Are We Still Evolving

"The biggest part of our environment is culture."
BBC Horizon, Are we still evolving?
(context = the usual pressures to adapt/evolve for a species are environmental, whereas we create tools etc. to adapt)

Jobs on computers in schools

From the New York Times, 5 November 2011. I guess it does take more than a computer for learning to take place.

Even Mr. Jobs, Apple’s co-founder, turned skeptical about technology’s ability to improve education. In a new biography of Mr. Jobs, the book’s author, Walter Isaacson, describes a conversation earlier this year between the ailing Mr. Jobs and Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, in which the two men “agreed that computers had, so far, made surprisingly little impact on schools — far less than on other realms of society such as media and medicine and law.”

The comments echo similar ones Mr. Jobs made in 1996, between his two stints at Apple. In an interview with Wired magazine, Mr. Jobs said that “what’s wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology,” even though he had himself “spearheaded giving away more computer equipment to schools than anybody else on the planet.”

What if Reading On the Computer Means We Don't Get It?

After having recently read The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, I decided to do an experiment with my students. According to the research described in the book, reading comprehension is highest with traditional paper (book, article etc.).

I have been trying to minimize my environmental impact both in my personal and professional life for many years. Since joining ISB, I have been able to make great strides towards reducing my/my students’ paper consumption because of the availability of electronic texts. I post articles on my class blog for students to download or read online.

Knowing that reading is often not enough to come to a deep understanding, I teach my students to use tools like the highlighting and note-taking functions of Preview (on a Mac), diigo.com and coda notes (to name just a few). These allow users to make notes, highlight and mark up webpages/texts just as they would with paper and pen.

Like most people, and like most of my students, most of my reading for information happens on a computer these days. I read the news, read scholarly articles for my Master’s research project and find class texts online. I feel like my comprehension is excellent. So, when I read The Shallows and the research it references about the difference in comprehension with paper reading, I was truly skeptical. I believed, if anything, that the difference came down to individual reading/learning styles and decided to test it myself.

I chose three different articles that are about the level that I would normally assign for current events, two of them from the New York Times. For Grade 6, this can be a fairly challenging reading level. Each article was followed by five questions related to comprehension of the key information from the article. The subject of each article was familiar but the information was ‘new’ to the students. I did the experiment with both of my Humanities classes – about 40 students.

For article one, students read entirely online. They could take notes on paper or using an online tool.

For article two, students read a pdf version stripped of all ads (using the ‘READER’ function of Safari). They could then take notes on paper or using Preview (which allows them to take notes and highlight the text easily).

For article three, students received a paper copy of the article and could write on it if they needed to. If I am being honest, this article was in fact the longest and most complex.

The results?

For the first article (reading online), the class average was 68%, a D+.

For the second article (a pdf version that allowed note-taking), the class average was 72%, a C-.

For the final article (a paper copy), the class average was 89, a B+.

I shared this information with my students and I am sharing it now because we all need to know how we are most successful. So far, I am not printing all new readings for my students, but I am encouraging them to print them if they need to. I make pdfs available for all readings and encourage students to print them if they find them difficult.

I was skeptical and am still not entirely convinced, but these results are pretty compelling. If it were just my little experiment giving these results, I would not take it as seriously, but my results reflect the result of large academic studies. The results are too important to ignore them. I still want to go paperless, but I believe that we should all know that how we do things has an impact on how successful we are. I want my students to think of that as well.

Coetail Final Project: 27 March 2010

Thanks to one of my teammates I implemented a new dimension to our book clubs last week. As I have mentioned before, students book club participation was quite good. I was impressed by their preparation and by their level of examination and analysis of their shared texts. However, they are limited by their age/experience and can't always get to some of the key issues in a novel the way they could with some teacher guidance.

During book club meetings, I have always floated and, though mostly listening, offered suggestions to deepen the conversations. This is interesting but limited in that I want to hear more and, in some cases, draw students' ideas out more. As a student I have never liked someone dropping in and adding their two cents to a conversation that has been moving along just fine without them, so I have tried to avoid doing it too much as a teacher. Nevertheless, a teacher can guide a discussion in a way that a group of 12 year olds cannot.

So back to the "new dimension". Following my colleague's example, I set up a chat on todaysmeet for each book club (after previously giving them play tim on the chat site the day before). I had explained the guidelines and why I was using chat with them instead of the usual format, so the day of the discussions we just got started. I was pretty happy with the result.

I was able to:

• meet with individual groups for extended amounts of time;
• participate when I thought it was advantageous;
• participate with them without being a drop-in;
• draw out bigger ideas from students who had the germ of an interesting topic;
• just simply listen for a while without any interruption;
• get a transcript of all the virtual discussions;
• review those for topics for whole class discussion at a later time;
• and get a better sense of the body of group's discussion.

It was a positive experience in many ways, but possibly the most interesting was the follow-up whole class discussion. I was curious about students' reactions to the format. In both classes, about 41 out of 45 students liked using chat. About 36 of 45 said we should use it occasionally (that was my suggestion because I would not use it exclusively in place of face-to-face). [This next one is most interesting to me because to me it shows they understand the different levels of communication offered by face-to-face interactions.] All of them agreed that they had better discussions about the important aspects of the novel face to face.

They cited the things you would expect...spontaneity, flow, limits of typing speed etc. All in all, though, I was pretty happy to have a new tool to use.

Coetail Final Project: 12 March 2010

We just finished up conferences and I found a new way for technology to play a part. I have used digital tools in conferences for several years, mostly in the form of students electronic portfolios. Blogs, videos, audio recordings and wikis have provided a great reference point for students' discussion of their work and progress.

During today's conference, however, I hit upon a new use. I have a particularly outstanding student from Korea whose mother doesn't not speak English fluently. She relies on her daughter to translate much of what I say. From past experience, I know that this exemplary student is also exceedingly modest. In the first semester conferences, it was obvious that she did not fully translate the praise I heaped upon her. She blushed and giggled but her mother did not react in the way I would have expected given how highly I regarded her daughter's academic prowess. Clearly, something was being (deliberately) lost in translation.

This time, I decided, I would not be similarly foiled. I typed several select phrases in google translator and watched as her mother grinned in delight. The student, not surprisingly, blushed and laughed but looked thrilled to have her mother 'hear' what I really had to say. In the end we finished the conference in a very good mood.

그녀는 놀라운 학생이다.

난 다행 회의 완료됩니다.

I hope that's right. In the conference, several things did not make sense but the gist got through. When my Spanish students use it, it is OBVIOUS.

Coetail Final Project: 11 March 2010

Digital Native: Part 2

Anyone from the Coetail class will know that I have a strong reaction against the term digital native AND the notion that our students somehow have an innate understanding of the digital world and digital tools. To summarize, I believe that most of our students entering our classrooms have an understanding of a narrow section of the digital world and only a surface level understanding of digital tools. This is one reason that I believe I/we should incorporate them into my/our teaching. The immense potential will go untapped unless we use them/teach them/explore them.

[This is changing/improving all the time as more and more teachers integrate technology in meaningful ways.]

Anyway, grade 6 students recently wrote memoirs relating to their trip to Kanchanaburi. To give the memoir more depth and especially to help students begin to realize the potential of online publishing, I asked that they include photos and links to related topics (much like a slate.com article providing background).

I had taught students how to insert links and photos many times between August and February. For most it was a simple, easy process. One student, however, had not added either element 2 weeks after the deadline. I showed her at school privately, but still after two weeks both elements were missing. Finally, one day I saw that she was online (through her gmail status) and started a google chat.

One thing that this student was quite adept at was chat (and chat spelling, but that is another story). She was very excited to chat (even about her project) and I began to talk her through the process of adding the photos and links. In order to guide her and to imagine the windows and prompts, I asked if she was using Mac or PC. To my great amusement, she replied, “i dont no.”

After I stopped laughing, I asked if there was a big Apple somewhere on the computer. “Oh,” she said, “it says samsung.” After all her time using computers at school, elementary and middle school, PC lab and Mac lab, this little concept had escaped her. That was in addition to a basic element of blogging that had been covered many times before this year and probably last as well.

Thankfully, I was able to talk/chat her through the process and it worked. Problem solved and, with luck, lesson permanently learned.

This was the first time I had given a student online tech support (though I had done it with my family). It was a great reminder for me that my students are really learning about technology’s application and potential at school. This is so important for me because I really strongly believe that they will only begin to explore what they can do if they see it in action somewhere. For most of them, school will be/needs to be that place.

The most basic example of all is facebook. Only because of Green Panthers, CarrotMob and a teacher (Kerry) did students see that there was a power to facebook. This is why I want computers in my students’ hands.

If digital native is anything like being a native of a country and not knowing who your Prime Minister is, maybe I could come to love the term.

Coetail Final Project: 10 March 2010

When we (Robin and I) began thinking of a technology oriented project for the course, we began to think outside the curriculum of our respective classrooms. We thought about how we gather news and information, ideas and inspiration for our teaching and personal lives and realized that we have adapted to the incredible abundance in the digital world by using a combination of browsing, repeat exploration and deep research. I, for example, regularly browse the headlines of about a dozen online news and information sources from four countries and in two languages. I regularly undertake more slow-paced exploration of a few stories/events/ideas each week. Finally, I research probably one or two things in depth per week. Some are of personal interest and some of professional interest.

One site I love is Slate because of its analysis of important issues and quirky topics and the links it provides for further research and investigation. There is a tremendous diversity of thought and topics represented on Slate and following the threads of related stories is often like letting one's imagination wander. It takes you surprising places.

This brings me to our project...

Like the larger world we live in, ISB is full of more ideas and activities than I can absorb at any one time. There are aspects of ISB life that I want to know about in detail and aspects for which a quick update is sufficient. Imagining that this is true for most in the community, Robin and I imagined a Slate-like site for our school. It would provide access to the life of the school and, most importantly, the intellectual life of the school.

We saw this as a key tool for community members to keep abreast of the richness of school life and as a powerful window for those 'outside' it. Much of the thinking from our students and teachers deserves an audience. Whether it is for prospective students and families or people seeking signs of intellectual life on the planet, we imagined a site that would allow people to set foot 'inside' the school.

Sports, pedagogy, literature, dance, theatre...they all have a place at ISB and we want people to be able to find them, explore them and realize how much is going on here. We also want them to feel inspired and believe that there is a place for all of the creative and intellectual energy they have.

Where do we stand now? We are planning to make it happen. I couldn't ask for more.

I could use a set of those

While we are thinking about going 1:1, maybe we could get them to throw in a set of Touches too.

Tech and Talk in the Classroom

Holidays are always fabulous. This holiday, however, offered a unique professional opportunity. We saw about 65 former students, all of whom have started university or are finishing high school. This provided us with a chance to do some informal yet invaluable field research on education and on technology in education.

Before detailing our findings, it’s important to describe the ‘subject group’. They actually form two groups. The first is made up of my grade four/five students from an urban charter school in Los Angeles. This school is a successful public school in a neighbourhood and district of many unsuccessful schools. Students at the school do not have to pass any kind of entrance exam but do have to maintain a decent academic and attendance record to stay in the school. Some of these students were part of an accelerated program so that they enrolled in university as second year students. These students are all in university now, most of them in large public universities in California.

The other group of students is from the small private school in Pasadena where we were first middle school teachers and later heads of the middle and high schools. This school is small in both total numbers and in class sizes and would be characterized by most people as a liberal institution. Its methods aren’t radical, but the politics and attitudes of most students and families would be considered liberal. There is no entrance exam at the school and, compared to most private schools in the area, it takes a very wide range of students of different abilities. The students we reunited with from this school are either finishing high school or have started university. They attend a wide range of schools including community colleges, public universities and small liberal arts schools.

Both groups of students would likely be considered quite technologically literate. In most cases, much of what they do using computers grew out of their own interests and mastery occurred through practice on their own. Some of the teachers they had through high school embraced digital tools in education and some had little interest in them.

In discussing what school is like for them now, we asked our students many questions about technology use in the classroom. We were very surprised by the strength of their reactions against digital tools being used in the classroom. In almost every case, students lamented situations in which they could not engage in discussion (as is the case for those at University of California schools where introductory classes are large). In the case of those students in small schools with small classes, students heaped scorn upon the idea that they should be using computers in class. They were overwhelming in their desire to talk.

They saw talk as an essential underpinning of their understanding and as an essential way of working with their peers. They embraced classes in which teachers lead good discussions and complained about those in which their means of expression of ideas was primarily electronic.

We described images of university classrooms that we had discussed in our courses in which students were all sitting with their laptops open. Virtually unanimously, their reactions were negative and included the following points:

· They know they would not pay attention in such a situation.

· They want to talk and discuss.

· They want to hear what their professors/teachers have to say.

· Multi-tasking meant incomplete attention to each task.

Though I have to confess that I am happy to hear their responses since they reflect some of my own beliefs, I also have to admit that I was quite surprised at the forcefulness of their reactions. Some students were actually quite passionate about the need to talk as a group in class. Others found some of the uses of digital tools to be needless intermediate steps that postponed important discussion.

I know that for me, this reinvigorates my commitment to discussion and talk in the classroom.

Texting: Another Reason not to Call

I have always hated talking on the phone. Well. actually that's not quite true. There was a short period in Grade 7 when I was on the phone for hours at a time. Aside from that, approximately, six month period, I have avoided talking on the phone. Email was a dream come true but had its limits as everyone started to carry cell phones.

Then I discovered SMS. A dream come true. Instant communication but no chatting. Well it turns out that there is an unexpected benefit to texting for our students - better spelling! According to a study frequent texting requires a strong awareness of spelling rules even when non-standard spelling is used. So as long as our students can figure out that we don't want them writing that way for academic purposes, there is no harm in texting the hmwrk assignment.

c u l8r

30 November: Peripherals in the Classroom

Peripherals, like laptops, are a tool in the classroom. As such, there isn't anything radically different about their use in my classroom. So, I think I'll write about the special challenges of computer use in a beginning language classroom.

Digital tools have a special place in a language class in that they allow students to express their ideas and creativity in the target language in new and different ways. They also allow the teacher to bring language into the classroom through different media (music, video, text you name it). In addition, their are tons of new tools to extend language learning online through sites such as livemocha, learnspanish and even university level coursework such as MIT.

The challenge with digital tools is the temptation they offer students to 'express' their ideas so easily. Online translation sites abound, and for a sophisticated grade 8 student who has only basic language structures and vocabulary at his/her disposal they seem like the perfect way to say what you want to say. This can undermine language learning in various ways.

Most importantly, students don't use the target language structures and vocabulary that they need to as the essential scaffolding for developing fluency. In a sense, it allows them to run before they can walk. This actually slows their mastery of core curricula. To the teacher, it is always glaringly obvious when something has been been translated by google; it contains language way beyond the student's level and/or it is a mishmash of non-sensical phrases.

Initially I dealt with this simply by explaining to my students the scoring/rubric criteria for assignments and the necessity of focusing on the core language structures related to the task. I emphasized how easy it is to recognize the results of a translation site and how I valued their experimentation with language much more than perfect phrasing. Though it worked to an extent, students continued to use the sites.

Ironically, the only thing that really worked was to go old school. With a project oriented classroom, I now generally have my students write by hand using good old paper and pen. When that step is complete, students incorporate their (and this way it truly is theirs) language into video, digital stories, slideshows etc. In some cases there are more mistakes; in some cases there are fewer. Either way, student are authentically using the target language in real ways that truly reflect their language development.

Laptop Use: 23 November 09

I have not found laptops to be problematic in class. Classroom management is classroom management, which, by its very nature, evolves with the circumstances. Laptops are another circumstance to which we, students and teachers, adjust.

Things that work for me...

1. Give time to play and explore when introducing a new tool.

2. Talk about expectations.

I try to be clear with my classes about what I want them doing/not doing during work times. This extends to work on computers. If time has expired for personalizing a blog, for example, I let my students know that they can continue on their own time. I also know that at some point, someone will use their laptop in a way that I don't want, so I explain in advance that there will be consequences for doing so.

3. I ask students to close the laptops during discussions.

I know from my own experience that it is very difficult to engage in a discussion with the temptations offered by the laptops. Often I will ask them to find what they need to participate fully in the discussion and then close the cover.

We often alternate between discussion, research, reading, writing etc. During discussion my goal is for students to focus on what other people are saying; minimizing distractions is essential. The key difference between discussion and answering a question is listening to what others say. This is the only thing that creates an opportunity for participants to build upon what others say. Part of teaching is moving students out of the paradigm of simply asking questions and getting a teacher response. It is not an easy transition because of years of practice simply answering questions.

Online discussions (using any of the tools at our disposal) is very different and really has no place in class. There is too much simultaneous input for students to 'listen' to each other and maintain the momentum of discussion. This is an excellent format for continuing discussion outside of class or for fostering discussion in students involved in distance learning.

4. It's impossible to answer every question. A teacher can quickly be run ragged trying to respond to different students' questions about HOW to do something in class. I usually insist that students ask people at their table first before asking me. This reduces the questions I am asked to the more essential ones. Also, to be brutally honest, there are certain questions that, after a few requests, I refuse to answer. I will direct students attention to the board, my blog, an online resource or to a peer if I have told the class as a whole several times. I find that for some, this is the only way to encourage technological independence.

NETs and Good Teaching (week of 15 Nov)

The NETs on teaching and administration set admirable goals and describe good teaching. There is no question of that. Congratulations to the authors.

Subtract the 'digital tools' from them (or any permutation of the term) and you are still left with good teaching. That leaves us with two big questions: 1. Do we need NETs?; and 2. Can you be a good teacher without using digital tools?

The answer to number 1? No. I have known great teachers who do not use computers etc. in their classes. Nonetheless, their classrooms resemble in every respect the environment that the NETs evoke (minus the digital tools). Creativity, originality and collaboration do not begin with any particular tools or format. Good teachers find good ways to use good tools. They find ways for students to express themselves and to work together.

I have also known lousy teachers where little of value takes place with or without a digital tool. Their students' work does not reflect analysis, collaboration or introspection. Once again, but in a not so positive way, the tool does not matter.

The NETs serve as guidelines for the kind of work students and teachers should be doing. Of that there is no question. Good teachers will find ways to work with digital tools in great ways whether or not the NETs were ever written. If the NETs serve a purpose it is to guide people to the good pedagogy WITH DIGITAL TOOLS. Shouldn't we just guide people towards good pedagogy? PERIOD - NO QUALIFIERS.

Can you be a good teacher without digital tools? Duh. Do I want to use them in my classroom? Sí. Am I constantly looking for new ways to use them? Definitivamente. Could I go to another school that didn't have a wide array of digital tools available for classroom use? Claro. I would be sad at first, but I know that, just as it always has, my pedagogical practice would adjust to the demands of my environment.

Ensuring Students Learn What They Need?

Hmmm, isn't that what we always do? I thought that was my biggest source of anxiety for the last 18 years.

I don't think we can ensure (as in, make certain that (something) shall occur or be the case) that our students ever learn everything we think they need to learn. In regards to technology, that is also the case. We can, however, get as close as we possibly can to that goal with a two-pronged strategy.

With a vision for how technology is best used, we approach a point at which the majority of teachers are ready to buy in. Some teachers will always be hesitant to embrace new methods, be they technological or philosophical (or both), because of the many competing demands on time. When we develop a vision for the ways in which technology should be part of our academic lives, teachers are more more willing to jump in and take the time to integrate and master digital tools.

I emphasize the word ways to differentiate between that and specific tools. I have a(n evolving) vision of the place technology should occupy in my pedagogy. In addition to being a hugely powerful source of information, I see it as a means of expression and collaboration first and foremost and, secondarily, as a an archive/portfolio of student work. I believe the tools allow my students to express ideas in new ways to broader audiences and to collaborate with people beyond the confines of the classroom. They can and should now apply what they learn to more realistic problems and situations. Because I have a vision, I am comfortable bringing different digital tools into my pedagogy.

The second 'prong' to ensuring our students learn what they need re technology and information literacy is to weave technology into the fabric of a school. Across grade levels and across the different curricular areas, technology needs to be diffused throughout an institution rather than compartmentalized.

This is my personal philosophy, and it informs all that I do in my teaching. That said, I know that the the most important thing our students NEED to learn is HOW TO LEARN. Technology and information literacy are only part of learning how to learn. Good teaching leads to learning - content, skills and the habits of mind that create real learners. Computers, hand-helds, whatever device that may come our way are not pre-requisites for learning or success.