Tech Ed-dy

It’s been a while.

After enjoying a brief few months as a prolific beginner blogger life seems to have gotten in the way and the blogging momentum has tanked.  I suspect that this is a common trend amongst us blogging newbies and I think that, in my case at least, part of the difficulty has been in taking myself too seriously.  I enjoyed blogging a lot more when I used my blog as a platform for thinking and trying out ideas, rather than as a place to store fully formed thoughts.

I suspect that the shift towards “serious blogging” stems from the fact that I am trying to write posts that I can cross post between Tech Eddy and my school blog, and the school influence is pushing me towards “seriousness” and “finished” rather than “work in progress”.  I prefer “work in progress”.

So, in the spirit of thinking out loud … recently David Warlick wrote a post about 21st Century Literacies in which he quotes James Paul Gee:

In my view, in the twenty-first century we need the following—and we need them fast and all at once together: embodied empathy for complex systems; “grit” (passion + persistence); playfulness that leads to innovation; design thinking; collaborations in which groups are smarter than the smartest person in the group; and real understanding that leads to problem solving and not just test passing.  These are, to my mind, the true twenty-first century skills.

I found this a refreshing change from the usual topics normally associated with 21st Century Literacy, so I wanted to try and unpack a few of these ideas.

embodied empathy for complex systems

The world we live in and the problems we face are all really complex.  In my experience as long as a teacher tries to be the repository of knowledge they will end up simplifying the issues and students will end up with a limited understanding of the problems and a very simple ideas regarding the solutions.  The only way we can really help students understand the complexity around us is to allow for messiness and “not knowing’ in our classrooms.

“grit” (passion + persistence)

It seems to me that it is easier than ever these days to find a community that shares and can support your passion, but I was recently in a staff meeting where I was told that universities are complaining that kids these days are lazy (read lack of persistence).  I’m not so sure.  I think that kids learn differently and have different expectations regarding the ease with which they can access information, but I’m not sure that equals laziness.  I do wonder though whether the ease with which my students can use technology to access information makes it more difficult for them to learn persistence.  If they can’t google it or find it on Wikipedia they are apt to give up.

playfulness that leads to innovation

This is all about not taking yourself too seriously so that you aren’t afraid to make mistakes (sort of what this blog post is about).  You have to be willing to make and learn from mistakes to innovate.

design thinking

I think that embedding the design cycle into all my lessons has been one of the best changes to my teaching practice, ever.  Why?  Because I can see my students starting to look at what they are producing and asking themselves “Is this the best solution to the problem?” rather than “Is this going to get me an A?”  Ok, this might be a bit of an exageration.  They still want that A.

collaborations in which groups are smarter than the smartest person in the group

This is the next step I want to take in my classroom and school, I’m just not quite sure how.  The past year of blogging, tweeting and being involved in a flat classroom project have convinced me on a personal level of the power of personal learning networks.  Now I have to figure out how to gently introduce these concepts to my students and teaching colleagues.

real understanding that leads to problem solving and not just test passing

The first thing that comes to mind when I read this is YES, but “how do you measure this?”.  In my technology classes I can honestly say that I do teach this 21st century skill.  It’s all about project based learning.  But my math class is a different place.  I want to teach real understanding, but sometimes and for some students the rules have to come first and the understanding later.  And sometimes real understanding is what helps them pass a test.  I still struggle with this one.

Photo by by FotoRita [Allstar maniac] on Flickr

My grade 6 technology class just recently completed a very ambitious project in which they used Audacity and our class set of 7 eeepcs to record, edit and add effects to stories written in English class.  In my opinion their final stories are fantastic and they all worked incredibly hard to not only complete all the tasks assigned, but to problem solve and trouble shoot all of the unexpected challenges that arose due to the complex nature of this project.  I have a long list of “things I would do differently next time”, but in general I found the following framework gave them enough structure and training while also allowing them lots of creative freedom.

Investigation

I decided that before starting my students needed to know the difference between a Radio Story and a Written Story.  As a class we listened to a great Twilight Zone Story and discussed how it was different than a written story.  We agreed that dialogue, sound effects and music were all important.

They then needed to know how to:

• Record each part of their story as different tracks in Audacity.  In particular I needed them to understand that they didn’t need to record their story in a linear fashion and that each section should be a seperate track.
• Find and download royalty free music and sound effects from the internet and import these effects into Audacity.
• Use the editing tools in Audacity to tidy up audio and insert effects.

To practice these skills we recorded a version of the Lion and Mouse story as a class.  I then took the raw recording and mixed up the tracks before saving it to our shared server along with some pre-selected music and sound effects.  The student’s investigation task was to re-order the tracks,take out all pauses, level the audio, and import the music and sound effects.  Those that finished early used some of my favourite free sound sites to find extra music and sound effects.  Finally they all had to export their story as a .wav file.

Design/Plan

All my students had written English Stories so their first task was to look at all the stories their group members had written and decide on which story would make the best radio play.  A big factor here was which story had the most dialogue.  We learned last year that a story that is mostly a descriptive narrative makes for a fairly unimaginative radio story.

To plan the recordings I assigned the following tasks:

• Open a copy of the story you want to record in Word. Double space and change the margins so there is lots of room for notes. Print a copy for each member of your group.
• As a group decide on which parts of the story you will record in one sitting and indicate this on your scripts.  Next year I am going to have them break the story up into the same number of sections as they have group members and assign each group member to be the Project Manager for their section.  As Project Manager they will have the resposibility for organising roles and responsibilities, making sure files are named and organised properly and backed up on our server.
• Brainstorm sound effects that would be good as either background to each scene or to emphasize a particular event. Make notes in your scripts.
• Split up the work of finding music and sound effects and start searching for all the audio files you will need.

Create

During this stage each group was given an eeepc with Audacity on it and a set of our Logitech recording headphones and they all went off to find a quiet place to record their stories.  This was the stage at which difficulties started to arise.  Instead of being able to circulate and check in that each group was on track and offering suggestions I was constantly helping the students troubleshoot technical issues.  I think the way around this next time would be to have each group do a training recording with me before sending them off on their own.  The bonus of these difficulties is that my students learned a lot about troubleshooting technical and file management issues.

Once the raw recordings were finished each group member was responsible for editing and adding effects to a different part of the Audacity project (this was their individual mark).  These different parts were then all imported into one Audacity project and exported as a .wav file for me to assess.

This was a really challenging project and there were times that I told myself `never again`, but after listening to the great work my students produced and reflecting on all the unexpected learning outcomes that came out of this experience I am committed to doing it again next year.  The lesson learned for me is that when embarking on ambitious technology projects with youger students it is VITALLY IMPORTANT to have thought through all the possible technical hurdles so that they can focus on the creativity and not get sidetracked by the technology.

Over the past month or so I have been trying to read Disrupting Class by Clay Christensen.  Very unintentionally I have gone about this task in a very non-linear, web 2.0 kind of way.  As I started reading I came across an interview with Michael Horn on the Seedlings show that gave me some idea where the book was going.  I then noticed that a Disrupting Class Book Talk group had been started on the Seedlings Ning and that someone else was posting reflections.  I’m the sort of person that learns best when I can bounce ideas off of other people so this potential space for an online discussion really motivated me to really read and think about the ideas in this book.  I’m sure this same process would work really well for certain kinds of students.

I haven’t quite finished reading, but these are my take-away ideas so far:

• The reason that technology has not had a significant impact on student learning so far is that it has been implemented within the existing school framework and as such it has managed to improve how schools do what they do (teach to the middle; motivate extrinsically; teach to certain intelligences) but it has not helped the populations of students that traditionally don’t do well at school.  Christensen suggests that in order to for technology to transform education and truly help students individualise their school experience it needs to be introduced in the areas where the present framework doesn’t apply (what he calls the nonconsumers).  It is here that the technology can come into it’s own, the glitches can be worked out and it’s true transformative effects can be showcased.  Once they have proven their worth these technologies will work their way from the fringes into the center of our school systems, thereby disrupting the old paradigm.  They see online/e-learning as the area where disruptive technologies will work their way into our school systems.  This argument made a lot of sense to me and I wondered whether the same approach might work with teachers trying to use technology in their classrooms; if they first used technology to address a part of their classroom practice that they were unhappy with then they might be more willing to take a risk and try something new.
• In the future web 2.0 tools will allow everyone to be a teacher and everyone to be a learner.  They envision a future in which the online tools for creating content are sophisticated enough to allow anyone to create content and share it online.  This content would be modular so that different bits from different places could be fit together to create personalised lessons and courses that meet each student’s individual learning needs.  They see this content as being produced by and for a “user network” that drives the creation of new content and rates existing content.  This is a really powerful vision and I know that I haven’t done it justice.  I really liked the idea that in this context students become teachers of other students.  There was great quote along the lines of: “Teaching
  something is the best way to learn because you have to format material in a
  way consistent with your intelligence type”, that I really agree with.

I’ve been trying to figure out what this modular, user generated online learning environment could look like in the context of the tools available today, these are my ideas so far:

• Blog posts and Podcasts on certain topics could be aggregated into an online course assuming they are tagged in a way that they can be found.
• Mathcasts could be created by students in one class and rated could be used by other students to learn.
• Online flashcards like at Quizlet can be created by one user, improved by others and then shared with the rest of the community.
• Wiki pages on different topics can be created and shared by teams of students.

I have to admit I have found this vision of individualised learning facilitated by web 2.0 tools and user networks very compelling.  The piece that is still missing for me is the motivation and study skills needed for a student to be successful in an online environment.  This was really brought home to me recently when I read these blog posts by Ken Allen and Claire Thompson.

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.

I have been struggling all week to figure out how to frame an answer to this question that doesn’t get bogged down in fancy words and jargon.  I am feeling the need for some clarity regarding the skills that I need to make sure I am teaching my students, the classroom structures and processes that are best for teaching these skills and finally, the best approach for changing my classroom practice in a productive way so that I am really teaching 21st Century Skills (in other words, what are the best first steps?).

It all started with a great post on 21st Century Pedagogy written by Andrew Churches.  In the post he has a great Cmap (one of my favourite mind mapping tools) diagram illustrating the key features of 21st Century Pedagogy.  They are,

?    building technological, information and media fluencies [Ian Jukes]
?    Developing thinking skills
?    making use of project based learning
?    using problem solving as a teaching tool
?    using 21st C assessments with timely, appropriate and detailed feedback and reflection
?    It is collaborative in nature and uses enabling and empowering technologies
?    It fosters Contextual learning bridging the disciplines and curriculum areas

This is a great list and I agree with all the features, the problem is that there are too many.  In my busy day to day classroom teacher life I don’t have the energy or brainpower to figure out how to incorporate all of these features into my curriculum.  However, it seems to me that I actually only need to focus on project based learning and the rest logically fit into their appropriate place.

For the last 4 years I have been lucky enough to teach the IB Middle Years Program Technology Curriculum.  This is a curriculum that is very well suited to project based learning and has really opened my eyes to the power of this approach.  As a busy classroom teacher I believe that if I make it my focus to use project based and inquiry based learning effectively in my classroom then I will also be building technological, information and media fluencies, developing thinking skills, using problem solving as a teaching tool and fostering contextural learning (after all a project by it’s very nature is based on real challenges that cross curricular boundaries).  It is also collaborative in nature.

This still raises the question what good project based learning looks like.  I’m no expert but the elements that have to be there for me include:

• Using the Design Cycle explicitly.  In my classroom this means that we take the time to break down what it means to really INVESTIGATE – PLAN – CREATE – EVALUATE an end product.  We take the time to break down each of these steps into concrete actions and we agree on assessment criteria for each step before we begin (ok, if I’m being honest this doesn’t always happen, but I’m trying).  I like what Andrew Churches says about assessment:

Students should be involved in all aspects of the assessment process. Students who are involved in setting and developing assessment criteria, marking and moderation will have a clearer understanding of: what they are meant to do; how they are meant to do it; why it is significant; why it is important.

• During the INVESTIGATION stage I take the time to teach my students the skills they will need to be successul in their project.  Often this includes exposing them to knowledge, facts and information – the traditional classroom stuff.  This gives them the base they need to jump off into higher order thinking activities.  This is also where I often end up incorporating lessons on building technological, information and media fluencies.
• During the PLANNING and CREATION stages I have found a critical element of success to be the creation of Checkpoints and Milestones that groups can use to measure their ongoing progress.  I am always so busy that this is a real challenge for me, but when I do manage to structure ongoing feedback during a project the end product is always vastly superior.  Again from Andrew Churches:

Linked to assessment  is the importance of timely, appropriate, detailed and specific feedback. Feedback as a learning tool, is second only to the teaching of thinking skills [Michael Pohl].

In the funny way that these things happen I was just sent this edutopia link today about a school in Pennsylvania that is using project based learning as a vehicle for teaching 21st century skills.  They include the following excellent suggestions:

• Connect to Standards – don’t be distracted by the flash of the technology
• Plan, Plan, Plan – projects are complex, so a carefully planned framework is essential
• Expand Your Audience – using web 2.0 tools to expand the reach of students is motivating and gives projects context
• Walk a Mile in Their Sneakers – try the technoloigy yourself first.  It often takes longer than you think.
• Keep it simple (this is my biggest challenge)
• Be on the lookout -stay connected to a community of professionals.

A fairly comprehensive list of project based learning resources can also be found here.  So what have I missed?  Are there any skills or knowledge that can not be taught using a problem based learning model?  Are there any other key elements of project based learning that are essential to it’s success?

I have just finished listening to the interview with Thomas Friedman over Skype at the Flat Classroom Conference in Doha, Quatar.  I kept having to stop the podcast to jot down something he said because he has got a great way with words and most of his answers contained little gems that really got me thinking.  To me his message seemed to be very much that technology is changing the world but that the use of these new technologies is fraught with danger and distraction and that now, more than ever, teachers are needed to help students learn how to cope with these new challenges.  Here are a couple quotes I really liked:

Continuous partial attention is lethal to creativity.

It was interesting to hear that someone who is a real hero of the Web 2.0 world takes great pains to keep himself unplugged so that he can maintain the focus and creativity needed to write two newspaper columns a week.

You can’t download judgement or wisdom or values.

We need to take advantage of what is new but not lose sight of what is old.

These two quotes really resonate with me when I wear my IT integrator hat.  I want the teachers at my school to feel valued for all the skills they already have and know that the important things they have to teach – judgement, wisdom, values are more important than ever.  Even if the information they teach is not as rare a commodity as it once was.

One more sound bite I really liked:

The internet will make you smarter but it won’t make you smart.

The truth is I’m not sure what the inauguration and math have in
common, but I decided this morning that it was important for my grade 7 math class to
watch this historic occasion.  As we sat in the computer lab watching
streaming video live from Washington it occurred to me that this was an
amazing example of the way that technology is changing the nature of
information and how we interact with information.  We watched streaming
video on CBC, but there were a multitude of other ways that we could
have experienced the inauguration.  A good list can be found here.

Other examples of the new ways information is being used and created in the 21st century:

• President Obama has a Blog (just like all of our teachers)
• We can now analyse his speech for word usage and create a visual representation like this one:

In the end we did give it a math spin.  Homework was to
find out how many people were live at the inauguration and then use
mental math to estimate how many times bigger that was than our school population.