Shut that Laptop!

In the last week and a half, my world has been flattened faster than in the previous fifteen months of, shall I say, unabashed geekery. I helped Kim Cofino (along with 17-20 others) present in Bangkok via Google Presentations, I participated in Social Software 07 with Darren Draper and Robin Ellis (sorry I missed tonight), watched Will, Steve, and David on Weblogg-ed TV via UStream, been involved with David Warlick's Fireside Chat on Tuesday night along with a whole slew of people worldwide, and sat in on a call with Graham Wegner, Sue Waters, and Clay Burell this morning to discuss David's keynote a little further.

However, there are two significant events that occurred within the last 24 hours, both centering around a premise that was far less technological in its nature. After falling asleep with the boy Tuesday night at 9:00pm, I woke up at 11:00pm to put him in his bed. On the way back to my bed, I checked the computer to see what portion of my network was still functioning. There was the maiden voyage of Practical Theory TV on UStream: something I couldn't pass up. If you are ever feeling too immersed in the tools, and you have lost sight of the real reason we are employed, grab a seat when Chris is talking, or read his blog, because his perspective never allows him to get too lost on what is cool and new, but rather always brings him back to application and pedagogy. Last night was no different.

Through the course of the 30 or so minutes I was there, Chris and the rest of the crew that were there hashed out the meaning behind a tool like UStream as it relates to student work and student understanding. Yes, very cool tool, but what would a student do with it that they couldn't do before? How would using UStream significantly alter their understanding of the topic they are grappling with? Through trial and error, much discussion, and play, we were eventually able to pull in Dean Shareski onto the UStream channel so that he was visible and audible to the rest of the audience (through some tinkering and use of CamTwist and Skype). The driving question behind the whole broadcast was not "hey look how cool this!" but rather, what does this mean for teaching? I walked away from that with more perspective than I realized at the moment.

This afternoon, I met with a Language Arts teacher regarding a culminating project for some research they are doing on environmental issues. My role in our schools, Technology Coordinator, tends to predispose me to look for technological solutions to projects like this, and that's what the meeting started out as. However, as I listened to Laura talk about what she was seeing in the students and their understanding of the research process, of the factors that were contributing to the worldwide environment crisis, my focus again shifted towards questions that were less centered on technology, but rather on giving the students an experience that allowed them to interconnect their converging ideas about the environment. And, unlike 90% of my meetings with teachers, we never once looked at a computer screen. What we designed made me envious of not being in the classroom full-time anymore: a summit representing all of the research angles the students took with the end goal, unbeknownst to them, to have them discover the obstacles to achieving solutions to their issues lie in human behavior.

This provided me with a glimpse into some potential that might be there for me: lesson design and creation. I've said it before, probably all too often, but the tools we use as teachers need not be networked in the fashion that all of us are used to now. Having students understand that "networking" can begin within the four walls of the classroom and extend beyond that is an area that perhaps needs some study.

Burma

The second teaching job I had was one in which I was asked to a great deal of juggling. I taught English, Basic Skills, United States History and World Geography all within the span of two years. While it was crazy planning for all of the classes, one of the greatest experiences in how to manage and motivate a teaching staff occurred for me during that time.

Our curriculum was always being studied and dissected in the district, which some viewed as a tiresome process, but I always looked at it as exciting; it was current and active. Every year, especially in World Geography, we added a new facet to study because of the changing nature of the world, its borders, and the inhabitants therein. To that end, as a second year teacher, our building principal asked me to design a unit of study with him.

Stop.

Maybe I was too young to realize it, but my experience in education since then has shown me that the principal of the building spending two weeks in my classroom for a portion of the day working with me and my students was unprecedented and definitely not the norm. Also, in that same vein, it saddens me that it is not.

What we created was a unit of study based upon the last large-scale Burmese uprising for Democracy in 1988 led by Aung San Suu Kyi. For three weeks, we took our students through a comparative study of what occurred in Burma and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We compared it with other democratic struggles in the past twenty years, and compared it to the struggle that the U.S. went through during the formation of our Constitution.

Hearing, as I did of yesterday's call for blogging about the issue in Burma, it instantly reminded me of that unit I planned, and how I Roger Taylor-ed the heck out of it: video from Witness, behind the scenes footage from John Pilger of the BBC, biographies, and a culminating event that featured students from the United States Campaign for Burma in a small group session with our students.

When I hear about the work that Clay is doing, or others around the world who are creating authentic lessons with real-world implications, I get a little nostalgic for the classroom. The ideal situation would involve doing a little bit of both.

Literacy

The gentleman that runs our monthly meeting, Ned Davis, just came out with a quote that I thought was interesting regarding the students he teaches at St. Elizabeth College. He was decrying the multitude of resources that they have to sift through in order to get the correct information for their research:

"There is just so much crap out there!"

This, to me, makes a great case for literacy to be revisited at ALL levels of education. Even students who have grown up immersed in technology and are ready to enter the world are often not equipped with the ability to deconstruct multiple sources and recognize validity. Ned's students, confronted with multiple resources might be struggling because the literacy skills they have accumulated in the academic environment do not fit the types of media and information, or even the amount of information.


How do we teach discerning students? What are some methods we are using to do this in our classrooms or seminars? We talk about digital literacies, but what are some tried and true methods?











Technorati Tags: njecc, literacy, digitalliteracy, methods, education

Curriculum Design in Virtual Schools

Yesterday, most of the questions I was generating were in regard to how to actually create the content for the classes offered. Today's session will deal mainly with curriculum design and instructional strategies. What I am looking for is what type of experience students are having in this environment. When a student decides to take an online course, what will they be doing with other students? Will they collaborate, and if so, how? When I think about 21st Century skills, and creating students capable of recognizing patterns and being empathetic, I wonder about the sometimes isolating nature of the online world.


Course Development

* every course has a motif
o engagement is begun here.
o the example being given here is Comprehensive Math for 6th grade where the class is built around a zoo motif. The student is assuming the role of the zookeeper, and will use the math skills he or she learns to successfully maintain a zoo.
* When students remain the center of the class, success is inevitable
o students benefit, teachers benefit, school benefits.
* Courses are developed using a multiple intelligence modality. Learning styles are targeted through varied course content and varied choices for student output.
o allows students to feel success regardless of their talents.
* Students can show mastery in a variety of ways

Quote from the main course screen: "instructors have access to all areas of the student account. Your email account is for school use only."
Science might be a problem--how do you do labs?
Look and Feel

* material in the course, the actual pages, are chunked for the students, so that there is limited scrolling.
* courses mirror the diverse population.
* Readability levels
o chunks of contents
o web links
o other resources
o average
o courses do not use materials that dip too far below grade level, or too far above grade level
* Writing
o personal reflection
o Upper level Bloom's
o Comparable to lesson
* These two components appeal to both ends of the spectrum.

Some notes from how the course looks as you enter it:

* The first thing I noticed is that the interface is really basic, with not a lot of busy-ness on the screen.
* Also, the students must decide at what pace they will proceed. When they decide this, they must write the instructor with a rationale for their pace choice. Accelerated is 18 weeks, Traditional is 34 weeks, or Extended, where the pace is decided on by the student and teacher together.
* The autograde function is interesting in that you can design assessments to include questions that are graded by the LMS, but also have on that same assessment an essay or short-answer portion that is sent to the teacher for grading.
* What these course will always need is rich web content and collaboration. If the students could also create course content that other students use, that adds another huge element to this.
* Could we design a course around an MMORG? I am thinking of Civilizations here, where the students are required to use the game as an integral part of learning ancient civilizations, in addition to other content from a more traditional sense.

Standards and alignment

* must align to state, national and now world standards
* specific to each state
* if designed well, courses and lessons will blend the standards together seamlessly and fluidly
o standards--objective--lesson--assessment

Interactivity, Multi-Media, Technology

The nature of an online school lends itself to using multi-media as a means to create content, whether teacher-created or student-created. The rise of things like Second Life where several members of the class could meet in a quasi-physical way adds another level of meaning to this.

* How to allow them to use Web 2.0 technologies
* Can we incorporate these into our classes online?
o necessary and obvious

Assessment

* autograde- students submit a quiz online that is graded immediately
* written
* oral assessment
* project
* self-assessment

What are some of the collaborative activities that are included in the assessments?

* classmates- interaction through discussion boards
o students are given an option sometimes through the assessment piece--individual or collaborative
o this is in beta right now.
o students have the ability to reach outside of the classroom and connect
* family
* community- students can work with their communities for school projects

21st Century Skills

* Life skills- how to collaborate and how to interact
* core subjects
* learning and thinking skills
* internet and medial literacy- how to detect credibility online and how to assess what constitutes a good source.
* 21st Century Content

Resources

* web links
* guided web activities
* subscriptions
* software

Using Video Game Design Principles in the Classroom

Here is a great idea that the University of Chicago came up with at the North Kenwood Oakland Middle School along with the Center for Urban School Improvement's Digital Youth Program:

The challenge we chose to accept was to use video game design principles to design a course to develop students’ digital media skills, media critique skills and overall computer literacy. If successful teachers could effectively take advantage of the resources afforded by the school’s 1:1 computing environment. Our solution - a 90 minute weekly media arts class set up as a simulated record label taught by two members of the Digital Youth after school staff who are involved in the music industry. Each sixth grade class was given the goal of creating by the end of the school year; 2 recording groups, 7 songs, 2 music videos, a publicity campaign that included a 30 second radio promo, a website and a CD. The culminating activity for this Media Arts class is a record label launch party.(from Pinkard: Videogames Inspire a Different Design for Classroom Learning)

The prospect of asking large public schools to infuse technology into their curriculum is harrowing enough sometimes, and asking them to then use the model of a video game, long considered the arch-rival to academic rigor, is one I wasn't really able to visualize before I came across this article. I like the idea of creating a multi-layer project under the guise of a far-off product release or showcase. It's authentic to the students and according the article, fulfilling enough for them to use higher-level thinking skills to accomplish. Meanwhile, the students will never see it this way. Through their eyes, they are making something happen, making something appear alive where there was nothing in the beginning: it has value and meaning rather than second-hand obligation. It always reminds me of when I start saving money for something; as the amount in the bank grows, the momentum becomes palpable and you begin doing whatever you can to see it continue and increase. In the end, the correct environment was created.


I am curious as to what the discussions are like among group members in this project and how they have set it up; what was the bait? Thanks to Scott McLeod for turning me on to anti-teaching, and the merits it has in creating questions, rather than demanding answers. Mike Wesch, the author of Anti-Teaching, comes to the realization that the environment where learning takes place far outweighs the benefit of "good" teaching. He states:

Borrowing from Marshal McLuhan’s famous aphorism, “the medium is the message,” Postman and Weingartner argue that the environment (or “medium”) of learning is more important than the content (the “message”) and therefor teachers should begin paying more attention to the learning environment they help to create. The emphasis is on “managing” this environment rather than teaching per se.

The project created in the North Kenwood Oakland Middle School is a fantastic example of this. A non-traditional setting where the students determine the outcomes based on questions that they themselves generate. An environment where structures and scaffolding were not limiting, but rather acted much like a game situation; when one problem or question was satisfied, another level of questions presented itself. There's the connection then: let us design lessons not to replicate the pace, or even the technology of the video game, but rather its emphasis on challenging the learner with a series of tasks that engage them and move them along a semi-determined path.



If anyone has any similar lessons or designs like this, I would love to start moving toward this with my staff. I know there is a bridge to gap between where the students aptitudes and interests are (see "Manifesto"), but the difference does not have to be made up solely by technology. Mike Wesch does it with little technology, save the digital cameras for recording the outcome, with close to 400 students. This is possible.