Reflections on Digital Citizenship

I found Lisa Nielsen's framework for digital citizenship education especially powerful. She writes in terms of the importance of 1) Help teens take control of their digital footprint, 2) Help teens determine what their digital footprint says about them, and 3) Connect with others with your passions and interests.

In particular, the second component reminds me of the terms my middle school band teacher used to use in order to instruct us on appropriate behavior. I forget the exact words he used, but it was something along the lines of, "Your name is the only thing you've got. (Don't mess it up.)"

He was a bit of a legendary character; he had taught band at that middle school for decades, regularly (in his younger, pre-cancer days) went above and beyond to help out kids who were struggling in their personal lives, and maintained a stern, yet obviously caring demeanor that managed to keep all the trouble-maker middle schoolers in line (and inspire them).

Especially now that I'm lead teaching 120 eighth graders, I think about middle school psychology a lot. Now that the eighth graders are getting closer to high school ("lets blow this popsicle stand"), I notice more and more sassiness and unwillingness to follow direction simply because the authority figure said so. I think herein lies the brilliance of phrasing citizenship in terms of "Take control of your digital (or otherwise) footprint."

It is of utmost importance to teach in terms of how actions will affect students' lives, because otherwise sassy adolescents will disregard what they consider to be dated, (perhaps hypocritical) guidance from adults.

Thus, I really appreciate the fact that this piece took on a active student-focused tone, rather than the typical "students must be saved from online predators." Students should absolutely be approached as though they possess sufficient judgment to make decisions that are to their benefit. Assuming that adults can "save" students from the dangers of the internet is short-sighted; students must be trusted and trained to "save" themselves.

Vision for Technology Teach-In

For the Technology Teach-In assignment, I plan to use Poll Everywhere as an alternate method of class-wide discussion. In the social studies seminar last semester, our field instructor used this website a few times; in particular, I remember him posing open-ended questions and having us students reply via the website. As we finished up our paragraph-long responses, they would show up anonymously on the feed projected in front of the class. Thus, we were able to see our classmates' honest uncensored thoughts, which perhaps would have been impossible in the traditional class discussion format.

In my eighth grade U.S. History classes, I notice many students being wary of taking the risk of being wrong in front of their peers; the outcome is that I lose class participation as soon I try asking questions that demand higher order thinking. This is really too bad: these types of speculation questions have the capability of stimulating some of the most thought-provoking and interesting conversations. In my opinion, this sort of pondering and speculation is exactly what makes history so interesting; without it, history is as dull as my students think it is.

A secondary problem I notice (which I'm sure is common to all classrooms) is that we as a class hear from only the more outgoing or academically confident students. I remember my middle school experience: I was certainly too shy to ever voice my ideas in class, but at the same time I craved the times when the teacher would draw me out by cold calling on me, because I found it a lot more fun and satisfying to participate in class, even though I was too scared to volunteer to. I think I would have enjoyed voicing my thoughts via anonymous writing: this is lower stakes because any wrong answers I might come up with have no way of being attributed to me.

Thus, I'd like to create a hook activity using Poll Everywhere open-ended questions that ask students to consider the theme of the unit before having any formal instruction. The first unit I will be solely planning will be a unit on "An Era of Reform," which discusses reform movements of the 19th Century.

So far I have come up with the following questions:

What does reform mean?
What do you think of when you hear the term "reform movements"?
What sorts of issues are going through an era of reform, today?
What issues do you think need to be going through reform?

I plan to give the students 3-5 minutes for each answer. I will let them know that I expect substantial, thought-out answers (i.e. at least a paragraph). After each question, we will read through the answers and allow the ideas presented to stimulate a more traditional class discussion. Perhaps at the conclusion of the activity, I will ask students to write a paragraph of reflection on what they took away from the activity and what ideas they found most intriguing and why.

Thus, Poll Everywhere will add to my lesson by a) allowing all students to practice expressing their ideas through writing and b) allowing shyer or more insecure students to comfortably participate.

Thoughts on Edubloggers

I was quite inspired by Eric Langhorst's Speaking of History blog. In particular, I was drawn to his post on creating screencasts and videos for his students while away.

At the time of the post, he had recently returned from the Mount Vernon Missouri Teachers' Workshop, where he had spent the weekend learning about George Washington and Mount Vernon with fellow teachers. His enthusiasm for the trip was obvious: he took numerous gorgeous photos and was driven to create a six-minute screencast for his students explaining a particular aspect of what he had learned at the workshop.

He arranged a few of the photos he took showcasing the "rustication" on George Washington's house and created a voiceover that taken together present a thorough lesson on this method of building that was used in Washington's time. While still at the workshop, he had his sub show the screencast to his class. Thus, he managed to teach his class while away; not only this, he managed to allow his students a taste of the travel experience that he was able to enjoy.

More importantly, however, I believe that by revealing to his students his own affinity for being a lifelong learner of history, he modeled intellectual curiosity in a powerful and inspiring way. Furthermore, his screencast allowed students a glimpse at "doing history." Students are used to reading history textbooks which present historical events in a way that takes for granted the methods historians use to acquire such knowledge. In fact, the act of broadening our understanding of history is an inquiry-based, piece-by-piece process. By focusing the screencast on a rather limited subject: the material used to construct the house, and presenting it in the form of an inquiry/discovery, he showed his students the method used by historians to learn about the past.

I have not yet received a response from Eric. After using screencasting last week for the webinar project, however, I was excited to see an application of screencasting in a middle school classroom. I'd be curious to know if he has used screencasting since this September blog post.

Using Voice Thread in the Classroom

I was interested by the digital storytelling tool Voice Thread, presented by my classmates as their Tech Tools in Use project. For whatever reason, it took me some time to understand the purpose of such a tool. But, now that it has been a few weeks since the presentation, I find myself valuing the tool.

When I consider myself as a learner, I certainly learn best via conversation. In preparing for my own U-M classes, I generally read the assigned readings quite thoroughly, highlighting the sentences I consider to convey the main points. By the time I get to class, I have a vague idea of the purpose/main points of the readings. But, once I am able to discuss what I learned with my classmates, the act of a) considering the ideas more actively, b) putting my ideas into words (in order to convey them to classmates), and c) hearing myself and others speak the ideas helps me to retain them.  

Additionally, I notice that images stick in my brain quite reliably. Thus, when a teacher shows an image that captures my attention and simultaneously speaks the significance, I often have an easy time recalling what was said. My mental representation of the image helps me to recall what the teacher had been saying.

It seems Voice Thread is the perfect technological substitute for these two in-class activities I just discussed. Voice Thread can provide a virtual vocalized presentation of images that serve as attention-grabbing illustrations. And, similar to real-life conversations, ideas may stick in audio-oriented students’ brains, while the capability for student questions/comments allows for active engagement and participation.

Changing media of learning can often function as an attention-grabber for students who are becoming bored with the norm. In general, I feel that in-person discussion and in-person presentation/lecture are superior to a digital storytelling presentation. This is because in person, the presentation can and does change slightly to match the interests and personality of the particular class period. However, Voice Thread could serve as an excellent medium for work to be done either at home or during a sub day. While I certainly don’t think it should serve as a substitute for readings, I do think it could serve as an effective complement to ideas presented in readings.

Thoughts on Tom Ward's Presentation

I was thoroughly inspired by Tom Ward’s presentation on how he uses technology in his high school classroom. He showed the video he took of the JV point guard shooting a free throw; the video focused on the parabola the ball followed on its way from the player’s hands toward the basket. Tom explained how he used the video in class to ask the students to use math functions to figure out whether the ball eventually made it into the basket, based on the parabola function it followed. Later, he discussed how he has the students use their cell phones to complete Vine-style (short) video assignments to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of a concept. These assignments are completely open-ended and creative: it is up to the students how they want to demonstrate their knowledge. He justified the usefulness of such an assignment with a quote that he projected as part of his presentation; the quote was along the lines of, “Imagine the depth of understanding required when you can convey a concept in only six seconds.”

I love that these assignments demonstrate the connection between math and the real world, and that they require students to use the content taught to create something. I think it is so important that students grow up expecting that they will need to think outside the box, that the answers will not be given to them, and that they need to use whatever resources they can think of to find their way to “the answer.” In general, it seems the norm in schools is for all the answers to be given to students, either in the textbook, or in a teacher-given handout/outline, or in a teacher’s lecture/directions. While of course there is a time and place for the knowledgeable teacher to share his or her knowledge with the inexperienced students, there is also a time and a place for inexperienced students to gain “how-to,” problem-solving experience by trial and error. To me, it seems these Vine-style assignments ask students to do just this: produce a video that conveys this concept; the specifics of “how” is up to you.

I’d love to recreate this sort of project in my future history classroom. I really loved the idea that extreme conciseness demonstrates thorough understanding. I think in history there is certainly something to be said for longer, detailed stories. But, when it comes to history concepts the same “conciseness=understanding” rule can be applied. Thus, perhaps I could ask students to create Vine-style videos that convey history concepts such as change over time, comparison/contrast, contextualization, sourcing, and primary vs. secondary documents.

Thoughts on CAD

I looked over Holly, Stephen, and Matt's lesson plan on teaching linear functions. It seems that in addition to teaching traditionally how to plot points, graph a line based on a given linear equation, and derive the equation given it's graph, the group decided to allow students to use the app Geogebra.

I quickly looked over the Geogebra website; it seems it provides a way to manipulate graphs of functions in a far easier and more fluid fashion than basic pen and paper allows. The app reminds me of my college statistics course, which used a number of computer programs or websites that allowed for similar manipulation of data. In my experience, these sorts of simulations can be enormously helpful in understanding otherwise abstract concepts.

In addition, these sorts of computer manipulations provide a certain "fun" aspect to math problems. For me, clicking around on a computer screen and watching the effects is just fun on a very basic level; when this activity is connected to a mathematical equation (that would otherwise seem quite dry on the paper) this computer-based fun converts to educational computer-based fun.

I envision that this lesson would take place in the school's computer lab. Already, the act of hosting class in a different location than the norm makes the class exciting for adolescent students. By adding visually stimulating software to the lesson, this basic algebra class could be especially engaging.

Organizing Myself via online new-fangleD gadgetz

As part of our last class of the semester, we were assigned to present to our fellow classmates on how to use one of three online organization/teaching tools. While I wish I could write a long excited post about how useful these websites will be, how I'm thoroughly inspired and can't wait to learn more about how to bring myself into the future via web-based magic, I just don't find myself feeling this way.

The idea of going paperless, the idea of having new websites inspire creative streaks in me that I never knew I had, the idea of creating for my classes presentations so visually pleasing they look as if they were professionally done by graphic artists...these ideas are all so appealing. And yet I feel as though I am just simply deaf to the beckoning of new technologies and the world wide web.

Maybe I'm just still not comfortable and skilled enough to enjoy using web-based applications to create lessons. Maybe with time I'll get the hang of it and enjoy it more. But I can't help but feeling as if all these technologies are simply details to a teacher's practice that will neither make a mediocre teacher great nor will the lack of their use make a great teacher mediocre.

I believe that with interesting material to present and an understanding of how to engage my students, my teaching can be effective and inspiring. I still feel that the best methods of learning are simply conversation and discussion (i.e. interpersonal sharing of ideas). In my experience, fancy presentations never engaged me in a boring lesson; only dynamic teaching did. And a dynamic teacher with minimal visuals certainly did not bore me.

So, I'm happy to learn about up and coming technologies and the pervading philosophies regarding the presence of these technologies in the classroom. I like to live in the present; I like to know about the new-fangled-gadgets that surround me. I'm just not personally interested for my own use.