Paperless Classes

Considering a 'paperless' class like the one described in the General studies program Columbia University is intriguing.

I already work to make much of my class paperless: I use the network to distribute lessons and materials, and also to collect assignments; however currently students save their work to a shared drive where all users have full read and write access.  There have been problems with inadvertent deletions, and occasionally plagiarism.  We are looking at a solution like saywire to provide drop-box like features for each student to securely submit their work.

Marc Meyer at Columbia says that the paperless classroom he's got going helps students "develop an emotional attachment to the work."  I see similar things in my classroom, but am wary; I think the technology could also work to decrease emotional attachment to what is being studied if not employed in a thoughtful, student-centered manner.  The technology alone does not foster emotional attachment to any given material - a well-crafted lesson (using technology or not) does.

Big Shifts

I'd like to take a moment to reflect on one of the 'big shifts' suggested by the emergence of web2.0 technologies and their ramifications for classroom practice.  The notion that schools (or really any traditionally structured, hierarchical institution) no longer 'own' knowledge to be parceled out to students is hugely transformative to the nature of what transpires in the classroom.

In a collectively-negotiated environment, knowledge becomes democratized.  And democracy has always been a loud and messy process.  Our old bastions of certainty are eroding, and it behooves us to shift our weight to a new platform, to a new paradigm, lest we erode along with them.  But it's no small thing to shift a paradigm; it happens in fits and starts and not all at once.  What fascinating times we live in!

Videoconferencing in the Classroom

While I haven't used Skype professionally yet, I suspect I will soon. I already use it fairly extensively for personal communication, and am part of the tech team at our school testing the functionality and practicality of a new Polycom videoconferencing lab. I believe that while it uses Internet2 instead of ISDN, a Skype connection can be made with the unit.
I'm exploring the resources at CILC and MAGPI  to arrange a visit with a classroom of 4th graders in another country. Language, time zone, and school bell schedule considerations are some things to account for, Along for back up plans if the connection should drop. I suspect that the work I've done in the past with bringing in guest speakers, and having students prepare questions for them will transfer into this activity.  Extensive pre-visit planning is part of this, too: I plan on having my students ready with a set of questions they have generated, be well-versed on basic background and cultural expectations of the other country (and be on their best behavior!) for the event.
I hope that by using this technology, I'll acheive greater relevance, to foster an appreciation for cultural differences, and hit on the NETS standards, particularly 2A & 2C:


Communication and Collaboration
Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. Students:


a. interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media.


c. develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners of other cultures.

Responding to Connectivism: Theories of Learning in a Digitally Mediated Age

 

How do theories of learning address or answer key questions of the digital age?

1. How are learning theories impacted when knowledge is no longer acquired in the linear manner?
2. What adjustments need to made with learning theories when technology performs many of the cognitive operations previously performed by learners (information storage and retrieval).
3. How can we continue to stay current in a rapidly evolving information ecology?
4. How do learning theories address moments where performance is needed in the absence of complete understanding?
5. What is the impact of networks and complexity theories on learning?
6. What is the impact of chaos as a complex pattern recognition process on learning?
7. With increased recognition of interconnections in differing fields of knowledge, how are systems and ecology theories perceived in light of learning tasks?

George Seimens, in his 2004 article Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age, proposes a theory of learning which acknowledges and incorporates the realities of a deeply mediated and digitally networked culture. 

In it, he states that the existing theories of learning, including Behaviorism, Cognitivism, & Constructivism are all ill equiped to address the changed learning landscape.

The natural attempt of theorists is to continue to revise and evolve theories as conditions change. At some point, however, the underlying conditions have altered so significantly, that further modification is no longer sensible. An entirely new approach is needed.1

There are many interesting and engaging elements to his theory, but the one I'd like to reflect briefly on here is his premise that learning now sometimes resides outside of human beings; for instance, computers frequently do the work of information storage and retrieval, tasks formerly only possible by a human learner.
There is a counterargument that this type of learning and data storage is nothing new, indeed, it's been true for as long as books and the wirtten word have been part of the human toolkit.

But it is interesting to explore the idea that the vehicle of data storage may not simply hold the data, nor retreive it on command, but perform a rudimentary type of learning itself.  This begins to enter the realm of artificial intelligence.  It is as if a book didn't just hold data, but held it and learned it.  Itself. 

I agree with my colleagues that Connectivism is in fact a leaning theory, and not a pedagogy.  Non-human learning is a thrilling topic to explore, and I'm grateful for Seimens' insights into these areas.

Podcasting in the Classroom

I've begun looking into the prospect of using podcasting & vodcasting in the classroom.  There are any number of excellent uses for these technologies, and I'd like to highlight one such use.

Students at Woodlands Academy in Castle Rock, Colorado use podcasting to produce 'Owl Bytes'; a weekly student-produced show chronicling the history of technology.


It's actually more of a video podcast, or vodcast, because it displays images and links in sync with the audio narrative that plays.  It demonstrates student ownership over a project, and could obviously be extrapolated into other areas. 

I chose this podcast because it focused on technology, and I am the technology education teacher at our school.  I am considering using this podcast in my classroom to introduce my students to the idea of student-generated content in podcasts, and also to suggest the serial format as one that we can also employ - episodes in a series, rather than one huge master work.

I learned a thing or two about the history of technology from this podcast, and comment both the teacher and students on a job well done!

Robust Visual Literacy: Flikr in the Classroom

I'm just now becoming aware of the possibilities of using Flikr.com in the classroom.

I do a project with my 4th graders titled 'Globally Connected', where they look at the lives of children their age growing up in a country other than our own.

I don't allow students to choose the same country. This usually produces some angst, as most Jewish kids want to do Israel, the Irish kids Ireland, etc. The Korean kids routinely choose South Korea first, and choose North Korea as a distant second place selection only if they have to.

The information sites I direct them to for their research have sparse details about North Korea generally. and even less about the daily lives of kids. But with Flikr...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/yeowatzup/ / CC BY 2.0
Retrieved October 12, 2009

Simply typing the country's name and the additional tag 'children' yielded an array of compelling, relevant images utterly different than what Google Images yields.

There are additional classroom benefits to using Flikr:

• The annotation tool offers the prospect of running commentary about given images.  I wonder if an email address (which many of my young students don't have yet) is the price of admission...
• There is a great opportunity to discuss intellectual property & source citation via the commons.

I'm sure there are others, but these are my initial thoughts.  What a resource!

Consider the Wiki

This past week has gone by in a whirlwind!  While I have been a Wikipedia user for a while, and had a passing understanding of what a wiki was and even how it worked, I've never integrated them into my practice.  Once again,  I find myself on the brink of applying what I believe to be a revolutionary new technology to my professional life.

I sit on various committees at my school, all broken into sub-committees.  Information is all passed via e-mail along the line, until it eventually gets to the poor principal, whose inbox is perpetually bulging.  I suggested using a wiki to offset the burden of organizing all of that information from one person to the entire group.  Balanced and equitable.  I hope my principal loves it.

In the classroom with my students, I'm beginning to think about using wikis too.  I've begun to rollout the 5th grade environmental project I blogged about earlier, and have students working in teams of 4.  I'm thinking of setting up a wiki for them to hold their collected knowledge on the various topics I've assigned each group.  I think it will be new and exciting for them - and possibly a little frustrating.  But the collaborative paradigm is one I would like to introduce them to early, to build on in future years.
Actually contributing to a wiki with a group myself this past week has been informative too.  It's highlighted some of the possible pitfalls I should be aware of for my young students, including:

• Time Management: if one team member is holding up the rest due to a lack of participation, the whole project suffers.
  
  
• Inventing an organizational structure out of nothing was a bit of a challenge for me.  I imagine that they will also struggle with how to order their thoughts and research.  they will need some pointers on this.
  
  
• This isn't one I felt personally, but I suspect that it will rear up for my students: a sense of possessiveness or individual ownership.  Or maybe it will be a sense of indignation that  some contribute more than others, or contribute more thoughtful and substantive content than others.  I will need to learn how to assess the various products produced, but I'm not quite sure how yet.

I'd like to mention a word about Wikipedia.  I've always been a fan, and have thought that it's detractors were old sticks-in-the-mud.  Reading about Wikipedia and exploring the safeguards that have been recently put in place make me all the more excited.  I'll confess that I'm in a bit of disagreement with the school librarian on this!  I don't believe that Wikipedia can be used blindly or uncritically, but to ban it's use outright seems like throwing the baby out with the bath-water.  I feel compelled to expose my student to this tool in a structured and supervised way; rather than have them encounter and interact with it in their own time, unsupervised, unguided, and likely less critical.

Network Them Bookmarks!

I've been using Delicious for a while now, but not it's 'social' functions.

(To add me to your Delicious network: cheefinspector)

I started using it a few years back, whe I was a substitute teacher.
I would be in a different classroom everyday.  I never had my favorites with me, and was frequently encountering cool new resources that I wanted to add.  I used Delicious as a portable (and essentially private) favorites list.  It was way more awesome than writing things on post-its and scraps of paper, to be keyed in later when I got home.

Over time, I've added a small handful of people to my delicious network, but rarely if ever go check their tagged content.  I mostly just keep adding to my list from my own surfing.

But now I'm thinking: Perhaps rather than hunt for answers via search engines, I should explore the possibility of growing and establishing my delicious network.  I see some immediate, obvious advantages:

1. There will be no paid placements / skewed rankings.
   
   
2. Some one - likely someone I know personally - will have thought enough of the resource to tag it.  This effectively lets other people act as pre-screeners for any content I may want to explore.
   
   
3. I will get to know the tagging protocols of the people in my network.  I will likely change and modify the way I tag to take best advantage of the shared information, rather than continue to impose my own (private) taxonomy on the entire content of the web.

I'll need to explore this possibility, and post my findings.

Playin' with Pageflakes

I've been experimenting with pageflakes, a customizable web content aggregator, with the ability to make pages public for others to see!

There are probably more targeted ways to populate one of these pagecasts with content, but here is my first crack at it.  It's a page for renewable energy resources:

http://www.pageflakes.com/stevekelly04/27921836

Save the Earth, My 5th Graders!

So I've got a real, genuine quandry.  This is not a made-up 'doing-it-for-the-class' type of post.

I need to flesh out a rough idea I have for my fifth graders this marking period.  I'm their technology education teacher, and have had the idea that they could get into a project that focuses on environmentalism, but which hits on the ISTE standards at the same time.

I've got my plans set for my 4th graders.  6th, 7th, & 8th grades are all dialed in.  But I'm totally hitting a roadblock with 5th. 


Here's what I've got so far:

• I'm about to do two lessons on internet research, focusing on how to determine the relability of an information source. 
  
  
  
  Thoughts on this topic would be great, expecially in light of our ongoing discussion about the read/write web.  In the era of citizen journalism, how to determine veracity?
  
  
  
  
  
• I'm calling the project 'Earth 2060', and asking my 5th graders to imagine the earth in 50 years - within their lifetimes.  It's a place where non-renewable energy sources have been depleated, and new sources of energy have needed to be instituted. 
  
  
  
  
  
• I want them to work in small groups (I'm thinking groups of 3) to research select energy resources, including:
  
  
  
  
  
  • Wind
  • Solar
  • Geothermal
  • Nuclear
  • Hydroelectric
  • Coal
  • Natural Gas/Oil
  • Biomass
    
    
    
    
    
  
  
• At the end of the project, I'm anticipating that they will be able to:
• Pros and Cons of their energy source
• Defend the energy source they
  
  
  
  
  
• So, I'm asking myself:
  
  
  
  
  
  • What will my students be able to do at the end of this unit?
  • PowerPoint basics
  • Internet research basics
  • MS Word basics (table, list, insert picture, footnotes/endnotes)
  • Use citations
  • Articulate pros and cons for different types of energy
  • Read charts and analyze data!
  • Understand unfamiliar units of measurement (ex: Kwh)
    
    
    
    
    
  • What will student know at the end of this unit?
  • How different energy sources actually work.
  • Energy needs are projected to increase
  • There are tradeoffs for any type of energy (pros and cons)
  • Different websites and information sources have different agendas and points of view.
    
    
    
    
    
  • What will students produce to demonstrate their understanding?
  • A PowerPoint presentation about THEIR selected source of energy, it’s pros and cons, and the ability to argue for it in the face of other alternatives.
  • An accompanying paper articulating their main points.
  • Possible: Research the history of a given energy source, and be able to articulate the positive and hopeful discoveries, along with the discoveries of it’s dangers and negative attributes.
    
    
    
    
    
  
  

Here's what I need help with:

• The PowerPoint & Word skills are ones that I think are necessary at this stage - foundational skills that they can build and expand on in other classes and later in their academic career.  But they feel stultifying and dry.  How to pep them up?  (I'm thinking maybe of using voicestream as an extention for the PowerPoint - you can load a presentation right up in there...)
  
• Any one know of age appropriate resources for students to find this data?  I've been hunting, and so many resources are over their heads.

Something about this whole project feels incomplete.  I'm hoping by posting what I've got here, some of you might help me see what's missing.

Thanks, hive mind!