It's Not about the Tool

The following video reminds me that everything we do with technology in our classrooms is about the learning and not about the tool, or the trick, or the latest fad or buzz word of the moment. Technology used during the learning process to engage students in ways that are natural to them is powerful.





Mitch Resnik feels that real learning can be likened to lifelong Kindergarten. Think about this. Kids naturally collaborate, do research, create, present, and network easily (Chris Lehmann). We may not have Siftables available to us, yet, but we have Web. 2.0 tools that can help kids use these natural learning tendencies to become creative thinkers by extending the kindergarten approach to all parts of their lives. A wiki, for example, is a great tool for helping students organize all aspects of their leaning. The most important part of using these tools is to help our kids be creative and make connections that might otherwise be missed. This goes beyond making learning easier or faster. It goes to the heart of learning itself and engaging kids in ways that are natural to them.

I am very intrigued by the potential Siftables offer us. They connect the wooden blocks we all used in kindergarten (and still use today-Scrabble, Jenga, Tangrams, anyone?), with a technology that helps mimic the way or brains and bodies work.

For teachers, this is key: How are you using technology to help kids learn?

Skype Me!

Fremd Applied Technology Teacher, Mike Karasch, had a dilemma during Open House last fall; how to be in two places at one time. Mike is teaching classes at Fremd and Conant High Schools this year and both schools had Open House scheduled for the same day and time. Star Trek transporter technology is not a reality, yet, so, transporting him physically from one school to another was not an option. Mike was able to overcome this dilemma, however, by using his free Skype account to broadcast his Open House presentation from Conant to his class of parents at Fremd. His department chair, Paul Hardy, made sure the classroom projector was turned on in his Fremd classroom and also set the computer to receive the Skype video. Parents commented very positively on this use of technology as they were able to see Mike and ask him questions as if he were in the classroom with them.

Mike’s use of Skype reflects a growing trend among teachers who are using Skype technology to bring guest speakers into their classrooms. Authors, poets, scientists, adults with unique careers, the town historian, and parents, are just a few examples of people who might be interested in sharing some of their expertise and time with your students. A survey of your own students may reveal one or many speaker resources you could tap instantly.

Teachers are also using Skype to hold conferences and collaborate with students in other classrooms all over the world. ePals is an excellent resource for teachers who would like to collaborate with other teachers on projects. The Skype in Schools wiki is a virtual guest speaker network for educators. I’m willing to bet teachers in our own school district could create a similar wiki directory that would benefit all D211 teachers and anyone else who happens to visit the wiki. The Global School Network is a site that has over 3000 collaborative projects you can join. GSN also has ideas for teachers who wish to start their own collaborative project.

Bringing outside speakers into your classroom is an authentic way to help your students make contact with people who are practicing what you are teaching. Letting students contact potential speakers is a great way for them to take ownership of their learning. Our World Language students could make real connections with students in different countries. Imagine being able to converse with native speakers during class time!

The kids who are coming through school now, if you can't give them a real-wold connection to what they're learning, they turn off. They're not with you.
-Helen Gooch, Instructional Technology Coordinator for the Clarksville-Montgomery County School System in Tennessee

I encourage you to visit Vicki Davis’ blog post about using Skype in the classroom. She has a short video on the blog that will provide you with some very helpful tips for getting started with Skype. I would be happy to help you brainstorm ways you can use Skype with your students.

You may also want to visit:
Using Skype at School
See Me, Hear Me: Skype in the Classroom

Do you use Skype in the classroom? If so, please share what you do.
What questions do you have about Skype? What do you think are some hurdles you would have to overcome in order to use Skype in your classroom? How can I help you explore the use of Skype with your students?

By the way, Skype me at michael.bachrodt.

Technology Proficiency 2.0

My last post asked you to share the 'technologies' you think our students should be taking with them after they graduate and why you think these technologies are important. My thoughts on this topic are based on how I see students using technology today outside of the classroom and are very different from what I would have said five years ago. This may come as a surprise, but, I think the most important technology tools students should take with them when they leave high school are those that have helped them become connected to others.

I lean towards the constructivist side of learning. By that, I mean, and very simply, that students build knowledge through their own experiences. Technology tools can play an important role for teachers and students in this regard. Social networks, in particular, allow students to connect and learn from one another’s experiences in order to construct their own understanding about a topic. Many of you are already using Web 2.0 tools as social networks such as blogs, wikis, online storage sites, Delicious bookmarks, Bubbl.us concept mapping, etc., in your classrooms. In fact, blogs and wikis are the two most common tools I see when I peruse teacher websites and these are a great start. I am so proud of you for taking a risk and exploring how these tools help students connect. You are already on your way to helping students learn to evaluate resources, organize information, and communicate with one another as well as with experts they may contact. These are some of the most important skills our students will use the rest of their lives.

Wendy Drexler, has created a short four minute video (I also have it below) that nails this idea of students being connected as learners. Given enough time, resources, and desire, this video paints a picture of what our classrooms could look like. Wendy says it best near the end of the video when she describes the teacher role as:

• Learning Architect
• Modeler
• Learning Concierge
• Connected Learning Incubator
• Network Sherpa
• Synthesizer
• Change Agent
  

Wendy has also made the transcript of this video available for you!

So, what do you think? Is this realistic for you? Please let me know if you would like to explore other tools such as RSS, RSS readers, Ning, Skype, podcasts, Twitter, wiki's, Zoho, Google groups, Wordle, VoiceThread,(or pick my brain to see what else is out there!), that will help you move towards building a classroom of networked students.

What I Voted For

I voted today and I would like to share not who I voted for, but some of what I voted for and how this might relate to our use of technology. I voted for giving people the chance to share their knowledge and to collaborate with one another to solve problems. I voted for empowering people to take charge of their own lives rather than being told how their lives will be helped or changed. I voted for a strong work ethic. I voted for the hope that technology will be viewed as a tool any generation of user can adapt to, learn from, benefit from, and, most importantly, engage in a wider (global?) conversation with because our world is an investment in ourselves and our future.

We have the power to take ourselves anywhere we desire; whether it is to a physical location on this planet, (or another), or to a different point in our own understanding of what we think we currently know. We can learn in order to get there. Generation-We is growing up but they need to become digital citizens. They are so much like us, learners who believe they can make a difference. What are WE doing in our classes to help them?

Our students share. Do we? Do we know what other educators are doing in the next classroom or school? Do we care? I voted for the chance to share our knowledge. We can share by talking with one another as colleagues and using online storage sites, online photo sharing sites, blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc. to make 'our' work available anytime, anywhere for others.

Our students collaborate. Do we? How often do we give and get nothing back, not even a 'Thank You!"? I am not smarter or a better teacher than you but I can work with you to create something truly magical our students can use to help them learn. I can personally become better at my craft as I glean a little bit of what you do, too. Do we encourage our students to collaborate in the classroom? I voted for giving people the chance to help. We can collaborate by using OneNote, wikis, and blogs, to name a few technology tools.

Our students think. It is our job to help them think creatively and constructively. Engage them. We can teach them to use paper and electronic resources to help them attack a problem, question, or issue, to form opinions and to be heard. We can help them learn to use Web 2.0 tools to organize their research.

Our students communicate. Do we? Certainly we can with one another as we sit in our offices. Let's expand the communication. Do you read periodicals and blogs regularly that are written by teachers or experts in a subject? Do you communicate/contribute your own thoughts to the blog? Do your students blog or contribute to your classroom blog? You and your students do have something to say. It is humbling to find others thinking and writing about topics, ideas, and uses for technology that I would not think about or even know about had I not read their blog. It is satisfying to find others sharing the same concerns, hopes, and dreams for education and technology that I do. It is gratifying to be able to contribute and learn from, benefit from, and engage in wide conversations.

Maybe we use Skype to communicate. Let's bring a scientist, author, accountant, musician, mathematician, coach, athlete, secretary, CEO, plumber, doctor, nurse, and parent, into our classroom and have live dialogues using Skype. We can communicate and technology will help in ways not possible before.

How do you see our students? What did you vote for?

Web 2.0 School

Scott Weidig and I are teaching a Web 2.0 School course this summer. We have broken the 5 day course (four hours/day) into Organizational tools, Social Networking, and Utility Tools. The remaining two days will be devoted to the participants creating lessons that can use the tools they find will support the lesson. Please visit the wiki to see the course and please feel free to explore any of the items on the site. Some of the wiki pages will look familiar because they are taken directly from the Fremd TechSpot wiki which is geared for Fremd Teachers. The Web 2.0 School wiki will be reserved for the class.

Today is the third day of the course and we have let the teachers go out on their own to discover everything they can about the tools listed under the Utility section of the wiki. The teachers are continually showing one another what they can do with the tools. Brainstorming classroom applications has become the mantra for the day.

I just observed Darrell Robin (SHS English teacher) and Karl Craddock (FHS Science teacher) having a conference call using Drop.io, an online storage site. The beauty of this tool is that you can 'drop' a file, fax, voicemail, etc. to the site and visit it from anywhere, anytime. Imagine students in a class conferencing live while looking at a document that someone has dropped for others to view. Drop.io could be the answer for teachers who want a place where students drop an assignment for the teacher to pick-up later. Drop.io has a widget feature that allows you to put it on your blog or website. So, students could visit your blog or school website and click on the 'Drop' icon and turn in their assignment right there. They are not able to see other files that have been dropped in so confidentiality is maintained. This offers a little more flexibility than relying on a drop folder on our Extras drive that one would have to access from school or via NetStorage.

Below is an example of a cartoon created by Karl Craddock. I've saved this as a delicious bookmark to most of you, by the way! Karl experimented with ToonDoo as part of his 'assignment' for the class. Is that a thong I am wearing? Enjoy the laugh but be sure to let us know your classroom applications! I can already see the World Language teachers jumping on this one!

Another example of a relatively new Web 2.0 tool that we investigated is Wordle. This tool lets you turn text into a visual 'map' that shows the frequency of certain words by making them larger than others. This is a wonderful tool for pre-reading a selection and getting the gist of what the selection is trying to convey. Below is an example of a Wordle that visually shows the highlights from a reading selection about using tags! Many options are available for your Wordle. Try it out and let us know how you might use it with your students!



I am very excited to follow these teachers as they finish creating their wikis, blogs, drops, Wordles, and other applications using Web 2.0 tools. Feedback from these teachers will help Scott and I tailor the course to meet the needs of teachers. I also look forward to learning how these tools are actually impacting their classroom teaching and student learning. You can help by sharing what you do with these tools or any form of technology. There is not much data out there on how the use of technology is affecting 21st Century teaching and learning so any data we can gather will help support or even disprove the notion that technology is, indeed, helping.

The Five Phases of Flattening a Classroom

Please take a moment to read this excellent blog posting by Ryan Bretag. Here is a teaser...

"...this article isn't another push for organizations to embrace a collaborative learning culture. It is a push for teachers to stop waiting for the organization and become a collaborative professional learner by changing fundamental behaviors inhibiting this and embracing action items that will allow it to happen."

Off you go, then. Don't come back here until you've read the post!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading his blog post and commented on it at that site. I am including my comment below, as well. It's in green.

I thought about our Fremd house as I read the post. I am seeing a good amount of collaboration among teachers at Fremd and I like to think our continued use of technology is partly to thank. For example, teachers ask teachers how to do this and that with the new tablet PCs and it is my hope that these conversations continue and include more talk and walk about best practices in their teaching. They are replacing old practices with better ones in the hopes that students learn better. Way to go, I say!

The key to this is managing your time by collaborating with others in your personal teaching network so that your teaching bag is full of tools for all kinds of learners. You won't have to worry about having enough time to collaborate becuase collaboration is part of what you do everyday. All of us took time in the past to learn how to be the teacher who continually looks at our own teaching and student learning with a critical eye toward continued improvement. I am so proud of so many teachers at Fremd who practice their teaching and student learning this way. Collaboration has become a way of life and survival for them as it was for me when I was in the classroom. As Ryan states, 'What if your students told you they did not have time to learn your subject?'

My comment to Ryan's post....
Closing the door to learning is key for me. This is what I encounter most often from teachers. The reason? Time. But this is 'false' time. Many teachers continually think teaching 21st Century skills are just something else to add to their already full plate instead of realizing that collaboration with colleagues will always keep that plate fairly clean! [This may seem like a confusing statement but it is very clear once you move this way!]

Second, the notion that a teacher is an independent contractor who can, and often will, do what they darn well please in 'their' classroom regardless of school/district goals is a very real attitude. Professional Learning Communities force teachers to expose themselves, as you say, and for many, this is frightening. Yet, this is what we expect students to do on a daily basis in a collaborative classroom.

Alfie Kohn, 'What to Look for in a Classroom,' (1998), mentions cooperative learning can be threatening because

1. it reduces control and predictability,
2. it demands attention to social goals,
3. it challenges our commitment to individualism, and
4. it challenges our commitment to the value of competition.

The same things could also be said about teacher collaboration and personal professional development. There is comfort in familiarity and teaching the same way year after year is easy. Teachers have to be reminded to 'see' students. What works for this student may not work for the next. What are your options? Collaborate with colleagues (near and far!) for they may have some thoughts worth thinking about and implementing. Explore Web 2.0 tools and the possiblities they offer for differentiated instruction.

Ask one simple question everyday, "Are the students actually learning anything?" It's not our plates that should be full but our bag of teaching tools that should be overflowing. This comes from "exploring, challenging, refining, and enhancing your professional practice" [everyday].