What the Tech?

Working through questions about technology and education

Month: March 2020

Learning with Digital Tools in Kindergarten

March 28, 2020 / / 1 Comment

free images Hagerty Ryan

This week’s class, we looked into design thinking, open data, and citizen science. There was a lot going on and in reflecting on it, I found myself inspired for an activity to do with my kindergarten class should online classes go ahead. Normally, in Spring, our class would go for daily, morning walks in our neighbourhood. It is normally a highlight for the students as many of them do not seem to get outside enough. I was already thinking about the problem of how to get my students out into the neighbourhood, learning about nature and our community. Maybe it is not quite a wicked problem as it need not be a one-shot operation and I retain the right to make room for trial and error.

T. Westwood

 

When I saw the Project Noah Website, the wheels began to turn for an outdoor activity or set of outdoor activities for my students that would address the science, math, social studies curriculum that we usually approach each Spring. What if I gave my students a photo or video mission each week? Then I thought about the Padlet we used in class this week and thought that might be an easy way to share and sort our photos and videos. Perhaps a different mini-mission for each day of the week.

Because of social distancing, I would need to create a schedule for arriving at certain destinations so students are not clustering at any one place at any one time. Other potential problems would include: children cannot find an adult willing to take them out; children do not have access to digital tools; or the province goes into lockdown and children are not permitted to leave home. The third one would be likely be the biggest one, but being in the suburbs, many of our students have access to backyards. Perhaps, I could make missions accessible while staying in a car. Many of our students have access to back yards. Many of our students have access to technology at home. We may have to share the data of fewer children but it would still be fun to talk, draw, and write about.

Now the websites that we looked at this week were focused on citizen science and data collection. I would not be able to monitor the data collection of my students so we could not contribute to any public citizen science projects, but we certainly could look at the photos together, talk about whether they had photographed the same squirrel more than once, or if they had thoroughly searched an area for insects. We could analyze, sort, and graph our own data and talk about how accurate we think it is.

Anyway, I digress.

What kinds of digital tools promote and encourage critical thinking? 

In Kindergarten, we encourage critical thinking through provocations. We could give them deep questions to explore, or we could start with their wonderings and help them formulate deep questions to explore. We could give them a solution and ask them to find out how to get there, or we can give them access to materials to create and invent. Children come into kindergarten at different stages. Some walk in with a well developed growth mindset, ready to experiment, explore, try, fail, and try again. On the other hand, some have never learned how to lose or fail, or to try something on their own, or to persist.

So what digital tools promote and encourage critical thinking? What digital tools act as provocations? The most significant tool we have handed children in kindergarten is a tablet such as iPad. A study by Couse and Chen (2010), found that not only can young children learn quickly how to use a tablet to represent their ideas and learning, but also that they were seldom frustrated with setbacks and persisted in their work. When you hand an iPad to child, they are happy to play with it. The brightly coloured little icons and tactile functions are easy to use independently. It seems that most children readily adopt a growth mindset when it comes to digital technology.

Of course, there are many ways a child can interact with an iPad that engage little critical thinking. But even games can leave space for critical thinking. I am not referring to educational software that would be characterized as review-and-drill games. Games for children that encourage critical thinking require players to create something and/or make decisions that contribute to the story; this could be as simple as creating your character or avatar (Ellison & Solomon, 2018).

In kindergarten, digital tools that enable children to express their thinking include speech to text technology, cameras, video recording, voice recording, and fun expression apps such as Draw and Tell, PuppetPals HD, and ChatterPix Kids. These tools, once they know the basics to use them, are engaging provocations. When it came to PuppetPals HD, all I did was point it out and show one child the basics. Soon there was a crowd of four and they were all playing, learning, and creating a story together. It is important to give them a chance to play with technology.

The tools that allow them to explain their thinking with their own voice recording eliminate the mechanical barrier of printing which, for developing writers, can be time consuming and interrupts the process of expressing their thinking. Tools that allow them to express their thoughts with pre-made images or stickers eliminate the mechanical barrier of drawing which, for children still developing fine motor skills, also affects the fluidity of expression (Arrowood & Overall, 2004).

So what tools  promote and encourage critical thinking in Kindergarten?  The best tools for kindergarten are the ones that spark curiosity and wonder, the ones that motivate and encourage persistence, and the ones that facilitate expression.

 

Bibliography

Arrowood, D., & Overall, T. (2004). Using Technology to Motivate Children to Write: Changing Attitudes in Children and Preservice Teachers. Proceedings of SITE 2004–Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference (Pp. 4985-4987). Atlanta, GA, USA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)., 4985–4987.

Buchanan, R. (1992). Wicked Problems in Design Thinking. Design Issues, 8(2), 5–21. JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/1511637

Couse, L. J., & Chen, D. W. (2010). A Tablet Computer for Young Children? Exploring its Viability for Early Childhood Education. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 43(1), 75–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2010.10782562

Ellison, T. L., & Solomon, M. (2018). Digital Play as Purposeful Productive Literacies in African American Boys. The Reading Teacher, 71(4), 495–500. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1657

Rosling, H. (2006). The best stats you’ve ever seen. https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen

 

Crap Detection and Covid-19

March 22, 2020 / / 3 Comments

These are unprecedented times.  It is more important than ever to be skeptical about what we read on the internet.  This week, I decided to try out Powtoon for part of my post.

 

Crap Detection Powtoon

If you are going to spread collective intelligence, you should not do so without verifying the truth, especially if it counters what is generally believed to be true. On the other hand, if something pops up on the internet that is generally believed to be untrue, people are more willing to jump in to disprove it. This disturbing video of a killer whale attacking a man instantly set off my crap detectors and I was quickly able to ascertain that it was an edited version of a seal attack. Why was I on it so quickly? I believe it was because I really like killer whales and I did not want it to be true.

There are plenty of claims out there that I have less interest in and seem relatively harmless so I discount them without looking further. Sometimes, the certainty is not worth my time, especially if I have no desire to pass it along, like it, share it, or talk about it. Other times, if I think I might want to pass it along, I will run the claim through Snopes first. The only time I really check into sources by examining authors, web site owners, or triangulating is if it is an opinion someone might argue against me about or something academic.

Should we teach Gillmor’s Five Principles of Media Consumption in school (Rheingold, 2012)? In Kindergarten, I would absolutely start teaching students about reliable and safe websites. I would definitely talk to them about the being careful of what someone might be trying to sell you. These points are prescribed for Kindergarten and other grades in BC’s Digital Literacy Framework. Also, in the framework, is the notion of handling requests for private information. The more that children understand how their input affects the internet’s output, the better.

When exploring the internet, everyone would benefit from being skeptical of what they find, thoughtful in their judgement, open minded to opposing views, aware of their filter bubble, persistent in asking questions, and educated in ways to verify information and sources.

 

References (Text and Video)

Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2020, March 17). In the coronavirus pandemic, we’re making decisions without reliable data. STAT. https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

Maragakis. (2020). Coronavirus Disease 2019 vs. The Flu. John Hopkins Medicine. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-disease-2019-vs-the-flu

Rettner, R. (2020, March 17). How does the new coronavirus compare with the flu? Livescience.Com. https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-compare-with-flu.html

Rheingold, H. (2012). Crap Detection 101: How to Find What You Need to Know, and How to Decide If It’s True. In Net Smart: How to Thrive Online (pp. 76–109). The MIT Press. https://hci.stanford.edu/courses/cs047n/readings/rheingold-net-smart.pdf

 

Thoughts on BC’s Digital Literacy Framework

March 15, 2020 / / 5 Comments

This week, we had a chat with Dr. Tim Winklemans, Graduation Lead for Graduation, Skills and Distance Learning for the BC Government and one of the minds behind BC’s Digital Literacy Framework. According to Winklemans, just over ten years ago, then BC Premier, Christy Clark, made a promise to ensure every student would be digitally literate at an early age. In order to sort out exactly what that meant, a working group convened and consulted with educators, trustees, and other people in the school system. Through their process, they identified the National Education Technology Standards Framework, a set of standards set out by the International Society for Technology in Education, or ISTE. In exploring the framework, they found it to be comprehensive and suitable as a starting point for BC. They also liked that it included supporting resources for educators. With a few adjustments, they incorporated the standards into BC’s Digital Literacy Framework. Somewhere along the way, the group expanded the scope of the project to include students from Kindergarten to Grade 12, rather than just learners at “an early age”.  The final document also lists Common Sense Media’s K-12 Digital Literacy and Citizenship Curriculum and European Commission’s Online Consultation on Experts’ Views on Digital Competence as sources. Without the funding to widely promote and support the implementation of BC’s then new framework, it was published on the BC Government’s website.

The failure of the BC government to get behind BC’s Digital Literacy Framework and fund its promotion is perhaps the reason I had never seen it before the last summer. I have asked many teachers in my school if they know it and they do not. Ten years after its creation, it is now in need of updating. On the current Digital Literacy website, they appear to have taken some time to tie in BC’s Core Competencies but the document itself is missing some important elements. As Dr. Winklemans pointed out himself, it does not address principles of learning and worldviews of indigenous peoples. Also, he admits it does not specifically address inclusion and diversity. It mentions communicating through email, instant messaging, and video conferencing, but does not address popular social media such as Instagram, Snapchat, Tinder, Bumble, and TikTok.

Doug Belshaw TEDx

After watching Doug Belshaw’s TEDx, I agree that there is a need to include a focus on students’ interests and the eight essential elements of digital literacies. With planned activities, appropriate cognitive, constructive, communicative, civic, creative, critical, confident, and cultural elements can be maximized. In Kindergarten and the primary grades, there will need to be room to learn the basic skills but then there needs to be plenty of time to play with technology. I am not talking about playing with educational games but they may play a role. I am talking about taking a photo and editing it with text and drawing tools, being silly on video, creating drawings with paint tools and stickers, animating play dough, telling stories, making puppet shows, taking pictures of clouds and adding audio or text about what they see, or goofing around in front of a green screen. If it is a job, children are nervous and shy, but if it is play, they can create great things! Play allows children to encounter the eight elements through exploration and experimentation which is certainly more intrinsically motivating than following a set of instructions to do a job for the teacher.

With regards to Belshaw’s criticism of linear frameworks, I can see a few points on the BC’s framework that can be introduced or modelled by the teacher earlier than the recommended grade. For example, a teacher can model increased accuracy in keyword searches; instead of having a video cued up and ready to show, the teacher can search for the video and show the children how to use details and the video filter. As another example, instead of reading a book about a subject, the teacher can search for and evaluate a variety of media in front of the class, explaining their thinking about which source to use. If we start talking about and modelling these skills in Kindergarten, they will be much less pixelated by the time they progress to grade three where the framework recommends they should be addressed.

I doubt anyone would deny that BC’s Digital Framework needs a refresh. The rapidly changing nature of technology demands that updates be more frequent than once in more than ten years. What would be more useful than a static document would be a more fluid resource in the form of a well maintained web page. But it seems that providing educators with a resource was not the goal so much as quietly voicing the opinion of the provincial government. Maybe someday, they will create an updated resource and back it up with some funding so that educators know it exists.

 

A Quick Blip About the Group Project

Our group includes Jeremy, Sean, Trevor, and me which puts us in the tricky position of trying to find a project that works for Kindergarten and high school woodshop and everything in between.  We decided to create a project centred around How-to videos.  Originally, we thought we would create a How-To How-To Video but with the spread of grade levels, we started talking about a web site or blog site.  We created a Trello page for the group and have been brainstorming in a Google Doc. We’ve talked about what it might look like at each of our respective levels but we have not filled the spaces in between. Our ideations look like a jumbled mess right now but I am looking forward to figuring it all out and making something useful.

The Ground Floor

March 9, 2020 / / 1 Comment

This week marks the beginning of a new course in my Master’s journey, EDCI 572, Development and Implementation of Curriculum.  The task at hand is to reflect on my own perspectives and experiences of digital storytelling. My own personal experience with digital storytelling has mostly been as a receiver not as a creator.  Before starting this Master’s program, the closest I got to creating would likely be word processing and email.  As I attempted to video record myself for this blog post, I discovered how much anxiety recording my face and my voice gives me.  So I fell back into a text blog.  In type, I have nothing I feel compelled to hide.

At the present, as a Kindergarten teacher, I use FreshGrade to document student learning, usually through my iPad or iPhone. We use photos with voice over or video to capture their thoughts, not mine. In most cases, I am the one behind the camera. Most are happy to have their photo taken but when it comes to video, many need encouragement and prompts or questions to talk about. They need reminders to speak loudly enough or to face the direction of the recording device so their voices are not lost. Quality control is minimal. If I can get one take that has the elements we need covered in it, it’s time to move on. They are usually happy with anything they do at this age and they really don’t want to spend time doing retakes because playtime awaits! To be honest, I don’t have a lot of time either. There’s only so much attention I can give to it when there are up to 19 other little people running around.

I consider my students to be on the ground floor in using digital technology. We don’t know exactly what the kids have learned to do at home so far. Maybe they’ve never picked up a digital tool before, maybe they video call Grandma every week, maybe they make regular contributions to YouTube, who knows? Maybe they have some bad habits. Maybe they need to learn about privacy. Maybe their parents are so concerned about privacy, they’re not allowed on the internet at all. Some of these kids aren’t even allowed to watch tv.

While we do have access to desktop computers, I choose not to use them because iPads are so much more accessible for little learners.  Also, it takes 4 and 5 year olds almost the entire block of computer lab time to get logged in because they are still struggling with letters and numbers.  When they each have an iPad in hand, there are no passwords and they are generally all engaged with the tool, which is great!  I have learned that is important to give these young learners lots of time to explore and play with an app before attempting anything with a specific goal in mind.  Even then, there is a strong possibility that they will need frequent reminders about what those goals are.  I am often too busy troubleshooting to stop and view their video right away, so I quickly Airdrop everything they give me to my device  because the school iPads must be erased after use. I don’t know until later if any goals were actually met.

Other than the built in photo and video capabilities, we use easy, fun apps such as Draw and Tell and ChatterPix Kids. These apps allow students to express themselves through pictures and have a microphone to enable voice overs so they can talk about their drawings and photos.  I am just starting to explore the PuppetPals HD app that allows groups of children to collaborate on a puppet show using preloaded graphics and backgrounds. Through multitouch capabilities, the app allows students to each operate their own puppet(s) simultaneously while their voices are recorded.

In one of this week’s readings, the Learning Design Tools of Rocky View School, the presentation called How to Make Pro Videos on a Mobile Device highlights steadying the device, using a microphone, using natural light from a window, framing the subject at eye level, editing the video using editing software. As part of various lessons, I have talked about technical points like getting permission to take someone’s photo, finding a quiet place to record voice overs, making sure they get in close so they do not record anyone extra, noticing when it is too dark, and holding the device steady. I have not attempted anything official with photo editing yet but I think they probably would find cropping, resizing, and experimenting with drawing on photos a lot of fun. I definitely see video editing as beyond their reach, next level.

Up until the end of second term, most of what they have done is draw a single picture or create a thing and talk about it. In the Spring, we start talking about more detailed storytelling. They draw three pictures in their story, a beginning, middle and end and then I record the video as they share their story with the class. I have never really thought about it as such but this could be the ground floor in storyboarding.

The recurring story with most teachers I’ve met is, “I don’t have the time.” I think the problem with teaching about technology and digital literacy is that teachers think it is their job to teach the whole of everything and maybe they don’t know how to do everything so they quit before they start. We all need reminders that we need to leave something for next year. And then next year’s teacher needs to know what they learned last year so they aren’t doubling up too much this year. Wouldn’t it be useful if there was a year by year framework for scaffolding specific digital skills as well as digital literacies? Maybe there’s a project in that.

© 2024 What the Tech?

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑