the tech just gets in the way of the teacher, the student and the learning.
In reality, this set of beliefs drives my approach and provides the impetus to do things differently. We've been at this EdTech thing for decades in the U.S. and yet invisibility has not been achieved. I believe this is, in part, due to the "shiny new toy" approach used almost everywhere. Districts focus on short term purchases that provide a "wow" factor or reactive approaches that are meant to act as a "silver bullet" to some immediate problem. Yet, shiny will eventually dull and addressing a symptom rarely addresses the cause. So, we're left to simply move on to the next big thing.
In opposition to this approach, I try to select, design, support, etc. systems that are invisible in that they fill the basic or foundational need for the teacher and then get out of the way. So, if the tool or system works the way I intend, it largely goes unnoticed, invisible like the whiteboard. Instead, the gains are in student achievement, educator efficacy and a general feeling of "Yes, I can do this," amongst students and staff. For it is the teacher - the expert on content and student relations- and the learner who will always be the drivers. That is what great design and good educational technology provides: a solid foundation of tools and supports for innovation and creation in the classroom that results in increased engagement and achievement.
