What the Tech?

Working through questions about technology and education

Author: twestwood (Page 2 of 4)

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.

Postdigital Reflection

January 18, 2020 / / 0 Comments

T. Westwood (2020)

In the paper, What Does the ‘Postdigital’ Mean for Education? Three Critical Perspectives on the Digital, with Implications for Educational Research and Practice (Knox, 2019), the author seeks to clarify what the term postdigital might mean. Knox suggests that the term be viewed as “a necessary juncture for reflection” (2019, p. 358). It is time to examine how digital technology is intertwined with social practices, economics, and politics. Is the human-technology relationship going to continue to march on or will push-back alter its course?

As an elementary school teacher, its difficult to view this as a separate era. We have long met resistance to the integration of digital technology in schools. It seems there are many teachers who like to stay the course once they have their programs sorted out. Just this week, our school got new computers installed and one teacher gasped in horror at the realization that the new machines no longer had dvd players. Fortunately, our administrator was ready with plug-in dvd players. Others don’t see digital technology as a priority except perhaps as an aid for struggling students. A study by Zaranis and Oikonomidis (2016) found that many teachers believe that arts and crafts, outdoor activities, and free play are more important to the development of young children than learning how to use technology. A few teachers still seem to fear it or have no desire to engage with digital technology. Some elementary teachers would never define the education they provide as digital while others might say they are somewhat. I would guess that only distance educators would say they offer an extensively digital education.

According to a study by Knauf (2016), parents are generally trusting of teachers’ judgement when granting access to digital tools and the internet. That said,I have experienced some mixed reactions from parents with regard to the internet. There was a period of great concern by our school’s Parent Advisory Council (PAC) over whether it was safe to have wifi in all areas of the school. For a few years, it was restricted to the library and the intermediate wing. This year, I had a parent that was alarmed that I had used a video to introduce our phonics program. To paraphrase, she asked, if I’m just going to show videos, what’s the point of sending her child to school?

I am curious to know where the high schools are in terms of digital technology use. My own three children just recently graduated from high school and the only one who seems to have good digital chops is the one who attributes his knowledge to YouTube. The other two are really great at Instagram and Snapchat. Actually, this is a good reason to reflect on digital education. Here these kids are with these powerful tools at their fingertips and what have they learned? They have learned how to Google, take selfies, post on social media, subscribe to music services, and watch Youtube and Netflix.

I remember when my children were young, we talked about protecting their identity while online but that was out of concern over child predators rather than curating their digital footprint. We talked about passwords but that was to stop siblings from messing with their stuff, or more accurately, to keep them from messing with mine. When social media came along, we talked about how they present themselves online. We have never talked about digital as capital.

Digital as Capital is a complicated notion for me. I have to admit, I am only beginning to understand the business of big data. Even though targeted advertisements while I am online are a bit creepy, I do not see any real harm in them. Where I see harm is where data is used to manipulate opinion like fake news on media sites like Facebook. I have become increasingly critical of claims I see on Facebook. I have linked many posts to Snopes in the hopes of making others critical as well, but to be honest, I have never investigated Snopes credibility either. There are still a lot of people who are believing everything they read and that is scary. Clearly, teaching students to be critical when online is important but is teaching them this enough? When parents are asked to sign that Google Apps for Education (GAFE) permission form in September, do they know they are making their child’s data available? I think this speaks again to Knauf’s findings that parents generally trust that teachers know what they are doing and are keeping children safe while online. Very few would think to question whether their child’s data is being commoditized or if there are alternatives to Google.

Knox’s second perspective is Digital as Policy. Do school districts get access to any of this data? How would they use it? They would have to pay someone to interpret it and with budgets so tight, would that happen? Will they be motivated by the possibility of “making educational activity more visible and efficient” (Knox, 2019, p. 364)?  The priority right now appears to be making education as inexpensive as possible. Is the drive to use digital technology from big companies such as Google solely due to the fact that they are free for educational use? Will postdigital reflection cause districts to rethink privacy and back away from these data collecting companies? Is it true that some districts in BC already have? District administration and schools do get access to the data collected by the Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) which they are careful to characterize as a “snapshot of learning” because the BC Teachers Federation (BCTF) has been very vocal in our opposition to it. Why are we opposed? I think mostly because it is flawed and because we do not really know how the data is being used, except the public ranking provided to the regional newspapers by the Fraser Institute. Perhaps teachers are also afraid the FSA data may be used to evaluate our teaching. However, if it is true that there are currently non-certified adults working as classroom teachers in BC right now, it would appear that school administrators are firmly in Beggars-Can’t-be-Choosers territory.

More disturbing for me than not knowing how educational data is being used, is Knox’s third perspective,

Digital as Material. Hopefully, more people are beginning to look at the social and environmental costs of digital technology. This week, one of our support staff handed me an old iPad hoping we could use it to benefit a particular student. I plugged it in and tried to update it. Even though it looked like it was in perfect condition, I could not update it past iOS 5. As a consequence, I could not find a single app that would work for the student. It was infuriating that Apple would create something so expensive and allow it to become obsolete. That a device probably made for a few bucks in the “questionable manufacturing conditions in China”(Knox, 2019,p. 366) should be considered disposable is upsetting, especially in a time when we are trying to be more environmentally responsible. Especially when educators are arguing that open education could be the key to social justice in the world and yet, people and the environment suffer in the creation of the accompanying digital tools (Funes & Mackness, 2018)

What do I do with this information? As an elementary school teacher, it is important that I be worthy of parents’ trust. I need to know more about how student data is being collected and used. I need to learn more about how to make the most ethically responsible choices I can when it comes to digital tools. I would like to say I need to teach my students about the global ethics around digital technology but that is too steep a subject for kindergarten. I can teach them how to treat digital tools with care, how to use them until they are unusable, and how to recycle them. I can encourage my high school colleagues to raise the ethics question with their students. I need to share what I know and help others engage in postdigital reflection. I need to add my voice to those who would ask for greater accountability from businesses that profit from digital education.

References

Funes, M., & Mackness, J. (2018). When inclusion excludes: A counter narrative of open online education. Learning, Media and Technology, 43(2), 119–138. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2018.1444638

Knauf, H. (2016). Interlaced social worlds: Exploring the use of social media in the kindergarten. Early Years, 36(3), 254–270. https://doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2016.1147424

Knox, J. (2019). What Does the ‘Postdigital’ Mean for Education? Three Critical Perspectives on the Digital, with Implications for Educational Research and Practice. Postdigital Science and Education, 1(2), 357–370. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-019-00045-y

Zaranis, N., & Oikonomidis, V. (2016). The main factors of the attitudes of Greek kindergarten teachers towards information and communication technology. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 24(4), 615–632. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2014.970853

Pie in the Sky?

December 22, 2019 / / 0 Comments

“Pie In The Sky” by sallysetsforth is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The readings this week all focused on online teaching and learning design, and open education. Honestly, I have been struggling to get my ideas together on these because they seem so advanced for my little world of kindergarten.  There may be useful thinking in them for post secondary education.  I can even see how they can be rolled into secondary school.  Elementary school seems like it would be different though.  In elementary school, distance learning would be synonymous with home schooling.  There are different reasons parents would choose home schooling for their children.  Some wish to protect their child from a perceived negative school environment or bullying interactions with peers.  Some wish to include their family’s own religious or moral perspective.  Some believe they can provide a higher quality of education. Some are trying to accommodate the special needs of their child.  Some are needing to overcome geographical challenges such as living in remote regions or travelling out of the country.  I am certain there are more reasons but these are the ones that come to mind.  Since the parent is teaching the child, who does the distance learning teacher design lessons for, the child or the parent?  I think in the past, it would have had to have been designed for parents to execute in the form of work books, readers, instructions for parents to use in teaching topics to the child.  Now with technology, there are new possibilities.

Through new technologies, young students can access learning with video, audio, and interactive computer games.  Instead of delivering a big box of instructions and work books, parents can find everything they need through links online.  It is possible for teachers to conduct assessments through video conferencing.  This, obviously, necessitates access to digital technology and wifi in the first place and also, the ability to use it fairly confidently.  I suspect there will still be families who prefer the box of work books. Some families will be able to share on-campus or field trip activities, or synchronous meetings with other DL peers, and others may not.  In designing learning, do teachers design one program that is flexible for a range in levels of interaction or a separate program for non-digital participants?

In a video (K-9 Programs, n.d.) promoting the South Island Distance Education School (SIDES) in School District #63 for  Kindergarten to Grade 9, one of the speakers points out that a “home facilitator” is necessary and, “If you’re looking less for home schooling but you’re more for schooling at home then SIDES might be a really good fit for you.”  The other speaker adds that, “If you’re one of those parents that can find the teachable moments and you take advantage of them…SIDES is a definitely good fit for you,” plus “SIDES parents…have a different mindset and they want that involvement.”   This implies that the success of the student relies on the mindset and involvement of the “home facilitator” and that, if the student is ultimately unsuccessful, it may be because the program was not a good fit.  It does not appear that the program is in any way customized for the learner, other than offering some flexibility in the pacing and some tutoring available.  I wonder if their is an asynchronous meeting space for the “home facilitators” to share their ideas and experiences.  In naming the parents home facilitators and recognizing they are responsible for catching the teachable moments, it seems the SIDES teachers would also concede that they share the #Openteach model‘s roles (Ni She et al., 2019) as facilitators and content experts.

Do the teachers in the SIDES video develop their lessons according to the detailed learning theories and models in this week’s readings?  I doubt it because I doubt that I would.  As in the traditional classroom settings, the amount of prep time they get would not be conducive to that depth of analysis.  Knowing they are both coming from classroom situations where so much of teaching is automatic and instinctual, I suspect they would stick with what they know works.  I would assume they have learned how best to adapt their classroom lessons with the advice of a mentor or predecessor.  I wonder what online resources they share with parents.  If they download content from the internet to their course site, does “fair dealing” still apply?  Do they credit all their sources?  A good set of Open Educational Resources (OERs) would be helpful for SIDES Kindergarten teachers but they’re in the same boat as the rest of us.  Where do we find them and do we want to sift through a limited collection with an unsatisfying search function when we can use Google, Pinterest, or Teacher Pay Teachers for something that more closely meets our needs?  OERs are a great idea but need more time to become truly helpful for teachers to use.  As long as “Fair Dealing” applies, why would we bother?  Also, if we have to apply Wiley’s 4Rs: Reuse, Rework, Remix, and Redistribute (Wiley, 2007) anyway, why not jump straight to the fifth R (Retain) in the first place.  Why not look at the ideas out there and make our own resource combining all the best features?  Then we can put it anywhere we like.

Speaking of great ideas, when a student goes away on a five week vacation, would it not be great if we could stay connected to that child through video conferencing and online lessons.  It may be, but how critical is it to miss kindergarten?  Generally, we just ask parents to have them practise their numbers and alphabet, read stories everyday, and keep a journal.  There are no guarantees that they will.  The parents may not be that great on follow through or they may not have that home school mindset.  Still it would be an interesting experiment.  I have a student going off in February so I think I may have to give it a try.  Will I check that my lessons align with one of the frameworks discussed by Canole, Dyke, Oliver, and Seale (Conole et al., 2004) ?  Who has the time?

 

References

Conole, G., Dyke, M., Oliver, M., & Seale, J. (2004). Mapping pedagogy and tools for effective learning design. Computers & Education, 43(1), 17–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2003.12.018

K-9 Programs. (n.d.). Retrieved January 18, 2020, from https://www.sides.ca/en/k-9-programs.html

Ni She, C., Farrell, O., Costello, E., Brunton, J., Donlon, E., Trevaskis, S., & Eccles, S. (2019). Teaching online is different: Critical perspectives from the literature. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3479402

Wiley, D. (2007, August 8). Open Education License Draft. Iterating toward Openness. https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/355

OER the Hills and Far Away

December 8, 2019 / / 0 Comments

http://clipart-library.com/clipart/clip-art-clock-35.htm

As I try to wrap my head around Open Educational Resources (OER), I find myself coming back to the same thing over and over again.  The days of picking up a teacher’s guide and following the script are over for me.  We teachers have been without district-supplied resources like textbooks or workbooks for so long, we have learned (self-taught) to design our own lessons without them. Now when I go online and find something designed by someone else, it is rare that I don’t recreate it to match my own teaching style, use books, materials and equipment I have on hand rather than what is recommended (because we have no money to buy), add local content or themes, and/or adapt it to suit my particular learners.  These are the skills needed by modern teachers.  And it takes a lot of my time – my time!

What I need from OER is my time back.  I need OER that are easily transformable and shareable.  Right now I glean my ideas from educator blogs that I subscribe to, or from sites like Pinterest and Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT).  Inevitably, changes need to be made but these items are not easily edited so I end up recreating them in my own way.  Sometimes they are little nit picky tweaks like I don’t like the font for Kindergarten.  Often it is because I need to Canadianize it, Canadian money, Canadian spellings, Canadian terminology, Canadian geography.  I really don’t want the turkeys to have pilgrim hats on!  The educator blogs and TPT often have resources that cost money so they wouldn’t be classed as OER, even though I only use the free stuff.  I did buy something on TPT once and it was not worth the money in the end. I think I used 2 pages out of the 144 page resource I purchased.

What I need from OER is free images I can use when I create my own resources.  Right now I start my search for images on the internet through Creative Commons because I’m trying to be good…really I am.  After sifting through 100 photos

http://clipart-library.com/clipart/gceEKAzXi.htm

of someone’s company picnic, I turn to search google images with the Usage Rights tool, first “Labeled for reuse with modification”, then “Labeled for reuse”,  then I give in to an unfiltered search and find what I need.  There’s no watermark.  I’m not sharing what I made with anyone but my students, fair dealing.  The intention of Creative Commons is good, but ultimately, it fails me because it takes a long time to scroll through a lot of irrelevant images.  They need a better search function but also better images, and clipart.  Where do I go for free clipart?  If I google free clipart, I can find several sites that offer some decent clipart but not without jumping through the hoops, register, sign in, download, then insert into my work, then add the credit.  There goes my time again.

What I need from OER is resources that are relevant to the kindergarten models of Saanich Schools where I work.  Is it possible to create a sharing space for all Saanich Kindergarten teachers (or Lower Vancouver Island Kindergarten teachers) where we can sort and share and co-create useful resources?  It could still be open to anyone to use but at least users would know that they may have to adapt it for their own region.  A locally curated collection would be far better than a global one, wouldn’t it?  I am sure it is so why haven’t we done it yet?  There are those pesky copyright laws.  No one is really sure how they work.  If I download some free thing that says use is restricted to the one teacher that downloaded it, I can’t very well put it into a shared collection.  If I recreate it with my own twists, how different does it need to be before I can post it?  Did I use open licence images when I made this 20 years ago?  Suppose my colleagues and I have a collection of files that are ready to upload, who is going to manage our collection, make sure everything is properly filed.  It must fall to a dedicated volunteer because it’s highly unlikely the district will pay anyone to do it.  There goes my time again.

What I need from OER is resources that are transformable, shareable, free, and relevant to my region.  What I need are colleagues trained in creating or sharing properly licensed resources, and uploading to a local collection.  What I need is a collection where I can download something tried and true and use it right away.  What I need is a forum where I can co-create or suggest edits for resources.  What I need is an education system that recognizes that this is how it is done, someone needs to be paid to curate the local collection, make sure it is searchable, make sure the links don’t stagnate, make sure everything stay up to date.  What I don’t need from OER is so many resources that I need to sift for hours to find something close to what I need, and then spend hours of my time fixing it so it fits.  I need my time.

 

 

Tug o’ War

November 27, 2019 / / 0 Comments

“Downard 185a” by twigged1 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The history of open education shows a tug o’ war between those with idealistic views of education for all and those who want to maintain control of knowledge, power, and wealth.  Peter and Diemann scan the history of Open Education starting in the late Middle Ages.  The rope with society’s knowledge tied at the centre was held firmly in the hands of monks when the lay person’s desire for knowledge began to tug at the other end.  Over a long, long period of time, the pull to give everyone access to society’s knowledge has gained ground and the controlling entities are starting to get dirty.  Who are the controlling entities?  That would be anyone who has something to lose if people are allowed to think freely and share ideas freely.  Whether it be governments, religious leaders, cultural leaders, universities, school districts, newspapers, people with copyrights and patents, special interest groups, or even parents, someone will always want to control what someone else learns, sees, hears.  Sometimes it’s for money.  Sometimes it’s to maintain order.  Sometimes it’s to sway opinion.  Sometimes it’s for a good reason.  Sometimes it’s for a selfish reason.  It’s the way it has always been.  We share information we want people to know and keep the rest under our hats.

So there seems to be three ways to go when it comes to the open sharing of information on the internet.  You could fear what might be there and go settle yourself down with your 1977 World Book Encyclopedias.  Obviously you could be missing some relevant up-to-date information but, at least it was fact-checked back in the 70s.  Conversely, you could just dive in and believe everything you see on your Facebook feed.  Did you know camel spiders eat flesh and can jump several feet off the ground?  The more reasoned response is to be wary of what you read on the internet.  Find reliable sources and do your own fact checking.

As an educator, this means we need to give our students the critical tools they need to use the internet wisely and stay safe.  Before reaching school, children have varying levels of digital literacy.  What they have learned depends on the amount of exposure and guidance with technology they have had from others.  Some will come to school knowing how to navigate YouTube and social media while others have never even held a smartphone.  The digital divide can grow wider and wider as the years go by so a case could be made for getting started on Digital Literacy in Kindergarten.  Then maybe they can go home and teach their parents.  As people gain digital literacy skills and learn to be responsible digital citizens, the time will come for “naysayers” to drop the rope.

The Marriage

November 11, 2019 / / 0 Comments

A friend of mine is getting married this weekend. It makes me think about a traditional rhyme.

Something old,

Something new,

Something borrowed,

Something blue.

Our most recent readings offer something along these lines while considering the marriage of education and technology.

One of the readings this week originated back in 1983, another in 1986. What could these decades old papers possibly offer to the Educational Technology union? If we are to use technology successfully in strategies such as cooperative collaboration and inquiry-based learning, it may be important to keep the basics in mind. Of course, educators have to plan for the “free riders” discussed in the article by Kerr and Bruun (1983). One of the most important reasons educators are turning to technology is because it has the potential to increase engagement and motivation. I doubt there are any teachers unaware of the potential pitfalls of group dynamics but some might still be working on ways to counteract them.

The 1986 article by L.Cuban is interesting because it is an old article discussing the cycle of new technology and educational innovations that educators are encouraged to embrace and then fall to the wayside as administrative support wains or moves on to the next new thing. For me, this is exemplified by my district’s financial decision to switch to the open-source software, LibreOffice. We were all forced to switch as this was the only offering on our school computers. Now, with a change in district administration, we have turned back to Microsoft Word. This is a problem for me because most of my files are now .odt files and the formatting is affected when I open them in Word. It puts me in the position of having to guess what the future will bring. Should I switch or should I continue using LibreOffice in anticipation of its possible return? This is why many are hesitant to jump on the FreshGrade bandwagon in my district. How long will it be before this initiative fizzles out now that its district champion has moved on into a new job? The turnover in district initiatives is something educators have experienced repeatedly as the migration of teacher training and Next-New-Thing-Fatigue impedes the adoption of something new. This is something that was mentioned with regard to the article by Whitelock and Bektik (2018).

With technology, there’s always something new. That said, with the pace of publication, it might be old by the time we see the research on it; research is not keeping pace with innovation. This was mentioned in regard to the article by Webb and Ifenthaler (2018). If the educator is keen and brings technology in when it is still new, it could be a while before someone’s research indicates whether or not it is truly beneficial. It is suggested that an educator or researcher’s best chance of finding timely research is to access conferences, conventions and student theses. In the meantime, many teachers are content to borrow from other teachers.

In the application of educational technology in elementary schools, educators are more likely to borrow something from other teachers rather than track down relevant, current research. This might be through colleagues within the school but is increasingly through sources such as online professional blogs, apps such as Pinterest, and social media such as Twitter. Many of the teachers I know would rather pick up an idea from somewhere, assess it alongside their experience, try it out in class, decide whether or not it was successful, and then share it out among their colleagues. This is where leadership becomes important.

Teachers are very good at focussing on what works. In general, we are eager to try new things as long as they are truly better and not a change for change’s sake. The exception to this is often technology which many teachers find intimidating. The role of school leadership is then to convince teachers that a particular application of technology is worth the time and effort to learn and implement it. They must excite and motivate their staff (Tschannen-Moran & Hofer, 2018). Once the ball is rolling, leaders must ensure the training results in a positive experience. This will require a flexible, accessible, and personalized approach (Howard, Curwood, & McGraw, 2018). Leadership must also ensure this technology continues to be supported until it is adopted into teacher practice and isn’t simply cast aside for the next big thing.

What is it about the next big thing can make educators blue, sad, need to be cautious? Teachers need to be careful that our foray into new technology results in positive outcomes and do everything possible to protect learners. Care needs to be taken to ensure there is equity for all learners. Consideration needs to be given to respect students of differing genders, social economic statuses, cultures, and individual learning needs. These considerations need to be real, not just tokens of inclusion, but genuine and sensitive inclusion. I have this idea. Now that I know how to turn a slideshow into a movie, I want to take a W̱SÁNEĆ based book I use regularly in my class and have an authentic SENĆOŦEN speaker read it to ensure the correct pronunciations of SENĆOŦEN words. Before I go ahead with my idea, I need to make sure I am not stepping on any cultural toes. I have to ask, “How will the implementation of this idea be received by those who are most affected by it?” The potential for positive impacts is great but educators in the mainstream demographic need to be careful.

Digital Equity is also a question of access. Not all learners have the same access to digital technologies. For me, this makes digital education in kindergarten more important. By the time they start kindergarten, some children have been immersed in technology and some have not. Some have been deliberately sheltered from it and some have had no access for financial or geographic reasons. If we want students to have equitable access to digital literacy, this should happen sooner rather than later. The digital divide will increase as time goes by. In addition, students’ exposure to technology does not mean they are competent (Kumpulainen, Mikkola, and Rajala, 2018). As we embed digital literacies into learning activities, teachers may be able to counteract some of the bad habits they pick up from home. For example, one of the first lessons I teach alongside learning the camera on an iPad is that students should ask before they capture a person’s photo. Issues of online privacy are just beginning to gain consideration in mainstream use by many adults. Let’s make sure children are aware of digital literacy and ideals as soon as possible.

The last point that makes me blue is technology-enhanced assessment. I agree that automated assessment needs educator influence to be successful. The question is, will automated assessment ever be as valuable and personalized as a teacher’s and do we really want it to be? Are we being asked to oversee our own demise? How will the data produced be used or abused by those outside the classroom? I’m thinking about the foundation skills assessment. and American-style standardized assessment.

Education and technology, I wish you a long, happy, and fruitful life together. Cheers!

 

Battle of the Acronyms

September 28, 2019 / / 0 Comments

T. Westwood

This week’s readings asked us to examine two models for integrating technology into our classrooms: the TPACK Framework and the SAMR Model.   The TPACK Framework refers to the interrelation between Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge, while The SAMR Model seeks to classify and evaluate learning activities based on a hierarchy.

I find the notion of putting a model in front of a teacher and saying, “Here, use this.” is a funny one.  I have yet to find a teacher that will take any sort of model and use it exclusively all the time.  There’s simply too much good stuff out there.  So what’s good with these two models?

Fig”File:Tpack.jpg” by Llennon~commonswiki is licensed under CC BY 3.0.

The TPACK Framework makes sense.  Most of us teachers understand how Content Knowledge and Pedagogical Knowledge are pretty much Teaching 101.  The addition of Technological Knowledge is a new sphere to overlay that many teachers have yet to fully understand.  Some teachers actively fear and avoid it.  It takes a lot of time and effort to learn this new piece for themselves, building their own Technological Content Knowledge and Technological Pedagogical Knowledge.  I agree that, “…TPK requires a forward-looking, creative, and open-minded seeking of technology use, not for its own sake but for the sake of advancing student learning and understanding.” (Koehler & Mishra, 2009 p. 66).  With some teachers resistant to this big change, technology needs at least one champion in every school.  In many schools, there is no greater champion than the teacher-librarian.  In our elementary school, many of our teachers are using collaborations with the teacher librarian to introduce technology into the classroom.

For me, the greatest obstacle is time.  I need time to explore more ideas and apps to integrate into my teaching but I am well ahead of many of my colleagues because I do not fear digital technology.  I feel like the SAMR Model offers me the next step to consider.

The SAMR Model classifies technology use for learning activities into a hierarchy with Substitution and Augmentation at the  bottom, capable of enhancing learning, while Modification and Redefinition are at the top of the hierarchy, transforming learning.

Puentedura’s (2006) Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition (SAMR) model (retrieved from http://www.happasus.com/rrpweblog/)

Puentedura’s model poses that the goal for teachers should be to create learning activities that can be classified higher up the hierarchy. The higher one can classify their teaching, the better.  When I first read the article by Romrell et al (2014), I was a little alarmed at the notion that we should all be striving to create “previously inconceivable” tasks because I thought they were ignoring the value and/or necessity of the lower rungs.  The more I think about it, I agree with Hamilton (2016).  Teachers should plan learning activities that integrate meaningful technology-based learning experiences, rather than focusing on redefining learning and teaching (Hamilton, 2016, p. 438).  This harkens back to the Clark-Kozma debate. I should be able to consider what I want my students to learn and then choose the rung on the ladder that best accomplishes that outcome.  Maybe I need to design lessons that allow different children to use different rungs.

For a kindergarten teacher, there are many basics to cover to make integrating any sort of technology possible.  We need to spend a lot of time at the substitution and augmentation levels.  They need to learn what a circle is, then how to make a circle with a finger in the air, then make a circle with a finger in sand, then make a circle with a correctly held pencil, and eventually we can learn how to turn on an iPad before we draw a circle with a finger again, but this time, in an app.  Should I skip the pencil and go straight to the iPad after the sand?  Would that be a meaningful technology-based learning experience?  Is there a functional improvement?  If not, is it okay to do it anyway because it’s fun?  It is Kindergarten after all.  What is the role of technology in play-based learning?  Is this the context that Hamilton argues the SAMR ignores?

In the end, I can find value in both models.  I like that TPACK asks us to consider technological knowledge and context.  I can design using TPACK and continue to consider non-digital technology alongside digital technology as I seek to create meaningful learning activities.  I like how SAMR pushes us to find innovative learning tasks. Can I get to Redefinition in Kindergarten?  I think I can and I’m glad to have learned about it so I can use it to push my thinking beyond substitution and augmentation.  Does the model mention context?  No, but I think teachers are smart enough to know they must customize the model for their own learners.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clark, Kozma, and Kindergarten

September 17, 2019 / / 2 Comments

“Untitled” by Paul O’Donoghue is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The Clark-Kozma debate is more than 20 years old.  Why are we still talking about it?  Clark seemed to be steering educators away from the use of media largely because it’s so expensive.  This is a genuine concern; money for public education is tight.  I think back in 1983, he had some valid points.  Why should we spend all that extra money on media for things we can successfully teach without media?  That said, it’s 2019, we drank the Kool Aid, technology is in the curriculum; wifi, iPads and Chromebooks are increasingly in schools.  Too bad, so sad, Clark.  Mission failed.  And I’m so glad.

I teach kindergarten and, to be honest, I could teach them entirely without digital media. We have plenty of old fashioned, relatively inexpensive tools such as books, pencils, crayons, markers, erasers, paints, play dough.  We have hands on activities, a multitude of loose parts and art materials, a variety of different ways to express  themselves verbally and physically.  I have a plethora of teaching strategies that make learning engaging.  I can foster curiosity and inquiry with a few magnifying glasses and dead bugs.  Why would I want to dent, actually, wipe out, seven years worth of my glue stick budget to buy an iPad for student use?  I have struggled with it.

The answer for Kindergarten, and I am sure, many elementary school teachers, has to do with the push from administration,  the pervasiveness of consumer technology in homes, and individualized learning.

When I decided I would no longer be taking my four and five year olds to the computer lab, my administrator was concerned and wanted to know why.  I explained that it takes the entire block to get everyone signed on with no time left to do anything on the computer so there was little point.  Some time later, she presented me with a Beebot which I think is great but is it necessary for Kindergarten students to know how to code a robotic bee?  Also, they just think they are playing with it; as I’m sure Clark would agree, without an instructional strategy, they may as well be playing with a remote control car, or a marble on a tipping tray.  They don’t know they are coding unless the teacher helps them reflect and connect, thereby, “(forging) a relationship between media and learning” (Kozma, 1994, p. 8)

I have a learner with special needs in my class.  This student is non-verbal and, in preschool, learned to use an iPad to communicate. The iPad stays on a shelf until needed but the moment it comes out, a little crowd gathers around it.  The children all know what a tablet is and they all associate it with entertainment.  A few parents expose their children to educational games but every child knows what YouTube is.  In fact, when asked what they want to be when they grow up, two children in my 2017 and one child in my 2018 class named “YouTuber”.   This tells me they don’t just know about consuming content, but they are already thinking about creating and sharing it.  I don’t think that was even on Clark’s radar back in 1994 and certainly not in 1983.  If it had, he would have realized that these media tools are coming whether we like it or not and our job as educators would inevitably need to include them at some point despite the expense.  I still hold that I can teach the ground floor of digital citizenship to Kindergarten students without putting an iPad in their hands, but if the schools have to buy them anyway, why would I not use them?

If I have two little people, sitting at a table during choice time, choosing to draw frogs, three days in a row, why wouldn’t I want to pull out an iPad and encourage them to pursue an inquiry about frogs?  And then, why wouldn’t I want to encourage them to record their own frog story?  Or create a stop motion video with play dough frogs?

“IMG_2043” by Fatkid32 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Whenever you have found a medium or set of media attributes which you believe will cause learning for some learners on a given task, ask yourself if another (similar) set of attributes would lead to the same learning result (Clark, 1994, p. 28).

Of course, I could go to the library and get frog books, and get more paper so they could draw pages for their frog story, but let’s face it, these boys would likely have viewed that as work, whereas the iPad would be viewed as entertaining. I’m willing to bet they would tire of colouring long before they would tire of creating on the iPad. Plus, I can’t leave the classroom to go get books for whatever topic might arise.  With an iPad, they have near-instant access to whatever subject catches them.  Yes, I have to teach them about reliable sources but I have found several children’s non-fiction books in our school library that contain inaccurate or outdated information.  Misinformation is everywhere.

What about my builders?  If they have built the same structure repeatedly I could pull out the iPad and find images of real structures inspire them.  Again, I could go get a book but by the time I get back from the library (if I could get out of the room), their structure has fallen down and they have moved on to the  train table.  In addition, they could share an image of their structure with an engineering (my son) or architectural (one of my moms) expert and get some real feedback, possibly in real time.  I guess I could invite them in on his/her day off and make all the children build something that day, but that does not take advantage of the teachable moments.

T. Westwood

What about my timid talkers?  I have had children who do not like to speak in front of me or their peers, but in a private space, with an iPad, they can spin quite a yarn.  Not only that but they will go back and rerecord if they don’t like the first take.  This makes the iPad a tool for meeting the needs of the less confident learners.

I do not think Clark had conceived of these types of interactions back in 1983.  I do think he had it right that the media itself, at that time, would not be effective in improving learning without the instructional design to back it up.  I also believe that the capabilities of media need to be accompanied by effective instruction and/or guidance to result in effective learning. I am glad that we did not give up on educational technology.  I believe that Kozma was right that we can use the capabilities of media to influence learning and that it is the task of the designer to make that happen, giving medium and method a more integral relationship. I also agree with Becker that if we want a stand-alone game that will lead to learning, the designer must have “creativity and a thorough understanding of instructional design” and “a thorough understanding of games AND of game design” (2010, p. 4).  I’m only just beginning to explore instructional games for Kindergarten and I have yet to find one that satisfies me but I have only explored free games so far.  I imagine the good ones come with a bigger price tag.

 

 

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