Fancy Projection Screens or Transformative Tools for 21^st Century teaching?

OK, I really come down somewhere in the middle on this question.  Despite all the hype, an IWB is really only as good as the teacher using it.  In a novice’s hands, an IWB often is just a glorified whiteboard, with electronic ink replacing stinky dry eraser ink.  If a teacher is still trying to figure out classroom management and how to connect the curriculum to the unique profiles of her particular students, the fine elements of engaging reveals and interactive activities will likely be beyond her reach (although I should note that the IWB can help any teacher, new or veteran, in managing the basic routines of the classroom).  However, in the hands of an accomplished teacher, one who has invested some time to learn the board’s potential, an IWB can amplify learning, and in some instances, actually be transformative.

One of the ways IWB’s are transforming teaching and learning is the way in which it can become the digital hub of the classroom.  It is now possible to integrate a wide variety digital teaching resources into one teaching tool—video, still images, graphic organizers, websites, graphics—all linked into one application and viewable in a nonlinear fashion.  The nonlinear idea is important.  Powerpoints have the ability to link together digital resources, but Powerpoints are most often used in a very linear way, which removes spontaneity and the ability to follow student interest and direction.  In addition, with IWB software all the digital resources can now be housed within one learning object (think of it as a file)—in the case of Promethean, a flipchart, or with Smartboard, a notebook file.   Now all the resources for a lesson can easily be shared amongst teachers.  This is huge.  The time teachers have to create interactive, media rich lessons is very limited.  IWB’s enable teachers to collaborate on lessons within their school, across the district, and, with the IWB’s community sharing sites, across the world!

The digital hub idea is about teaching.  IWB’s also positively impact the dynamics of student learning.  Students today are distracted learners.  Their world is full of stimuli, and yet the classroom is often very one-dimensional.  Information is conveyed orally, and if the teacher is good, reinforced with visual cues, most often written on the black or whiteboard.  Students often tune out, or never turn on, this type of learning.  With the IWB, teachers can now capture students’ attention through using techniques like reveals, hidden objects, over and underlays, video frame capture, text deconstruction, object manipulation—the list is as long as a teacher’s creativity.  One aspect of IWB research that seems most conclusive is that student engagement does increase when IWB’s are being used effectively.  Students are more attentive and engaged learners, and teachers are spending less time on behavior and management issues.

The issue of whether an IWB is just a glorified projection screen or really a transformative tool boils down to more than a question of whether a teacher is a veteran or novice.  I have seen underutilized IWB’s in very accomplished teacher’s classrooms.  To realize the potential of teaching with an IWB a teacher needs to invest time in learning the IWB software—and the teacher needs to think differently about how he is going to deliver information to his students.  IWB’s can just be a replacement for the existing blackboard if the teacher doesn’t change her pedagogy.  And change is hard!  (This sounds like fodder for another blog post.)  For now, why don’t you share below how your IWB has changed teaching and learning in your classroom?

No, this is not what your classroom looks like after the painters put that new coat of beige paint on your walls and have moved all your bookshelves to the middle of the room.  Instead, think—21^st century learning, using video and online resources to deliver the concepts and content of your subject to your students prior to class as homework the night before.  Yep, employ the multimedia learning modalities that are natural for your students outside of class as part of their homework.  Then the next day imagine your students walking into your classroom already having engaged in the big ideas of your discipline and ready to explore topics in class through discussion, small group activities, labs, debate, simulations, multimedia creation….

Flipping the classroom is being explored by more and more teachers as internet access becomes more ubiquitous in the every day life of their students.  Teachers are recording their “lectures” using easily accessible tools like Jing, Promethean ActivInspire, and Smart Notebook.  Teachers are then posting their content online so students can view (and review repeatedly) topics outside of class.  Check out this chemistry teacher from Colorado who is leading the way with flipping his classroom.

So how do you go about doing this?  It’s actually easier than you think.  You need a way to capture your content and a place to post it to the internet for your students to view. Capturing is becoming easier and easier as free Web2.0 tools are readily available.  Jing is a free website and download that enables you to easily do screen capture and post it to the internet.   In addition, interactive whiteboard (IWB) softwares like Promethean ActivInspire and Smartboard Notbook have capture tools that enable you to do screen and audio capture in .wav and .mov formats that are easy to post online.  Here is a learning packet in Sophia.org that I created about capturing video using IWB software.

But where can you post your flipped classroom videos?  Many teachers are using their own websites or Moodle courses but others are turning to new social learning sites like Sophia.org.  Sophia allows teachers to create learning packets (like mine about capturing video using an interactive whiteboard) with video, powerpoints, pdf’s, and images.  Sophia’s online website is a perfect place to post “flipped” content for students to view prior to class.

Those teachers who are flipping their classrooms have shared some things to think about as you move into this pedagogical approach…

1. Use it judiciously—its not appropriate for all lessons or all the time
2. The flipped classroom is not the savior of education today
3. Flipping is only as good as the teacher who uses it
4. Use it in bite-size chunks—short videos or presentations are better than long lectures
5. Have a strategy in place for students who come to class not having viewed the content at home
6. Video content needs to be engaging—use humor and personalize the learning

There are probably lots more ideas that can be added to this list.  What would you suggest to teachers venturing into flipping their classrooms?

Suggested resources:

How the Flipped Classroom is Radically Transforming Learning

Jonathan Bergman and Aaron Sams, Science teachers from Colorado on the cutting edge of flipped classrooms blog about their experience on The Daily Riff.  Bergman and Sams have a book on flipping the classroom being published by ISTE this fall, 2011.

The Flip: Why I Love It, How I Use It

Shelley Wright, a science teachers, blogs about how she flips her science classroom in KQED’s MindShift blog

3 keys to a flipped classroom

David Truss cautions in the Connected Principals blog about what to watch out for when first flipping your classroom.

The Flipped Classroom Model: A Full Picture

Jackie Gerstein, EdD, shares a comprehensive overview of the changes that need to take place back in the classroom in a flipped classroom environment.

I scanned it with my iPhone standing next to Benjamin Franklin’s grave in Philadelphia last week. I was on a field trip with the ISTE SIGML (special interest group for mobile learning).  We were using QR codes to discover interesting facts about Ben Franklin as we did a walking tour around the historical neighborhoods surrounding Independence Hall.

If you don’t have a QR reader for your smartphone, I suggest going to http://www.i-nigma.com and download one (here’s the url that this QR code links to, but its not as much fun clicking on it as using your phone and the QR reader–http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9Aqa_zoWhA&feature=related)

Kind of sounds like old Ben, don’t you think?

Perhaps you’ve seen QR codes in magazines or stores (Best Buy is using them to display specs on their products), but have you thought about how we might use them in education?  Browse on QR codes in education and you’ll gather a plethora of ideas for uses inside and outside the classroom.  Having done my masters work in environmental education, I’m particularly enchanted with the idea of QR codes in the field to guide students’ exploration of the world around them.

Creating QR codes is pretty darn easy.  Using the website Delivr (http://delivr.com/) you can easily add a URL to a resource on the internet  and generate a QR code that can be downloaded and printed or embedded in a website.   The resource you link to can be anything that can be stored on the internet—video or audio file, webpage, image—just remember that if you plan on using smartphones its best to link to content that displays well on a mobile phone.  Look for sites that have options for mobile phone compatibility.

That’s what our tour guides did for the SIGML event in Philadelphia.  Mark van’t Hooft and Tom McNeal, professors at Kent State’s Research Center for Educational Technology have been promoting the use QR codes in education for years, and their enthusiasm rubs off on you!  Tom talks enthusiastically about how they are bringing teachers and students to their AT&T model classroom to discover how mobile learning can change teaching and learning.  Speaking of students, a group of students from Omaha North High School created two videos of the Philly event.  Here they are.

I was one of the volunteers in orange shirts  on our SIGML field trip.  My responsibility was  to assist participants as they manipulated QR codes and help them find their way around the area with a map that Tom and Mark provided.  However, the only thing that I ended providing my group was access to a smartphone!  You see, I was touring with a bloke from Australia (hew was the guy in the video who is going to use QR codes for a rainforest project) and his phone carrier didn’t connect in Philly!  The other two participants in my group hailed from Manchester, England, originally (although now they reside in Chapel Hill, NC).  It was awfully ironic to be walking around Independence Hall with a couple of Brits!

During a break from the heat, Helen Crompton, one of the Brits, and I exchanged ideas about ways in which QR codes may be used in the field.  Having worked most recently with inner city middle school kids, I speculated that it would be important to set expectations for students to use this technology engage text—after all, we have all experienced the frustration of getting students to read exhibit information in museums.  However, if students are on a scavenger hunt, with a goal in mind they chances are they will pour through text you link to with a QR code in search of a clue.

Our ideas didn’t stop there.  What about using the physical displays already available at historic sites, but use QR codes to link to pages that help students understand the vocabulary and text in the display.  Or why not create a webpage connected to the site that is tailored to the unique learning needs of a group of students?  In Minneapolis it’s easy to create and post audio or video podcasts to a district podcast server.  I started thinking about how a teacher could communicate “virtually” with students spread across an entire historical site by merely creating a few short podcasts and linking to them with QR codes!

Here are the two sites that I’ve mentioned that can get you started.

1. I recommend using the QR reader app at http://i-nigma.com.  I like this because its ad free and it keeps a record in the app of the QR codes you have scanned, in case you want to go back afterwards and revisit one of the sites.
2. To create QR codes, sign up for free at http://delivr.com.   You can store all the QR codes you create and it tracks the number of links to the QR code.  On top of that it creates a nice web presence for your work with QR codes.

Finally, just for the fun of it, check out this cute kid talking about how they use QR codes in her classroom!  Got some ideas of your own?  Share them below.

Well, actually there are bloggers who do identify and list great internet resources–and do a much better job than I could ever do.  I’ve already written about two of these blogs in Cultivating the Educational Technologist–FreeTechnology for Teachers and iLearn Technology.

I’ve saved one of the best sources for good internet resources for educators for last–its called TeachersFirst.  TeachersFirst goes one better than the blogs I mentioned above–TeacherFirst sends you a weekly email that contains a manageable list of resources and weblinks.  I know, this sounds like old listserv technology (and it probably is) but I find an email in my inbox gets my attention these days more than an RSS feed does.

Here’s how it works–sign up at Teacher First and you receive an email on Sunday morning (maybe that’s the trick–Sunday morning–are teachers more likely to have the time to browse a list of resources?)  Anyway, a week doesn’t pass that I don’t find at least one web resource that is valuable and useful for the teachers with whom I work.

When you navigate to the TeacherFirst website, you can find tagged archives of everything their editors have identified, so you can search their extensive archives for free online resources about virtually any topic or tool you might be interested in.  The identified online interactives, lessons, downloadable classroom materials, and Web2.0 tools include a succinct description, suggested age and curricular connections, and then some ideas about how it might be used in the classroom.

The TeachersFirst website has lots more–online live and archived pd sessions, weekly brain twisters, a daily “Dates that Matter” feature, a travel adventure with Geo and Merie (that engages students with fun interactive features), great online tutorials on everything from Wikis to Blogs, and the list goes on and on.  I’ll save some of these features for future posts.

For now–go to TeachersFirst.org and create a login, and signup for their weekly email.  I guarantee that you won’t be disappointed.

It may be the season of engagements and weddings but I’m not talking about that kind of romance–although I am talking about a kind of love affair.  More and more teachers are having a love affair with their new technology tools– more specifically their interactive whiteboards (IWB).  Many of these teachers have been teaching for years and have reached a point in their career where the tasks of teaching just aren’t fresh anymore.

Along comes a technology that is exciting students and low and behold teachers too.   “I haven’t had this much fun teaching in 20 years,” is being heard around our district.  I think it’s more than having something new and flashy that catches the students’ attention.  I think teachers are discovering a new found way to bring creativity back into their lessons.

Let’s face it, an awful lot is prescribed in today’s classrooms.  Teachers are being required to conform to standard curricula, to deliver instruction in research proven best practice ways, and to make sure to cover the topics in time for the end of the year tests.  The key to keeping things fresh in today’s classroom is to be able to figure out how to do all these required things and make them feel new.

Here’s where the interactive whiteboard comes in.  It’s true, you can download files from share sites and use them in your lessons in minutes.  But it’s the teachers who are digging into the IWB software and discovering ways to build their own lessons who are feeling the rejuvenation I’m talking about.

Yes, it’s taking them gobs of time to create their interactive lessons, but when they get done they are ending up with something that they have matched to the unique skills of their students and the specific benchmarks they need to cover.  And they are discovering that the huge initial time commitment gets less and less as they become adept at using the tools.

So, educational technologists may be talking all about the impact of technology on student engagement, but maybe we should also be talking about technology’s impact on teacher engagement.  After all, student achievement is all about quality teachers and quality teachers love what they do!

So what do petroglyphs have to do with twitter posts?

Our spring break this early April was amazing.  Normally, in Minnesota, spring break means late winter slush with melting snow and muddy trails.  But this year was  showing, spring was definitely in the air.

I decided I needed a prairie fix.  I’m attracted to the broad expanses of prairie in southwestern Minnesota–and even more to the wind turbines towering over the ridges along highway 169 leading to the Jeffers Petroglyphs.

Native petroglyphs have always fascinated me.  I’m amazed that these markings have endured thousands of years and are still telling their story today–at least to some.  As I stood on the windy granite outcropping viewing these messages from the past, I struggled to really see what the anthropologist’s signs indicated was right in front of me.  And my mind drifted to twitter feeds….

What?  Yep, I had been dabbling with twitter for several weeks and struggling to interpret what felt like cryptic messages from teachers I’d been following.  I began to wonder, “Would someone in the future, recovering my computer hard drive from some landfill, stumble on twitter and be equally baffled by these messages from the 21st century?”

The anthropologist of the future would likely have no trouble interpreting twitter postings–but what of the layman of that time?  Would they struggle, just as I was struggling with these pretroglyphs, to really understand what was being communicated with tweets.

I trust with practice, I’ll be able to better use twitter and it will become one of the communication tools that I use to cultivate my personal learning network.  But for now, for me, twitter posts often make as much sense as petroglyphs.

I continue to read and explore how Twitter can benefit teachers.  I recently stumbled upon (through a blog, not a tweet!)  an initiative to gather a listing of teachers using twitter.   Check it out at: http://delicous/tag/twitterteacher

I was in a classroom recently where students were using laptops, doing an activity that required a relatively low level of intellectual engagement.  They were typing up essays they had written earlier in the week so they could enter them in their online blog site.  All the students had headphones on and were listening to music via the internet simultaneously.  It got me to thinking–is multitasking like this causing students to be less effective at their primary task?  A conversation I had with my older son many years earlier comes to mind.  He purported that he worked better at homework when plugged into music rather than working in a totally quiet environment.  So my question I’ve been turning over in my head has evolved to, “How does multitasking with various media, not just music, impact studying and learning?”

This topic has taken me on a fascinating internet path to research studies, survey reports, and National Public Radio stories on multitasking and media.   And yes, even to a recent editorial by a conservative columnist who I seldom see eye to eye with (except maybe on this subject!)

Since 1999, The Kaiser Foundation has been studying how teens ages 8-18 use media–everything from TV to cell phones to computers and video games–by having a large sampling of teens maintain a media diary for a week.  The results are fascinating, in part because comparisons can be made of changes in teen media use over the past 10 years. For instance in the most recent study, teen use of media has gone up 1.5 hours per day, to a whopping 7.5 hours –attributed in large part to the proliferation of smart phones and iPods. (Generation M2–Media in the lives of 8-18 year olds, January, 2010).  However, these figures may be misleading, because teens often are multitasking, which tends to inflate what is reported.    In fact, in the 2005 Kaiser report, students reported that 25% of the time they were using one type of media, they were also using another media as well! Kaiser 2005 Report: Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year olds

So back to school and homework.   The 2005 Kaiser report states, “Just under one-third (30%) of young people say they either talk on the phone, instant message, watch TV, listen to music, or surf the Web for fun “most of the time” they’re doing homework.”  Can teens possibly be learning with all this distracting media going on around them?  According to a March 3, 2007 NPR story by Lynn Neary on “How Multitasking Affects Learning,” the human brain becomes less efficient at processing information when switching between multiple activities.   According to the scientist Neary interviewed, when multitasking the brain functions in an area that fosters less deep knowledge building.  Consequently, if students are trying to learn new things, it is better for them not to divide their attention.  Does this mean that for the students I mentioned at the beginning of this blog entry, listening to music probably isn’t going to be a problem because they weren’t engaged in new learning?

Neary’s researcher points out that he was only interested in studying competing tasks that require a comparable level of concentration–a level of concentration that music listening probably doesn’t require.  In fact, some studies have indicated that background music may actually increase a person’s ability to concentrate because the music blocks other distractions that might diffuse a learner’s focus.

If I have learned anything in writing this blog, it’s that there is a lot of interest in this question of multitasking and learning.  As my district explores 1-to-1 computing, I am intrigued by something else I read in the 2005 Kaiser report, ” When doing homework on the computer is their primary activity, students are usually doing something else at the same time (65% of the time). In fact, half (50%) of all the time spent doing homework on the computer as their primary activity is also spent using another media, such as listening to music, instant messaging, or watching TV.”  Listening to music may not be a problem, but instant messaging or watching TV?

All I know is, I haven’t been able to write this blog and simultaneously watch this afternoon’s NCAA tournament game, Villanova vs St. Mary.  This old brain just can’t do all that switching back and forth and still write a coherent sentence!

Coyle digs deep into the science of neurology to explore discoveries about a substance in the brain called mylin that wraps neurons and is in abundance in the brains of talented people.  What he discovers is mylin is created when people practice–but practice in a specific way that continuously corrects errors and pushes boundaries–practice that he calls deep practice.

Deep practice, when combined with motivation and coaching, leads to talent.  Motivation, in Coyle’s definition, is different than rah-rah cheerleading.  Often motivation is couched in a language of slow progress characterized by baby-steps in the learning experience.  Motivation is all about building confidence and identifying goals.  Motivation is what teachers are all about, so the key in this discussion is the idea that teachers need to create classroom environments that not only values learning but also embraces a culture of achievement.

So how about the talent ingredient of coaching?  For most teachers coaching is a core element of what they do.   For Coyle, skilled coaching has to be personal–identifying the boundaries that challenge students and targeting personalized encouragement and instruction.  I can’t help but think of clickers and how they might help teachers personalize their coaching by identifying where each student needs help.

Dr. Sun, creator of the 24 Game for math, put me onto The Talent Code.   It figures, since First in Math, the online version of the 24 Game, embodies much of what is talked about in The Talent Code.  First in Math creates an online game environment that leads students to deep practice through challenging problems that push students to discover new mathematical ways of thinking–as neurologist would say, “wrapping mylin around neuron pathways to successful solutions.”

First in Math is a example of an computer program that promotes learning that will lead to success and achievement through deep practice, motivation, and coaching.  Do you know of other programs that might meet this bill?  Add comments to this post to help assemble the best of the best!

There are educational technologists out there on the blogosphere who create networks of educators to help identify those really salient online resources that will bring a classroom activity to life.

One such educational technologist is Kelly Tenkeley, a technology integration specialist from the Denver area and blogger.  A week doesn’t pass that I don’t find a nugget worth exploring on her blog, iLearn Technology, An Edublog about Integrating Technology into the Classroom.

Each blog entry on iLearn Technology links to one online tool or website, describes what it’s about, and offers ideas for integrating it into the classroom.   Kelly generally post 3-5 websites a week.  Although she is an elementary educational technologist, many of her links are useful for teachers across all grades and content areas.
How to track postings
The best way to track additions to her website is via an RSS feed reader. I use iGoogle and Google Reader (see my post on this subject).  Don’t forget to bookmark good websites she leads you to in your Delicious account!

It is clear that media specialist are caught in a system of information gathering, housing, organizing and sharing that is slow to change.

Take for instance the very nature of books.  With the advent of eReaders and low cost netbooks, students have access to multiple texts, all searchable, easily indexed, rich with multimedia and easily highlighted and noted electronically.  It’s possible, through an internet connection, for students to have access to a vast array of reference materials and electronic databases.  So, Scott argues, what print reference materials are still needed in media centers?  What does the media center of the 21st century look like?

McLeod argues that factual knowledge and low-level skills are much of what teaching and learning are all about these days.  He asks media specialists, “How can you help students work more effectively with knowledge, particularly knowledge that is stored electronically?  What core knowledge do our students need for them to be good creative knowledge users?”

Students are no longer just consumers of knowledge; they have become creators—through blogs, video, wikis, and other interactive media.  Media specialists need to help students become responsible creators and publishers and, in tandem with teachers, open pathways for students to engage and interact with the world.

It seems to be me that the challenge for media specialist now becomes how can they lead their teachers and administrators to a new vision of teaching and learning where 21st century information literacy skills are central to the mission of the school.  The time is ripe for insightful leadership—do media specialists have the skills and background, and are they ready to step up to the challenge?