Strategic and Capable Use of Techology

CCSS: They use technology and digital media strategically and capably. 

http://www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_ELA%20Standards.pdf  

Unless students and educators are exposed to digital tools, how will they make decisions about the strategic use of these tools? Play in a sandbox.

Play in a sandbox?

Teachers are smart; that’s why they are teachers. They are also busy. Part of your PD strategy needs to include building a sandbox.

At what point did we decide that every moment of professional development must include an expert standing in front of the room talking? Who decided that we must focus on one tool? Suppose your PD is focusing on collaboration as a skill, invite your teachers to a day of play. Take 5 minutes to introduce a collaboration tool. Then take another 5 minutes to introduce a second one. After you’ve introduced a few, give them the chance to play. Require them to collaborate with each other to share how they could use this tool professionally, personally, and with their students. Then, give them the time to do it. Build an online collaborative workspace where they will share their work with the other teachers at the conclusion of the day.

Pennsylvania is filled with wikis. Teachers have been using wikis for at least 6 years now. When CFF Coaches introduced the wiki concept to students, most of the kids had never used a wiki. The same is true for Google Docs. The ins and outs of these tools come naturally to our students, once they are exposed to them. Then, once exposed, they need to be given the freedom to choose the right tool for the job. If they are expert in using one movie making tool, then why are we forcing them to use another? The tool doesn’t matter. It’s what students do with it that matters.

If a student knows how to use a tool more effectively and efficiently than you or another student, take advantage of that knowledge. Encourage them to share. There is so much out there; none of us can be expected to be experts in everything. It’s about using the right tool at the right time to effectively and creatively communicate your message or to critically analyze the problem to be solved.

It's about being strategic and capable.

CCSS: Digital Tools as Part of the Whole

From the CCSS: 

Research and media skills blended into the Standards as a whole 

We are getting closer. The Common Core State Standards address the use of digital tools in the classroom. There is not a separate set of standards called “technology”.  Instead, the skills – research and media skills – are blended into the standards as a whole. At first I was concerned about that; however, once I took a deep dive into the standards, I realized that this is the way it should be. Think about the whole.

Those of us who understand that the promise of technology is to transform education also realize that the promise has been there for 25-30 years. We also know that this promise has not been realized. Why? One of the reasons is that we’ve been treating technology as something extra – something we need to talk about separately from education. Teacher professional development was on tools rather than on pedagogy or critical thinking skills that could be transformed with technology. We offered Wacky Wiki Wednesdays rather than Building a Collaborative Workspace to Enhance Research. We’ve also been using brand new tools to do the same things we’ve been doing for 50 years. All we did was add electricity. These tools do things that we never before knew was possible. So, why have we been using them to do the same old stuff? One of the reasons is because the skills and tools that our students need in this economy, in this connected world, in their world have been called technology and, as a result, treated separately.

We are getting closer. The Common Core State Standards treat them as part of the whole.

This series of blog posts will talk about how your district can blend these skills into the Standards.

Classrooms for TODAY!

I was very privileged to be a Mentor for Coaches in Pennsylvania’s Classrooms for the Future (CFF) initiative. This year, I’m asking educators, “What do Classrooms for Today look like?”

Collaborating – Creating – Communicating – Critical Thinking

A Classroom for Today is some combination of the Common Core Standards, Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTs), blended learning, online learning, flipped classrooms, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), and reading, writing, speaking, and listening across all subject areas. The list goes on and on. How do all of these good ideas become a cohesive classroom for today rather than individual silos?

Let’s talk about it.

In the upcoming weeks, I’ll be blogging about the intersection of the Common Core Standards and Digital Tools. I hope you’ll join me in the conversation.

You can get an email notice each time I post to the blog, by adding your email address in the Follow By Email box.

Please join me!

 

Should we be teaching the tool?

Part II: Today, let’s talk about teaching the tool.

Our second topic was whether or not we should be teaching tools. There are many who believe that we should only teach the features of a tool that are needed for the job at hand. At the same time, the Common Core Standards require students to make strategic decisions about which digital tools to use. So, if we only teach what is needed at the time, then how is a user to know what the possibilities are so that a strategic decision can be made? How will they know if the tool to use is a table in a word processor or a spreadsheet? When would it be appropriate to share their desktops vs. creating a series of slides? When should they use a movie to tell a story?

Sometimes it’s hard to think outside the box, when you don’t know what is inside it. This engineer commented that he has seen way too many presentations that focused too much on the tool’s bells and whistles and not enough on the content. He’s seen documents with all kinds of formatting, when all that was needed was text on the page. Precious time was wasted, time that could have gone into creative thinking rather than into making a pretty page. So, from his perspective, that person knew too much about the tool!

So, how much do we teach our students about a tool? This engineer’s opinion? Teach me what I need to know to use the tool, then teach me how to learn more when I need it or they change it.

During my early days of delivering training (and I chose those words purposefully), I taught everything there was to know about a tool. Many of my students would have little opportunity to use those features in the near future, and they would lose the learning. As I began to facilitate professional learning opportunities, the learning became more authentic and project-based – just like in your classroom. It was then that the learning began to stick. Now, reflection is part of my repertoire, and those in my workshops are encouraged to make connections to their learning  - how they will use it back in the classroom.

Do I think that we need to teach our students the tool? Yes, to the extent that they have a solid foundation in its possibilities, so that they can later strategically determine when it makes sense to use it.

If they can Google it, should we assess it?

I think it’s really important for educators to talk with non-educators – those who are in the fields where many of our students will work. It gives us a different perspective. I was talking with an electrical engineer this weekend. From what I understand, he spends a lot of time studying the flow of blood cells. We had an interesting conversation that got me to thinking about two things: assessment and teaching the tool.

Part I - Today, let’s talk about assessment.

When I asked if his children could bring their own devices to school, he said that they could not BYOD due to a concern about cheating. My response was, “If they can Google it, then should they be asking the kids to answer the question on a graded assessment?” Considering the deep thinking he does in his area of expertise, I figured he’d answer no they should not. I was wrong. So, we talked about the need for foundational knowledge. We all need to know our multiplication tables. We need to be able to spell. We need certain factual knowledge in order to do higher order thinking with it. Unless we fill in the blanks at the lower end of Bloom’s Taxonomy, make connections to the content we are reading and writing about, and build on our prior knowledge, we are  not going to be able to analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and create new meaning. However, if that foundational knowledge is readily available to our students, should we be testing them on it? Or should we be testing them on how they use it? Is the concern about cheating reason enough for not allowing students to bring devices to school?

As our conversation progressed, he commented that you can search all you want for facts and figures; however, he noted that they are often going to be out of context or embedded into content – content that a student may or may not understand. So, I ask, is cheating really the concern?

As technology becomes omnipresent, this is a conversation we need to have.