Ed Tech Advocacy / Evangelism

Ed Tech Evangelism.

Based on my experience teaching this course previously, Instructional Technology ADVOCACY has proved to be one theme that students have had some difficulty in fully embracing. Advocacy, I’ve discovered through class discussions, is an unexpected dimension of leading a school in the adoption and refining the use of technology. Further, Ed Tech truly calls for advocacy, something that other aspects of the life of a school  do not require nearly as much of.

There are a variety of types of Instructional Technology Advocacy.

Yes, certainly money is required to purchase devices; networking hardware and connectivity; and software, online subscriptions, APPs and other types of digital resource. And teachers interested in a school’s technology program receiving its fair share of that may need to lobby those who fund the school’s initiatives or decision makers within the school to allocate funds for this specific purpose. Another aspect of advocacy for funds may involve fund raising, applying for grants, seeking donations of equipment, and more.

School Technology advocates may choose to focus on getting some more attention focused on their area. Is technology considered when the school does PD, allocating not just funds for this, but time, as well. Is Instructional technology considered important? Important for the right reasons? This last point is important because there are many reasons why tech should be used that are misperceptions or common uses that establish an awareness of technology as far less important than it actually is. Yes, it’s good to have a web page that students can go to as their needs dictate that will provide information about which assignments are due and when. This however, pales in comparison with the ways that resources and practices like science simulations. Virtual field trips, digital storytelling, student robotics, and more can literally make for a very much richer, more vibrant, accessible, and effective type of instruction provided to the students.

Advocacy very likely will include also, Ed Tech Evangelism. And related to this, simple Visioning, getting the school community to envision what it wants and what it feels the greatest value would be, in refining and expanding its technology program. What’s involved here is simply informing colleagues about the role of technology and its potential in Education. What do we mean by Ed Tech when we speak of it. What sorts of things is it and does it do? Why is it important? How does it impact the important things that happen in classrooms and schools? A great deal of potential success in establishing vital and successful technology programs in schools rests on sharing knowledge, understanding, and potential with colleagues who may have their position on it greatly through such efforts. To that end, one very useful tool is video. A good number of videos have already been created and made available on line for this purpose. Can we identify a few that we feel have particular potential for our advocacy efforts and that may even provide a starting point for our own efforts in producing a video.

Below are a few videos that I’ll start off this inquiry with. What do you think of these? Do they make good points? Are they off base or misguided in the approach they take or the points they make? What did they miss? What should be added or dropped? AND can you find others to suggest be added to this list? Your input will be much appreciated.

MG

1. Can Technology Change Education? Yes!: Raj Dhingra at TEDxBend https://youtu.be/l0s_M6xKxNc
   
   
2. Beyond EdTech -- build an effective learning ecosytem | David Miyashiro | TEDxAmericasFinestCity
   https://youtu.be/_oAoTdQ80XI
3. What 60 Schools Can Tell Us About Teaching 21st Century Skills: Grant Lichtman at TEDxDenverTeachers
   https://youtu.be/UZEZTyxSl3g
   
4. Ed Tech Challenge: What is this digital shift, and how do we make it happen?
   https://youtu.be/eEv96XJHQp8
   
5. Technology in Education
   https://youtu.be/aXyCECMxhOs
   
6. The history of technology in education
   https://youtu.be/UFwWWsz_X9s
   
7. Technology in Education: A Future Classroom
   https://youtu.be/uZ73ZsBkcus
   
8. Khan Academy: The future of education?
   https://youtu.be/zxJgPHM5NYI
   
9. What is Educational Technology
   https://youtu.be/gGY2cwWC8Ag
   
10. 10 Emerging Education and Instructional Technologies that Educators Should Know About
    https://youtu.be/uPCLRwgG6dM
    
11. What Is Educational Technology?
    https://youtu.be/Q1PzO2kopRc
    
12. Instructional technologies -- Changing teaching and learning | Eric Simon | TEDxNewEnglandCollege
    https://youtu.be/E45A1UR1roE
    
13. Instructional technologies -- Changing teaching and learning | Eric Simon | TEDxNewEnglandCollege
    https://youtu.be/E45A1UR1roE

Where's the tech that would have REALLY made a difference here?

These are some great ideas for alternatives to traditional book reports. However, had the planning of these ideas included tapping the power and flexibility of simple, easy to use, COMMON technology, they could have been made much more satisfying and relevant to the students and infinitely easier to manage for the teacher in a number of ways... Seems to me that easy to use technology would have made a) doing the projects easier and given the students the sort of more professional looking products that would have further motivated and satisfied them (e.g. mining the web for images to 'collage' to create a poster, maybe with animations and links to reference sources - easy to do audio recordings would capture student verbal performances and be ready for playback on demand) - b) would have made storing the projects and the elements they are made from easier and neater, helped conserve space, and made it easier to give the students access to them. when they wanted to continue working on them - including, at home (storing projects as digital files is more efficient and practical than piles of paper, cardboard, scissors, glue, etc.) - c) would have made it possible to preserve,document, and save the projects, and (e.g. simple digital photos, teacher's or students' phone still or video cameras, etc. d) possible to share the projects with a broader audience (including parents) who would have been empowered to give feedback more practically (e.g. simple, easy class blog, etc.. Tutorials on how to do these things can be found on the web. 

From Scholastic online: http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching/2016/01/bringing-book-reports-lifehttp://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching/2016/01/bringing-book-reports-life

"Bringing Book Reports to Life

By Amanda Nehring on January 19, 2016

Traditional written book reports and story plot posters are a classroom classic, but over time they can get a bit redundant. Instead of using the same old reading response projects year after year, why not try a new, creative and crafty approach to student book reports? Whether you teach the elementary grades or middle school, these hands-on projects are sure to engage your students and bring their favorite books to life!

Storybook Dioramas

Remember the science fair shoebox diorama from your childhood? Storybook dioramas follow the same idea, but in place of the water cycle or rainforest habitats your students will bring a book to life with a three-dimensional representation of their favorite scene.

The first step is to encourage students to pick a book that fits your assignment’s criteria. In the early elementary grades ask students to read their favorite picture book or simple chapter book that addresses a central theme, like teamwork or perseverance. In the upper elementary grades have students choose a chapter book from a state or national award list. At the middle grades you could even allow your students to use the book they are reading in their small-group book clubs. It won’t matter if students select the same story because each child is sure to choose a different scene to portray in their diorama.

After students have read their selected story, they should begin by choosing one scene from the book that they consider to be memorable or important to the plot. Using a shoebox and their own endless creativity the students can work to capture the essence of that scene in a 3D display.

You may choose to have your students work on their dioramas in class with materials from your art center or assign the project to be completed at home. When my first and second graders made their dioramas we had such an impressive display of artistic ability, design creativity, and wide variety in stories: everything from Clifford to Baby Turtle’s Tale to I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie.

Once the dioramas were completed we turned our classroom into an art museum. The students set up their dioramas on their desks, along with a short museum tag to introduce their story and explain why they chose to portray the scene shown. We toured the museum as a class, giving each child the opportunity to briefly share about their diorama. To assess the students’ dioramas I used this rubric, which includes rave reviews from their classmates, as we toured the museum. The students loved reading what the other children had said about their stories.

Wax Museums

Photo by Julie LochenWax museums are another great way to give your students creative liberty in sharing what they have learned from an assigned book. This particular project lends itself well to biographies and autobiographies of important cultural and historical figures. First, allow your students to choose a grade-level appropriate biography of someone they find both interesting and important. Encourage students to pay special attention to the descriptions of how the character looks, feels, and acts. They can use this graphic organizer to help them as they read.

When students are finished reading their biographical texts they must work to bring their historical figure to life! Ask parents and community members to help your class put together costumes so students can get into character and become their chosen figure. Each child should write a short speech that will explain who they are and what their impact was on the world. You can even have students make buttons to hold so that visitors to your wax museum can press them, cueing the student to begin their speech.

Invite families, other classes, and even the community to come and explore your wax museum. The students will love getting to share what they have learned about their selected historical figure and the visitors will be amazed by the museum your class has created. 

Character Cans

Photo by Sandy LandvickThe fabulous third grade team at my school makes character cans each year and I am always amazed by what the students create as responses to reading. The students are asked to choose a favorite character from a book and transform an empty can into that character.

Inside the character cans the students must include six index cards with talking points to share about their story’s title, genre, information about the character, text to self connections, predictions about the story, and reason for selecting their chosen character.

Students love getting the chance to show off their adorable and creative character cans and talk all about why they love their book. Best of all, the character cans go in our school’s front entry display case for everyone to see and enjoy! It is always a memorable project and a great alternative book report.

Finally - some real insight into what needs to be done to save Education. Guess what? It's so do-able... That is IF you can see it!

Learning that occurs in spite of the educational system, not because of it, took center stage in the earliest sessions at BETT 2016, the world’s largest educational technology show that opened here today.
The idea of letting students’ curiosity and discovery drive their learning echoed in speeches by Sugata Mitra, who is piloting seven Schools in the Cloud that are based on student-directed, online collaborative learning without traditional teachers; and 16-year-old Amy O’Toole, whose experiment as a 10-year-old about bees’ ability to learn was published in a scientific journal.


With hundreds of ed-tech products and services on display at BETT 2016—a show that is expected to draw 36,000 visitors and continues through Saturday—the possibility of using instructional technology to give students’ power over their instruction resonates with exhibitors. That’s precisely what many of them are trying to sell to schools and parents around the world.


Mitra, whose presentation drew about 500 attendees, said that curriculum and assessment are two areas of traditional schooling that need major makeovers. An educational system that was designed to produce employees who sit and work studiously at desks will not serve a future dependent upon collaboration to solve problems, said Mitra, who first became known in education after he added freely accessible computers to a hole in the wall in a New Delhi slum. Children taught themselves how to use the technology, and progressed by working together—without adult supervision or intervention.
“The future of learning depends squarely on the future of assessment,” Mitra said. As currently structured, assessment systems look for identical responses from learners. “More research on automated and continuous evaluation of open-ended questions and tasks is needed,” he said. He called on attendees to “invent ways in which assessment is continuous and automatic.”

As for curriculum, “all irrelevant knowledge and skills need to be removed,” and schools’ curricula should be reviewed and updated every quarter. For example, a geography exam question is, “What is an ox-bow lake?” Knowing the answer, he said, is irrelevant. “‘Just in case’ skills and knowledge should be replaced by the skill of learning ‘just in time,'” he said.
“If we had just stuck to the curriculum, I definitely would not be here today,” said O’Toole, a 16-year-old who spoke about how creativity can enhance learning and inspire girls in science. Her private elementary school allowed a neuroscientist, Beau Lotto, to work with students on a study of bees, even though it was not part of the curriculum.

In December 2010, the scientific journal Biology Letters published the findings of O’Toole and her classmates, who did research about whether bees can learn. It all started when a teacher asked O’Toole’s class whether they wanted to “train bees to play a game,” based on the question: “What if bees can think like humans, like us?”  At first, no one in the world of science took the students’ science paper seriously.
But when it was eventually published, the paper was downloaded 30,000 times in the first day, according to O’Toole.

“I think we should be given the opportunity to do something amazing, and our current curriculum doesn’t allow us to do that,” she said.
Read the full article at its source: https://marketbrief.edweek.org/marketplace-k-12/worlds-largest-ed-tech-show-launches-student-led-learning-theme/?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news3 

Is the U.S. Dept. of Education Acting Like an Ineffective Elementary School Teacher? Is the State Dept. of Education Echoing Bad Classroom Management?

The article (in quotes) below is from the Connecticut Mirror  

In my first year as a teacher I discovered that you can only punish outliers and that punishing too many kids, too often, and for too many things was to risk losing my authority and to come off as an over-reactive paper tiger, struggling to control situations that should not have arisen in the first place. I think that all good educators come to this conclusion and I wonder why this doomed approach seems to be the only arrow the U.S. Department of Education has in its quiver when dealing with the Opt Out Movement. As explained in the article below and numerous others recently, apparently the U.S. Dept. of Ed. is threatening to punish state departments of Education (quite a good number of them) if they don't force a sufficient enough number of their state's students to take standardized tests. This, in the face of growing dissatisfaction with the culture of testing in our schools and more and more parents and their children simply 'opting out' as their coping mechanism of choice.


As a teacher and then as a central office program director, a curriculum department head, and finally a member of the Deputy Chancellor for Curriculum and Instruction's cabinet, I witnessed several Chancellors and Mayors of NYC declare that Social Promotion would be ended on their watch and that only students who actually achieved to the levels considered minimal for promotion would go on to the next grade at the beginning of the following school year. This of course was silly, because making this threat could not possibly change the achievement of low performing students and then, … well, what are you going to do with all of those kids who've been left back? Re-doing the entire school system to accommodate the remedial needs of an overwhelming percentage of the student body  would have derailed the organizational structure of the school system and cost more than the system could have afforded. No doubt, too, it would have precipitated the disdain of the public and the press who surely would have asked, "Well, why didn't you teach those kids properly in the first place?" Outsiders to the profession always seem to see the responsibility of educating a generation of youngsters in simplistic, black and white terms.


At any rate, what would make sense here would be for the U.S. Department of Education to sincerely ask "Why is it that so many kids and parents want to opt out?" THAT should be the starting point for coping with this growing trend, not forcing compliance!!! By the way, there are many good reasons to eliminate these tests; I think far more and far better reasons than there are for giving them considering their substance and the way that they currently are administered... but that's a topic to explore another day...

"State sets penalties for schools with high exam ‘opt-out’ rates

By: Jacqueline Rabe Thomas | December 29, 2015 

CtMirror.org file photo

School districts where more than 10 percent of students miss required statewide exams for a second consecutive year will lose funding and  may have their performance ratings downgraded.

The state Department of Education decided on the penalties after the U.S. Department of Education directed Connecticut and 12 other states to come up with plans to deal with high numbers of students that missed the annual exams last school year

 Districts that achieve the federally required participation rate of 95 percent will receive a letter of commendation from the state education commissioner, and those that have participation rates between 90 and 95 percent will receive a letter reminding them they must raise their participation rate to meet the federal requirement.

 This approach will ensure that districts meeting the standard are commended, those failing marginally are gently alerted, and those falling behind are strongly reminded of the potential consequences and provided support to remedy the situation," Connecticut Education Commissioner Dianna Wentzell wrote in a letter to the federal government earlier this month. The letter was released Tuesday by the state education department.

It was not clear how much money the state would withhold from sanctioned school districts. The state gives schools performance ratings on a number of quality measurements, and schools that fall far short of required exam participation rates will be given a lower rating.
About 11,200 students did not take the state exams last school year — a growing trend referred to as the "opt-out movement." It coincides with growing concern among parents that their children are spending too much school time being tested or prepared for tests..."

Read the full article at its source: http://ctmirror.org/2015/12/29/state-sets-penalties-for-schools-with-high-exam-opt-out-rates/  

Twitter for Teacher Professional Development / Teachers Take Control of Their Own PD Needs

Important Article from EdWeek online...

"Teachers Turn to Twitter for Solutions, Connection

Educators say the social media platform offers immediacy and practicality lacking from school PD programs

For several years, growing numbers of teachers have been taking to Twitter to network and learn from other educators, often through education-related chat groups.

There are now dozens of Twitter communities for teachers, featuring weekly scheduled chats as well as continuous, ongoing discussions. Most every kind of K-12 niche is represented, often many times over: Science, English, leadership, professional associations, and state-based educator connections are all represented.

But even as so many online Twitter communities flourish—as old ones get bigger, new ones sprout up, and even school PD coordinators start to jump on the bandwagon—the value of Twitter as a source for professional learning remains anecdotal.

 

"We have recent converts who have tons of enthusiasm for what they're doing [on Twitter], then they turn to their peers, and their peers say, 'OK that's great, show me the results, show me the difference it makes,' " said Mark Weston, an author and ed-tech researcher who helps moderate the ubiquitous #edchat. "And we as a profession don't have an answer."
Still, many teachers maintain the professional development they get from Twitter is better than what they get through their schools..."

Read the full article at its source: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/09/30/teachers-turn-to-twitter-for-solutions-connection.html?cmp=eml-enl-tu-news2-RM

Classroom Social Media - Untapped Potential, Waiting

 

Great piece from T.H.E. Journal (see the full piece at its source)  http://thejournal.com/articles/2015/09/02/research-9-in-10-teachers-dont-use-social-media-in-the-classroom.aspx

"Research: 9 in 10 Teachers Don't Use Social Media in the Classroom

  

Nearly nine of 10 — 87 percent — of teachers have not incorporated social media into their classrooms, according to a new survey conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of the University of Phoenix. The survey also found that more teachers, 62 percent, said they are reluctant to incorporate social media in their classrooms than in 2013, when 55 percent reported such hesitation.

Only 44 percent of teachers surveyed said that social media can enhance a student's educational experience.
"A lack of tools and training top the list of educator concerns," according to a news release. "Almost all (95 percent) of K-12 teachers say they have had some level of training related to integrating technology in the classroom; however, more than half (62 percent) have had minimal or no training in the area of interacting with students and parents through social media. Nearly half (48 percent) of K-12 teachers express the desire to learn more about integrating technology into the classroom."
A majority, 82 percent, also reported that they worry about conflicts that may arise from using social media with students or their parents and 62 percent said that use of personal devices outside the classroom makes it harder for students to pay attention in group settings inside the classroom. Twenty percent of teachers who responded said they've felt intimidated by their students' knowledge or use of technology.
"We are living in a rapidly evolving world of digital and social media, and many students are totally immersed and well versed in these platforms," said Kathy Cook, dean of educational technology at University of Phoenix College of Education, in a prepared statement. "For teachers to stay current, keep students engaged and promote learning, it is important for teachers to acknowledge the influence of social media and understand how to use it to the benefit of their students."
Cook offered six suggestions to help teachers integrate social media with their classrooms:

• Make sure you and your students understand your school or district's guidelines for social media. If there are none, consider developing some;
• Use closed sites designed for school environments, such as Edmodo, TodaysMeet, Kidblogs or Edublogs;
• Use products such as Global Read Aloud or Skype in the Classroom to connect students with peers around the world;
• Use social media to bring experts into the classroom;
• Use social media to get students involved in social service projects; and
• Use Twitter or other social media platforms to connect with other teachers to share ideas for social media in the classroom..."

Will Robot Tutors Make Personalizing Learning the Next Big Thing?

Great artilce from Wired... full article at its source: http://www.wired.com/2015/08/knewton-robot-tutor/

"This Robot Tutor Will Make Personalizing Education Easy"

Knewton

"Personalizing education can change a kid’s life. It can keep the advanced ones from getting bored and the struggling ones from falling behind, because every kid, no matter their level of proficiency, is encouraged to move at his or her own pace.


But for the teachers tasked with implementing this increasingly popular pedagogy, it pretty much sucks. Personalizing a lesson means creating even more work than already time-strapped, under-resourced teachers can handle. It means drafting more lesson plans, digging up more reading materials, and creating more assessments than they would have to if they stuck to the old-fashioned, if imperfect, method of teaching to the middle. The sheer amount of work that personalized education requires of the educator is one reason why so few large and needy public schools haven’t adopted personalized models at the same rate as their better-funded private school counterparts.
It’s also one reason why Jose Ferreira and his company, Knewton, have spent the last seven years working on a way to fix that problem with technology. Today, they’re launching the results of that work: a new, free tool that aims to automate personalized instruction for teachers.

To understand this new tool, you have to first understand what Knewton has been doing all these years. Founded in 2008, Knewton has spent the majority of its existence licensing technology to major educational content publishers like Houghton Mifflin. That technology allows those publishers to upload things like quizzes, reading assignments, videos, and more, and as students interact with the content, the system assesses how well each piece of content performs for a given type of student.
Meanwhile, the more students interact with the content, the more the technology learns about that student’s proficiency in any given subject and what it takes to keep that student engaged. As the system learns more about a student, it can automatically recommend the pieces of content that are most likely to help that student improve. In other words, it lifts the burden of those decisions off of the teacher.

For Knewton, this licensing work has become a sizable business. It’s accrued some 200,000 pieces of content over the years, which have been used by 10 million students in more than 20 countries around the world. Now, with this new tool, the company is unlocking the gates to this technology, by allowing any parent, student or teacher to access it for free.
“You always hear stories of teachers staying up until 2 am either writing their own content or finding it,” Ferreira says. “Teachers don’t pay for it in dollars. They pay in time and labor and quality assurance. We’re taking that part and making it free.”

Knewton

‘The Magic Pill’

Let’s say a math teacher is getting ready to teach her students the pythagorean theorem. The teacher could invite his students to join Knewton, and assign them all a lesson about the pythagorean theorem. Instead of serving each student the same video, though, the system would conduct an initial assessment to determine that student’s skill level down to the percentile.
Then, the system would mine all of its content to find the one video, reading assignment, game, or other piece of content, that’s best suited to that student. When the student’s finished the assignment, the system gives her another mini-assessment to determine if it helped her grasp the concept. If it did, the student will advance on, and if it didn’t, the system will find a slightly easier piece of content, until it finds a match. All of this happens without much teacher involvement at all.
“Teachers need more time and better outcomes and they need a magic pill that’s going to make that happen,” Ferreira says. “That’s what we’re trying to give them.”
But Knewton is getting something back as well. All of the content that these teachers will now upload to Knewton’s system. Using this tool, teachers can upload their own assignments, which Knewton will then vet with its vast network of students.

The system can rank the assignment’s level of difficulty, based on how students respond to it, so it knows exactly what type of students should see that content in the future. Then, the assignment gets automatically logged in Knewton’s system, available not only to that teacher’s class, but to millions of kids around the world. That’s good for the kids, but it’s also good for Knewton, whose technology grows more sophisticated and precise the more data it consumes.

Reading Your Mind

It’s worth noting that Knewton is not the first company that’s tried to automate personalized education. That was a key facet of Amplify, a much hyped ed-tech startup that was backed by News Corp. and is now, as The New York Times put it, about to meet “an inglorious end,” as Rupert Murdoch, its owner, hunts for a buyer. And yet, one of the key problems Amplify had was the fact that it tried to create its own curriculum. Not only that, the curriculum was tied to actual devices that Amplify sold to schools for $359 per student.

What Knewton is attempting to pull off ought to be an easier sell for schools, both because it’s free and because the teachers get to create their own curriculum, rather than relying on a company to do it for them. For Ferreira, who started off his career as a Kaplan tutor, before eventually becoming one of the company’s managing directors, the goal is to ensure that any student, no matter their skill level, or their family’s income level, has access to the personal assistance they need. “A good tutor can crack jokes and make you want to learn,” Ferreira says, “but this robot tutor can essentially read your mind.”