With the ultimate goal of connecting two classrooms across the Pacific to share and discuss science experiments, my fellow teacher next door and I embarked on a trial run with our own students. Our first step was to simulate the cross-Pacific relationship by having our own classrooms blog with each other about a common science experiment to determine various snail preferences. For our purposes, we limited preference options for each of our classes so that they would not have conducted the same experiments as their classmates next door. The hope was to simulate the kind of blog conversations that they might have with students from other schools. We planned to begin working with these other schools once we felt comfortable with some basic procedures about documenting and blogging.
The most exciting aspect of the ultimate phase of our project was for students to share experiments with each other as their audience rather than with the teacher or fellow classmates who likely conducted a similar, if not the same, experiment. Their questions could be answered and discussed by fellow 6th grade scientists across the world. They could describe their procedures for students who did not know them and who might seek to reproduce them in their own schools. 6th grade science had a potential for authenticity we had rarely seen in our own teaching and classrooms.
I will let the student blogs below to give you some details about what the experiments were about. But I can report that guiding an experiment while students took and uploaded photos to their blogs was entirely overwhelming. Even with a technology piece as theoretically simple as digital photography, the management of this on top of the management of a science experiment was enough work for at least two teachers. Science experiment issues (uncooperative animal specimen) were compounded by some technology troubleshooting issues, and we just about gave up.
Unfortunately, we were only a few days away from the end of the semester, and we lost momentum in the chaotic final days before the Winter break. But below are photos posted to the blogs of the team digital documenter(s). I believe only one group out of 6 was not represented by the photos posted to the blogs linked below. Better than I expected while in the chaos of the moment. Have a look and see a first pass at sharing a science experiment via a blog post.
http://blogs.isb.ac.th/miom/science/
http://blogs.isb.ac.th/briane/category/science/
http://blogs.isb.ac.th/celinae/2009/12/14/our-snail-experiment/
http://blogs.isb.ac.th/nicoleg/page/2/
http://blogs.isb.ac.th/teganm/2009/12/14/science/
http://blogs.isb.ac.th/nicolekrause/2009/12/14/science/
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Embedding Tech Standards into a Non-Tech-Class Unit Plan
Technology standards are currently so broad and all-embracing that embedding them into a semester of Science was a natural fit. I think this reflects the fact that the tech standards define themselves as tools for a set of skills that are universal (as far as education is concerned).
For example, communication is a standard that probably exists in every content area. In the case of science, communication is one of the important parts. After all, it's been said scientific research is worth very little if it isn't communicated to others. So meeting the communication standard of technology is easy. The added bonus of blogs and similar technology is that students can communicate their experiments to others who have not witnessed their experiments. In my current classroom, communication is somewhat artificial because the students and I conduct the same experiment and all know what our results. My hope is that by communicating with a classroom of students who were not involved in the same experiment, their communication becomes more authentic. I would hope students to see what it means to explain procedures and results clearly and why it's necessary.
The standard of collaboration was also an easy fit for science experiments and one that seems applicable to many school assignments. 6th grade science is not an one-student affair. Students work with a partner to conduct experiments. Linking two classrooms with blogs allows my students to solicit feedback about hypotheses and experimental designs from other students with different perspectives. Collaboration in 6th grade science has a chance to expand outside the classroom walls.
Ultimately, embedding a technology standard into a non-technology course is as natural as embedding a standard about students using language (e.g. how to explain, persuade, etc.) into any course besides English. Technology, or language, gets used across the curriculum regularly without standards being identified, because technology or language is a tool. The technology standards are written in a way that makes them easy to identify as being used in a content area classroom.
For example, communication is a standard that probably exists in every content area. In the case of science, communication is one of the important parts. After all, it's been said scientific research is worth very little if it isn't communicated to others. So meeting the communication standard of technology is easy. The added bonus of blogs and similar technology is that students can communicate their experiments to others who have not witnessed their experiments. In my current classroom, communication is somewhat artificial because the students and I conduct the same experiment and all know what our results. My hope is that by communicating with a classroom of students who were not involved in the same experiment, their communication becomes more authentic. I would hope students to see what it means to explain procedures and results clearly and why it's necessary.
The standard of collaboration was also an easy fit for science experiments and one that seems applicable to many school assignments. 6th grade science is not an one-student affair. Students work with a partner to conduct experiments. Linking two classrooms with blogs allows my students to solicit feedback about hypotheses and experimental designs from other students with different perspectives. Collaboration in 6th grade science has a chance to expand outside the classroom walls.
Ultimately, embedding a technology standard into a non-technology course is as natural as embedding a standard about students using language (e.g. how to explain, persuade, etc.) into any course besides English. Technology, or language, gets used across the curriculum regularly without standards being identified, because technology or language is a tool. The technology standards are written in a way that makes them easy to identify as being used in a content area classroom.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Managing Technology Peripherals
Aside from the SmartBoard, my most frequently used technology peripherals (from the perspective of the Tech and Info literacy) are cameras and cell phones, which I use with my students for identical purposes--taking pictures and capturing video. It turns out students these days are likely to have cameras on their cell phones, which has been a great help, since students are not as likely to leave their cell phones at home as they might their digital cameras. Students also won't have parents worrying about them taking the family camera to school.
As with all technology devices, there are some details that I have learned to be aware of while using cameras and cell phones.
1. In general, transfering the pictures/videos to computers can be a hassle.
A. Often these devices store data on memory cards. Computers need card readers to be able to access this data. Sometimes the memory card does not fit the card reader, but students have fortunately turned up with adapters. In either case, a test is necessary because some computers cannot read the data even when they "see" the memory card. Other times students need cables to transfer the data from their camera/cell phone to computers.
B. There are similar issues with the data, but the need for a cable requires students to keep track of one more item besides their camera/cell phone. Ideally, all phones will eventually connect to the internet at which point images/videos can be posted directly online or emailed.
2. On many cell phones, image quality is an issue when a video is used on a computer. I've seen videos that looked spectacular on a cell phone turn to a jerky, accelerated, pixelated mess. We didn't make much of an effort to fix this problem, just tried transfering it a few different ways, none of which made a difference. Fortunately, there are many cell phones that work fine, and I expect they will only improve with time.
Areas where I have not focused as much time with peripherals are the typical class management areas. Typical class management that one would associate with any piece of class equipment, for example, a technology peripheral before computers had the monopoly on the word technology. A microscopes is the main one I use through science class. And every teacher knows that class management specifies all sorts of appropriate procedures for the use of such equipment: proper usage, storage, maintenance, etc. In the case of cell phones and digital cameras, my use has been casual and that has led to occasional chaos regarding who has whose memory card, cable, adapter, etc. It's time I used appropriate procedures for the use of equipment with which students are so familiar.
It's also about time I fully integrated a document camera into my teaching. It replaces the overhead projector and allows students to display their paper directly to the class without the use of plastic transparencies. ISBangkok has purchased some for the teachers and I have one at my disposal. Jonothan Steenwijk, fellow ISB teacher and COETAILer, blogges about the power of his in his math lessons. It is a low maintenance peripheral with relatively simple management since students barely touch it. I imagine that I only need to set it up, and after that there would be no further management issues. Hopefully, when I blog again, I will have already integrated it to my lessons.
As with all technology devices, there are some details that I have learned to be aware of while using cameras and cell phones.
1. In general, transfering the pictures/videos to computers can be a hassle.
A. Often these devices store data on memory cards. Computers need card readers to be able to access this data. Sometimes the memory card does not fit the card reader, but students have fortunately turned up with adapters. In either case, a test is necessary because some computers cannot read the data even when they "see" the memory card. Other times students need cables to transfer the data from their camera/cell phone to computers.
B. There are similar issues with the data, but the need for a cable requires students to keep track of one more item besides their camera/cell phone. Ideally, all phones will eventually connect to the internet at which point images/videos can be posted directly online or emailed.
2. On many cell phones, image quality is an issue when a video is used on a computer. I've seen videos that looked spectacular on a cell phone turn to a jerky, accelerated, pixelated mess. We didn't make much of an effort to fix this problem, just tried transfering it a few different ways, none of which made a difference. Fortunately, there are many cell phones that work fine, and I expect they will only improve with time.
Areas where I have not focused as much time with peripherals are the typical class management areas. Typical class management that one would associate with any piece of class equipment, for example, a technology peripheral before computers had the monopoly on the word technology. A microscopes is the main one I use through science class. And every teacher knows that class management specifies all sorts of appropriate procedures for the use of such equipment: proper usage, storage, maintenance, etc. In the case of cell phones and digital cameras, my use has been casual and that has led to occasional chaos regarding who has whose memory card, cable, adapter, etc. It's time I used appropriate procedures for the use of equipment with which students are so familiar.
It's also about time I fully integrated a document camera into my teaching. It replaces the overhead projector and allows students to display their paper directly to the class without the use of plastic transparencies. ISBangkok has purchased some for the teachers and I have one at my disposal. Jonothan Steenwijk, fellow ISB teacher and COETAILer, blogges about the power of his in his math lessons. It is a low maintenance peripheral with relatively simple management since students barely touch it. I imagine that I only need to set it up, and after that there would be no further management issues. Hopefully, when I blog again, I will have already integrated it to my lessons.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Classroom Laptop Use & A Best Practice to Add
Laptop carts are a classic case of an area where students might accumulate, linger and get rowdy. With each cart being accessible to realistically only two students at a time (even that many constitute a crowd), when more than two students try to get laptops from the cart, there is inevitably conflict. I should say that I'm speaking of 6th and 7th graders. To minimize crowding and potential conflict, I ask that students take turns to collect laptops, with students waiting until the group before them has collected their computers.
With my students, there are also issues of proper care, so I have assigned them a number which corresponds to a computer on a particular cart. Students know that they are accountable for their particular computer and if theirs is not properly stored or located, they will have to check the entire cart before leaving on the following day.
As we at ISBangkok are not a one-to-one school regarding computers, we share the carts between classrooms. Often computers arrive non-functional or without a charged battery. Sometimes one computer's wireless card isn't working. Sometimes one computer does not load a student's profile. Rather than solve the problem by asking students to double up, I make sure to have extra computers on hand so that a student can use a back-up computer if necessary. I'd say that the need for extra computers comes up at least once each class.
Beyond these basic practices of mine, I've gotten some new ideas from a blog post at Design 4 Learning called 23 Things about Classroom Laptops. One has been to not use labtops like textbooks. When I've done some writing activities, I've asked students to use a Word Document because I feel they spend more time and give the writing more care than if they handwrite it. But I'm missing out on the opportunity for students to include images, videos and links to various related websites. In other words, I've been using the laptop a bit like a textbook, when I should be maximizing it's usage and letting kids "go digital," which would no doubt be more engaging to them. I could imagine that a student would take more pride and more stake in the writing portion of an assignment if they were generally more motivated in the assignment because it included multimedia.
With my students, there are also issues of proper care, so I have assigned them a number which corresponds to a computer on a particular cart. Students know that they are accountable for their particular computer and if theirs is not properly stored or located, they will have to check the entire cart before leaving on the following day.
As we at ISBangkok are not a one-to-one school regarding computers, we share the carts between classrooms. Often computers arrive non-functional or without a charged battery. Sometimes one computer's wireless card isn't working. Sometimes one computer does not load a student's profile. Rather than solve the problem by asking students to double up, I make sure to have extra computers on hand so that a student can use a back-up computer if necessary. I'd say that the need for extra computers comes up at least once each class.
Beyond these basic practices of mine, I've gotten some new ideas from a blog post at Design 4 Learning called 23 Things about Classroom Laptops. One has been to not use labtops like textbooks. When I've done some writing activities, I've asked students to use a Word Document because I feel they spend more time and give the writing more care than if they handwrite it. But I'm missing out on the opportunity for students to include images, videos and links to various related websites. In other words, I've been using the laptop a bit like a textbook, when I should be maximizing it's usage and letting kids "go digital," which would no doubt be more engaging to them. I could imagine that a student would take more pride and more stake in the writing portion of an assignment if they were generally more motivated in the assignment because it included multimedia.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Relevance of NETs for Teachers and Admins
How relevant are the NETs for Teachers and Administrators to being a "Good Educator" today?
The NETs for Teachers is as general as the NETS for students, in that if you removed the technology piece, those standards could come from an Ed Psych textbook from a teacher prep program. Insert the word digital or technology and you have NETs for Teachers. Few people would argue with their validity.
Who could imagine being a Good Educator without facilitating learning or inspiring creativity? The same is true for authentic learning experiences; modeling the use of a tool or a skill; citizenship or responsibility; and professional growth. This list comes directly from the NETs for Teachers.
As in the NETs for Students, technology is a cross-curricular vehicle for these qualities of a good educator.
I haven't read any literature on educational administration, but once again, the list of NETs for Administrators reads like a commonly-accepted list of qualities of good administrators: vision, a culture of learning, professional learning, school improvement, and citizenship. Just insert technology and you have good DIGITAL qualities of administrators. Would anybody argue with those?
Honestly, NETs almost seem too simple to be Earth shattering. Technology has always been a tool/means for humans to meet objectives. I don't believe NETs is proposing anything new in that respect. ISTE seems to be steering clear from the fact that educational technology is an end in itself. It's just the most current means to achieve the ends that education deems appropriate. Am I missing something here?
The NETs for Teachers is as general as the NETS for students, in that if you removed the technology piece, those standards could come from an Ed Psych textbook from a teacher prep program. Insert the word digital or technology and you have NETs for Teachers. Few people would argue with their validity.
Who could imagine being a Good Educator without facilitating learning or inspiring creativity? The same is true for authentic learning experiences; modeling the use of a tool or a skill; citizenship or responsibility; and professional growth. This list comes directly from the NETs for Teachers.
As in the NETs for Students, technology is a cross-curricular vehicle for these qualities of a good educator.
I haven't read any literature on educational administration, but once again, the list of NETs for Administrators reads like a commonly-accepted list of qualities of good administrators: vision, a culture of learning, professional learning, school improvement, and citizenship. Just insert technology and you have good DIGITAL qualities of administrators. Would anybody argue with those?
Honestly, NETs almost seem too simple to be Earth shattering. Technology has always been a tool/means for humans to meet objectives. I don't believe NETs is proposing anything new in that respect. ISTE seems to be steering clear from the fact that educational technology is an end in itself. It's just the most current means to achieve the ends that education deems appropriate. Am I missing something here?
Friday, November 27, 2009
Ensuring students are learning the tech and info lit they need
How can teachers and schools ensure that their students are learning what they need when it comes to Technology and Information Literacy?
I'll start with the idea that the "What they need" about Tech and Info Lit is defined by the IETS and AASL standards, which is the use of current technology for general skills that are found in all subject areas. I'll also draw from my current experience which is at International School Bangkok.
1. Give teachers time and training to use it themselves, so their use with students will be based on their own authentic use. A good example of this is the series of ISB Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy courses.
2. Embed the use of tech into the school at the teacher and admin level, for example, online learning environments like a Moodle (ISB's version is PantherNet), for teachers to post and share course work. Another example would be web-based Office products like Google Apps, which include Gmail and Google Docs.
3. Give students some room to use the tools they think are relevant. We all know students can teach themselves plenty about technology just by exploring and experimenting with their tech discoveries. An example of that comes from my colleague James Denby. He gave his students the option of making presentations on various applications, such as VuVox, Prezi or one more I can't remember.
Obviously, the particular applications will continue to change over the years, but it will likely advance and become more complex. Exposing students to or allowing them to use current technology will keep them as prepared as possible to use new technology.
I'll start with the idea that the "What they need" about Tech and Info Lit is defined by the IETS and AASL standards, which is the use of current technology for general skills that are found in all subject areas. I'll also draw from my current experience which is at International School Bangkok.
1. Give teachers time and training to use it themselves, so their use with students will be based on their own authentic use. A good example of this is the series of ISB Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy courses.
2. Embed the use of tech into the school at the teacher and admin level, for example, online learning environments like a Moodle (ISB's version is PantherNet), for teachers to post and share course work. Another example would be web-based Office products like Google Apps, which include Gmail and Google Docs.
3. Give students some room to use the tools they think are relevant. We all know students can teach themselves plenty about technology just by exploring and experimenting with their tech discoveries. An example of that comes from my colleague James Denby. He gave his students the option of making presentations on various applications, such as VuVox, Prezi or one more I can't remember.
Obviously, the particular applications will continue to change over the years, but it will likely advance and become more complex. Exposing students to or allowing them to use current technology will keep them as prepared as possible to use new technology.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Teaching NETS and AASL Standards - Whose Job Is It?
At first glance, a question about where standards are taught has an easy answer - in the course where they belong. Take science standards, for example, about scientific inquiry or physical science concepts like Forces and Motion. Nobody would even ask where those standards should be taught. The answer is obviously science class.
But technology standards are not as clear cut as other content standards such as science. Traditionally, one thinks of tech standards as skill specific knowledge. Use Excel. Make a PowerPoint presentation. Etc. But the most recent body of technology standards doesn't sound like that at all.
Take the National Educational Technology Standards whose logo is pictured and hyperlinked below.
The standards from this document read like a general skill set that could be found in any content area.
A look at the Standards for the 21st Century Learner linked through the picture below show the same general skill set.
As a matter of fact, my first reaction was "What do these have to do with tech?"
What becomes clear as you read these standards is that they don't intend to describe technology as a content area, but perhaps more as a method or tool that applies to all content areas through a set of general skills.
As an ESL teacher, I realized this was no different than a holistic view of ESL as being the use of language across the content areas. Language is a method or tool to apply to any content area. It is used in every content area, and often specifically taught specifically as it applies to certain content areas, for example, science and the genre of lab/research reports. Few people would fail to see the applicability of language to a content area. The dream of ESL teachers is that content area teachers teach and use the language of their discipline to all their students. It is in fact the ideal context for the development of language. Pulling students out of their classes to teach them language is the same thing as removing language from its context.
I'd have to guess that it would be the dream of tech coordinators for content teachers to use and teach technology in the content areas. By analogy with ESL, I would agree that embedding technology into the content areas and teaching and using it in that context is the way to go. In other words, it's not just the job of tech teachers to teach teach, it's content teachers' job too.
But technology standards are not as clear cut as other content standards such as science. Traditionally, one thinks of tech standards as skill specific knowledge. Use Excel. Make a PowerPoint presentation. Etc. But the most recent body of technology standards doesn't sound like that at all.
Take the National Educational Technology Standards whose logo is pictured and hyperlinked below.
The standards from this document read like a general skill set that could be found in any content area.
A look at the Standards for the 21st Century Learner linked through the picture below show the same general skill set.
As a matter of fact, my first reaction was "What do these have to do with tech?"
What becomes clear as you read these standards is that they don't intend to describe technology as a content area, but perhaps more as a method or tool that applies to all content areas through a set of general skills.
As an ESL teacher, I realized this was no different than a holistic view of ESL as being the use of language across the content areas. Language is a method or tool to apply to any content area. It is used in every content area, and often specifically taught specifically as it applies to certain content areas, for example, science and the genre of lab/research reports. Few people would fail to see the applicability of language to a content area. The dream of ESL teachers is that content area teachers teach and use the language of their discipline to all their students. It is in fact the ideal context for the development of language. Pulling students out of their classes to teach them language is the same thing as removing language from its context.
I'd have to guess that it would be the dream of tech coordinators for content teachers to use and teach technology in the content areas. By analogy with ESL, I would agree that embedding technology into the content areas and teaching and using it in that context is the way to go. In other words, it's not just the job of tech teachers to teach teach, it's content teachers' job too.
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