Back in my former school, we made a serious effort to embrace PBL (Project-Based Learning). Of course, we also included Problem-Based Learning (the "other" PBL) as a matter of course. But the basic idea was that rather than spend our time skimming through the forest, we would stop to examine in depth the trees that represented vast swaths of the forest, so that students could then apply their deep understanding of a limited amount of issues to much larger numbers later in life. I enjoyed teaching this way, but I encountered a problem then that is echoing in a problem I'm encountering now: what words represent to people changes depending on the audience.
I discovered that in talking to parents of freshmen (the grade I mostly taught at the time) about PBL, they arrived at the discussion with a mental definition of the word "project." Want to guess what it entailed? Too bad, I'll tell you anyway...
Construction paper, crayons, glue sticks, scissors, string, beads... Some dads had Scouts on the brain, so they thought sawing, nailing, sanding, painting, knot tying... Regardless, they all thought nothing associated with intellectual, academic, rigorous thought. They thought: making hand turkeys. Or turtles. Or model cars. So they were skeptics from the jump. And as a result, they could not understand why their child wasn't getting an A in this, the process of making a hand turkey. Of interest is the fact that none of the conversations were bathed in a nostalgia of, "Oh, I remember when she was little she made projects. How cute!" It was all frustration of the mess, the pointlessness, the crowded refrigerator, the failed pinewood derby, etc., etc.
So the parent perception of PBL was negative from the word go, and as a result, I spent the better part of a year's worth of parent-teacher conferences working against that association to help the parents understand exactly what we were doing. So was my administration. It worked, but it was a long haul to get there, and new parents needed to be brought along into the process each year, so I was constantly in a position of defensiveness, not partnership, with the parents.
Now, fast-forward 12 years, and I'm in the classroom talking with parents about technology in the classroom, in this case the 1:1 iPad initiative. Want to guess what the parents' views are? Too bad, I'll tell you.
Games. Facebook. Frivolity. Sex. Wasting time. Surfing the web. "Twittering." Silly pictures. Sex. Crashing. Losing files. These are not happy associations. Parents associate the technology with frustration (they don't know how to do these things/their technology in their job sucks), disconnection (my children don't talk on the phone, they text, so I have no clue what's going on in their lives--I can't even eavesdrop!) and fear (the internet is full of pornographers, perverts and creeps waiting to snatch my child). They do not associate technology with intellectual, academic, rigorous thought. Sure, they get the idea of Google as a massive library of information, but they don't know how it works, so they see the crap they get when they search and assume this is what their children are experiencing too.
So I'm spending this year's worth of parent-teacher conferences and back to school nights and parent-teacher meetings and emails working against this association to help the parents understand exactly what we are doing. So's my administration. It seems to be working, but it is a long haul, there are some deep skeptics out there, and at this point I'm not sure if there is actual buy-in or just resigned acceptance of the process. Either way, teachers are constantly having to defend their practice, not partner with the parents.
To be fair, there are large numbers of parents who also use technology in their workplace and in their lives, and so have some appreciation of it as a time/labor-saving device, a presentation tool, or for organizational purposes, so it is not all bad, it's just that the overwhelming impression is that of expensive entertainment.
In hindsight, if a school is considering bringing technology into the classroom, I'd strongly encourage them to spend some time pondering the technology from the other side, the popular culture side, the parent side. Then take the time to explain, carefully and clearly how the device will enhance the culture of rigor and intellectual inquiry already in place in your classroom. Show them, don't tell them. Have the parents come to your open houses and conferences with the device, and guide them through an activity you do in class with your students. Understand that you will have to demystify it for them, for though their children may or may not be digital natives, they are definitely not, and they deserve to be brought along too. Otherwise, the teachers are in a position of constant defensiveness, not partnership, with the parents, who are in a constant state of bewilderment, disenfranchisement and apprehension about what their children are doing not only up in their rooms, but also in school.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Ah, the end of vacation
There are many great things about being on vacation, not the least of which is catching up with reading.
I've been spending some time perusing what numerous sites have to offer and alternating between horrified laughter and lots of hmmm-ing...but through it all, I think there is a point that is being slightly missed by many people who are writing about the use of technology in the classrooms.
Not all of y'all are missing this point, but some are, and it is showing up in the slightest of ways. It's a simple phrase, but it makes my hackles rise, so I'll put it out there to get it off my mind. (So I can turn to wondering exactly what a "hackle" is...)
The phrase as is generally put: "In order to interest students in learning, give them an iPad (or laptop, or tablet or whatever device)."
NO!
What interests human beings in learning is not the presence or absence of the latest technology! Students didn't become more interested in learning because of the creation of erase-able ink, nor did the advent of the typewriter suddenly make learning sexy. My students don't get pumped for class because they are going to get to use Noteability, Twitter or Evernote. To assume that in order for students to be engaged they must have a gizmo is to display a stunning lack of understanding about why we learn.
Students of all ages want to learn because learning is stimulation for the brain. Students of all ages are turned on to the act of discovery of something that feels new, different, and thought-provoking to them! While we adults may have settled on answers to life's big questions, our children have not! Ask a group of 16 year-old young men and women to define and demonstrate the word "Truth" or even better, "Justice," through different scenarios and watch them go! Have a group of 9 year old boys and girls discuss what makes a baseball pitcher (or any athlete) great and require that they use statistics to back themselves up, and step aside. Ask a group of 12 year old students to write an opinion piece about the latest hot book/movie/song and then comment on each others' works, and they are off and running.
What's great about the iPad (or any piece of technology) is that it can help with students IN THE COMPLETION of all of the above. It is a tool for expression, organization, and information gathering, but it, in and of itself, does very little to attract students to the task nor does it complete the task for them simply by existing.
Want to make students interested in learning? Ditch standardized tests that require only one right answer. Shred scantron sheets in favor of actual writing, drawing and figuring. Abolish practices that reward teachers and administrators for teaching monkeys to throw bananas in barrels. Foster and reward risk-taking, innovation and creativity in every discipline of school life. Bring back recess, music, art and P.E. into all of our schools at all of our ages; balance matters!
Want to make students interested in learning? Hire a good teacher. Give that teacher access to the tools for students do articulate their understanding. Then get out of his or her way.
We need to stop throwing gizmos at the problems of education, and start dealing with the real gremlins that hold our schools back and keep our children from being excited about learning.
I've been spending some time perusing what numerous sites have to offer and alternating between horrified laughter and lots of hmmm-ing...but through it all, I think there is a point that is being slightly missed by many people who are writing about the use of technology in the classrooms.
Not all of y'all are missing this point, but some are, and it is showing up in the slightest of ways. It's a simple phrase, but it makes my hackles rise, so I'll put it out there to get it off my mind. (So I can turn to wondering exactly what a "hackle" is...)
The phrase as is generally put: "In order to interest students in learning, give them an iPad (or laptop, or tablet or whatever device)."
NO!
What interests human beings in learning is not the presence or absence of the latest technology! Students didn't become more interested in learning because of the creation of erase-able ink, nor did the advent of the typewriter suddenly make learning sexy. My students don't get pumped for class because they are going to get to use Noteability, Twitter or Evernote. To assume that in order for students to be engaged they must have a gizmo is to display a stunning lack of understanding about why we learn.
Students of all ages want to learn because learning is stimulation for the brain. Students of all ages are turned on to the act of discovery of something that feels new, different, and thought-provoking to them! While we adults may have settled on answers to life's big questions, our children have not! Ask a group of 16 year-old young men and women to define and demonstrate the word "Truth" or even better, "Justice," through different scenarios and watch them go! Have a group of 9 year old boys and girls discuss what makes a baseball pitcher (or any athlete) great and require that they use statistics to back themselves up, and step aside. Ask a group of 12 year old students to write an opinion piece about the latest hot book/movie/song and then comment on each others' works, and they are off and running.
What's great about the iPad (or any piece of technology) is that it can help with students IN THE COMPLETION of all of the above. It is a tool for expression, organization, and information gathering, but it, in and of itself, does very little to attract students to the task nor does it complete the task for them simply by existing.
Want to make students interested in learning? Ditch standardized tests that require only one right answer. Shred scantron sheets in favor of actual writing, drawing and figuring. Abolish practices that reward teachers and administrators for teaching monkeys to throw bananas in barrels. Foster and reward risk-taking, innovation and creativity in every discipline of school life. Bring back recess, music, art and P.E. into all of our schools at all of our ages; balance matters!
Want to make students interested in learning? Hire a good teacher. Give that teacher access to the tools for students do articulate their understanding. Then get out of his or her way.
We need to stop throwing gizmos at the problems of education, and start dealing with the real gremlins that hold our schools back and keep our children from being excited about learning.
Friday, March 30, 2012
QR Code-based Amazing Race
So this week as part of a review for a test, I came up with 12 review questions, put each one individually into a Google document, then generated a QR Code using qrcode.kaywa.com that linked to each document/question. The QR codes were then posted in different places around the building. (some are still there...I need to take them down!...)
Students were placed into teams of 4 or 5, with one person designated as the contact person--he or she was the only one who would email me during the competition; I would not reply to others. (That person happened to be the one with the weakest grades on prior tests so he or she would have the reinforcement of writing answers...) Teams were made up of students with mixed ability/performance levels.
All teams began in my room with the first QR Code. They had to email me the correct answer to the question, at which point I emailed them a little bit of doggerel poetry that was a clue to their next destination and they were off. (Each team had a different first clue so the teams wouldn't bunch up). Every subsequent correct answer generated a clue to the next location. Incorrect answers got a response that included a hint or a suggestion if their answer was headed in the right direction. Each team that completed the 12 questions and returned to the classroom before the end of the period would receive 5 extra points on the test. But the last team to check in, as Phil says, may be eliminated and not get any points.
I've never seen students run so fast... ;)
So I would do it again, but I'd change a few things.
1) 12 clues all over the building was too many to complete in a 45 minute period. 10 would be better, or closer placement of codes.
2) Some teachers are upset by students running in the halls...
3) I wouldn't use email, I'd us the iPad's messenger system. It's faster, believe it or not... but it also helps with the next point...
4) It was logistically tough to keep track of what teams had gotten which clues via email, in part because they tended to create a new email for each question, rather than build a thread. So the messenger feature might or might not help with that by keeping a threaded conversation going, or I would require that they respond on the same thread if I were to use email again.
5) Some clues for the locations were hard and some were easy...they all got the front statue clue, but were flummoxed by the newspaper stand in the library clue...I'm not sure if that is good or bad, but the varying degrees of difficulty of the clues also slowed them down, so if the point is to review the content, I'd streamline that part of it.
But it was fun! I'm not sure how valuable it was as a review tool in the end, but as an activity, it was great. The student feedback was that they enjoyed themselves a great deal, but felt it was too limited in terms of content. We followed it up the next day with a game of baseball for further review. (Draw a baseball diamond on the board, I create questions that are worth a single, double, triple or homerun--harder questions for more bases--split the class into teams and play innings.)
Students were placed into teams of 4 or 5, with one person designated as the contact person--he or she was the only one who would email me during the competition; I would not reply to others. (That person happened to be the one with the weakest grades on prior tests so he or she would have the reinforcement of writing answers...) Teams were made up of students with mixed ability/performance levels.
All teams began in my room with the first QR Code. They had to email me the correct answer to the question, at which point I emailed them a little bit of doggerel poetry that was a clue to their next destination and they were off. (Each team had a different first clue so the teams wouldn't bunch up). Every subsequent correct answer generated a clue to the next location. Incorrect answers got a response that included a hint or a suggestion if their answer was headed in the right direction. Each team that completed the 12 questions and returned to the classroom before the end of the period would receive 5 extra points on the test. But the last team to check in, as Phil says, may be eliminated and not get any points.
I've never seen students run so fast... ;)
So I would do it again, but I'd change a few things.
1) 12 clues all over the building was too many to complete in a 45 minute period. 10 would be better, or closer placement of codes.
2) Some teachers are upset by students running in the halls...
3) I wouldn't use email, I'd us the iPad's messenger system. It's faster, believe it or not... but it also helps with the next point...
4) It was logistically tough to keep track of what teams had gotten which clues via email, in part because they tended to create a new email for each question, rather than build a thread. So the messenger feature might or might not help with that by keeping a threaded conversation going, or I would require that they respond on the same thread if I were to use email again.
5) Some clues for the locations were hard and some were easy...they all got the front statue clue, but were flummoxed by the newspaper stand in the library clue...I'm not sure if that is good or bad, but the varying degrees of difficulty of the clues also slowed them down, so if the point is to review the content, I'd streamline that part of it.
But it was fun! I'm not sure how valuable it was as a review tool in the end, but as an activity, it was great. The student feedback was that they enjoyed themselves a great deal, but felt it was too limited in terms of content. We followed it up the next day with a game of baseball for further review. (Draw a baseball diamond on the board, I create questions that are worth a single, double, triple or homerun--harder questions for more bases--split the class into teams and play innings.)
Friday, March 16, 2012
iPad vs. Textbooks
Caveat Emptor: I am about to make lots of generalizations about textbooks. I know full well that there are exceptions to some things in some books. But in my 15 years teaching history, I have yet to encounter a textbook that works well for me. You may love your textbook, and it may be perfect for you. I don't even like my textbook, and it doesn't work well for me.
I believe that history is, at its heart, a series of stories. Stories can teach lessons, entertain, inform, generate a response, be boring, and even be lesson-less. However, history textbooks don't tell good stories; they damp down all the controversy, take out the blood, sweat, toil and tears, use one person to represent whole groups of people, and in general, present everything as a done deal that was a good outcome for the "winners." There's the African proverb "Until lions have their own historians, stories of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter," which I like better than "victors write history," but the basic intent of both is the same: textbooks are the history of the victors. And they remind us, as Dave Barry mocked in his book Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States, that "women and minorities continued to make valuable contributions." Afterthoughts, stereotypes and condescension abound. And insomnia gets cured by all who read them.
Textbooks are expensive to make, expensive to buy, impossible to update, heavy to carry, limited to two dimensions, present one perspective and are governed by the political whims of whatever the largest states' Departments of Education think they should contain. They are boring, vanilla pieces of writing that contain mistakes and aren't even under the control of the ivory tower denizens who composed them originally. Some contain thorough research and are accompanied by supplemental materials that are somewhat useful, but most are spottily researched, and come with such intellectually stimulating items as fill in the blank/matching/lower order thinking worksheets that re-create the textbook page in even simpler form. Ultimately, if you are a teacher who uses those materials, you must know that your students simply copy off a friend just before class. If they are organized, they rotate the responsibilities among them...
So I don't like textbooks.
Sadly, the iPad doesn't yet help with this area of my classes. It allows me and my students to access the interwebs, and I do make use of the Wikipanion app to have students compare the contents of the textbook with the contents of Wikipedia and turn to a third party web source to adjudicate any discrepancies. I can have my students watch TED talks, PBS videos, and follow the news, blogs, and social media. Students can download items from iTunes U and podcasts that are free. So I can stitch together material, and I will eventually generate an ePub or my own iBook once it is populated enough, but for now it is a cumbersome process that relies on materials beyond my control.
Ah, but what about the new Apple textbook initiative and iBooks? Well, students would have to pay for anything out of iBooks. I currently can't buy books for them and then repossess them to pass along to other students in a subsequent year. (No rental licenses like there are for renting movies in iTunes...yet...) So even once Apple puts together its textbooks, I still will have to designate funds for the purchase of those items, and in terms of the mathematics of it all, iBook-based textbooks will end up being more expensive than the textbooks we currently use. (My current textbook cost is $90, and is on its 6th year of use...If I have to pay $15.99 per student per iBook per year, I won't really be saving anything over time, it just won't be a giant bill all at once.)
All I use a textbook for is to provide the students with a common platform of knowledge. I never use it in class; they read it at home, at night, on their own so they can come into the classroom with a body of information that will allow us to delve into the facets of the story that help: to explain our current world; to illustrate a problem that needed to be solved back then that resonates with a problem we have today; to provide an important comparison to another story from another place; or to help describe how something has changed as time has gone by. The iPad makes the in-class activities happen in new and effective ways, and it can help with the at-home portion of my process; it just doesn't do that smoothly and efficiently. Yet.
I believe that history is, at its heart, a series of stories. Stories can teach lessons, entertain, inform, generate a response, be boring, and even be lesson-less. However, history textbooks don't tell good stories; they damp down all the controversy, take out the blood, sweat, toil and tears, use one person to represent whole groups of people, and in general, present everything as a done deal that was a good outcome for the "winners." There's the African proverb "Until lions have their own historians, stories of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter," which I like better than "victors write history," but the basic intent of both is the same: textbooks are the history of the victors. And they remind us, as Dave Barry mocked in his book Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States, that "women and minorities continued to make valuable contributions." Afterthoughts, stereotypes and condescension abound. And insomnia gets cured by all who read them.
Textbooks are expensive to make, expensive to buy, impossible to update, heavy to carry, limited to two dimensions, present one perspective and are governed by the political whims of whatever the largest states' Departments of Education think they should contain. They are boring, vanilla pieces of writing that contain mistakes and aren't even under the control of the ivory tower denizens who composed them originally. Some contain thorough research and are accompanied by supplemental materials that are somewhat useful, but most are spottily researched, and come with such intellectually stimulating items as fill in the blank/matching/lower order thinking worksheets that re-create the textbook page in even simpler form. Ultimately, if you are a teacher who uses those materials, you must know that your students simply copy off a friend just before class. If they are organized, they rotate the responsibilities among them...
So I don't like textbooks.
Sadly, the iPad doesn't yet help with this area of my classes. It allows me and my students to access the interwebs, and I do make use of the Wikipanion app to have students compare the contents of the textbook with the contents of Wikipedia and turn to a third party web source to adjudicate any discrepancies. I can have my students watch TED talks, PBS videos, and follow the news, blogs, and social media. Students can download items from iTunes U and podcasts that are free. So I can stitch together material, and I will eventually generate an ePub or my own iBook once it is populated enough, but for now it is a cumbersome process that relies on materials beyond my control.
Ah, but what about the new Apple textbook initiative and iBooks? Well, students would have to pay for anything out of iBooks. I currently can't buy books for them and then repossess them to pass along to other students in a subsequent year. (No rental licenses like there are for renting movies in iTunes...yet...) So even once Apple puts together its textbooks, I still will have to designate funds for the purchase of those items, and in terms of the mathematics of it all, iBook-based textbooks will end up being more expensive than the textbooks we currently use. (My current textbook cost is $90, and is on its 6th year of use...If I have to pay $15.99 per student per iBook per year, I won't really be saving anything over time, it just won't be a giant bill all at once.)
All I use a textbook for is to provide the students with a common platform of knowledge. I never use it in class; they read it at home, at night, on their own so they can come into the classroom with a body of information that will allow us to delve into the facets of the story that help: to explain our current world; to illustrate a problem that needed to be solved back then that resonates with a problem we have today; to provide an important comparison to another story from another place; or to help describe how something has changed as time has gone by. The iPad makes the in-class activities happen in new and effective ways, and it can help with the at-home portion of my process; it just doesn't do that smoothly and efficiently. Yet.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
"crowdsourcing" grading
I'm appropriating the name of this aspect of assessment from Cathy N. Davidson's chapter in her book Now You See It (Thanks Cathy!) Hastac.org, the blog of the work that is being done at Duke University is also a must read for those of us who are interested in how technology is showing up in classrooms at multiple levels of the education system.
This is mostly about involving students in the assessment process, which I've been doing for several years, but only through asking classes to collaborate to create the rubrics I use to assess their work or through asking students to reflect on the process and product of their work in the classroom. I have generally, however, shied away from having high school students provide grades for each other. This is usually due to my perception of them as not being willing to put much thought into their feedback (the phrase of death: "That was really good, I liked it!" comes up waaayy too much), grading on the basis of friendship or the lack thereof, or not being sure that all of them actually understood the criteria. So I've had them assess themselves after the fact, and used check-ins during projects to see how things are going.
But in light of reading Now You See It with the rest of the Instructional Leadership team at Burlington High School, I decided to try to crowdsource the grading of two projects in my senior elective, US-China Relations. Here's how it started this week:
I described the two projects to the class--one is a student presentation of a particular aspect of the relationship between the two nations the other is a summation of each of the four sections of the course, the first of them is the creation of a glogster poster in which they present the history of the relationship from 1972-present. (Details are posted on the class' blog uschinarelationsbhs.wordpress.com). Next year I think I'll ask them to design the projects, or at least give them the option to try that out...
I then asked them how they wanted the grading of these projects to go. I said I could grade them all, but it seemed to me that after 13 years of schooling, and given they were all adults, I wanted them to have the option to grade themselves. (Full disclosure: students with a grade of B+ or higher in senior electives in the second semester at BHS do not have to take the exam. So they have some motivation to do well. I also have the reputation of being "a hard grader"...) The prevailing sentiment in the class after some discussion was that they wanted a say in the grading. I asked them what their ideas were for how to do this, and they came up with several different permutations. I didn't have to do much to direct the conversation after that: 26 different voices participated without my prompting! As they talked, I recorded the ideas on the board for all to see, and they began to coalesce around a few options.
All agreed that they wanted a different system for each project, so we then broke up the projects and went one at a time. In the end, this was the students' choice (they voted through the electorally rigorous method of putting their heads down and raising their hands, counted by me):
Presentations will be graded by the students for the "style" of the presentation: how engaging it is, how effective it is, how well put together it is. Those grades will be collected and averaged, dropping the highest and lowest. I will be assessing the content of the presentation for accuracy. Students were perceptive enough to recognize that they were not going to be experts in the material enough to be able to say whether or not the presenters had accurate and thorough information. My grade will then be averaged against the students' average to determine the final mark.
The Summary projects will be graded by the students and me as one of the crowd. I will present the glogster projects to the class as anonymous submissions (to avoid assessment on the basis of friendship or enmity). The highest and lowest marks will be discarded, and the results averaged to attain a grade.
We then compiled the categories of a successful presentation in a google document, and the students are composing the language that will go into the rubric that we will use.
This is not a full out crowdsourcing of grades, which I was honestly ready to embrace, but the students themselves expressed deep ambivalence at completely handing over the power of the grade to each other. "Honestly, I don't trust kids in this class to grade fairly" said one student, to the general agreement of her peers.
So while I'm glad to be going forward with this, I think it is disturbing that the seniors in my classroom, after 13 years of schooling, don't have confidence in themselves to be impartial, focused, and analytical about the work that is going on all around them, nor do they trust each other to have those rather vital traits as they are about to depart the school...
This is mostly about involving students in the assessment process, which I've been doing for several years, but only through asking classes to collaborate to create the rubrics I use to assess their work or through asking students to reflect on the process and product of their work in the classroom. I have generally, however, shied away from having high school students provide grades for each other. This is usually due to my perception of them as not being willing to put much thought into their feedback (the phrase of death: "That was really good, I liked it!" comes up waaayy too much), grading on the basis of friendship or the lack thereof, or not being sure that all of them actually understood the criteria. So I've had them assess themselves after the fact, and used check-ins during projects to see how things are going.
But in light of reading Now You See It with the rest of the Instructional Leadership team at Burlington High School, I decided to try to crowdsource the grading of two projects in my senior elective, US-China Relations. Here's how it started this week:
I described the two projects to the class--one is a student presentation of a particular aspect of the relationship between the two nations the other is a summation of each of the four sections of the course, the first of them is the creation of a glogster poster in which they present the history of the relationship from 1972-present. (Details are posted on the class' blog uschinarelationsbhs.wordpress.com). Next year I think I'll ask them to design the projects, or at least give them the option to try that out...
I then asked them how they wanted the grading of these projects to go. I said I could grade them all, but it seemed to me that after 13 years of schooling, and given they were all adults, I wanted them to have the option to grade themselves. (Full disclosure: students with a grade of B+ or higher in senior electives in the second semester at BHS do not have to take the exam. So they have some motivation to do well. I also have the reputation of being "a hard grader"...) The prevailing sentiment in the class after some discussion was that they wanted a say in the grading. I asked them what their ideas were for how to do this, and they came up with several different permutations. I didn't have to do much to direct the conversation after that: 26 different voices participated without my prompting! As they talked, I recorded the ideas on the board for all to see, and they began to coalesce around a few options.
All agreed that they wanted a different system for each project, so we then broke up the projects and went one at a time. In the end, this was the students' choice (they voted through the electorally rigorous method of putting their heads down and raising their hands, counted by me):
Presentations will be graded by the students for the "style" of the presentation: how engaging it is, how effective it is, how well put together it is. Those grades will be collected and averaged, dropping the highest and lowest. I will be assessing the content of the presentation for accuracy. Students were perceptive enough to recognize that they were not going to be experts in the material enough to be able to say whether or not the presenters had accurate and thorough information. My grade will then be averaged against the students' average to determine the final mark.
The Summary projects will be graded by the students and me as one of the crowd. I will present the glogster projects to the class as anonymous submissions (to avoid assessment on the basis of friendship or enmity). The highest and lowest marks will be discarded, and the results averaged to attain a grade.
We then compiled the categories of a successful presentation in a google document, and the students are composing the language that will go into the rubric that we will use.
This is not a full out crowdsourcing of grades, which I was honestly ready to embrace, but the students themselves expressed deep ambivalence at completely handing over the power of the grade to each other. "Honestly, I don't trust kids in this class to grade fairly" said one student, to the general agreement of her peers.
So while I'm glad to be going forward with this, I think it is disturbing that the seniors in my classroom, after 13 years of schooling, don't have confidence in themselves to be impartial, focused, and analytical about the work that is going on all around them, nor do they trust each other to have those rather vital traits as they are about to depart the school...
Friday, February 17, 2012
iPad based social media in the classroom part 2
So this one will be a bit obtuse, because the social media site I'll refer to here (the name rhymes with "Macelook") doesn't like it when this project happens. It requires students to create fake accounts, which the social-media-site-which-can't-be-named, hereafter to be called "Voldebook," actively tries to discourage. In fact, I have a student who created a page for a school project in another class and was subsequently banned from using Voldebook...So I shall not attract their direct attention by using their name, thus incurring their wrath and risking my own account...
In any event, my students are tasked with creating Voldebook pages for the explorers/travelers Ibn Battuta, Marco Polo, Zheng He and Rabban Sauma. They are to imagine that these men had access to Voldebook, and then replicate status updates they would have made on their travels. Students compile biographical information, pictures, maps, video clips that demonstrate what they would have seen/done/thought along the way. Students work in groups of up to 5 (depending on class size) to create and populate the pages. Each student must post at least 10 times, posts begin with the year and their initials (so I know who they are) and posts must happen in chronological order.
Students have 4 days of time in class (never a whole period, usually about 20 minutes) to coordinate the posting of the status updates (Voldebook won't allow simultaneous log-ins from more than two or three devices before it sends a message demanding a cell phone number to confirm the poster is a human being...if the cell number matches another one on file, they shut down both the new page and the old one...) assign years for research, and check in about progress. On the 5th day, students are required to have the pages done and ready to be assessed. Many groups establish a Google Doc, input their posts there and have a designated student make the actual posts on the Voldebook page.
Once the pages are populated with the status updates, the students then comment on each others' trips in the character of their explorers. For instance, Ibn Battuta, the Muslim legal expert, responds to Rabban Sauma, the Nestorian Christian Mongol envoy, and so on. Students are assessed based on the realism of their posts, the depth of their research (demonstrated in the wall posts), the clarity of their posts, usefulness of the images/videos/maps they used, and meeting the required numbers for posts.
The students seem to get pretty excited to be using Voldebook for school, and they display a great deal of versatility in making use of the capacities of this form of social media; they regularly exceed my expectations with the creation of these pages, and demonstrate their understanding of the material in very creative ways.
Benefits for students include:
#1 They come as close to walking in the explorers' footsteps as we can get and still stay home.
#2 They gain a very detailed knowledge of the explorers' journeys, and compare and contrast them.
#3 They have to articulate their understanding publicly, concisely, and in more than just printed words
#4 They then have to "inhabit" the explorer's minds in order to reply in character, developing empathy with a person very different from themselves.
#5 They work collaboratively to do research and develop a consistent voice as the explorer.
#6 They get to articulate their understanding in a medium in which they have a great deal of fluency and expertise.
#7 They have fun finding groups to join, music to like, friends to make, relationships to establish for imaginary, yet historically very well defined, characters.
Drawbacks for students:
#1 The aforementioned restrictions and sanctions of Voldebook make some students have some trepidation about risking their own personal access to it--it is a vital part of their communication, so the loss of it is quite scary.
#2 A small number of students are forbidden by parents from using Voldebook. They also are not permitted to have their own email addresses. The parents are attempting to remain in control of their child's access to social media and electronic communications, usually out of fear of predators and pornographic influences present in the inter-webs.
Benefits for the teacher include:
#1 A very creative project in terms of outcomes, with no material costs to me or my department. (No paper, glue, scissors, markers, etc. needed.)
#2 Products which are impossible to contain in a folder are highly portable and easily assessable.
#3 Students are motivated, excited and enthusiastic to learn about long dead men.
#4 Students learn geography, history, political science, religion, and economics in a hands-on manner, and express that understanding in a manner that is comfortable and accessible to them.
#5 The interconnected-ness of the world is demonstrated in a way that helps students understand that the contemporary notion of globalization is not a new one.
The apps used for this were My Pad and the social media sites' own app, neither of which was satisfactory for the students. Many ended up logging in to the page through the iPad's various browser options, as that enabled the website's greater functionality.
There are alternatives to Voldebook, like Fakebookapp and Myfakewall, but those don't allow for interactivity, just the creation of a mock page. Twiducate and edmodo have some shared functionality with Voldebook, but again fall short and aren't great with the iPad. I'm hopeful to find a viable alternative, but as yet, one eludes me.
In any event, my students are tasked with creating Voldebook pages for the explorers/travelers Ibn Battuta, Marco Polo, Zheng He and Rabban Sauma. They are to imagine that these men had access to Voldebook, and then replicate status updates they would have made on their travels. Students compile biographical information, pictures, maps, video clips that demonstrate what they would have seen/done/thought along the way. Students work in groups of up to 5 (depending on class size) to create and populate the pages. Each student must post at least 10 times, posts begin with the year and their initials (so I know who they are) and posts must happen in chronological order.
Students have 4 days of time in class (never a whole period, usually about 20 minutes) to coordinate the posting of the status updates (Voldebook won't allow simultaneous log-ins from more than two or three devices before it sends a message demanding a cell phone number to confirm the poster is a human being...if the cell number matches another one on file, they shut down both the new page and the old one...) assign years for research, and check in about progress. On the 5th day, students are required to have the pages done and ready to be assessed. Many groups establish a Google Doc, input their posts there and have a designated student make the actual posts on the Voldebook page.
Once the pages are populated with the status updates, the students then comment on each others' trips in the character of their explorers. For instance, Ibn Battuta, the Muslim legal expert, responds to Rabban Sauma, the Nestorian Christian Mongol envoy, and so on. Students are assessed based on the realism of their posts, the depth of their research (demonstrated in the wall posts), the clarity of their posts, usefulness of the images/videos/maps they used, and meeting the required numbers for posts.
The students seem to get pretty excited to be using Voldebook for school, and they display a great deal of versatility in making use of the capacities of this form of social media; they regularly exceed my expectations with the creation of these pages, and demonstrate their understanding of the material in very creative ways.
Benefits for students include:
#1 They come as close to walking in the explorers' footsteps as we can get and still stay home.
#2 They gain a very detailed knowledge of the explorers' journeys, and compare and contrast them.
#3 They have to articulate their understanding publicly, concisely, and in more than just printed words
#4 They then have to "inhabit" the explorer's minds in order to reply in character, developing empathy with a person very different from themselves.
#5 They work collaboratively to do research and develop a consistent voice as the explorer.
#6 They get to articulate their understanding in a medium in which they have a great deal of fluency and expertise.
#7 They have fun finding groups to join, music to like, friends to make, relationships to establish for imaginary, yet historically very well defined, characters.
Drawbacks for students:
#1 The aforementioned restrictions and sanctions of Voldebook make some students have some trepidation about risking their own personal access to it--it is a vital part of their communication, so the loss of it is quite scary.
#2 A small number of students are forbidden by parents from using Voldebook. They also are not permitted to have their own email addresses. The parents are attempting to remain in control of their child's access to social media and electronic communications, usually out of fear of predators and pornographic influences present in the inter-webs.
Benefits for the teacher include:
#1 A very creative project in terms of outcomes, with no material costs to me or my department. (No paper, glue, scissors, markers, etc. needed.)
#2 Products which are impossible to contain in a folder are highly portable and easily assessable.
#3 Students are motivated, excited and enthusiastic to learn about long dead men.
#4 Students learn geography, history, political science, religion, and economics in a hands-on manner, and express that understanding in a manner that is comfortable and accessible to them.
#5 The interconnected-ness of the world is demonstrated in a way that helps students understand that the contemporary notion of globalization is not a new one.
The apps used for this were My Pad and the social media sites' own app, neither of which was satisfactory for the students. Many ended up logging in to the page through the iPad's various browser options, as that enabled the website's greater functionality.
There are alternatives to Voldebook, like Fakebookapp and Myfakewall, but those don't allow for interactivity, just the creation of a mock page. Twiducate and edmodo have some shared functionality with Voldebook, but again fall short and aren't great with the iPad. I'm hopeful to find a viable alternative, but as yet, one eludes me.
iPad-based Social Media in the classroom, Part One
I've been using social media in the classroom for the last two years, so here's an example of how I make use of Twitter. For the iPad, the Twitter app is fine, but I wish it did more. I supplement that app with HootSuite and with TweetDeck.
Last week, we were discussing the Incan society, and I was surprised at how little my students knew about both Aztec and Incan empires. So we set out to learn more than what the textbook had to offer, which was neither very much, nor very deep. As an in-class assignment, I had the students use Twitter to develop a comparison between the roads built by the Incans, the Romans and the Persians. I established the hashtag #incaroads and wrote it on the board. (This is not any more complicated than saying to the students, "In every tweet, you must include this: #incaroads." Thus is a hashtag born...)
I should say at this point that my students had all created Twitter accounts earlier in the year, so I didn't have to spend time doing that. I do have a handful of students who maintain that they are "philosophically opposed to Twitter" for reasons they can't articulate. (All are inveterate Facebookers, so perhaps there is something there that interposes itself? brand loyalty?)
Students were then divided into groups covering one of three categories: Distance, Composition, and Purpose. Their task was to do some quick research to discover where the roads went and how far; how the roads were made and of what; and how the roads were used and by whom. They then were asked to tweet their answers, including web addresses for information (shortened using Bit.ly or tinyURL if needed) and images to help explain/show their topic. All included the #incaroads so they could be compiled.
They then made use of their Twitter apps (which got poor reviews) or either HootSuite or TweetDeck to view all the tweets in one place using #incaroads, and looked over each others' research. (I also projected the hashtag's feed for everyone to see--students were excited to see themselves "published.") Finally, they sent out a new tweet declaring which society made the better road using a new hashtag: #roadsmackdown. Though it wasn't required, some re-tweeted and responded to their peers in other sections, broadening the audience and providing feedback to each other about their arguments.
This was accomplished in a 45 minute period. (For the research, students made use of apps such as the Google search app, wikipanion, lightspeed browser and g-whizz to reach search engines.)
Benefits for the students:
#1 They got much more information than the textbook provided about a major aspect of Incan society.
#2 They realized that transportation was vital for an empire's growth and success.
#3 They learned that the Incas lived their lives both vertically and horizontally in the Andes.
#4 They compared three different societies use of technology and came to conclusions on their own about which was more advanced in the conception, formulation and application of transportation networks.
#5 They had fun being witty and pithy.
#6 They worked collaboratively to find the information, but independently to articulate it, and collaboratively to provide feedback on all aspects of their work.
#7 They practiced using a growing form of public expression responsibly.
Drawback for the students:
#1 Students who didn't use Twitter posted their findings to their blogs, but weren't a part of the "crowd" and felt left out. 3 of the 5 who initially didn't want to have a Twitter account signed up mid-way through the project to avoid this feeling.
#2 Some students felt confined and frustrated by the 140 character limitation of tweeting.
#3 There was some repetition of content in all three areas that made the hashtags cluttered.
#4 Some students forgot to use the hashtags and had to go back and re-Tweet, and a few students' Twitter feeds are private so they needed to take screenshots of their tweets and email them to me to post via my account.
Benefits for the teacher:
#1 I have a nearly instant ability to see who is getting it and who is not.
#2 Ditto for quality of research being done.
#3 All the student's responses were in one place, where they are easily viewed, discussed and assessed (Though this assignment was un-graded mostly because it was done in-class, which for me is rarely graded, and also because it is still a new way of doing things and I'd rather them get accustomed to it first.) But should I want to assess their work, it is very easy to do so.
#4 Pedagogically, there is the added bonus of a summarizer in place for all stages of the activity
#5 I now have a handy, student-created and vetted digital reference to use with future classes when discussing the Incas.
#6 No paper was used.
Last week, we were discussing the Incan society, and I was surprised at how little my students knew about both Aztec and Incan empires. So we set out to learn more than what the textbook had to offer, which was neither very much, nor very deep. As an in-class assignment, I had the students use Twitter to develop a comparison between the roads built by the Incans, the Romans and the Persians. I established the hashtag #incaroads and wrote it on the board. (This is not any more complicated than saying to the students, "In every tweet, you must include this: #incaroads." Thus is a hashtag born...)
I should say at this point that my students had all created Twitter accounts earlier in the year, so I didn't have to spend time doing that. I do have a handful of students who maintain that they are "philosophically opposed to Twitter" for reasons they can't articulate. (All are inveterate Facebookers, so perhaps there is something there that interposes itself? brand loyalty?)
Students were then divided into groups covering one of three categories: Distance, Composition, and Purpose. Their task was to do some quick research to discover where the roads went and how far; how the roads were made and of what; and how the roads were used and by whom. They then were asked to tweet their answers, including web addresses for information (shortened using Bit.ly or tinyURL if needed) and images to help explain/show their topic. All included the #incaroads so they could be compiled.
They then made use of their Twitter apps (which got poor reviews) or either HootSuite or TweetDeck to view all the tweets in one place using #incaroads, and looked over each others' research. (I also projected the hashtag's feed for everyone to see--students were excited to see themselves "published.") Finally, they sent out a new tweet declaring which society made the better road using a new hashtag: #roadsmackdown. Though it wasn't required, some re-tweeted and responded to their peers in other sections, broadening the audience and providing feedback to each other about their arguments.
This was accomplished in a 45 minute period. (For the research, students made use of apps such as the Google search app, wikipanion, lightspeed browser and g-whizz to reach search engines.)
Benefits for the students:
#1 They got much more information than the textbook provided about a major aspect of Incan society.
#2 They realized that transportation was vital for an empire's growth and success.
#3 They learned that the Incas lived their lives both vertically and horizontally in the Andes.
#4 They compared three different societies use of technology and came to conclusions on their own about which was more advanced in the conception, formulation and application of transportation networks.
#5 They had fun being witty and pithy.
#6 They worked collaboratively to find the information, but independently to articulate it, and collaboratively to provide feedback on all aspects of their work.
#7 They practiced using a growing form of public expression responsibly.
Drawback for the students:
#1 Students who didn't use Twitter posted their findings to their blogs, but weren't a part of the "crowd" and felt left out. 3 of the 5 who initially didn't want to have a Twitter account signed up mid-way through the project to avoid this feeling.
#2 Some students felt confined and frustrated by the 140 character limitation of tweeting.
#3 There was some repetition of content in all three areas that made the hashtags cluttered.
#4 Some students forgot to use the hashtags and had to go back and re-Tweet, and a few students' Twitter feeds are private so they needed to take screenshots of their tweets and email them to me to post via my account.
Benefits for the teacher:
#1 I have a nearly instant ability to see who is getting it and who is not.
#2 Ditto for quality of research being done.
#3 All the student's responses were in one place, where they are easily viewed, discussed and assessed (Though this assignment was un-graded mostly because it was done in-class, which for me is rarely graded, and also because it is still a new way of doing things and I'd rather them get accustomed to it first.) But should I want to assess their work, it is very easy to do so.
#4 Pedagogically, there is the added bonus of a summarizer in place for all stages of the activity
#5 I now have a handy, student-created and vetted digital reference to use with future classes when discussing the Incas.
#6 No paper was used.
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