Using New Technologies; An Interview With An Expert.

                As I delve deeper into the world of Web 2.0 I am often left wondering how you can determine which sites are worthwhile for the students.  The amount of time and effort that needs to be invested in some of these resources is daunting, so I want to make sure that the end results are worth it.  While googling the question, “Best Web 2.0 tools for teachers” get you some results, 1.8 million, how can anyone determine what sites are actually worthwhile.  With that in mind I interviewed a fellow teacher who uses technology exceptionally will in her classroom.  Aside from being an excellent teacher she is also one of my building technology people, meaning she attends monthly meetings and helps other teachers in the building with their questions and concerns.  As any teacher or professional would know, often times the best resource is someone who has experienced the same issues that you are struggling with and overcome them.  With that in mind I sat down and talked with Jill Berge a 20 year veteran teacher.

I first asked Mrs. Berge about how she decides which web 2.0 and technology tools to use with her students.  She responded that, “She is constantly looking for new ideas, and try to choose tools that will appeal to students.  The biggest consideration however is will this offer a fresh way for them [students] to accomplish the task they need to do.”  That statement really struck me, if the resource you are trying to use is not appealing to the students, then what good will it provide you in the classroom?  It also brings up the notion that technology should not be used and incorporated into the classroom simply because it is technology.  It needs to serve a purpose and add to the content that you are already teaching.  Forcing a resource onto a student, simply because it uses technology, will often have the opposite effect of what you were trying to achieve.

I then discussed what obstacle she has needed to overcome to obtain permission to use technology with her students.  “I’ve had to work with our district filtering system to get certain sites approved, and with the publications department to get certain platforms approved for use.”  The filtering software in our district takes the approach that it is better to block everything rather than let in one thing that might not be appropriate.  While definitely the safe approach for a district to take, especially considering CIPA legislation, it is frustrating for teachers.  Basically, it makes it so a teacher must be planned out weeks in advance in order to assure any new technology that will be used in the classroom will make it through the district filters.  With this in mind Mrs. Berge concluded by saying, “I’m sure I’ve also used some tools that were not approved by the district, but weren’t blocked, so I used them anyway.”  This seems to be the approach of most teachers in my school, if the filters are not blocking it just go ahead and use it.

The final question I asked was what advice she would give to a teacher seeking to replicate her efforts.  Her response was short and to the point, “Try things out.  Be willing to have the kids take something and run with it, even if you’re not an expert with it.  Learn from students.”  Great advice to any teacher regardless of what they are trying to achieve.  I know that when I first started teaching there were many ideas and activities that I tried with students that just did not work the way I wanted them too.  What I learned was that is okay, just be honest and ask them for advice on how to change things up.  Not only will your lessons and activities improve, but students will also appreciate the input that they are able to provide.  In this day and age, teachers must realize that most of the students sitting in front of them are far more tech savvy than we are.  They are a resource that must be utilized, just as Mrs. Berge stated in her response.

Throughout the interview the underlying theme that was present was the idea to constantly be adapting and changing.  Do not become rigid in what you do and above all else try new things.  Without the need to innovate and explore, more effective techniques are not discovered and student learning suffers.  So educators, I implore you to look at what you are doing and try something new, while it might be difficult at first the rewards are worth the risk.

CIPA, COPA and AUP's

My district takes the issue of internet safety very seriously and has a number of meetings throughout the year around this subject.  At the start of each year we review FERPA, COPPA and CIPA and how those would look in our classrooms.  Our district AUP is extensive and references the above laws a number of time throughout.  After reviewing my districts AUP I can safely attest that my district is following CIPA laws above and beyond what is actually outlined.

CIPA can basically be broken down into three sections; Schools must filter material, must monitor student activity and must educate minors on appropriate behavior.  In regards to the filtration of material, my district uses a program called Lightspeed which is our brute force filtration software.  I classify it as brute force because it basically blocks everything until the district comes in and specifically allows that website to access.  For instance, ESPN was blocked for a while because of its repeated references to balls.  As for the monitoring of students who are using the internet my district has started using a program called DyKnow.  Because each of my students has their own laptop it is impossible to see everyone’s screen at the same time.  DyKnow allows the teacher to sit in the front of the room and see everyone’s screen on our own computer.  This allows all teachers to monitor the students and make sure the material they are viewing is appropriate.  Finally, once a month during our homeroom class time students go over anti-bullying information or computer awareness training.  This includes what should and should not be posted on social media sites and other smart practices with computers.  These actions together clearly demonstrate to me that my district is meeting the law as outlined in CIPA.

Unfortunately my district AUP has nothing in it about using new technologies with students.  When I asked one of my building technology people about this the reply was that it was up to the teacher’s discretion when using third party websites.  They followed that up with a rule of thumb, if the students do not have to enter any personal information then most likely the website is fine to use.  As for bypassing the filters, that is not possible.  Although a number of students have figured out ways around them.  If you want to use a website that is currently blocked, you need to email the district with the URL and an explanation of why you want the site unblocked.  I had to do this last year with a site called blabberize, while time consuming it was not overly difficult to go through the process.  I wish there was clear guidelines to follow, but again it is being left up to teacher discretion. 

My district AUP is a fairly restrictive document that does try to limit the amount of websites that students can use.  It also was written to apply to grades K-12, something that is not truly possible to accomplish.  At my high school we don’t have to worry about COPPA because all of our students are over the age of 13 so we have more flexibility then the elementary and middle schools.  That being said, the three laws together definitely try to restrict the use of new technology in the classroom, but by not concerning ourselves with COPPA we are able to introduce new technologies into the classrooms fairly easily.  It is simply a matter of justifying the resource to the district, basically the same as trying to teach a new curriculum or novel in your class.  If you can show the academic relevance of the material, and how it applies to the standards, then you may use the resource with no worries.

Creative Commons License

         I have decided to add CC license to this blog at the urging of one of my teachers. After reviewing all of them I decided to add an attribution and noncommercial license to my work. The rational for these two licenses is that I want people to be able to take any part of my research and thinking and apply it to a situation that works best for them. I know that as I am sitting down to create a lesson or plan a unit any guidance and insight that I can find is like a God sent. For that reason, if anyone finds the work that I have done on this blog useful I want them to be able to use and reference this material.
        The attribution license will allow anyone to, “Copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it — but only if they give credit the way you request.” I also added a noncommercial license, which has the exact same stipulations as above but does not allow the person using the material to make money off of it. I want my educational property to help others and I do not want anyone to have to pay for that. Teachers are not paid enough as it is, the more free information that is out there as a reference the better for all. So, if you ever find anything of value on this blog please use it with my blessing. Teaching is a noble profession and one that is often undervalued in our society today. Thank you for the work you do and just consider letting others use the excellent work that you have created, because when it comes down to it the most important thing is the education of our students.

Reference 

Licensing Portal for Educators/Choosing a License. (2010, December 1). Retrieved January 20, 2015, from https://wiki.creativecommons.org/Licensing_Portal_for_Educators/Choosing_a_License#tab=Licensing_Information_2

Reflection on Inquiry Based Learning

As my exploration of Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) comes to an end, I am left feeling excited about the possibilities that await me and my students.  The information that I have gathered will allow me to better educate my students while preparing them more for the real world problems they will face upon graduation.  Gone are the days where my class will learn in a clean sterile environment where I disseminate information to students who greedily consume it.  Instead, my class will be a dynamic learning environment that will allow students to struggle with bigger concepts while developing the soft skills necessary to succeed later in life.  To achieve this goal I will make a number of changes in my room and philosophy.

First, I will start each unit with the end results for the students planned out.  This backwards planning allows me to make sure that my educational goals for the students are actually being taught and measured.  I have to admit, that once or twice I have reached the end of a unit and realized I missed an important concept.  Well no more!!  The standards will drive my instruction, because everything I teach to my students will be in an effort to reinforce that concept to them.

Second, by using the 5E model (discussed in a previous post) I will know that my students will be engaged and learning in the assignments for each unit.  While it would be naive to think that all my students will be engaged all the time, by purposefully building in engagement activities I will have a higher level of involvement.  By using the 5E model, I have a blueprint to follow to make sure that I am not missing something vital for the students. 

Third, technology is a part of our society today and must be included in lessons for today’s students.  When they reach adulthood they will be expected to know how to use technology in ways that I cannot even think of today.  By exposing students to technology in the classroom, I am allowing them the opportunity to learn and explore what is out there in a relatively low stakes environment. Using technology will allow me to motivate my students, and allow others who struggle in more traditional school activities, to perhaps shine.  As technology continues to develop the possibilities that are made available for teachers is only as limited as ones imagination.

Finally, I will make a purposeful effort to change the type of questions that I ask to my students.  It will be a goal of mine to shift away from the simple fact based questions to more concepts based.  This will allow me to still assess the facts the students have acquired, while allowing me the ability to see the bigger connections they are making with the material.  If I have learned nothing else about IBL at least I know that the soft skills and ability to make connections that is learned throughout this process is the most important skill I can provide to my students.  Anyway can look up the date of an event on their phone, but only a few can tell you it’s importance in the context of history.

I will leave you with this final thought.  While IBL is at first a scary idea, and seems out of place in today’s schools were we rely on high stakes testing far too much, let me assure you it is more appropriate than traditional teaching.   Learning information out of context, or in a box, does not allow anyone to remember it forever.  It is learned for the test and then promptly forgotten.  However, IBL provides the same learning but in an authentic environment that the students will be able to remember.  While the facts might be lost over time, the process they used to reach their goals will stay with them forever.  It is for that reason, and the others I have mentioned today, that I will be shifting my classes over to a more inquiry based environment.  After all, these students will be the ones leading us only a few years.

A Strategy to follow

            Throughout this week I have been looking at ways to guarantee that my Inquiry Based Lesson appropriately engage my students, why also challenging them.  With that in mind I stumbled across an instructional model published by the Biological Science Curriculum Study.  This study boils down every lesson to five simple ideas, called the 5E’s.  These 5E’s are Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate and Evaluate.  If you develop a lesson with the specific purpose of incorporating all 5E’s, then your lesson is on its way towards being Inquiry Based.  This educational model has been proven scientifically to work.  On a number of different studies significant increase have been shown when teachers use this model as the basis for their instruction.  To see the actual results that I am referring to click on this link and examine page 35 of the report.

            In today’s digital world the use of technology in any lesson allows for you to more easily engage the students in the lesson.  By purposefully choosing technology that targets your goals at each of the 5E’s you can guarantee your students will be interested, at least somewhat.  With engagement the academic goals you are trying to achieve are easier, because the students want to learn.  This means that even if your lesson is not the best you have ever taught, your educational goals can still be achieved because your students will take ownership of their learning.  I know that to me this is a relief, especially because I am the type of person that is hyper focused on always completing steps in a process.

            The way that I think is pretty straight forward, I need a plan to follow and once that plan is clear to me I can dive in head first and accomplish anything.  With that in mind, I have to tell you that this discovery of the 5E’s has proven to be a real help to me.  Knowing that there is a simple framework for me to follow to guarantee the correct structure to my lesson has proven to be just the thing that I needed to get me going with the development of lessons.  To see exactly the lesson that I am referring to please examine the website that I created to showcase the 5E’s at work.  

                Finally, I will leave you with some sayings that have really struck me as I have progressed through my knowledge of Inquiry Based Learning.  They do not exactly tie into this particular post but instead have come to be a kind of mantra that I think to myself as I work through my lessons. 

They are:

“It is okay to fail, it is even expected”

When people ask how to motivate every student for these types of lessons just respond, “I don’t know, how do you motivate those students every day when you are teaching?”

By keeping these ideas in my head as I try my new style of teaching I am more confident in what I am doing, and after all it is okay to fail.

Web 2.0 and IBL

            As I continue to explore the world of Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) the amount of materials that allow for creative instructional lessons is seemingly limitless.  Over the last week I have been exploring the idea of incorporating Web 2.0 resources into my classroom.  Web 2.0 is, “a second generation of Internet-based learning services that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users.” (Discovery Education) These resources range from simple blogs for the students to share their thoughts, to full on video creation.  What is truly exceptional about these resources is that that they allow the students the flexibility to demonstrate their learning in ways that are not possible with more traditional methods.  Dare I say, that gone are the days of simply writing an essay or giving a presentation to the class.

            Speaking from firsthand experience I have used a number of these resources successfully in my classroom.  The web application Voicethread is one of my favorite resources, because it allows those students who have difficulty writing their thoughts down, use their voice to give their reports.  Students simply upload an image and then record themselves talking over that image.  This has proven especially successful with my ELL students who are fluent in English but still struggle with the written part of our language.  My other new favorite is to have my students create wiki’s for a project topic.  The flexibility of the wiki allows for students to present their information however they see fit, and also to embed a number of other resources that would not be possible in other formats.  This all leads me to the main question, why use Web 2.0 resources for IBL?

            As I have learned, a IBL lesson must engage the student and allow them the flexibility to explore the topic however they see fit.  As they explore and learn the student must be able to communicate their knowledge in ways that are comfortable and authentic to the student.  Today, 96% of all students engage in social networking and 57% of teenagers create online content. (Discovery Education)In all honesty there is only so much flexibility in a traditional project of creating a poster, presentation or paper.  These staples of education allow for the student to present their knowledge, but in a very limited fashion.  As I have found from teaching, students when given the opportunity will more often than not surprise you with what they create.  By providing them the opportunity to create a product using the Web 2.0 resources out there, their creativity is exploited, not stifled.   

            This leads me to the next burning question that I have about successfully using IBL in my classroom.  My concern is, how in this digital age can an educator successfully use the tools available while also staying within a school districts outdated technology policies?  I teach an a very technology oriented district that supports and encourages the integration of technology resources into lessons.  Yet, even my district blocks a number of websites that would be beneficial to students because of security threats.  I am not talking about threats from hacking or viruses, instead these are threats posed to my high school students because they are posting things online.  For example, Google sites and Google docs are blocked from student access because the district cannot control the content being posted to this resource.  Youtube is another resource that students cannot access from school, yet sometimes this does provide valuable resources for the students to use.  My fear is that a great resource will become available, only to find that it is not supported or blocked by my district.  Which, in my opinion, defeats the entire benefit from Web 2.0 activities and hurts the student’s chances and opportunities for IBL lessons.

 References

Discovery Education, . N.p.. Web. 20 Feb 2014. <http://cdwg.discoveryeducation.com/web2.0/Web2.0.pdf>.

Changing Views on Inquiry Based Learning

In my last blog post I left you with this statement, “Despite all of this I am still left wondering how successful the IBL process is when it comes to differentiation.   I can picture making the assignments and activities more difficult for your higher achieving students, I just am left wondering how to accommodate for those students who have pretty severe learning disabilities and accommodations on their IEP’s.”  Well I feel as if that question has been answered. 

                As I continued to explore and gain a deeper understanding of Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) I stumbled upon the three types of inquiry possible within a IBL lesson.  They are Teacher-Directed, Teacher-Student Shared and Student-Directed.  As I wrote my last post I was unaware of the different types of direction that can go into a IBL lesson.  I was focused entirely on the student directed model, which is why I had my fears and doubts about the use of IBL in a classroom that has a number of different ability levels.  Yet, if the teacher where to develop a lesson that could be both student directed, for those highly motivated and high achieving students and also provide accommodations through the other two models, then differentiation in the classroom would be both easy and highly beneficial to the students.

                In a student directed approach the students could explore the question how they wanted and reach their own conclusions.  However, for this to be successful the students must have the necessary process skills in order to succeed.  These skills have been identified in a number of places, but I have found those skills outlined by the Center for Educational Policy Research to be the most helpful.  This list provides readers with the process skills that are necessary to succeed in today’s colleges.  While these are important skills to have as students, it is necessary to understand that some, if not most, of our students are not at this point yet.  That is why the other two types of lessons available to IBL are so important.

                With teacher-directed or teacher-student shared there is the possibility of differentiating the instruction to fit the individual needs of the student.  This is exactly what my fear was in my prior blog.  By having more guidance from the teacher, or other students, those students who need the extra support will be able to receive it.  This scaffolding approach to IBL allows all students in the classroom to pursue the passion for learning, which all humans have.  The accommodations that can be made could be as simple as a graphic organizer for the student to the teacher picking the resources and providing all of the materials for the student.  Despite the level of accommodations provided, the student is still receiving the benefits of IBL and all of the soft skills that go along with this type of activity. 

                I leave you today feeling that my previous questions about differentiation look silly and childish in retrospect.  With a successful IBL lesson differentiation is built into the activity and required to take place.  So those students who are off and running on every project can race ahead and explore whatever they find, while those who are slower can be provided the resources and support they need to succeed.  Hopefully you have found this entry helpful and I encourage you to try IBL in your classroom.

Reference

Conley , D. Association of American Universities, (2003). Understanding university success. Retrieved from Center for Educational Policy Research website: http://webhost.bridgew.edu/rsylvester/frosh.pdf