Hoover's Blog

My personal learning network is not well developed in the way of Web 2.0 Technology.

I have colleagues in the office with whom I talk about teaching. Documents, of various sorts, are shared. I depend on the HS Tech coordinator (Maureen and Greg previously) for assistance with technology needs.

Two years ago, I started mentoring someone I’d never met. Jon Benner is the husband of a former student of mine; my former student, Becca Goldman, graduated from AES in 1999. Becca and Jon suddenly found themselves in North Carolina, he was hired to teach Biology for the first time. He needed resources and Becca got in touch with me. In addition to providing him various documents, we had numerous e-conversations on teaching approach, emphasis, appropriate depth of material, and more.

I use the web to find animations, images and references depending on my needs.

The NY Times and the International Herald Tribune supply articles that I use regularly in Environmental Systems and Societies, and periodically in IB Biology.

I’ve got a twitter account and follow (periodically) a few hash-tags. See the image of my tweet deck below.

Time is limited. Time is precious. To be good in the classroom requires many foci. Teachers need to keep their focus on the classroom. It is relationships with kids that matter more than who’s being followed on Twitter. If teachers allocate time to email students and respond to email from students, that is time better spent than tweeting other adults about anything.

Project Based Learning is the rhetorical rage. But what is the evidence that project-based learning (i.e inquiry, constructivist) is better in the context of specified standards and time constraints.

My argument is NOT that inquiry-learning is unsupported by the data or that constructivist learning is less good than some other approach. In fact, I have no doubt that a constructivist approach (inquiry learning) is better for comprehensive learning than any other approach.

My argument is that I have not seen a conversational confluence of project-based teaching, standards and time all inclusive. For example, I have not seen data that compares two (large) groups of high school kids experiencing two teaching styles, with the exact same standards and exact same time frame. At the HS level, standards tend to be lengthy, the designated time period is short and the expectation is that all kids know all standards. If you have X standards and Y specified time frame, are the results of a project-based approach the same or better than any other approach? A teacher cannot escape the incorporation of standards and time into their chosen pedagogy. PBL advocates are rhetorical in their support of the pedagogy, but often not clear about standards and time.

Often it’s heard that project-based learning takes more time than other approaches. That’s fine, but then what of the standards? Are some standards pushed aside? Are the standards different? And either way that’s fine, as long as that’s where the conversation starts and all stakeholders are aware of the magnitude of the decisions being made. In a world of MAP testing and external exams, like-it-or-not, there will be implications if we push standards aside or change them.

What we need in education is for our leaders to get serious about what we expect kids to know within a specified period of time, within a pedagogy that optimizes learning. That’s a conversation that has not taken root.

The integration of technology into my classrooms this semester has layers. The layers, many of them, speak louder than any technology integration in a single unit. Although I did upend one unit in my IB Biology class, it was the totality of technological layers that makes the best argument for my attempt to integrate technology into my classrooms. While the sum of the parts is not necessarily greater than some whole, the sum of the parts becomes equal to my “whole” for CoeTail 5.

In Biology 1, I have continued to run a “modified” flipped classroom with a one-to-one iPad structure. The classroom is nearly entirely digital (unit tests are done on paper) with a website that provides links to movies and access to documents. Students watch content movies I’ve made (Explain Everything) using material that previously was part of my direct instruction. Direct instruction takes up little time, maybe five to ten minutes in a class. Students are held accountable to the homework (movies) with short on-line quizzes (Socrative) taken the next class period. Most of the class time is spent working in groups on documents (labs, data-based questions, or annotations) I’ve constructed for them. Students use the app Remarks to provide text or sketches to the documents or use Google forms to submit data to a class-data spreadsheet. Students use laptops for the program excel in order to graph data. For me, most of class time is spent speaking individually with students about their work. Students submit their work to a digital notebook (Evernote) where I can provide written digital feedback.

Through the semester, students constructed two movies to orally explain their thinking and their understanding. The first movie incorporated two apps, Explain Everything and iMovie, to explain and demonstrate the movement of chromosomes during meiosis. For the second movie, students used Explain Everything to explain three scenarios of population change due to natural selection given different environmental conditions.

For Biology 1, the iPad, Evernote notebooks, the flipped classroom, and student-made Explain Everything orals are, in combination, my contribution to moving technology forward in a content-area classroom. I’ve tried other apps, such as Nearpod, only to discover limited usefulness.

International Baccalaureate (IB) courses present a different challenge in terms of technology integration. First, the content standards are more rigorous. Secondly, time is limited. Lastly, the stakes around student success are higher. For IB classes, I’ve made content movies to be used by students for review or during times of my absence. I did not employ the flipped classroom for IB courses. As well, documents were available on Google sites and could be submitted to me electronically using the Google drive. Lastly, one unit was given over to students to incorporate IB material into a creative movie. The students used iMovie, ComicLife, and other movie-making app’s to use the metaphors of good vs evil, invasion and defend to describe and explain the details of the defense against disease unit. The unit was not very successful.

Lastly, in a time when I was not able to be in classroom, technology was leveraged to “be in the classroom.” Using Google Hangout and all the tools mentioned above, for one week in my absence, my classes did not “tread water” with a substitute. I was “present” in class through Google Hangout where I was live, and through Explain Everything to present short, daily, instructional movies on the day’s lesson and it context to the day prior and the future. From my remote location I was able to initiate a socrative quiz, and after finishing the quiz, and reviewing the results, I was able to speak with students individually about the quiz. The substitute moved the laptop around the classroom as I spoke to students about specific questions missed.

Let me know if you have specific questions about my integration of technology.

I taught a week of classes from a location 5000 miles from my classroom. If you want to know how it happened, read my last blog post.

If you want to know how it went, keep reading.

It’s important to distinguish what I did (between Delhi and Bangkok) from on-line coursework. I was present in each class either using Google Hang Out or with movies I built (some long, some short, my voice, my stylus emphasis). Unlike on-line coursework, I had a relationship with my students. They were patient with any technical or conceptual difficulties, and our prior routines for dispensing and accessing documents (websites) served well. That said, students need to be more pro-active when the teacher is remote. Even though I wrote daily emails to my students, pushing them to use me as a resource from afar, few did. Either students felt comfortable with the delivery of material as it was, or they need better training in reaching out for what they need. In any case, email provides the opportunity for decent e-conversations when the teacher is not immediately accessible.

In most ways, the lessons proceeded as if I was present. Literally, my classes moved forward without me, but teaching from a remote location, with various adults providing tech assistance in your absence, as well as a hired-substitute (school policy) is not as efficient as having the teacher in class. As much as I might want to boast about using technology to teach from a remote location, nothing substitutes, – excuse the pun – for the presence of a well-planned teacher.

Before finding myself stuck in Bangkok, I had originally planned to run a selection lab that was complex and required students to read, plan (in pairs) and be outside for 20 minutes before returning to the classroom to process data. The data collection was complicated and the data required transforming, ultimately producing a graph. As well, the lab was a perfect follow up to the lab we had run just two days earlier but I was afraid students would not see the connection. The Selection Lab had all the qualities of a lab that a teacher would NOT run when he/she was absent. I decided to run the lab but I needed to figure out how to provide the context (prior lab) and instructions on data collection and processing. Two things made the class run as smoothly as if I was there: 1) I was there using Google Hang Out. I was able to provide oral instruction on both the relevance of the earlier lab, and the direction the Selection Lab was going. As well, I built a short (6 to 9 Minutes) movie with imagery, imagery that I could not display using Google Hang Out, and posted the movie to YouTube. Once I had given them instructions orally, they watched the instruction movie, and they went to work. It might seem obvious, but when a teacher is absent, instructions need to very clear. And the more complex the tasks, the more clear instructions need to be. That I could be present using Google Hang Out provided relief when students had questions the substitute could not answer.

Having movies made by Explain Everything where content delivery could happen at home and the possibility of making quick instructional movies to jump-start a class were extremely helpful.

Access to an on-line quiz system was helpful. The quizzes gave the students a stronger impression of my presence. I was able to initiate the quiz from Bangkok, as the students opened the software and logged “into my classroom.” I was able to review the quiz results in Bangkok while the students worked through the lesson. Then, as the substitute walked the laptop (me) around the room, I had individual conversations with students about their quiz. This provided a very real sense that I was there.

But managing each day took time. I was bound to my laptop for significant portions of each day. I needed to be responding to emails without delay. And I needed to be making Explain Everything movies that I did not already have built, not to mention the daily instructional movies. To teach in this manner is not sustainable but it would be easier if I had more material in the cloud. Had I been more thorough about keeping material in DropBox, for example, managing from afar would have been easier.

Two last notes. First, access to completed student work in digital form is not as good as being in the class physically. Students will find many ways to make the digital submission of work complicated. Only my Biology 1 class had strong history with the digital submission of completed work. In order to successfully teach from a remote location, the digital submission of work needs to be addressed. Lastly, the Google Hangout, rather than a single connection, could have ten connections in the classroom. In this way, I could be more personal with every student in the class.

Certainly, there is nothing as good for a classroom as having the teacher there.

Recently I had the challenge/opportunity to teach my HS classes in Delhi from a location well away from Delhi (Bangkok). Due to a surprise visa problem I found myself 5000 kilometers from New Delhi at the start of a work week with no chance of being back before the end of the week.

The question was how to best move the classes forward in my absence? How could I leverage technology to have me “in class” while not being there physically? I had some materials with me but I did not have access to most of my files. But I did have a Dropbox account that my wife (in Delhi) could access. And some materials were on in place on course websites. In two of my three different courses, I was starting a new unit. In both of my IB classes (IBHL Biology, and IBSL Environmental Systems and Societies) I was teaching seniors six weeks away from external exams.

So…..here’s what I needed to do:
I needed to create lessons that would function without my physical presence but would be better than just having a substitute “cover” the lesson. Fortunately, I had a head start with the following technology already in my system:
●I had a website for each of the three different courses from which I could dispense documents and URL’s to movies/videos.
●For Biology 1, content movies (built using an iPad app called Explain Everything) were already made and available on YouTube.
●For my Environmental Systems and Societies class, I planned some readings most of which I was able to find on-line, and post the URL’s to the course website.
●I was familiar with an on-line quiz-making site called Socrative.
●AES has a terrific tech department ready to provide my students with laptops or iPads, and headphones.
●I had a substitute who was interested in taking on the challenge of having me insert myself more than an absent teacher would. The substitute was also willing to facilitate/navigate the technological aspects of having me be remote.
●I had email access to my students who could use me for information as well as sending me completed assignments.
●I had a Skype account and I had access to Google Hang Out.
●My spouse was able to access my DropBox account and put a large Powerpoint file there, as well as some other documents I needed.
●I had a laptop and iPad with me from which documents could be built and posted.

I wanted to be more “present” in the classroom than usual. In terms of the classroom activities/material, I wanted the situation to feel no different to students even though I wasn’t there. There were a variety of mechanisms that made the remote-teaching successful. Without detailing the specifics what I was teaching on a course by course basis, here’s what I did to make the remote teaching work.

1) I built short Explain Everything Movies (available to students on YouTube) that would kick off the day. So, instead of having the sub read the “to do” list, I was able to provide students with an introductory instruction movie with information on the relevance of the work to be done on a given day, some perspective on its context relative to the day prior and clarification on how the various parts of the day fit together, not to mention clarity on the homework assignment. So I made short (5 minutes) movies for each day for each class. The students started the day with these movies.
2) I Skype’d into my classes (Biology 1 particularly). Maureen Cullen and I worked on the details and her idea was to use a Google Hangout. The Google Hangout system worked well. I was present (projected) in my Biology 1 classes on Wednesday and Friday, and I made a short visit to one of my IB Biology classes on Wednesday. Not only could I provide the overview and context of the day’s work but I was available to answer questions as they came up. I “stayed” the entire period for each my Biology 1 classes in the week.
3) In Biology 1, I used an on-line quiz (Socrative) initiated from Bangkok. I “started” the quiz, my students logged into my “classroom” and took the short quiz. The results were sent to me by email. While the students moved to the main activity of the day, I reviewed the results of the quiz, noting specific errors by certain students. During the period, the substitute moved me (the laptop) around the room and I spoke directly with three or four students who had missed specific questions.
4) Websites for the delivery of material and URL’s were critical.
5) Content Movies made by me, allowed me to deliver the content of the course to both my IBHL Biology and my Environmental Systems and Societies classes. I used modified powerpoints to build six content movies for my IB classes, available to students on YouTube. The URL’s were available on my course websites.

All of my courses completed the work they would have had I been present. No class was treading-water in my absence. Was it perfect? Are teacher’s necessary? The evaluation of my teach-by-remote is the subject of my next blog.

The concept of the flipped classroom seems to have no middle ground. Either you have flipped your classroom or you are critical of it. For example, it’s common to find titles such as The Flipped Classroom, the Pro and Con.1

There is only one common argument against the flipped model: a movie watched at home is still homework. Nielsen writes, “the movie is just a lecture sent home…” and “lecturing doesn’t equal learning.”2 “The flipped classroom is built on the traditional model of teaching and learning.”2 (Lisa Nielsen Oct 8, 2011). In other words “Lecturing doesn’t = Learning.”2 This is the argument that comes up over and over again. Other arguments are of less stature because they are not conceptual or philosophical (e.g. access to the internet is not available at home).

I’m guilty of the rhetoric. My flipped classroom has rearranged content delivery. Thus critics would argue that I have done nothing more than rearranged the traditional classroom. Go ahead critics take your best shot. I’ve grown weary of the flipped-classroom rhetoric and I think I’ve gotten something out of my flipped classroom (more on that below). Authors, such as Lisa Nielsen, simplify (vilify) the traditional classroom; “I lecture – you intake.”2 Language that simplifies classrooms is unnecessarily inflammatory, and it’s inaccurate. As well, authors of this kind of thinking are arrogant to imagine they have education figured out. Is there really only one model of a successful classroom? Aren’t classrooms mixes of many styles over time? Aren’t there other variables that are important: external exams, time constraints, standards? Language that simplifies classroom styles to one-word bumper-stickers, or language that’s dismissive of “traditional” classroom styles does not promote a dialog that might unify content standards with web technology.

The Flipped Classroom model has its true inception with the arrival of the iPad in education. Khan Academy aside, there is added value when teachers can use the iPad to create movies (imagery, voice, stylus) that delivers material to students. Let’s be clear about this – the teacher builds the movies allowing the teacher to choose what he/she views as most developmentally appropriate to his/her students. Within what’s appropriate, movies allow the teacher to emphasize what’s important. Within what’s important, movies allow the teacher to provide perspective.

And there’s more. Students have choices. Watch the movies or read. But, remember the movies provide a dished-up menu of what’s immediately appropriate, important and interesting. Textbooks are not always this directed. The movies can be started and stopped as per the needs of the student. Students can use the movies to review material. The biological material may be more accessible in that iPads or iPhones are more mobile than a text book. Very short on-line quizzes (Socrative) and question sets tailored to the movies (written assignment) keep students accountable to the material.

I have made more than 70 movies, between fifteen and thirty minutes in length, all available on YouTube. I have made movies for every unit of my 9th Grade Biology 1 course and I’m building movies for my IBHL Biology. I have already completed movies for one of four semesters and plan to have movies available to them with every unit over the next two years. In IBHL Biology, I do not plan to flip the classroom. The movies will be available for review or for students who were absent, or when I’m out of the classroom.

And then there’s the classroom. During class-time in my biology 1 classroom, there is much less direct instruction. Class often starts with a Socrative Quiz, then I might review material from the last class, with a link to the next step. With that, students then move to documents I’ve constructed and are digitally available (Labs, Data-Based Questions, Annotations). I move about the room, having conversations with individuals and groups. Previously, we would not have had the time to work through as many data-based questions or other documents. As well, there is classtime to have students make movies. Through the year, students have made four short five to ten minute movies explaining biological concepts. With the imagery, voice-over and use of stylus, student thinking has become more visible.

Downsides? I worry students are doing less reading. I worry that my enthusiasm for the subject is less obvious with more direct instruction. I worry that as students work through the material in groups they are less focused.

So, to conclude, the flipped classroom is just another approach to teaching. I have content standards thus I expect students to learn and remember both facts and larger concepts. I expect students to be able to explain their thinking. I expect students to make links among disparate topics and I expect them to analyze data. My flipped classroom is traditional.

1) Hertz, M. B., The Flipped Classroom: Pro and Con, Edutopia, July 10, 2012

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/flipped-classroom-pro-and-con-mary-beth-hertz

2) Nielsen, L, Five Reasons I’m Not Flipping Over The Flipped Classroom, The Innovative Educator , October 8, 2011 http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.in/2011/10/five-reasons-im-not-flipping-over.html

“Technology should be for accessing what was inaccessible. Technology should be for sharing with the world. Technology should give choices.”1

Words like these are on target and should be central to the planning of lessons when using technology. But so should content standards (not NETS per se). And there’s the rub – very little of the literature on the integration of web 2.0 technology in the classroom unifies the technology with content standards, especially at the high school level. With the roll-out of the Common Core (English and Math) and the Next Generation Science Standards, it’s ironic that there’s a lack of focus on the intersection of content standards and technology.

Borsheim, Merritt and Reed write, “a multiliterate person is flexible, and strategic and can understand and use literacy and literate practices with a range of texts and technologies in socially responsible ways.” They go on, “teachers who employ a multiliteracies pedagogy offer their students ample opportunities to access, evaluate, search, sort, gather and read information from a variety of multimedia and multimodal sources and invite students to collaborate in real and virtual spaces to produce and publish multimedia and multimodal texts for a variety of audiences and purposes.” Fantastic! But where are the standards? What do the students need to know?

Do students need to know anything anymore? What are we talking about when we speak about learning? Nielsen writes about technology, (it) “can provide time to do more of the same type of memorization and regurgitation teaching that just doesn’t work.”2 (Lisa Nielsen Oct 8, 2011). Is learning and remembering out? But Willingham writes about how knowledge assists in the acquisition of more knowledge. He writes, “the ability to read a text and make sense of it is highly correlated with background knowledge.” He continues, “If you know more, you’re a better reader. Knowledge helps you when you arrive at the final stage of learning new information – remembering it. Simply put, it is easier to fix new material in your memory when you already have some knowledge of the topic.”3

So where are we? When will the technology integration conversation join hands with the standards conversation? What do students need to learn and remember? When will we get past the rhetoric of “depth vs breadth”, past the rhetoric around memorization, past the rhetoric that elevates one teaching model over another? And so what about that flipped classroom? That’s the subject of my next post.

1) Borsheim, C., Merritt, K., & Reed, D., (2008) Beyond Technology for Technology’s Sake: Advancing Multiliteracies in the Twenty-First Century, The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, [Electronic Version] 82:2, (pg 87-90) http://asingleedx3270assignment1.wikispaces.com/Borsheim,+C.,+Merritt,+K.,+%26+Reed,+D.,+(2008)

2) Nielsen, L, Five Reasons I’m Not Flipping Over The Flipped Classroom, The Innovative Educator , October 8, 2011 http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.in/2011/10/five-reasons-im-not-flipping-over.html

3) Willingham, Daniel T, How Knowledge Helps (Spring 2006), AFT Union of Professionals
www.aft.org/newspubs/periodicals/ae/spring2006/willingham.cfm

Whether or not the IB Biology syllabus, with its fifty pages of standards, is pedagogically appropriate in the 21st century is not the subject of this blog. On the assumption that my task is to help students learn what is encompassed within the syllabus , I will start with the question:
How does a teacher implement web 2.0 technology into the IB Biology Classroom, given the following conditions?
1) All students sit for a high-stakes exam. For some students the score on the exam determines university entrance.
2) All students are responsible for every standard within the IB Biology syllabus.
3) The syllabus demands 240 classroom hours, while I have less than 220, approximately six weeks less than what is prescribed.
4) There are no technology standards in the IB syllabus.

So here’s what I did in an attempt to integrate technology into the IBHL Biology classroom.
The Defense Against Disease was turned upside down. With some instruction, I turned the unit over to the students. I chose the Defense unit because the material lends itself toward metaphorical use of warfare as the foil for understanding the biology of defense against disease. Pathogens invade, body responds. Pathogens hide, white blood cells search. The warfare includes weaponry such antibodies, ingestion, perforin (a cell-destroying molecule released by lymphocytes). Both invader and body have trickery that provides each some advantage; the invader can evade detection by hiding within cells but infected cells can announce the presence of the invader for destruction.

Students were to construct a story to be presented to class using technology of their choice. Pronovost (Feb 16 2012) argues “the more choice students are allowed, the more engaged in the work they will be.” The story required embedding the language of the IB syllabus into the characters and action of the story. I prompted the story by suggesting ideas around the cast of characters (warriors as white blood cells, monsters as invaders, arrows as antibodies, etc). I suggested using anime, or comic book style or a movie. I suggested apps such as comic life, iMovie or Explain Everything.

The students had access to the central questions of the unit (IB Syllabus), two textbooks, web sources and three Explain Everything movies I had made covering the content of the unit. The students had three class periods of 85 minutes. On the first day, students spent one hour watching two of the Explain Everything movies (Part I and Part II). From there, the Story assignment was given – called A Biological B-Story. The students were given basic instructions and a rubric. The students were to form groups of two or three to plan, write and build the presentation of their story. Through the next two periods, the students worked on their presentation. The presentations were due, fully completed, at the start of class on the fourth day. The presentations were shared with the entire class.

Evaluation
The outcome of the unit was underwhelming. The projects were of mixed quality; some groups took the project more seriously than other groups, and on average, the projects were not interesting to watch. Of greater concern was the inconsistent use of the IB syllabus rubric in crafting their work. As well, I found it difficult to assess each member of the group equally. Some students openly admitted that they did not come to understand the material as well as they might have if we not done the project. I offered an after-school session to “clean up” the gaps left in the wake of the project.

Was this project an example of using technology for technology’s sake? A student newspaper of Middletown High South had the following to say, “The mere association of “technology” with innovation, forward thinking, and more effective informative techniques is not enough to actually support or indicate its success. We are trying to change based on what is implied rather than proven.”

So where did things break down? It’s possible that not enough guidance was given by me. It’s possible that without regular creative projects in which technology is employed, students don’t buy into the project or take it less seriously or simply founder without familiarity of repetition. Students may need practice in accessing biological material in creative ways. Maybe, without practice, the project was destined to not work well. It is possible that students didn’t buy into the assignment, knowing there are better ways for them to come to know the material.

Previously, I’ve written on the awkward intersection of IB syllabus standards and the integration of web 2.0 technology. I’ve argued that the acquisition of standards, especially at the upper ends of our educational system, may not require technology. Reading, along with hard work, may be better for acquiring knowledge than adding or substituting technology to the pedagogy. In fact, many university level professors are skeptical of instructional technologies for learning. (Carr, David Feb 8, 2013). Once more, in my next post, I’ll wrestle with learning, standards and web 2.0 technology.

1) Technology for Technology’s Sake, Education Week , by Robert Pronovost, Published: February 16, 2012

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_ahead/2012/02/technology_for_technologys_sake.html

2) Classroom Technology Faces Skeptics At Research Universities, Information Week, by David F. Carr, Feb 8, 2013 http://www.informationweek.com/education/instructional-it/classroom-technology-faces-skeptics-at-r/240148217

3) Technology For Technology’s Sake, Eagle Eye, Middletown High School South, by Michelle Jin, April 4, 2013 http://mhsseagleeye.com/opinion/2013/04/04/technology-for-technologys-sake-2/

Earlier, I’ve argued that the process of education is more important than the material we learn (and then forget). The full argument is ironic because I also argue that standards and teaching for deep mastery of material (knowledge) are embedded in the process. Not meaning to be contradictory, it’s critical to teach towards standards for which students are held accountable. But…..as part of the process educators must accept that most students forget (over time) the knowledge once taught. So what is education all about? Good education is about a process of acquiring knowledge – the process of practicing learning, practicing skills, interacting with a teacher, and making connections among ideas, all of which is critical to the next step in life whether the next step is just another year in school, or the next step is university. Education is not about remembering but it’s about the pursuit of standards that demand the student practice remembering. Education is not about knowledge, instead it’s about the process of acquiring knowledge.

A new book titled How Children Succeed by Paul Tough, reviewed widely in the NY Times, argues that cognitive skills are not the most important skills for success. Tough argues that “noncognitive skills, like persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit and self-confidence, are more crucial than sheer brainpower to achieving success.”1 Tough’s ideas resonate with the idea of education as process as long the process involves holding expectations (standards) high so that persistence is achieved. Tough’s ideas may need to be incorporated into the dialogue on how to move education forward in a technological world, especially because critics of technology have accused technology of a shallowness.2 Yet……how do we connect Paul Tough’s ideas with the technological emphasis on “collaboration” or “academic games?” How do Paul Tough’s ideas square up with Dan Pink’s ideas that people are not motivated by reward when the task is complex?

In this post, I want to grapple with the intersection of following ideas: educational process in high schools, the importance of persistence in success (Paul Tough’s hypothesis), and Technology. Before I dive in, I want to confess that I don’t think all forms of web 2.0 technology have merit for science education at the high school level. For example, I’m skeptical about game technology, gesture-based technology (Horizon Report), and the emphasis on web-collaboration (see Horizon Trend 3). That said, web 2.0 technology is already shaping new ways of ways of teaching at all levels of education, and I embrace that. Oral (voice) work by students, the publishing of work to the web (youtube or blogs), the paperless classroom, the use of mobile devices for document access and teacher-student contact, have already moved teaching in new directions. For the critics of incorporating technology into the classroom consider this, “When students were succeeding in school with no technology, we were also living in a world with little technology, and preparing students for life in a world where technology wasn’t a part of their daily lives.”8 Sir Ken Robinson spoke about changing education paradigms and said, “…The problem is they (teachers) are trying to meet the future by doing what they did in the past. And on the way they are alienating millions of kids who don’t see any purpose in going to school. When we went to school we were kept there with the story, which is if you worked hard and did well and got a college degree you’d have a job. Our kids don’t believe that and they are right not to…”8

The Horizon Report identifies some key trends that are already underway. The first five trends can be seen in classrooms using iPads and providing access to documents on the web, and expecting students to complete assignments electronically then move the document back to the teacher or to other students. This kind of use of technology is here to stay. Apps (and software) that streamline document management, paperless systems, inter-app access (sharing), and web-based rapid access to simple questions, will continue to proliferate. Education needs to engage with the development of this technology and is doing so. But will the future see all of Horizon’s projections come to light? Maybe……but it’s important to note that at higher levels of education, students must read. Students must read closely and often. Technology provides no short-cuts around reading. So with technology increasing, and playing a more important role in education, where does technology intersect with persistence and process? To answer this, I must start with standards because standards, after all, are the things we (culture) has said students need to know and be able to do.

Let me provide three standards (or benchmarks depending on one’s terminology) from a higher level biology course. With these standards, and others like them that fill 60 pages of the IBHL Biology Course, I want to ask readers to consider the intersection of persistence, process and technology. Keep in mind that in reading these standards, you’ll be fooled into thinking that I’m arguing that education at the high school level is about remembering information. This is not my intent; but I’ll clarify that below. Here are the three standards from the high school biology course I teach.
Standard 1 – Explain the reabsorption of glucose, water and salts in the proximal convoluted tubule including the roles of microvilli, osmosis and active transport.3
Standard 2 – Explain the differences ion the concentration of proteins, glucose and urea between blood plasma, glomerular filtrate and urine.3
Standard 3 – Explain the structural features of an epithelium cell of a villus as seen in electron micrographs including microvilli, mitochondria, pinocytotic vesicles and tight junctions.3
It’s important to note that….. All students in this higher level biology course are expected to know all of these standards; there is no picking-n-choosing among standards or students. Student who study these standards are expected to know them 18 months later for an exam external to the my institution, the institution where the standards are taught.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that the recall of the information, as implied by these standards, is what higher education is all about. It’s not. Education in the high school is about persistence and process. Process? Process is the dynamic between student, standards and teacher. Process is the activity around reading deeply and arriving to class ready to ask questions that clarify difficult, if not abstract, concepts. Process is a classroom of students, some of whom push the boundaries of discussion beyond the standards for others to hear. Process is making connections among disparate units of study that happen to have common ideas. Process is about coming to appreciate ideas because you have worked hard to get to know them. Process is about knowing something well enough to love it. Process and persistence are important.

Higher education is not about factual recall but it starts with standards so abstruse, so rigorous that we miss the point in thinking that’s education is about how much students can remember. Higher education is about reading, persistence and a classroom dynamic I’m calling process. Technology can enable the process. Web 2.0 technology can put ideas before a student’s eyes faster, but it cannot increase the rate at which those ideas are internalized by a brain. In fact, depending on its use, web 2.0 technology could just as easily interrupt the quality of the process by weakening the depth to which students must go in pursuit of the standards.

For example, Nicholas Carr (How the Internet is making us stupid) suggests that “People who read text studded with links, the studies show, comprehend less than those who read words printed on pages. People who watch busy multimedia presentations remember less than those who take in information in a more sedate and focused manner. People who are continually distracted by emails, updates and other messages understand less than those who are able to concentrate. And people who juggle many tasks are often less creative and less productive than those who do one thing at a time.” As we look to the future, we must examine the role of technology carefully. Will on-line education increase? Absolutely! On-line education can engage both persistence and process, though the process will appear differently than it would inside a land-based classroom. On-line coursework can be rigorous, providing students with an authentic challenge. But there is a need for development. According to Dr. Bacow, a past president of Tufts who is a member of the Harvard Corporation, “Online education is here to stay, and it’s only going to get better,” What’s still missing is an online platform that gives faculty the capacity to customize the content of their own highly interactive courses.”6

Steve Jobs once wrote, “I want to put a ding in the universe.” According to Dan Pink, it was Job’s interest and challenge and mastery that were more important not financial reward. According to Pink, it’s an interest in making a contribution that forms a part of the third drive. Pink would likely agree that with the complexity of high school curricula, process and persistence would be strong indicators of successful education. Will technology accompany process and persistence? Yes….but technology cannot sacrifice reading, writing and persistence in the process of learning discrete pieces of knowledge as identified in standards.

1) School of Hard Knocks, NY Times, by ANNIE MURPHY PAUL, Published: August 23, 201

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/books/review/how-children-succeed-by-paul-tough.html?pagewanted=all

2) How the Internet is making us stupid, Nicholas Carr, 27 Aug 2010 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/7967894/How-the-Internet-is-making-us-stupid.html

3) International Baccalaureate Website

http://www.ibo.org/diploma/

4) Dan Pink – Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mG-hhWL_ug&feature=youtu.be

5) Gurteen (Visited September 25, 2012)

http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/ding-in-universe

6) Lewin, Tamar, Harvard and M.I.T. Team Up to Offer Free Online Courses, Published: May 2, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/education/harvard-and-mit-team-up-to-offer-free-online-courses.html?_r=1

7) Horizon Report NMC (New Media Consortium)

http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2012-horizon-report-HE.pdf

8) 21st Century Teacher.com, Technology in Education – Why? By Jake Glasgow http://www.the21stcenturyteacher.com/member-articles/on-education/50-technology-in-education-why

A one-to-one iPad pilot in 9th grade Biology is an experiment with the mobile device as a learning tool. As I evaluate my one-to-one experiment, in my mind’s eye, I vacillate on its success. On the one hand, students work through electronic documents, they share their work with me using electronic notebooks. The classroom has a nearly paperless quality. We employ apps that allow me and my students to make movies for a flipped classroom and oral projects respectively. The classroom has been restructured. Cool right?

On the other hand, the apps we use – all of them – are tools for classroom management. What’s so cool about that? We’re not using Biology apps (of modest classroom application) or ebooks (live links embedded on the pages). In other words, I often wonder how wonderful the iPad classroom is because the iPad does nothing particular to bring the biology to life (pun intended). The class is restructured but has learning improved? Improved learning is hard to measure.

The literature suggests that there are perceived advantages when a classroom employs a mobile device such as the iPad. If you’re interested in the advantage of the iPad, especially as compared to the laptop in a one-to-one setting, follow along and you’ll see where I’m going with this blog post (or review the title). Here’s what recent literature says about iPads.
i) Students appear to be more engaged with their iPads. 1
ii) Electronic notebooks are paperless.1
iii) Electronic notebooks are organized (Hoover and source 1)
iii) The device is mobile – engagement with the material can occur anywhere, anytime (with access to WiFi).2
iv) Teachers can provide on-line material to be accessed at home.2
v) Students and teachers share electronic comments on course materials.1 and 2
vi) The integration of e-book technology with other curricular tools.1 and 3
vii) The iPad allows students to “read course materials, highlight and annotate test, pull up course materials, keep notes and prepare reports.”1
viii) The iPad is lightweight (more portable)
ix) The iPad is inexpensive1
x) The iPad has a long battery life.1
xi) Email is easier to access on the iPad than on a laptop.1
xii) Increased levels of sharing and collaboration.1
xiii) Use of calendars on the iPad increased time-management skills. 1
xiv) Increased technological skills.1
xv) Voice capacity on the screen.1 Oral assessments using Explain Everything.
xvi) Support for nine languages.1
xvii) “The opportunity for sharing rich, dynamic computing environment in a mobile impromptu method.”5
xviii) “instant transfer of information.”2

iPads have some limiting issues. First, iPads are not as printer-ready as laptops.9 With ipads, multitasking is difficult – two windows are not open at the same time.1 Wireless internet access could be limited in time (day or night) or space (location).1 And iPads are not able to play Adobe Flash software.1 Reading (at length) on iPads can be difficult because the screen is said to have a glare.1 And while annotation is one of the iPad strengths, some find annotation to be difficult given the small screen.1 That iPad material is saved in the cloud (mostly) is disconcerting to some; not having the option to purposefully click ‘save’ has put people off the iPad.1

Socially, iPads have been accused of increasing student distraction.2 Richtel et al suggests that the iPad undermines focus, concentration with “bursts of information.”6 Richtel et al suggest that the iPad increases consumption of social networking which has caused “attention problems with children who already struggle to set priorities.”6 As well, Dabri et al suggest the iPad interferes with family relations, and limits the time that families spend together.2

As a one-to-one device, laptops bring certain advantages. They are more powerful with more memory, and are readily connected to printers. Laptops, not iPads, run science software for probes. Certain software, such as Microsoft Excel, is simply better than the best analytical app on the iPad (e.g. Numbers) (Personal Experience). Laptops provide second-language learners with sophisticated software for language acquisition.8

Laptops have disadvantages as well. Laptops are larger, more bulky; 90% of student have a laptop but very few carry them around.4 As a result of having many windows open, students can be more distracted with email, games, internet all open at once. 8 In classrooms, open laptop screens create a greater physical barrier between student and teacher.8

So as the AES High School scrutinizes the iPad and begins to consider the one-to-one decision, a careful look at the strengths and weakness of iPads seems to be in order. Most HS teachers are fully aware of laptop capability. However HS teachers are not aware of iPad strengths. For the purposes of an educated decision both devices need to be well understood by many, if not all, faculty.

From my own experience with iPads in a one-to-one flipped, nearly paperless classroom, iPads are the way forward. iPad versatility is their strength. As well, when most students have laptops or desktops at home, and the school provides carts of (up-to-date) laptops, iPads extend the range of what teachers can do in a classroom. Re-examine the long list of advantages provided above. For me, a few jump out: 1) oral work using apps such as Explain Everything, 2) a push toward a paperless classroom using electronic notebooks, 3) e-book potential. iPads are cheaper which makes the decision to choose them of lesser magnitude. Within three years, non-iPad technology could be replace iPads if the iPad is not well liked or new technology appears. If the HS chooses laptops, we narrow the range of what happens within HS classrooms. For this reason alone, the iPad should be the choice.

1) Hendricks, L et al. The iPad in a Freshman Success Seminar: A Pilot Study
http://www.theglobalelearningjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/iPad-Freshman-Success-Study.pdf

2) Dabiri, R. et al, Jan 26, 2011 Pros and Cons of Technology in education. http://aroofoverourheads.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/pros-and-cons-of-technology-in-education/

3) Harrison, D. (2010, October). Ushering iPad into the classroom.
http://thejournal.com/Articles/2010/10/13/Ushering-iPad-Into-the-Classroom.aspx?Page4

4) Engel, Sarah, Gosney, John, Monroe, Anastasia, S. (2012). Empowering Students and Instructors: Reflections on the Effectiveness of iPads for Teaching and Learning Educause Learning Initiative.

5) Schaffhauser, D. (2010, January). Apple’s iPad: The future of mobile computing in education?
http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2010/01/27/Apples-iPad-The-Future-of-Mobile-
Computing-in-Education

6) Richtel, Matt. “Attached to Technology and Paying a Price.” The New York Times: Technology. The New York Times, 6 June 2010. Web. 26 Jan. 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/technology/07brain.html

7) Groom, D, The Playable Classroom, 23 Things about Classroom Laptops. May 19, 2009 http://deangroom.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/23-things-about-classroom-laptops/

8) Office of Teaching & Learning, Managing laptops in the classroom, University of Denver 2011; Visited September 14, 2012
http://ctl.du.edu/teaching-resources/working-with-students/managing-laptops-in-the-classroom

9) Faas, Ryan, The Cult of Mac; Most Companies are Ignoring the iPad Printing Problem. April 24, 2012
http://www.cultofmac.com/162805/most-companies-are-ignoring-the-ipad-printing-problem/