Tips, Tools and Technology for Educators

In preparation for eighth grade, I recently purchased a netbook for my step-daughter. Unfortunately it wasn’t equipped with Microsoft Office. I began weighing the pros and cons of adding the office suite to her netbook and realized that everything she really needs to create, share and archive her documents is already available online via GoogleApps. I was excited to give her the news only to discover she had no idea what GoogleApps were. Her school had never used it!

This was shocking to me since schools can set up ad-free and cost-free Google Apps for Education accounts as a secure and private space to collaborate and communicate. Google Apps for K-12 education come with a domain name and a variety of tools including iGoogle portal, an integrated Google calendar, Google talk, Google groups, Google sites, Google Video, and Gmail along with the accompanying Google services such as Google Docs, Blogger, Buzz, and more (all of which can be turned off and on depending on your needs).

If you are an administrator, teacher, or parent at a school not privy to Google Apps, here’s a brief overview of some of my favorites. For a more thorough overview, check out this wiki or the ePortfolio Mash Up with Google Apps site.

Develop, Collaborate, and Create

Google Documents, a service attached to Gmail, is a web-based word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, form, and data storage service. It allows users to access their documents from anywhere, share documents via email and collaborate in real time with other users. Students can peer edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations and participate in classroom or even global projects. 

Archive, Share, and Present

Google offers many services for sharing and presenting documents and projects. Google Documents including presentations, an online equivalent to PowerPoint, can be shared with anyone via email or embedded in blogs. Google even offers a free blog publishing tool attached to Gmail called Blogger. Entries are documented in reverse-chronological order and easily sharable via a web address. Teachers and students can subscribe to each other’s blogs via Google Reader, an RSS service attached to Gmail. For more professional looking projects or as an e-portfolio students can create their own websites using Google Sites. Google sites works like a wiki. All Google Documents can be embedded here as well.

Evaluate, Comment, and Reflect

Both Blogger and Google Sites have share functions that allow users to add and edit comments. These tools can also be made public or private. They serve as a great way for students to reflect on their own and other’s learning; students can get feedback from other students and their teachers. For a less public method of feedback and evaluation, students can choose to share Google Documents with teachers privately.

Blogs, Wiki’s, and Docs Oh My!

If you are having a hard time distinguishing between when it is most appropriate to use blogs, wikis, or docs, check out this comparison table entitled Blogs, Wikis, Docs: Which is Right for Your Lesson? And remember, giving kids the choice to determine the most appropriate tool is always an option!

How to Get Started

• Students 13 and older can get started by creating a Gmail account here.
• To get started as a school, register here.

Photo from www.electronicportfolios.com/google

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Schooling Vs. Learning

Last week, #edchatters agreed that the first question that must be answered in educational reform is, What is the purpose or mission for education today? This week, #edchatters grappled with this question. Currently, I see a tug of war occurring between two notions - the notion of schooling vs. the notion learning.

As one teacher @Kim insists, “I don’t want my students to be good at ‘school’, I want my students to be great at ‘learning’.”

I’m eager to hear more opinions on the difference between the two. For me, schooling summons images of standardized tests, busy work, rows of desks, conformity, A’s and F’s, whereas learning is something different entirely. Learning is organic, authentic, relevant, personal, and empowering.

What is the mission of education today?

The mission of education seems like it should be fairly obvious – to educate. But to what extent? While there is not yet an agreed upon goal of education, #edchatters shared their visions and hopes for what they believe the mission of education should be. Below is a wordle summarizing their contributions.

When I think of the mission of education as it is currently being rewritten, I see a large focus on creating college and career ready individuals. I think it should be more than this.

The mission of education should be to empower students to become passionate, self-directed, lifelong learners armed with the critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, and collaboration skills needed to change and indeed save the world. Students must be prepared to be digital, networked, and global citizens. Students should have opportunities to create and contribute, not simply consume knowledge. Education should help students to become the best of themselves, not to do or to get.

Put Your Two Cents In It!

Please share your thoughts on the questions below. Thank you for your comments!

1. In your opinion, how do the notions of schooling and learning compare?
2. What does “learning” mean to you?
3. What would you add to the purpose or mission of education today?

 

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“The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our (future).”

– Abraham Lincoln, December 1, 1862 -

This week’s #edchatters tried to come up with the two most important questions that should first be addressed in educational reform. The first two questions on the twittersphere were number 1 - What is the purpose or mission of public education today? And number two - Who gets the privilege or responsibility of determining this mission?

Answering these questions would require all parties to develop a shared vision. Some fear that with education being tied so closely with politics this is next to impossible. Achieving buy in including from those often unwilling to embrace change along with the current pace of change have some questioning if reform is truly the answer.

In the following TED video, Sir Ken Robinson echoes some of these fears stating that we cannot effectively change education with reform, instead “We need a learning revolution!”

Sir Ken describes his idea of the second climate crisis, one as severe as the first and with many of the same origins; a crisis he believes we must address with the same sense of urgency as the first – the crisis of human resources. He insists, “We make poor use of our talents.” As a result of our current educational model, many people are being dislocated from their natural talents. These talents, like natural resources, are deeply rooted in people. Educators must create the environments for students to show themselves, the opportunities for these talents to come to the surface. 

He urges that reform is of no use to us anymore; “This is improving a broken model. We don’t need evolution but a revolution.” We need to create something new. The difficulty lies in overcoming traditional ways of doing, the traditional ways of thinking and of knowing. Overcoming what we believe to be our own common sense is one of the biggest road blocks to innovation.

Our current educational model, as also argued by Jamie Oliver, has been built on the same concepts as fast food – standardization. “It is impoverishing our spirits and energies as much as fast food is depleting our physical bodies.” Sir Ken advises that we need to move away from this industrial model focused on linearity and conformity to a model more closely based on the principals of agriculture. “Human flourishing is not a mechanical process, it is an organic process.”

Like a farmer, educators must be able to tweak the conditions under which students can flourish. The circumstances must be customized and personalized for every learner. We don’t need to come up with more questions that might help our current model if we could just agree on the right answers. Instead, we need to create a movement in education where people are allowed to develop their own solutions. As Sir Ken states, “Technologies combined with extraordinary talents of teachers will revolutionize education.”

Photo from Wesley Fryer

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“Teach kids for their futures not our past.”

These are my reflections and biggest takeaways from #ISTE10, #ebc10, and @angelamaiers. If every teacher, educator, advisor, administrator and parent could hear, understand and apply these quotes and ideas, education will truly transform; and we just might be able to save the world while we are at it!

Check this out -->

“Kids are no longer on the web but OF the web.”

Our students are no longer just reading content on the web (web 1.0) or interacting with content on the web (web 2.0); they are creating the web as they hope it to be (web 3.0). Today kids can and should contribute their own content and refork the work of others’. In the new web 3.0 users are no longer on the web but OF the web, building a community and working together to filter through and find meaning in information.

We need to begin to incorporate numerous forms of literacy development in our curriculum, spending less time on print literacy and moving toward digital literacy and ultimately a networked literacy. Jeff Utecht of the Thinking Stick defines networked literacy below:

“Networked literacy is what the web is about. It’s about understanding how people and communication networks work. It’s the understanding of how to find information and how to be found. It’s about how to read hyperlinked text articles, and understand the connections that are made when you become “friends” or “follow” someone on a network. It’s the understanding of how to stay safe and how to use the networked knowledge that is the World Wide Web. Networked Literacy is about understanding connections.”

“You get out of the web what you put into the web.”

With this digital community and virtual canvas in mind we read differently, listen differently; we write differently, research differently, etc. It’s a new kind of information fluency. In a recent YouTube video entitled Infowhelmed The 21^st Century Fluency project reports that our current digital output would translate into books stacked so high they could stretch the distance from Earth to Pluto thirteen times! It would be enough paper to deforest the planet twelve times. And it is growing… more rapidly than ever.

We are in a constant state of information curation and we cannot do it alone. Our students need to know how to use their networks to collect, sort, aggregate, and share information - to get their message across. “We need a contribution mentality not a completion mentality.” A new curriculum is necessary to help our students manage to effectively and efficiently navigate in this infowhelmed space and produce, not simply consume content.

“Teach learners TO BE not simply TO DO or TO KNOW.”

21^st century teaching and learning is not about cool new tech tools or having a Smartboard in every classroom. The power of 21^st century teaching and learning is in the collaboration, the creation. “This is a PEOPLE revolution, not a technology revolution.” Students are no longer writing for their teachers - for a grade, but for an international audience – for conversation. Students are no longer reading about life in Africa; they are skyping with South African classrooms. The flat classroom list goes on and on.

As outlined by Angela Maiers, kids need to be taught to be incredible infosumers, synthesizers, question askers, translators, and contributors. Students should know how to make sense of all this information and to refork it in a way that makes sense to people. Students no longer need quick answers; they have Google in their pocket! They need to be incredible question askers and translators. “The world’s language is not a five paragraph essay. It comes in the form of images, music, art, and heartfelt emotion.” We must teach kids how to be worthy of being listened to.

Further Reading

Fluency 3.0 – Moving at the Speed of Creativity – Wesley Fryer

• A review of Angela Maiers’s opening keynote at the Iowa 1 to 1 Institute as well as access to her slideshare on fluency 3.0.

The networked student model for construction of personal learning environments: Balancing teacher control and student autonomy - Wendy Drexler

• Including patterns for networked learning, personal learning environments, tasks, organizational forms, resources, toolsets and sample student activities

Combat the Locked-Net Monster: 5 Ways to Teach Cyber Safety and Digital Responsibility 

• If you are thinking, this is all fine and dandy but how am I supposed to get around my school filters and win over administrators and parents on the wonders of the read, write, and social web? – start here.

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Photo1 from olivermarksim 

Photo2 from 21^st Century Fluency Project

Photo3 from Angela Maiers 

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Click to advance slides:

 

Why should you integrate the internet into your curriculum? How do you plan meaningful web-based activities? How do you build a Professional Learning Community? What free tech tools are available for teachers and students?

The Beginner's Guide to 21st Century Teaching and Learning, designed for the digital immigrant, will answer these and many more of your questions, hesitations and fears surrounding integrating the internet and technology into your curriculum. It serves as a technology handbook for teachers ready to harness technology as a teaching and learning tool. 

Web-based instructional activities have an enormous potential to enhance and entice learning. However, integrating the internet into your curriculum in a way that has a positive impact on students' learning can seem like a daunting process. This e-book is meant to serve as a starting point for 21st century teaching and learning. It, like 21st century teaching and learning, will continue to evolve. Check back regularly for updates and new volumes. 

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"Ppl need to realize that this is EMBEDDED practice, not an add-on, and not about tech. About learning. Thats it!" -@gcouros

The quote above summarizes this Tuesday evening @edchat discussion on how we can move from a "Tech Tool" mentality to a "Learning Tool" mentality. All the talk about integrating technology and increasing teacher technology literacy  isn't about the latest and greatest in technology at all. It's about harnessing these revolutionary learning tools for learning purposes, about meeting 21^st century learners on their terms and teaching them how to use the tools necessary for survival and success in today's world. To read more on meaningful, purposeful integration of technology, check out 5 Questions for Planning Successful Web-based Activities.

Overcoming Our Fears and Assumptions

For some reason, technology is a scary word to many, especially teachers. This is so strange since to me since our society relies on technology tools for almost everything we do - especially when it comes to learning and productivity. Technology is the vehicle by which our society access content. It is our responsibility as 21^st century educators to teach, model, and integrate appropriate and effective use for our students.  As pointed out in #edchat, utilizing technology as a learning tool is not solely for the purpose of motivating, captivating, and engaging students, it is a necessity.

We often make the assumption that kids are ahead of us in terms of technology, however when it comes to using technology as learning tools we are usually wrong in this assumption. Students must be taught how to view and utilize the tools at their fingertips for educational, and not solely entertainment, purposes.

5 Tips for Harnessing Technology as a Learning Tool

• Go out of your comfort zone! Take the time to explore and learn by getting your own hands dirty with technology before asking your teachers or students to do so. Don't be afraid to fail or ask for help and give your teachers and students a chance to do so as well.
• Transform your professional development by emphasizing, modeling, and utilizing technology as teacher learning tools. Teachers must see the relevance and necessity of these learning tools before they will be comfortable using them with their students.
• Begin with desired learning outcomes. Align all integration in a purposeful way. Teach the use of these learning tools in context with content.
• Collaborate among and between teachers. For example, technology teachers and English teachers should be working together to design interdisciplinary units like Mrs. Sivick's Fourth Grade technology class.  
• Create a digital toolbox like this one including resources, lessons, projects, "unprojects", ideas, and examples of technology tools as learning tools for your teachers and students.

An interesting question was asked during the discussion that went unanswered; "Where can teachers go to see cool stuff to do with these new learning tools?" If your school or district has not yet created a digital toolbox, as described above, begin by building your own professional learning network or attend or plan a local edcamp to get amazing resources and ideas.

My biggest takeaways from #edchat were that as with all great learning, one size does not fit all. We must teach our students to utilize technology as a learning tool, give them the freedom to decide which tools work best for them in different contexts, and the power to "create and innovate rather than regurgitate" (@ketheredge).

 

Photo from Michael Peterson

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"We can't ask students to move to personal learning and then have us as their teachers own the assessment." - Dean Shareski

Dean Shareski Digital Learning Consultant and author of the Ideas and Thoughts blog, of Moose Jaw, SK, Canada believes that school and learning must transform. We must put students in charge of their own learning. As he puts it, the real-time, read/write, social web is "making this more of a reality and possibility than ever before". He echoes the sentiments of last week's blogger of the week, Aaron Eyler in his efforts to liberate student evaluation and assessment.

Personalized Learning Environments

In his most recent post, Personalized Assessment Shareski considers what personalized assessment and evaluation might look in personalized learning environments. He outlines two forms of personalized learning environemnts- putting learning in the context of student passions and interests, and giving students "unprojects" as described by middle school math teacher Chris Harbeck. Click the unprojects link to view his video, it's worth it!

These environments require teachers to step back and set students free, allowing them to explore and determine their own level of mastery. As Harbeck describes in the video, "students stop being mirrors and become amplifiers". Instead of reflecting and regurgitating content, students produce, remix, and add value to content. "Content and skills are not end products but raw materials which students learn to work with and share." Isn't that what it's all about?

Personalized Assessment

Once teachers can get over the initial shock of not having complete control, and once students get over the shock of not being told precisely what to do - "all students achieve more than expected".

Shareski understands that certain expectations need to be a part of learning. He suggests that the key to personalized learning is to build in "feedback loops". He states, "Whether it comes from you, their peers or outsiders, the learning needs to be done in such a way that there is lots of opportunity to revise, edit and refine. Putting this work online seems like a no-brainer in facilitating that."

Last, Shareski suggests a unique form of personalized evaluation and assessment - allowing students to determine some of the grade weighting. For example, if students complete 3 unprojects - consider allowing them to "place more emphasis on one assessment that they felt (best) reflected their energy and time." Be sure to check out his post for a more detailed description.

Photo from http://ideasandthoughts.org/about/

 

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"We owe it to our students to lead in a way that is consistent with the future they are moving toward!  Be great for them!" - Mr. Keenan 

Authentic

Adaptive

Innovative

Lifelong Learner

Dynamic

Student-Centered

Risk-Taker

These are a few of the traits that I believe 21^st century educational leaders should encompass. Luckily, this week's blogger of the week, Mr. Keenan, a high school English teacher from Airdrie, Alberta, possesses these and more. Keenan, author of Adventures in Teaching and Learning - a blog for 21^st educators, teaches his high school English students using a class set of iPod touches. 

"Meet them on Their Terms, Use Their Tools"

Keenan's goal is to create lifelong learners by showing his students how to use the devices in their pockets for academic tasks.

He explains, "If they are at work and need to create a solution to a problem, they will be able to pull out their iPod and create a mind map, twitter with experts, blog and collaborate. I guess it boils down to authentic learning."

Keenan also maintains a class blog to keep his students up to date with news, homework, and readings. It is a great example of effective and appropriate use of social media in schools. Check it out here. 

Traits of 21^st Century Educational Leaders 

The posts that caught my attention most this week were titled Philosophy of Educational Leadership and 5 Traits of 21^st Century Educational Leadership. Keenan begins by outlining traits of 21^st century administrators. He echoed the message of last week's blogger of the week, Principal Eric Sheninger, demanding that administrators must "lead teachers into new frontiers of education" and accept that learning can and must occur socially and globally, outside school walls.

Next, Keenan examined educational leadership from a more general perspective, looking deeper within a school environment, including teacher leaders and other faculty that touch the lives and minds of students. These are the 5 essential traits outlined by Keenan, for a more in depth discussion, please read his entire post:

1. An Active Listener
2. A Connected Leader
3. An Authentic Conversationalist
4. Inspirational and Empowering
5. A 21st Century Learning Specialist

 

Do you agree with Mr. Keenan? What 5 traits to you believe make an effective 21^st century educational leader?

Don't forget to check back next week for an interview with Mr. Keenan on authentic teaching and learning, 21^st Century tools for success, using ipods in the classroom, and more.

 

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