Category: Education reform

Every month, subscribers to Ask a Tech Teacher get a discounted resource to help their tech teaching.

This month:

THE KEY TO ALIGNING YOUR K-5 CLASS WITH COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS:

30 Projects that integrate technology into core lesson plans

Why do I need this book?

The Key to Aligning Your K-5 Class with Common Core State Standards is for classroom teachers, technology integration specialists and lab professionals, as a resource for aligning your technology program with the Common Core State Standards now implemented in forty-six states. You will find it a foundational tool for scaffolding technology into the areas of math, language, reading, writing, speaking and listening as is required in CCSS. Overall, they are authentic approaches to student-centered learning, asking the student to be a risk-taker in his/her educational goals and the teacher to act as guide. The essential questions are open-ended and conversations organic and inquiry-driven, ultimately asking students to take responsibility for the process of their own learning.

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Thanks to the pervasiveness of easy-to-use technology and the accessibility of the internet, teachers are no longer lecturing from a dais as the purveyor of knowledge. Now, students are expected to take ownership of their education, participate actively in the learning process, and transfer knowledge learned in the classroom to their lives.

In days past, technology was used to find information (via the internet) and display it (often via PowerPoint). No longer. Now, if you ask a fifth grade student to write a report on space exploration, here’s how s/he will proceed:

Understand ‘Digital Citizenship’

Before the engines of research can start, every student must understand what it means to be a citizen of the world wide web. Why? Most inquiry includes a foray into the unknown vastness of the www. Students learn early (I start kindergartners with an age-appropriate introduction) how to thrive in that virtual world. It is a pleasant surprise that digital citizenship has much the same rules as their home town:

Don’t talk to bad guys, look both ways before crossing the (virtual) street, don’t go places you know nothing about, play fair, pick carefully who you trust, don’t get distracted by bling, and sometimes stop everything and take a nap.

In internet-speak, students learn to follow good netiquette, not to plagiarize the work of others, avoid scams, stay on the website they choose, not to be a cyber-bully, and avoid the virtual ‘bad guys’. Current best practices are not to hide students from any of these, but to teach them how to manage these experiences.

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Understanding how to use the internet has become a cornerstone issue for students. No longer do they complete their research on projects solely in the library. Now, there is a vasy landscape of resources available on the internet.

But with wealth comes responsibility. As soon as children begin to visit the online world, they need the knowledge to do that safely, securely, responsibly. There are several great programs available to guide students through this process (Common Sense’s Digital Passport, Carnegie CyberAcademy, Netsmart Kids). I’ve collected them as resources and developed a path to follow that includes the best of everything.

Here’s Kindergarten:

Overview/Big Ideas

Students learn how to live in the digital world of internet websites, copy-righted images, and virtual friends who may be something different.

Essential Questions

• What is a ‘digital citizen’?
• How is being a citizen of the internet the same/different than my home town?
• What are the implications of digital citizenship in today’s world?

Objectives and Steps

The objectives of this lesson are:

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I was on one of my tech teacher forums–where I keep up to date on changes in education and technology–and stumbled into a heated discussion about what grade level is best to begin the focus on typing (is fifth grade too old–or too young?). Several teachers shared that keyboarding was the cornerstone of their elementary-age technology program. Others confessed their Admin wanted it eliminated as unnecessary. Still others dismissed the discussion as moot: Tools like Dragon Speak (the standard in speech recognition software).

My knee jerk reaction was That’s years off, but it got me thinking. Is it really? Or are the fires of change about to sweep through our schools? Already, families are succumbing to the overwhelming popularity of touch screens in the guise of iPads. No typing required–just a finger poke, a sweep, and the command is executed. Those clumsy, losable styluses of your parent’s era are so last generation. The day kids discover how easy it is to tell their phones what they need done (think iPhone 4S)–stick a fork in it; keyboarding will be done.

Truthfully, as someone who carefully watches ed tech trends, a discussion about the importance of keyboarding says as much about national education expectations as typing. Schools are moving away from reports and essays as methods of assessing understanding. Teachers want plays that act out a topic, student-created videos that demonstrate authentic understanding, multi-media magazines that convey a deeper message. Web-based communication tools like Voki and Animoto–all of which have limited typing–are de rigeur in every academic program that purports to be tech-savvy. Students are encouraged to use audio, visual, taped vignettes, recorded snippets–everything that ISN’T the traditional MS Word document with a bullet list of comprehensive points to convey the message. For much of what students want out of life–to call a friend, find their location on GPS, arrange a get-together, create a reminder–writing is passe. Email to your middle school and high school children is as anachronistic as snail mail. Even texting is being shunted aside by vlogs and Skype, and note-taking–with the popularity of apps like Evernote–has become something best accomplished with swipes and clicks.

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Dear Otto is an occasional column where I answer questions I get from readers about teaching tech. If you have a question, please complete the form below and I’ll answer it here. For your privacy, I use only first names.

Here’s a great question I got from Sandy:

For the pass 10 years I have taught computer for 3K and 4K Early Education. Also each year that I have taught they have added a grade level to my schedule. So at this point I now teach 3K, 4K, and Kindergarten through 4th grade. I would like to take some continuing education courses in this field to better educate my students. I have already taken the Microsoft Office 2007 Master Certification Course and I intend on taking the Microsoft 2010 course as well (even though I passed the course using the Office 2010 software, I would just like to have the more updated certificate). I am also looking into taking a “Computer Support Technician” Certificate Program. My question to you is…do you have any suggestions on courses that I could take to educate myself more in this field to keep up with the fast technology pace, especially with our young kids today educating themselves through all of today’s tech devices? Currently I concentrate on Keyboarding Skills, Computer Parts and Terminology, Research, Online Safety, proficiency in MS Word, Excel, and Power Point. What do you suggest?

I think the best approach is to develop your PLN, connect with tech professionals who you trust, and shares thoughts, ideas, lesson plans. Attend any conference (like ISTE or local ones) that you can to see what’s happening. Try everything that inspires you. Blog with your students. Get them on wikis. Have them create Storybirds and Animotos and iMindmaps. Some will work. Some you’ll learn from. Browse your e- colleagues and see what they’re doing.

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…with your child’s computer education?

• Show your child how to do something rather than allowing him to discover
• Do for them rather than let them do it
• Say ‘no’ too often (or the other enthusiasm-killer, Don’t touch!)
• Don’t take them seriously
• Take technology too seriously. It’s a tool, meant to make life easier. Nothing more.
• Underestimate their abilities
• Over-estimate their abilities
• Give up too quickly
• Think there’s only one way to do stuff on the computer

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As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: Typing on the iPad keyboard is slow. You have to access two different screens to type most messages. How do I speed that up without buying (and installing) a separate QWERTY keyboard?

A: Here’s one time-saving tip: IPads and most Smartphones will add a period (which inconveniently is on the second screen) if you double-space.

Cool.

BTW–double-tapping a key seems to be a secret shortkey for other tools also. For example, if you double-click the shift key, it turns the CAPS LOCK on.

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Across the education landscape, student text messaging is a bone of contention among teachers. It’s not an issue in the lower grades because most K-5 schools successfully ban cell phones during school hours. Where it’s a problem is grades 6-12, when teachers realize it’s a losing battle to separate students from their phones for eight hours.

The overarching discussion among educators is texting’s utility in providing authentic experiences to students, the type that transfer learning from the classroom to real life. Today, I’ll focus on a piece of that: Does text messaging contribute to shortening student attention span or destroying their nascent writing ability

Let’s start with attention span. TV, music, over-busy daily schedules, and frenetic family life are likely causes of a student’s short attention span. To fault text messaging is like blaming the weather for sinking the Titanic. Texting has less to do with their inability to spit out a full sentence than their 1) need for quickness of communication, 2) love for secrecy, and 3) joy of knowing a language adults don’t.

What about writing? In the thirty years I’ve been teaching everyone from kindergarteners to college, I can tell you with my hand on a Bible that children are flexible, masters at adjusting actions to circumstances (like the clothes they wear for varying events and the conversations they have with varying groups of people). There is no evidence to support that these elastic, malleable creatures are suddenly rigid in their writing style, unable to toggle between a casual texting shorthand with friends and a professional writing structure in class.

In general, I’m a fan of anything that gets students writing, and there are real benefits to giving students the gift of textual brevity rather than the stomach-churning fear of a five-paragraph structured essay. I’ve done quite a few articles on the benefits of Twitter’s 140-character approach to writing and my teacher’s gut says the same applies to text messaging. Truth, studies on this topic are inconclusive. Some suggest that because young students do not yet have a full grasp of basic writing skills, they have difficulty shifting between texting’s abbreviated spelling-doesn’t-matter language and Standard English. But a British study suggested students classify ‘texting’ as ‘word play’, separate from the serious writing done for class and results in no deterioration in writing skills. Yet another study found that perception of danger from texting is greater than the reality: 70% of the professionals at one college believed texting had harmful effects on student writing skills. However, when analyzed, the opposite was true: Texting was actually beneficial.

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Have you noticed what’s happening in your child’s school? Technology. There’s rarely a lesson taught, be it math or science or health, that doesn’t include some form of technology

to enhance its message, increase its reach, improve its communication. If you haven’t been in the classroom lately, drop by this week when you pick up your wonderful student. There’s likely to be a Smartboard (or some sort of interactive screen) on the wall, a pod of computers (if not 1:1 laptops) overflowing from a corner, maybe iPads on desktops or in a mobile cart, a digital camera and microphones to record events, streaming video from Discovery Channel. Those ubiquitous samples of student work that traditionally clutter the walls now include many created with computers.

Today’s education happens by standing on the shoulders of technology innovation.

If you don’t have a school-age child, take a peek at Cisco’s VNI Service Adoption blog. There’s an uptick in the impact of technology on all parts of consumer life. As Cisco suggests, these changes are all about connecting students to their future, empowering them with responsibility for their own education in areas such as:

• access to learning
• quality of instruction and education assessment
• innovative learning models
• decision making
• reduced costs with administrative efficiency (not yet, but it’s a good goal)

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When I was asked to write a piece about teaching, I knew I could write something fluffy about the feel-good nature of working with children, the high of enlightening a child’s cerebral world. In fact, that would be true, but if you’re reading this article because you’re pondering a position as a teacher, you already know that. What you want to know is: Is it worth it? Five years into the career, when you’ve had too many truculent parents and challenging students, do you still feel the scales are balanced?

Let’s back up a moment. The most common reason cited for becoming a teacher is altruism. Teachers self-report they join the ranks of those with the greatest influence over the future of our nation–our world–because they want to do something worthwhile with their lives. But if you scratch beneath that noble veneer, you find other reasons:

• I lost my job and couldn’t get any other
• It’s easy to teach
• I like summers off
• Kids don’t intimidate me
• I can’t stand the competition in my business job
• I want to influence people. Parents respect teachers and are open to influence. Kids expect it.

In truth, many graduates from teacher credential programs end up quitting. The ones who stay are those that arrive there as a second career. That’s because:

• after surviving a cut-throat high-powered, highly-paid business job, experiencing the rush of a child’s mind lighting up is the greater reward
• two months off every summer well-rejuvenates the spiritual engines and reminds us there’s more to life than money, prestige, and expensive suits
• there is a lot of satisfaction in having a classroom of students look to you for answers.
• new friends and acquaintances always react favorably to your job as a teacher. That wasn’t true when you were [fill in the blank–assume some Big Business job]
• you don’t teach for a retirement package. In fact, many private schools have none. Still, they have hundreds of job applicants for each position.

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