Not a Free Tech Tool

Stolen Image from Amazon.com - but since I'm sending
business their way, my guess is that they will be thrilled.

I Will Never Get Through My Reading List!

@joe_edtech

Frequent visitors to my blog (Hi Mom!) will know that I usually dedicate my time to discussing free tech tools to use in the classroom. Money is tight in every school and I take the responsibility of finding and teaching quality tech tools accessible to ALL very seriously. So, my Free Tech Tools posts will return in the Fall ("Winter is coming!" - House of Stark). This post is really all about you, and how one tech tool may be worth the investment.

I love to read. However, my time is limited. I have a hefty commute to and from work every day. I have my school work and I'm writing a pretty substantial research study. And, I have a 14-year-old daughter that demands and deserves a fairly significant amount of whatever is left of my free time. While I do read for pleasure in the few spare minutes remaining, I find it isn't enough.

For instance, I just read The Girl on the Train, and I found it compelling. It is hard to put it down and walk away - so I didn't. I bought the Kindle book and downloaded it to my iPad, and I bought the audio edition as well and loaded the Kindle app on my phone. The reason is that WhisperSync from Amazon.com actually syncs the Kindle version with the audio. So, I read a chapter at night on my iPad, then got up and listened to the next couple of chapters on my phone on the drive into work. When I got back to my iPad, it would sync to the last page I heard in the audio book. 

This is available for virtually any book that is available with both a Kindle version and an Audible version. So, the downside is that it sometimes costs a little extra. You do have to pay for the Kindle version, but you can usually add the Audio for free or at a significantly reduced cost. For instance, if I were to buy Stephen King's 11.22.63, it would cost $8.99 for the download, but the audio is actually included in the cost.

WhisperSync is a service of Amazon.com, which owns both Kindle and Audible. Click here for more information.

I hope this helps you enjoy your summer break just a little more, and get closer to getting through your reading list. Then, next Fall, we'll talk about kids who might benefit from hearing the story while they read it. :)

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Have other tips for teachers as they head to a summer of recalibrating and learning? Tell us about them in the comment section below.

Summer PD

Um...What?

Summer Professional or Personal Development

@joe_edtech

Summer must be approaching because my daughter keeps saying things like, "One more Monday of school!" or "4 more wake ups til no more alarm clock!" My schedule doesn't work exactly like that anymore, but I remember really looking forward to summer vacation, except for one thing. Preparations for the Fall and professional development responsibilities coupled with all of the responsibilities of home really can create a whirlwind.

The summer should afford us the time for deliberation and study, but too much of our professional development models resemble the "Networked Professional Development" schematic embedded on this page. A LOT of things to do and talk about in a very little amount of time - usually in a poorly lit classroom with sketchy air conditioning. With that in mind, I suggest you take matters into your own hands and engage in Personal Development in addition to your summer workshops and classes and, and, and...ad infinitum. 

Pick some good books to read. This summer I'm going to read two books (both of which I've previewed, neither of which will take much more than a complete weekend to read). First, "The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined," by Salman Khan. Mr. Khan has a Harvard Business background, but has turned his tutoring business into something incredible, Khan Academy. I may not agree with all of his conclusions, but I do think that we should ask some big questions about how we got to our current primary education system and about how we might redesign it for the 21st Century. Secondly, I'm going to read "What Connected Educators Do Differently," by Todd Whitaker, Jeffrey Zoul, and Jimmy Casas. This book is about establishing powerful personal learning networks with other teaching professionals across the globe. Selfishly I want to read this because I think that such PLNs have a tremendous amount of potential to offer us all informal PD and support as continue to grow and improve as teachers and school leaders. Also, one of the authors, Jeffrey Zoul, is an Associate Superintendent at one of our sender schools, and I am always interested in pursuing a closer relationship between the high schools and the K-8 schools.

Next, watch some inspirational speakers - even if it is only on YouTube. If you want to get charged up about teaching with digital tools I suggest watching Kevin Honeycutt, former art teacher and current school board member, as he discusses the importance of authentic learning environments - helping students pursue their passions to the point of creating real and marketable products. Jim Sills, very Googley, is another expert in teaching digital media. At the Google Summit in Glennbrook, IL over spring break last year, he taught about telling a story with video using just four shots. It was amazing.

Finally, learn something new that is just fun to learn. I suggest subscribing to the Google Gooru and trying some of the tools in Google Chrome and in Google Apps not because you are ready to use them in your class, but just because they'd be fun to try. I love learning about Space and our place in it even though it serves me no professional purpose. So I installed "3D Solar System Web" from the Chrome Store and I'm going to play around with making my own 3D Solar System tours over the summer. 

Regardless, teaching and using technology should be fun. So take some time this summer to do something fun!

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What do you do for Personal Development over the summer?

Integration through PLCs and COPs

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How Do You Get Everyone On Board?

@joe_edtech

I recently saw a very good question asked during an Ed Tech Twitter Chat. The moderator asked, "What examples of PD/support have led to the most positive instructional changes surrounding digital resources?"

This is an often overlooked or underrated question when we consider the history of integrating technology into the classroom (see previous posts, I won't belabor the point). But if every previous attempt at transforming the classroom was ultimately doomed to fail because of teacher resistance, then the real question is, how do we create PD that is teacher driven and fosters innovation?

I think most of us in education intuitively know that we have to provide a two pronged support plan. In the first prong, we have to provide formal training that teaches the basics of technology tools and methods of integrating and teaching with technology. The second VERY BIG prong is ongoing PD that is embedded and focused in building or district PLCs, and which encourages teachers to work together and form connections through informal Communities of Practice that are formally supported by district and building administration.

Not surprisingly, the research backs this up. Let me discuss the results from just one study published in the Journal of Educational Computing Research, entitled "Technology Integration Through Professional Learning Community" (Full APA citation below). In it, the authors operate from a very basic premise, "Sustained and socially driven involvement in professional development programs is a factor contributing to teacher content knowledge and teacher satisfaction" (p 60).

In fact, their study shows what a factor it can be. The study examined a program that embedded sustained PD in PLCs and Communities of Practice. When the study began, a majority of teachers achieved only very basic levels of technology integration (think "Substitution" on the SAMR model). By the conclusion of the two year cycle, a majority of teachers found themselves at the upper ranges of the Stages of Adoption scale labeled "creative application to new contexts" (p 70). And, important to note, only one teacher dropped out of the PLC voluntarily.

I've seen similar results in teacher teams I've had the privilege to work with (without the benefit of detailed statistical analysis - thank God). I firmly believe we get the best results when we provide teachers with an appropriate level of formal training, support them as they work in their teaching teams to change practice, and encourage them to collaborate and experiment with other teachers who have some of the same teaching goals. 

But, I couldn't find a way to fit that into the 140 character limit on Twitter, so I had to say it to you. Aren't you lucky. :)

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Cifuentes, L., Maxwell, G., & Bulu, S. (2011). Technology Integration through Professional Learning Community. Journal Of Educational Computing Research, 44(1), 59-82.

Social Media Research

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Research on Social Media in Education

@joe_edtech

This blog post is essentially a summary of an article titled "Social Networking: Boundaries and Limits Part 1: Ethics" which appeared in the March/April 2014 edition of Tech Trends, an AECT publication. The APA citation is below.

Some of my recent blog posts have focused on getting the most out of social media tools for professional development, and making meaning out of noise by curating stories from social media. But, occasionally I like to share some of the research in the field.  Last Spring's edition Tech Trends magazine included an article that started by summarizing some of the statistics about how many of our students are using social media on a regular basis and for what reasons. I had to share...

• According to studies from 2010 and later, 74% of kids 13-18 have at least one account on a social networking site, and most have more than one. (I'd like to point out that most of this research was completed before the explosion of the use of Twitter by young people.)
• Students don't just use social media for communication, they use it for news and research. One study cited by the authors suggests that as many as 68% of high school students use social networking to research colleges and universities.
• The prevalence of social media amongst college students has caused professors to change instruction. According to a 2011 study cited by the authors, up to "91% of college faculty reported using social networking for professional and/or educational purposes. According to the faculty responses, 70% viewed utilizing social networking as a valuable tool for teaching in the classroom."
• In that same study, 58% of college professors suggested that social networking is an important way to support collaborative learning.

It is logical to conclude that these percentages have increased sharply since the research was completed in 2010 and 2011. And that leads us to another couple of conclusions. First, it is important for us to spend time in K-12 teaching students appropriate social networking skills because they will likely need those skills when they are in college. Secondly, by the time they get to high school, a majority of our students are already using social media. If we don't spend time teaching them social networking skills and digital citizenship ethics, we've given them the Internet with no safety net.

The article covers several other items that are worth discussing, but one that I can't pass up has to do with "Social Role Theory." The authors say, "A faculty member is placed in a potentially problematic ethical position when he/she takes on the dual role of teacher and friend to a student when utilizing social networking" (26). In other words, in K-12, it is important to provide our teachers with ongoing professional development in effective and appropriate ways of using social media with our students, and for each school district to provide clear guidelines and policies for teachers and administrators to follow. 

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Aragon, A., AlDoubi, S., Kaminski, K., Anderson, S., Isaacs, N. (2014) Social networking: Boundaries and limits part 1: Ethics. Tech Trends 58(2), 25-31.

Computer Skills for the 21st Century

http://www.morguefile.com/

Looking Under the Hood

@joe_edtech

Thanks to a colleague of mine, I read a very well written blog post recently titled "Kids Can't Use Computers...And This Is Why It Should Worry You," by Marc Scott. In it, the author makes the point that we frequently confuse the ability to navigate the Internet or connect to legions of friends through social networking tools with real computer knowledge. Being Tech Savvy and being Internet Savvy are not the same thing.

I should point out here that I don't agree with some of my more hard core ed tech colleagues who insist that you really don't know anything about computers unless you can program them. Don't get me wrong, I think everyone should know something about coding, but I don't think programming is for everyone.  While I spent hours and hours in my basement learning BASIC, creating fairly lame graphics on my Texas Instruments Computer, I'm not sure that kind of thing is as important for the general population as coding evangelists seem to believe.

As an analogy, I think it is important that everyone who drives knows how to jump a battery, change the tires, and add washer fluid. I don't think it is nearly as important for everyone to know how to change their spark plugs or reattach hoses or really even change their own oil (although it is worthwhile to do that by yourself just once). In other words, drivers need to know how to handle emergencies, to diagnose a problem when something is seriously wrong, and to clearly express that to the professionals who will handle the repairs.

In parallel, it is important for computer users to know how to handle emergencies, to diagnose problems when something is seriously wrong, and to express that clearly to the professionals who will handle the repairs. That means all computer users should be aware of what is in "Settings" or "Control Panels," and how to connect to WiFi, and how to do things like repair permissions or remove malware (or avoid it in the first place).

As a way to defer the cost of registration, I provided free tech support at one of the conferences I attended last year, and I will say that I helped a number of educational professionals, who were about to make presentations on using technology in the classroom, do simple things like extend or mirror the computer display while using a projector. While it made my conference cheaper, I found it a little disheartening.

Do you know your personal settings?

My take away from the "Kids Can't Use Computers" piece is that Mr. Scott is right. Kids do need explicit instructions on managing their computers or tablets. But I think that starts with making sure that our teachers get explicit instructions on managing their computers and tablets. Next semester I'll be offering several Computing 101 session for teachers who want to be more self sufficient on their computers. And that will all focus on understanding Control Panels and Settings in both Windows and Chrome.

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Do you think all kids need to know how to code? How much coding should be required?

Research / Reality Disconnect

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Altered Reality: Does Our Educational Research Match Our Reality?

@joe_edtech

The other day I was reading a really compelling article called, "The Impact of Technology and Theory on Instructional Design Since 2000," which is actually a chapter out of a larger work entitled Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology (full citation below). In the article, the authors suggest that we have already gone through "Four Ages of Educational Technology," and they are, "the Age of Instructional Design, the Age of Message Design, the Age of Simulation, and the Age of Learning environments" (p. 89).

In a recent post, I talked about the author's "Age of Instructional Design," so I won't belabor that point here. But let's take a quick look at the other "Ages." Of the "Age of Message Design," the authors claim that "Lesson content and heuristics for performance are seen as best embedded or situated within an authentic task" (p. 90). In the "Age of Simulation," the authors assert, "emerged in response to the wide availability of technologies that allowed for the development of digital models that students could directly experience, which encouraged interaction that is learner centered" (p. 91). Finally, the "Age of Learning Environments" reflects "the shift from the design of instruction to the design of learning environments with learning being more dependent on the learner. Such environments cognitively and/or physically situate content and skills within complex, adaptive educational scaffolding spaces both face to face and online" (p. 91).

The descriptions for the 3 later Ed Tech Ages are fabulous if in fact we are describing future hopes and expectations for classes that are transformed through the use of instructional technology. They are delusional if they are supposed to be descriptive of current common practices. There is no doubt in my mind that there are individual programs or teachers who have developed authentic student centered learning environments, but we are kidding ourselves if we think that is currently the norm in K-12 education. Frankly, it can't be the norm as long as our national leaders (right and left) cling to the high stakes, standardized testing, industrial age model of education.

For a peek into what education could be in a post industrial world, watch the amazing RSA lecture given by Sir Ken Robinson, linked here.

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What do you think? Am I the delusional one thinking that there could be something after high stakes testing?

Warren, S. J., Lee, J., & Najmi, A. (2014). The impact of technology and theory on 
     instructional design since 2000. In J.M. Spector, M.D. Merril, J. Elen, M.J. 
     Bishop (Eds.) Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and
     Technology. (pp. 89-99). doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-3185-5

Personal Professional Development - Twitter Chats

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Getting Started With Twitter Chats

@joe_edtech

Why use Twitter? If you don't necessarily see value in Twitter as a social communication tool, surely every educational professional can see the value of  Twitter for Professional Development purposes - especially when it comes to Ed Tech and technology integration.

In an earlier post, I suggested that even if you never send a single Tweet, there is a lot to learn by following innovative thinkers on Twitter. Today's post is going to focus on getting involved in the conversation by following Twitter chats. For instance, #iledchat is a Twitter chat run by a few Illinois educators every Monday night from 9-10 PM. One recent discussion focused on "assessment." 

To follow a chat, you simply need to go to Twitter and search for the chat #hashtag (in this case, #iledchat):

Then you'll see a list of Tweets sent with that HashTag. For the #iledchat, at 9PM on Monday, a moderator will send a tweet introducing him or herself and the topic. Then they'll pose questions to the participating community. 

Questions will be labeled "Q1" and "Q2" and so on. Anyone following the chat can respond. This is what it looked like when people were responding to "Q2" during the assessment discussion - notice their Tweets start with "A2" and end with "#iledchat."

Don't worry about reading every Tweet, almost every Twitter Chat will post an archive of questions and answers at the end:

Here's the archive from last night's chat on Homework: http://sfy.co/gwIH

If you'd like to try it, here are a list of some of the most popular education related chats: bit.ly/officialchatlist  (compiled by @thomascmurray , @cevans5095 and @cybraryman1).

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How do you stay current and provide yourself with personal professional development?

SAMR Model

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How SAMR Helps Teachers Take Their First Steps

@joe_edtech

I love working with teachers who work hard to integrate technology into the classroom, but I sometimes fear that our current systems of support discourage teachers as they are taking their very first steps. One of the things that has concerned me recently is that our best practice models, and rightly so, are teachers who have been working hard at integrating technology into their classroom not for days or weeks, but for years. The problem is that a fully functioning, integrated website, or a 1:1 mobile computing classroom can be intimidating for someone who is taking their first steps into 21st Century Learning Skills.

Enter Dr. Puentedura's SAMR model (blog linked here). Schools and districts have moved in legion to adopt the SAMR model of technology integration as their theoretical framework, and it has done wonders for teachers who are taking their first steps with technology integration. Why? Because no matter how novice someone is, they can still be on the chart somewhere. Furthermore, depending on the technology tool we use, it is fairly simple to move from the "substitution" step to the "augmentation" step.

Consider the teacher who takes a simple reading hand out and converts it from a Xerox copy to a PDF using a scanner. If the students now access that exact same reading on a Chromebook, the teacher has augmented the classroom experience. The students can easily manipulate the screen and zoom in on the text, making it easier to read.  Or they can highlight a word and look up the definition or pronunciation online. With the installation of a Chome Store App, the students can highlight the text and hear it being read while they read along.

I am very proud of the teachers at DHS and think they have gone over and above the call of duty to prepare for and begin using Google Apps, eBooks, and Web Store Apps in their classes. Their willingness to climb the SAMR Ladder will only lead to even more innovative teaching and learning environments.

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Have you used SAMR? Is there a different theoretical framework we should be looking at for teachers just beginning to integrate technology.

FTT - VideoNot.es

VideoNot.es

Making Sense Out of Flipped Lessons

@joe_edtech

Recently I had the opportunity to run a workshop on "Flipped Classroom" techniques with an excellent veteran math teacher. As we sat down to talk about the things that have to be considered before teachers simply make a video and share it with their kids, we came up with a key list of pre-production ideas to focus on. The list included items like:

• metascripts for lesson planning
• production values for videos
• software available
• long term storage

While we had a great discussion about preparing instructors to teach in the flipped classroom, I think the piece we missed was preparing students to succeed in a flipped classroom. If I had to do it all over again, I would suggest that we model and then scaffold note taking skills using tools like VideoNot.es.

An add on to Google Chrome, VideoNot.es allows you to split your screen and watch an instructional video on the left and take time stamped notes on the right.

And because it is all integrated with Google Drive, it is simple to share notes in collaborative groups or just between student and teacher.

VideoNot.es can be found on the Chrome Web Store by clicking here.

Here are some easy to follow instructions on getting started with VideoNot.es from Chris Morris:

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How do you teach your students to take notes?

Social Media - Twitter as PD

Using Twitter for Your Personal Professional Development

@joe_edtech

Most people know that Twitter has value as a social networking tool, but perhaps the secret to Twitter is the professional development available for almost any topic that interests you. Even if you never send a "Tweet," you can get updates from organizations and writers that are important to you and can offer you tools and advice that make you better at what you do.

For instance, I follow:

• Edutopia - The George Lucas Foundation for Education
• NSBA - The National School Board Association
• David Pogue - Tech columnist, NY Times; PBS NOVA host; Missing Manuals creator, dad of 3!
• Common Sense Media - Organization for Research Based Digital Citizenship Curriculum
• Deerfield High School
• Deerfield High School Libraries

And that doesn't even scratch the surface. Writers, other teachers, colleges, organizations, teams, politicians (ugh, I don't recommend following them).

To get started, try:

10 Educators On Twitter You Should Follow (But Probably Don't)

100 Terrific Twitter Feeds for Teaching Advice

All you need to do to get started is create an account on Twitter.com. HOWEVER, before you do, click here and check out "The Ultimate Twitter Guide for Teachers." Jeff Dunn (@edudemic) provides you with:

• A beginner's guide to Twitter (including video)
• Information on Twitter Etiquette
• Advice for Teachers New to Twitter
• 35 Interesting Ways to use Twitter in the Classroom

And much, much more.

Once you start using Twitter, you'll learn about "hashtags" (#). They are used in Tweets to denote important topics, and to make Twitter feeds more searchable and user friendly. The most important hashtag for educators is #edchat. Click here to get an idea of the myriad of topics discussed on Twitter labaled #edchat.

Find Twitter Here - And create your free account today.

By the way, there are two great HashTags (#) you should be following and contributing to if you are on Twitter:

#DHS__Pride = Tag the great staff, students, and accomplishments we have.
#D113PLN = Contribute to our online Professional Learning Network