Tech Ed-dy

I was interested to note that David Warlick has recently started a wiki to try and collect links to bloggers that offer practical advice on using web 2.0 applications in the classroom.  I really appreciate teachers that are willing to share their successes and failures online so that I can learn from their experiences.  So, in the spirit of contributing to the conversation here is what happened during my Grade 7 Claymation Unit using SAM animation

Task: To create a compelling claymation movie about the impacts of computer use on health.

Investigation

Our guiding question for this unit was “Can computer use cause Life Long Injuries?”.  We began with a general class discussion and then moved into doing some research on Repetitive Stress Injuries.  I use Think.com as an online space for encouraging collaboration and sharing in my classroom and find it works really well.  I posted a list of links to sites about RSI on Think.com and asked each student to read through one of the links that they found interesting.  Their first task was to summarize the information from their website and to post that summary along with a URL to a class message board on Think.com.  Once the information was gathered we projected the message board onto a screen and used the information gathered to decide on the key lessons/messages regarding computer use and long term health impacts.  I typed these messages up in Word as we spoke and uploaded the document to Think.com so that they had it as a reference.

Next we needed to figure out what made for a compelling claymation movie.  I provided them with links to some Claymation resource sites using Think.com and assigned them the task of posting a list of the key steps on another discussion board.  We then used the information gathered to write up the Design Specifications for the project.

• No more than 3 animated characters with accessories.
• A carefully designed set and scenery built into a cardboard box
• Smooth movements
• Consistent look to characters
• A story that teaches a lesson about Computers and Health in an engaging way.
• A detailed storyboard that describes all the movement

Design

In their groups I had them decide on ONE LESSON that their animation would teach and decide on what materials they would animate.  I then had them each group member brainstorm a storyline that they could animate and post their ideas to their Think.com webpage.  Their homework was to read each other’s story ideas so that they next day they could decide on the story that best met the Design Specs.  I think that I could have done more at this stage to encourage them to be creative with their story ideas.  Maybe we could have done a class free thinking activity first to get them thinking less linearly before they wrote down their story ideas.

Plan

Once they had agreed on a story idea each group member took on one of the following roles:

• Set Designer, who had to get the materials and design the set in a box that could be carried around.
• Character Builder, who had to make the clay figures for the animation
• Storyboard Artist, who drew the storyboard and worked out how many frames each scene would need.

I gave them each a mark for their individual tasks before they were aloud to start filming.

Before they started filming I had each group fill in a planning table telling me exactly what they planned to do during each Technology class.

Create

For the actual filming I found a great piece of software created by Tufts University called SAM animation. I looked at a lot of the free software available and in my opinion this was by far the best option.  In particular it allowed onion skinning, the addition of sound and some basic editing; it could also export to AVI so that we could import their animations into Movie Maker for final editing.

To capture the video we used both web cams and video cameras hooked up to laptops by 4 pin firewire cables.  The webcams were really easy to set up but the picture quality was quite poor (I probably should have invested in more expensive cams); the video cameras were fiddly but produced higher quality video.

I was very careful during this stage to check in with each group on a regular basis to see if their plan was working out and if it wasn’t I had them revise it.  This regular check in helped to reinforce the importance of careful time management.

The final task was to edit the movies using Movie Maker.  I gave the class a quick lesson in the basics and then encouraged them to help each other.  Some of my students recorded audio on a simple voice recorder that we then downloaded as a WAV file and imported into Movie Maker.

Every member of the class was responsible for importing their groups raw footage and creating their own claymation movie that met the Design Specifications.  This worked really well as it enabled me to hold each child accountable for their own finished product.  It was really interesting to see how each student added their own variations to the same footage.

I will upload some of the movies shortly and embed them in this post.

Today I was telling my wife about my previous blog post on an article I was reading called Compensating for Computers.  As a social scientist and something of an expert on social learning she immediately cut to the chase with this great quote:

You have to give them roots before you give them wings.

This got me thinking about something else Monke mentioned in his article about how he felt when he taught his students about the internet.

I was about to give my high school students more power to do more harm to more people than any teens had ever had in history, and all at a safe distance.  They could inflict emotional pain with a few keystrokes and never have to witness the tears shed.  They could destroy hours of work accomplished by others not because of ill-will, but simply because the files of these poorly protected network users provided convenient bullseyes for youth flexing their new found muscles.

This may be a little overstated but I think there is some truth in this.  I am a real believer that in today`s global society it is very important that I as a middle and high school teacher use web 2.0 social networking tools to extend my students reach further than our small school on Vancouver Island.  But I`m not sure I believe this is true for elementary school children.   In fact I`m pretty sure that exposing children to social networking tools at a young age in NOT the best way to educate good digital citizens.  They need lots of exposure to lots of tangible experiences that help them become good citizens first, before we add the “digital” part.

I`m starting to wonder whether there might not be an interesting case to be made for an elementary curriculum designed to give our students ROOTS that dovetails into an middle and high school curriculum that gives them social networking WINGS.  The roots would be lots of non-virtual things like a sense of place; a connection with nature; social skills; group work skills; conflict resolution skills.  I know that all these things that are already done in elementary schools but in order to prepare students for a world in which they will need to apply these skills in a virtual setting I think that the roots become even more important so that they have a foundation for when they get older and are given their wings.

Aside #1: I am a big fan of the Lifelong Kindergarten group at MIT.  Their mission in to extend the kindergarten style of learning so that learners of all ages can learn through designing, creating, experimenting and exploring.  They suggest that we have slowly done away with this kind of learning in order to get kids ready to take tests at earlier and earlier ages.  I wonder if we might be in danger of doing this same thing with technology.  As we start to use it more and more in the older grades the temptation is to say `Well, if we can just get them doing this with technology at an earlier grade then just think what they will be able to do when they get to high school.`  But their are lots of skills they need to be good digital citizens that can`t (or shouldn’t) be taught using a computer.

Aside #2: After writing this post I was directed to this interesting article from Zone’n Workshops.  It’s definitely a fairly alarmist article, but there was one part that I think is worth reproducing:

Each individual would benefit from discovering their “just right” level
of technology to promote academic and workplace achievements, but also
understand how to balance this technology with activities that promote
physical and mental health.  Children obviously need help with managing
this difficult task.  Achieving this balance will promote optimal brain
efficiency, while maintaining a place on the world stage as leaders in
advanced technology.

I think this is our role as educators in the 21st century.  To figure out what the “just right” level of technology is at all age levels and help our students develop the discipline to use technology and not be used by it.

I’m reading an essay by Lowell Monke from the Alliance for Childhood called Compensating for Computers and it is making me think.  Here are some of the bits I’m going to be mulling over for a while:

Preparation does not necessarily warrant early participation….quite often preparation involves strengthening inner resources – self-discipline, emotional control, moral judgement, empathy etc. – before the opportunities to participate arise.

Seems to me we should be thinking carefully about this in the context of teaching about and using social networks in the classroom, especially in elementary schools.  As much as I do believe that children can develop valuable social skills in an online social networking situation it makes sense to me that first there needs to be a solid foundation of skills based on face to face interactions.

Good preparation for working in this highly abstract, symbolic environment was not lots of computer practice, but an immersion in firsthand experiences and relationships that would give depth and meaning to the knowledge students had to depict and interpret on the screen.

He quotes a 2004 study from the University of Munich that showed that the more students had access to computers in school and at home, the lower their overall scores on PISA interanational tests (not sure what these are).  Similar results were found in a recent study by the Children`s Digital Media Center.  To me this reinforces how important it is that the way technology is used in the classroom has a sound pedagogical basis.  If it is just used as a way to replace face to face interactions (which is a very tempting option that I am guilty of sometimes) then it is no surprise that the results are less than impressive.  I wonder how many of the schools in these studies had invested time in teacher training and careful lesson design, or were they all just jumping on the technology bandwagon.

If the 20th century taught us anything at all, it should have been that technology is a very mixed blessing.  Children entering elementary schools today will have to wrestle with the mess we leave them because of our own lack of technological wisdom: global warming, increasingly lethal weapons …. addiction to automobiles, overuse of pesticides and antibiotics …

This one really made me think.  I am a die hard advocate to technology in schools and can see so much potential if technology is used in an appropriate pedagogical environment.  But I wonder whether we are capable of looking into the future honestly and identifying the long term impact our increasing reliance on technology is going to have on things like social relationships and health.

So this all leaves me wondering whether the ideal Elementary Curriculum for preparing students for a Technologically rich middle and high school experience should actually be technology free.  Monke suggests that the following activities should be essential experiences in the lower grades:

• Close, loving relationships with responsible adults
• Outdoor activity, nature exploration, gardening etc
• Time for unstructured play
• Music, drama, puppetry, dance, painting and other arts
• Hands on lessons, handcrafts ….
• Conversation, poetry, storytelling, and books read alound with beloved adults.

Photo by Jimee, Jackie, Tom & Asha on Flickr

A while back I was asked to write a blog post for the TLITE blog about my experiences leading a class of grade 9 students through a Global Collaborative Project called the Digiteen Project.  This post has been bouncing around in my head for a while and in the process has taken a slightly different trajectory than I had originally intended.  The reason is that while this project was definitely worthwhile for my students I think that the process of facilitating the project was even more worthwhile for me.  In particular it exposed me to new web 2.0 tools in safe and supported environment and it jump started my Personal Learning Network to an entirely new level.

Being involved in the Digiteen project gave me insight into what classroom 2.0 looks like.  I could not have gotten this insight without being involved in the nitty gritty of this project and finding solutions to the frustrations and stresses that emerged.  The Digiteen project forced me to stop being a passive consumer of content and to start participating in the conversation and that has been a powerful shift not only in what I am learning but in how I am learning.  As David Warlick recently wrote:

Retooling our classrooms into rich and dynamic learning environments will not be something that you can learn how to do in a workshop.  It’s something that will happen through continued creativity, conversations, sharing, experimenting, reporting, and more conversations.

In my opinion taking the plunge and participating in a Global Collaborative Project is one of the best ways I can think of to truly understand the way that web 2.0 tools are transforming the learning opportunities available to us and our students.  In this post my goal is to give ‘legs’ to this assertion by describing the different opportunities and transformative moments that occured for me during the Digiteen project.

Getting Started

My participation in this project started when I registered with the Flat Classroom Ning.  I had recently read Thomas Friedman’s book and was interested in seeing what this project was all about.  Almost immediately I received a message from Julie Lindsay asking if I was interested in the Digiteen project.  I couldn’t believe it.  I was getting a message from someone that was profiled in The World is Flat!  Of course I jumped at the chance.  I didn’t hear from Julie for a little while about the project and one day I was playing around with Twitter (which I really didn’t understand) and I noticed that I could direct message Vicki Davis, the co-founder of the Digiteen project, so I did.  And she answered almost immediately wondering whether I was interested in helping to edit their Code of Conduct Google Doc.  I use Google Docs in my classroom but this was the first time I actually had a chance to use it as a collaboration tool with people from all over the world.

This was my first introduction to the amazing community of educators that are exploring the possibilities of teaching with web 2.0 tools.  I realised that all I needed in order to get involved was enthusiasm for this kind of learning and a willingness to try new things.

Trying to get all my students registered on the Ning and Wiki

I felt like I had this all under control.  After all I already belonged to a few Nings and had even started my own Ning (with me as the only member).  I had also been using Wikispaces for a while so felt comfortable with the way it worked.  What I hadn’t counted on were the countless difficulties inherent in trying to register an entire class of students for these services.  Not only did I have to figure out how to make linked gmail addresses for all my students so that I could register them, but then I had to figure out how to keep track of all the invites arriving in my mailbox and then I had to get each student to register their unique name and password.  Then I had to try and hold it together when they would come to me the next day to tell me they had forgotten their password.  This took a while and it was messy but by the time the dust settled I certainly understood these applications on a whole different level.

Throughout this process all the teachers involved in this project communicated almost exclusively through our Google Group.  I was really impressed with this simple tool that allowed many threaded conversations to take place in an asynchronous way.  I wasn’t the only teacher struggling to get everyone online and we all tried to help each other through this Group.

First Elluminate Meeting

I was quite concerned about this one.  The first challenge was to figure out what time it was in BC so that I could be online for a meeting that happened at EST (which I hoped was eastern standard time).  I eventually became quite adept at using timezoneconverter.com to quickly figure out if I could make the meeting.  I did my due diligence and tested out Elluminate before the meeting.  In fact I couldn’t make the first meeting so listened to a recording instead (a great feature of Elluminate).  When the time came for my first real synchronous online meeting I logged in and sure enough there were other people there, but when I was asked to speak no one could hear me!  Turns out I had to configure my mic and the other teachers guided me through this procedure using the chat feature built into Elluminate.  Once everything was working I had to figure out this thing called a ‘back channel chat’, that has become a staple of the web 2.0 world.  Trying to listen to the conversation going on, follow the chat and click on the links being offered ALL AT THE SAME TIME was mind boggling, but it got easier with practice.

I had known of Elluminate for a while.  I had even visited their table at a conference and collected their materials a few years back, but I had never actually used it. Being introduced to it by teachers that use it every day and with a reason and purpose was much more educational and meaningful than if I had just been playing around with it.

First attempt at reasoning in a Chat Room and starting a Discussion Thread

I have already blogged about this experience so for the full version of these events read my Digi Teen Stories post.  The short version is that shortly after getting my students on this Ning I came across some inappropriate chat in the chat room.  My first reaction was to delete the chat but then the teacher in me decided I had stumbled across a teachable moment, so I joined the chat.  Trying to convey complex reasoning and arguments in a chat room environment was incredibly frustrating and really illustrated for me the limitations of this particular form of communication.  I eventually resorted to starting a discussion thread on the topic of Digital Etiquette and was amazed at the quality and quantity of thoughtful replies I recieved.  It was really my first ever meaningful online discussion.

I could go on and on and on about the different experiences both I and my students had on the Ning.  I think the point is that by really engaging in a Social Network with my students I started to understand both the power and pitfalls of these spaces and how they could be used in education.  Some of the thinking inspired by these experiences can be found in my blog posts on: Obama, Social Networking, and Digiteen and Digiteen Experiences in the Nearly Now.

First Blog Post commented on by people from around the world

Finally, by taking the plunge and committing to this project I was having experiences that I felt like writing about.  I had started a blog a few months before but hadn’t felt very motivated to write anything.  After all the blogosphere was already full of people writing about everything I was interested in.  When Vicki Davis asked me to write a blog post about my Digiteen experiences I realised that I actually did have something to contribute.   The really neat part was that by being a part of a Global Collaborative Project I already had a small network of colleagues that read my post and wrote thoughtful comments on it, which motivated me to keep on writing.

I think that the lesson here is that if you can build up a small network of peers interested in the same stuff before you blog then you start with a small audience already, and if you know that a few people are actually reading what you write you are much more motivated to continue.

I plan on staying involved with the Digiteen project for the long haul.  I think it has really great potential as a model for how we can really teach our students about Digital Citizenship.  There will be a new project starting in April, feel free to contact me through this blog if you are interested in participating.