Bridging the Gap Between Tech-Geek and Teach-Geek

I may expand upon this later, but since it came up in the #edchat today, this is the original handout for the presentation that @40ishoracle and I do on "Bridging the Gap". We usually offer it as a mixed group round table with a few introductory comments and then a moderated Q&A.

It is showing its age (ZIP DRIVE), but the upshot is still true: Teachers and Techies have certain mindset differences that can cause communication friction. Know the differences and it goes a LONG way toward easing the tension.

Also, the "What Kind of Geek are You?" still makes me laugh.

Bridging the Gap Between Teach-Geek and Tech-Geek

Practically Applied: A Month of Creation in #digcit

As educators, we need to bring back the curiosity that is
natural early in childhood. Unlearning the routines may help

One of the struggles that I have had teaching computer classes and even adult professional development over the years is the artificial nature of the exercise. While there are a few notable exceptions and tried & true lessons, the teaching of computers is typically taught as a series of artificial "problems" and walk-through solutions. Students for the most part recognize this and go through the motions to a greater or lesser extent depending on how much they value their grades.

Thus, when we decided to recast the curriculum for Computer Applications as a course in Digital Citizenship (#digccit) based heavily on the ISTE National Education Technology Standards for Students, one of our implicit goals was to make the student experience more real and more relevant. We had some ideas on how to do this: let students drive the agenda within the NETS forward through co-planning the areas to be covered, create a hands-on environment with real experiences whenever possible, integrate the students' own technology into the course, and make connections between the skills and content in the class and its application outside of the course.

The Rough Map for #digcit. The teacher resource room
has two large white boards for planning -- #win

But despite this ambition, when you frame a course based on themes like social media identity awareness and effective communication using technology...you end up with a lot more time in the semester than when you are teaching a series of push-button steps at the pace of your slowest learners. (Note: I credit the individualization that #flipclass affords me for a lot of this added time as well)

So we made the decision to step back even further...and give the last month of class to the students.

Context: 

Brebeuf Jesuit runs a modified-modular schedule. In practice, this means that in a typical five-day week, my class will be 4 times: 2 40-minute periods and 2-one hour periods with a one day break (plus weekends).

The course has built-in discussion time where students bring in articles on technology trends, news, or events that they have discovered and share with the class. The ultimate goal of this portion of the project is to give student an opportunity to analyze claims and evidence made in articles as part of the information literacy practice. In practical terms, it means that one day a week becomes "discussion" day.

Thus we are looking at a 12 days for complete student control:

Students have been operating in a flipped-classroom environment, thus they are used to operating with some level of independence during the class as the assignments and context are given the night before and projects and work time are used in class with the teacher giving most guidance 1-on-1.

Experience:

Students were given a review on the elements of #digcit and the NETS-S. They were walked through a reflection of the types of activities and experiences they had encountered for the last semester. They were encouraged to identify the "lights and shadows" of the semester.  They were then told that this reflection should serve as the lead in to their next assignment: The Pitch

The Pitch: Students were asked to write a memo explaining a final project. The project should deepen their understanding of some portion of the themes covered before. If it used similar tools, they should be enriching the use, exploring new ways or techniques.

Students were also encouraged to create workflow timelines for how they would use the class. These timelines were to incorporate conversations with teachers from other disciplines, so that if there were integration activities in other classes, the Computer Science classroom became the instructional lab complete with brainstorming partners and guidance in all-things-geeky.

When it became clear he needed two hands...

...a truer collaboration was created.

The operations of the day mirrored the conduct of the #flipclass. Students worked independently, but often shared work that they were doing with others:

Struggling to make magic with MotionPaths

• One student helped another film his step-by-steps for solving a Rubik's cube. These clips were edited and tied into an instructional website complete with diagrams created using AVIARY and GoogleDraw.
• The entire class would occasionally stop and stare at the student who decided to test the limits of PowerPoint MotionPaths.
• Another student, struggling to build an interactive game, got help from another who used Photoshop to tweak the shading, lighting, and perspective of game elements.

Check-ins were made daily with the teacher. As necessary, the focus was drawn back to the student-created objectives and the identified connection to a standard or element of #digcit. Very little time was spent off task for almost all students. Students who were consistently off task began to panic as the final project deadline drew closer.

Reflection:

At the end of the day, students were comfortably drawing applications from work they completed in class to the standards and norms of digital citizens in an authentic way. That alone justifies the time spent.

Things to improve: 

Putting Teachers in the Loop: Teachers in other areas were not prepared to have students come to them with a month to go saying "will we have any opportunity to integrate technology into our assessments? I need it for my computer class". Some of them were actually pretty upset, as if we were sitting in judgement. So, what was originally another assessment opportunity, became a "take the time if you need it..we'll be here to help."

Incorporating Language: The focus on #digcit and NETS-S, while there from the inception, was not an explicit part of the language of the classroom until late in the semester. It felt tacked on to the project by some students and took more discussion than necessary to draw the themes through all the previous work after the fact.

Reflections: Increasing the number of formal check-ins (written) as part of the ongoing reflection might help improve the overall quality of work. What was fascinating was that, as expected, some students were aiming for the minimum quality to get X-grade. But since there was no real clear rubric (beyond -- enrich what you have done previously, connect it to a standard you care about, be excellent) then the students kept tweaking and improving based on the quality of work they were seeing from other in the room. Some projects were completed very early but went through three or four informal drafts!

Adaptation and Struggle: There is some struggle with time and...well...struggle. It is not uncommon in this environment for students to hit roadblocks and the need to walk away, do more research, talk through the issue. For someone used to working in technology or any environment that is not mechanical repetition, this is the essence of value. But our students don't know that. As one student put it in her final reflection:

"I would have taken more time to outline how I was going to make the game. I had a lot of "malfunctions" throughout that it took me a little while to figure out what the problem was and then how to fix it. If I had planned better and worked more in an order some of the problems could have been avoided."

It is difficult to explain to a student who is not used to this environment that the struggle cannot likley be planned away and that the results from it are of a better quality, from a learning perspective, than having an experience with no "malfunctions" at all.

Achievement Unlocked: We needed to build in time to showcase the work of the students who worked right up to the deadline.

In the end, this may have been one of the most useful twelve days of the year. The projects had ownership. The standards were a natural part of the learning process and not an afterthought on an evaluation form. The creativity was inspiring. And all it took was handing control of the class over to a bunch of Freshman.

Creativity = Freedom within Structure*

This final project, created by a student who self-describes as "struggling" with the final project,
uses over 30 photos, some drawing, lots of filters...and a touch of creativity. 

*You should have seen the Final Essay :-)

Crosspost: #Edtech Lingo Bingo with @40ishoracle

Many of you will recall the wildly popular EdLingo Bingo from last year. As you gear up for a tech integration heavy summer of webinars, conferences, and personal reflection on curriculum while bon-bon eating (aren't you glad we get #summersoff), the @40ishoracle and I have you covered. 


Introducing our new-and-improved #Edtech Lingo Bingo (now supporting hashtags). Please use with caution, this analog application will not beep, whistle, or buzz. Use of bingo markers on your #shinypretty is NOT recommended.

JD will have prizes at ISTE and BbWorld for whoever calls out first at a session I am attending.

When High Stakes Testing Comes to Sunday School - A Reflection

Disclaimer: I truly don't think there are any bad guys in this story. Each person, although they have some personality quirks, is a caring individual trying to do his or her best. I am obviously the hero of the tale, but take that with a grain of salt as well...I write the blog.

Once upon a time... ok, this isn't going to work. I am not nearly that creative.

Context - A Pluralistic World of Competing Objectives

No deep thoughts. I just like this cartoon.

Many of you who follow my twitter account know that my three children are affectionately named Prime (the 10 year old), the Undivided Middle (7), and Ender (3). Each year, we wait with baited breath to see what the Sunday morning catechism class will hold in store for us. Each year it is a little different. This year, our downtown parish, about 60-70% Hispanic, was holding the Undivided Middle's COMMUNION class as a mixed language class immediately after the Sunday English services.

Having discussed issues of language and culture in a mixed ethnic parish before, I knew that it was important to our parish priest to have more opportunities to have the two different parish populations have more experiences together.

OBJECTIVE 1 (PARISH PRIEST): The English- and Hispanic- speaking parish populations should worship and learn together.

As the class began to meet, a number of concerns began to arise from my perspective as a parent. My daughter described classes as "boring" (never a good sign) with a significant portion of the class presented in a way that she could not understand. Working in schools, I held off judgement and tried to keep the rotor-blades of my every-present helicopter in check.

I did this for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I had experienced clashes before with the Director of Sunday school when I was a catechist. As an English-only speaking catechist, it was difficult for me to teach within a bilingual structure. I tended to assist. But my beliefs in education (student-based, deeper understanding, you know, constructive stuff) tended to grate on the nerves of head teachers who preferred a more by-the-book, memory intensive style. I will never forget my shock early in my participation in this  system to discover that if I presented a lesson in English (as a translation to the few Caucasian students), every student in the class, Hispanic and white, understood me. Almost all of the students in the class were English-only or bilingual. So when I went in to discuss this phenomenon with the directors of the program (through translators), I approached it from my basic premise:

OBJECTIVE 2 (ME): The purpose of catechism classes is religious instruction

Boy, was that off base. It was explained to me (by three people no less) that the only opportunity these students (meaning English-speaking bilingual or English-only Hispanic students) had very little opportunity to use their real language out in the world. The whole point of the system in this parish was to teach culture and heritage and give a circumstance for language use outside of the home.

OBJECTIVE 3 (DIRECTOR OF SUNDAY SCHOOL): The class is an opportunity for culture and heritage transfer and language application

Keeping it in Context -- A disjointed rant about getting along, the common core, dreaming big.

One of the things that I absolutely love about my job is that, in its present form, I have the time and the ability to meet with other geeks, #edtechs, and teachers and talk about improving schools for everyone.

I have worked with public and private schools.
I have consulted with large and small corporations.
I have recommended 1:1 chromebooks, and carted laptop models, and my beloved BYOT

In one rare case, I was even asked to help shape a professional development plan for a 1:1 iPad implementation that would be starting in less than 4 months (and to the credit of my previous speech coaches and directors, I did not even crack a smile, let alone say:
WHAT ARE YOU THINKING! I AM BEING IRONIC WHEN I SAY THAT THE FLUTTER OF #SHINYPRETTY ANGEL WINGS WILL WAFT MAGIC VALUE-ADDED PIXIE DUST ONTO THE EYES OF ALL OF YOUR STUDENTS)

I consider this consultation experience educational for me, helpful for others, and part of my mission in life as both an educator and a Jesuit employee (we are meant to serve and work to bring about the greater glory of God, afterall).

So it is somewhat surprising to me when I review some of the twitter #hashtag PD chats that I have participated in and read some of the blogs and news articles and e-mails from THE_Journal's partners that insist there is an absolute right way to do technology -- my favorite of that last group being an email with the subject "BYOT is coming" -- sent to advertise a webinar about centralized control for Apple Tablet roll-outs.

We have let go of one essential part of the educational experience: CONTEXT.

In the Jesuit educational system, everything starts with context. The relationship between the teacher and the student is supposed to mirror the relationship between a spiritual director and someone on a prayerful retreat -- guiding the learner, advising based on the experiences at the moment but ALSO based on the experiences that that are being brought from the outside and from the past.

Context: What has been learned? How does each child learn?

Ed Tech Reflections: Invisible Integration - The Challenge of Communicating Progress

from my BYOT partner, the @40ishoracle.

I wandered around the school yesterday looking for shots for our "What BYOT Looks Like" marketing -- It is difficult. The students that are doing the most amazing work, don't look like they are doing "Tech" as it is traditionally viewed.

The #shinypretty is easy to visualize... its the factory model of education with some glowing brushed steel added for effect. Real innovation? well, I'll let her say it. She does it well...

Ed Tech Reflections: Invisible Integration: The Challenge of Communicating Progress:

'via Blog this'

To the Clouds! - An Educator's Guide to the New G-drive and Associated Apps

Normally, I am not a person to do product reviews, but enough buzz was being generated and enough people have been asking about how we are looking at it, that I decided it was time to lock myself away for a few days and play with the new Google Drive...

To be fair, it was also an excuse to geek out and avoid thinking about a "long range plan for technology" which in my world is the equivalent of tossing a 20-sided die into a cup full of tea leaves and hoping that the result looks plausible.

The Google Drive:

What is it?

How does it compare?

Why use it?

What it is:

The Google Drive is the long-rumored (it was in secret beta a few years ago and caused quite a bit of excitement) cloud-based storage provided by Google. For the last few months, we have known that it would be similar to other cloud based systems -- a certain amount of storage for free, additional storage available for more money. We assumed (correctly) that it would have some way to easily move any type of file from a traditional desktop to the cloud and back. We assumed (also correct) that it would be linked to Google Docs, the cloud based productivity software (word processing, spreadsheets, etc).

The details are these: it is 5 GB of free space that can be tied to you gmail account. If you are an Apps-for-Education partner, your administrator has to flip a switch (for now) to allow the service to activate, although this should become part of the regular service as the drive is phased in.

Gdocs meets Gdrive

It is a replacement for Google Docs, in that all of your "Docs" are now stored in the Drive which looks very similar. There is more of a traditional drive feel to it with folders at the top (when sorted by Title), and the traditional "Create" and "Upload" buttons to the left, along with a folder tree, some quicksorts and the "DOWNLOAD GOOGLE DRIVE" Button.

The Google Drive download puts a file folder on your Mac or PC that allows you to treat your G-Drive in the same way that you do with traditional file folders. It becomes a quick way to save in the file system and docs that you click on from the traditional folder open in native applications or their Gdoc-in-the-browser window. Syncing happens in the background and is relatively seamless. (note: if you are a Google Cloud Connect user, documents that are synced using THAT product are ignored by G-Drive syncing. I actually uninstalled the cloud connect so that G-Drive could take over completely). There is also an app for Android (it is the replacement of the Gdocs app if you have it installed already and one is in the works for iOS, giving you syncing in all the ways you would need except one (more later).

(comparisons and google apps after the break)