Tag: 21st century

Posted on

An Inquiry Into Tech Use

By show of hands, who else is exhausted by the ping-pong-like opinions on tech use whizzing by?

One side: “We’re disconnected, we’re not missing anything when we cut screen time, our children aren’t getting enough exercise, we don’t carry on proper conversations anymore.”

And the other: “We’re more connected than ever on a global scale, accessibility is growing, we are finding new ways to connect with our loved ones, we are building new literacies.”

Author Alison Gopnik recently said in an Edutopia interview,

“We tend to panic too much about technological change. Maybe this time the technology is, in fact, going to have all these disastrous effects that everyone’s worried about. But children have always been the first adopters of new technologies, and the previous generation has always been terrified when the new technology was introduced…

But school-age children have been gossiping and interacting with one another and trying to figure out peer relationships for as long as we’ve been human. And the way that they’ve done that might have been just whispering and talking in that hunter-gatherer culture, or passing notes in the culture that I grew up in, or texting in the culture that children are growing up in now. I don’t think there’s any particular reason to believe that the technology is going to make that worse or more problematic than it was before.”

So, this week’s provocation is to let those children consider both sides of this tech issue themselves. The first resource is a photo series by Eric Pickersgill entitled “Removed.”

removed1

removed2

removed3

removed4

The second is a video I’ve shared before, but that I think would pair well with the above resource for this provocation. The Millennial Rebuttal by Welzoo:

Provocation Questions:

  • Why do people have different perspectives about technology use?
  • How does tech use impact your life?
  • How does tech use impact your family’s life?
  • How does tech use impact your school/community function?
  • How do you see tech use impacting your future?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

Posted on

Sometimes, Nothing Goes According to Plan, & That’s OK #TeacherMom

Sometimes, the toddler refuses to say he’s finished with his cookie, but also refuses to take more than one infinitesimal nibble at a time.

Sometimes, the baby decides the whole afternoon nap thing (which happens to be your blogging time) isn’t his cup of tea anymore.

Sometimes, your first grader just needs a tea party–and by golly, you need one, too.

20161018_151529

We make these rhythms and routines for ourselves, hoping to create a sense of order and achievement out of each day. And then we get annoyed when they get out of sync. And we get impatient for things to get “back to normal.”

But maybe that’s never what was normal to begin with.  

Maybe, I’m most in-sync when lunch with my toddler takes longer–longer to pretend our fingers are little people dancing on the table, longer to chat about Batman, longer to exchange goofy grins.

Maybe I’m most in-sync when the baby ends up needing to be walked to sleep for a bit and then snuggles down for his nap on my chest in the baby carrier.

Maybe I’m most in in-sync when I’m pouring imaginary tea with my 6 year-old.

The bridge to the world of education here is very short indeed.  It reminds me of a section that resonated most in Taryn Bondclegg’s latest post: her description of the internal struggle when it comes to letting go of our careful “plans:”

“Yet I have to admit, I had an internal struggle. The teachery teacher side of me kept saying “Hurry up! Move along! There is content to get to! You are behind your team! Report cards are coming!” While the inquiry-teacher side of me kept saying “Slow down. What’s the rush? Follow your students. Notice the learning that is happening everyday.” “

That word “notice” particularly stands out to me. It seems to me that “hurry” and “notice” are almost always nemeses.

When we hurry to start the day, do we notice who seems to have had a really rough morning?

When we hurry through our lesson, do we notice the thoughtful questions that deviate from the plan (though they might take us somewhere even better)?

When we hurry our assessments, do we notice the growth and small victories as well?

And yes, we do have obligations and content and testing to answer to. But if we are continually rushing to keep up, both as teachers and as parents, we are much more likely to miss the good stuff. The stuff that puts us most in-sync. The stuff that makes us connect most as human beings.

Slow down. Notice. And don’t worry when things don’t go to plan. That’s usually where the best learning and connecting happens anyway. 

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

Posted on

Digital Citizenship: A Richer Perspective on #Edtech

Digital empowerment through digital citizenship. This will be the main focus of my upcoming professional development training sessions I’ll have the opportunity to conduct at my old school.

Inspired by the idea of providing differentiation in PD, I decided to run one K-2 session and one 3-5 session. Hopefully that will resolve the issue we encountered during last year’s technology PD when teachers of younger students voiced concern over applying more complex resources to their students.

As I reflect on my personal journey with classroom tech application, the good, the bad, and the ugly come back to mind:

  • Like that time I required every student in my class to create a Prezi for a unit summative assignment. And then we watched them all.
  • Or when I created a diy interactive whiteboard with my students so we could more easily select answers for some gameshow-like software.
  • Or when we decided to collaborate on Google Docs by having everyone revise others’ writing pieces and parts kept getting accidentally deleted. (this was before I was aware of the “See Revision History” feature…  
  • Or when I introduced students to Storybird and they created beautiful digitally illustrated fantasy stories.
  • Or when my students started blogging and sharing their work/commenting on peers, including their quadblogging pals in England and China.

The list goes on and on. But now that I have had time away from the classroom to reflect and research, I’ve gained a couple of key perspectives that I believe will make a big impact on how I use technology with future students:

Digital citizenship is about leveraging our opportunities to enhance connections.

I used to think that when it came to technology, I needed to spend a lot of time teaching my students to use it efficiently and effectively (ie, learning to type, navigating interfaces, etc.).  While these skills are still important, I now realize that it’s more important to spend time opening my students’ eyes to the possibilities available to them today.  I want them to know that they can gather perspectives from around the world, share interests with peers well beyond their classrooms, curate resources that matter to them, and enjoy stories with a global audience. Once they have that spark lit, the other skills will come as they dive in.

Digital citizenship is more about empowerment than caution.

We teach about identity theft, cyberbullying, and password security. And with good reason. But there is much more to the conversation on what it means to be a digital citizen! As George Couros often preaches, we must “find the awesome, create the awesome.” A Twitter exchange with Edna Sackson further illuminated the idea:

 

tweet-between-me-and-edna-sackson

Just as in citizenship in general, the opportunities for good are too overwhelming to wallow in excessive hesitation and fear for what might happen. We are empowered when we are encouraged to see what’s possible, to take ownership over our available resources, and to collaborate positively with other learners throughout the world.

I think one of my favorite aspects of our students developing a strong self-identity as digital citizens is that we can’t fathom what they will do with it. With the exponential nature of tech resources and access, if we give them confidence to explore, create, and contribute, the possibilities are truly boundless.

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

Posted on

The Evolution of Innovation (2 Videos)

This week’s provocation centers around getting students to reflect on change and innovation.

Resource #1: “The Evolution of the Desk” from BestReviews (see original here)

Resource #2: Did You Know 3.0 by VideoShredHead

Provocation Questions:

  • What do you think the desk in the first video will look like in 5 more years? 50 more years? (See one educator’s predictions of 21 things that will be obsolete by 2020)
  • How does society change as people’s resources change?
  • How do people’s individual lives change as their resources change?
  • Why are we sometimes reluctant to accept change? What are the consequences (positive? negative?) of accepting change quickly/slowly?
  • How does #edtech impact learning?
  • How has preparation for the future changed since our parents/grandparents were growing up? How do we prepare for such an unknown future now?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

Posted on

Mirage of Success: Learning the Math Trick

If you, like me, have ever waffled on the debate of whether we “just teach them the trick” for math before, take a careful look at this side-by-side comparison of students showing their math thinking.

Example A:

Example B:

My question is this: even if teaching the trick gets students to pass the test and ace the class and get into the college–have we, as educators, truly done our jobs?

If we’ve never heard their creative approaches to making sense of math because we’re too busy telling them the right way to “borrow,” have we joined them in their learning journey, or are we scripting it?

If we just keep focusing our energy in helping them memorize, are our students ever going to see themselves as competent mathematicians? 

featured image: Shubhojit Ghose

Posted on

Will It Help or Hurt to Review Scores With My First Grader? #TeacherMom

“What I’m saying is, when we treat grades and scores and accolades and awards as the purpose of childhood, all in furtherance of some hoped-for admission to a tiny number of colleges or entrance to a small number of careers, that that’s too narrow a definition of success for our kids.” (Julie Lythcott-Haims from the TED Talk below)

This quote comes to mind as I review my 6 year-old’s first academic report from the first month of school. I look at the paper and wonder what I should with it (besides discussing it with my daughter, as per the instructions at the bottom).

Should I high-five her or take her out for a treat because she has high scores in literacy? If we did that, what exactly would we be celebrating? The scores or the literacy? And if we celebrated scores when she has only ever read or written because she loves reading and writing, would she start loving the scores more than the reading and writing?

Should I have her stop writing so many stories after school to make way for more math practice because her scores aren’t quite as high there? If we did that, what exactly would we achieve? Raised math scores? Lowered writing scores? A sense of pressure associated with mathematics?

All these thoughts swirled as I obediently reviewed the report with her, when suddenly, she stopped me and asked, “Why are you telling me all these numbers?”

It made me stop and wonder, why was I? Was I conveying the idea portrayed in educator Edna Sackson’s comic below?

ednasacksoncartoongrades

So far, scores don’t mean anything at all to her. She simply sees herself as a reader, writer, mathematician, scientist, thinker, and artist. Why should I should I get in the way of that by pushing her, when there is already such a strong intrinsic pull toward learning? As Edna also so eloquently shared years ago,

“School is often about push. Push to succeed. Push to get high grades. Push to achieve. Push to fit in. Push to participate. Push to comply. Push to work harder.

But the above might not be the most motivating ways to engage students and promote learning…

Learning is about pull. A strong provocation that awakens curiosity. A powerful central idea that excites interest. Essential questions that draw students into meaningful learning. Learning experiences that encourage wondering, exploring, creating and collaborating. Opportunities to construct meaning and transfer learning to other contexts.”

Don’t get me wrong. I do appreciate the report and I deeply appreciate all her teacher’s efforts in conveying her progress. The comments regarding her behavior were especially valuable in our discussion.  And had her numbers conveyed concerning trends (ie, consistently low scores and signs of significant struggling), I would be anxious to be aware in order to work with the teacher for interventions and support.

But for now, she learns because of her intrinsic love of learning. And I’m happy to continue to provide opportunities at home (and hear about those that occur at school) that continue to help pull that interest and enthusiasm.  

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

Posted on

Provocation: To Thine Own Self Be True

I want to start this week’s provocation article by re-sharing a quote from Paul Solarz that was included in Adam Hill’s post on launching Genius Hour with his students:

“Too many children today go to school only to bide their time until they get home and do something that truly interests them.”

Paul Solarz, Learn like a PIRATE

The more I think about this, the more it makes sense that those same children grow up to continue to spend large blocks of their lives–even careers–“biding their time until they get…to do something that truly interests them.”

Meanwhile, they might never truly learn what their own passions are, let alone practice them.

To me, it all comes down to assumptions. How we should spend our time, our money, our relationships, our energy, our intelligence–it’s all dictated based on preconceived notions from, well, almost everyone around us.

Today, I want to share two resources that rock that idea to the core. The first is a beautiful autobiographical comic by Zen Pencils from a speech by Bill Watterson–a man who turned down millions of dollars to authentically pursue his passion and craft.

2013-08-27-watterson

The second is a video entitled “The Millennial Rebuttal” by Welzoo & Column Five.

You might take a look at these provocation resources and think, “Yeah, but tomorrow, I need to teach fractions, phonics, and the anatomy of an apple. What place does this have in my instruction?”

The answer is, the highest place. Untraining students from the dependency on others’ assumptions will help them better familiarize themselves with their passions, develop their critical thinking, unlock their ability to problem-solve creatively, and own their learning process.  We have trained our students to sit passively and wait to be told what the priority is long enough. It’s time to help them look at the big picture, and to discover what matters most.

Provocation Questions:

  • Why are cultural messages (“they say”) often at odds with reality? Where do they come from?
  • What are other cultural messages you’ve heard that don’t line up with your experience/values?
  • What does it mean to “invent your own life’s meaning?”
  • To assume means to act like you know something about a person or how something should look based on your experiences. How do assumptions impact individuals and societies?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto