I apologize but the original post has been removed for circumstances beyond my control.
If you want to participate in an excellent discussion on the topic, go to Linked In and search in the
Technology Integration in Education Digital technology into the classroom
I had the opportunity the other week, to have a chat with Annie Fox; educator, novelist and radio host, about her new book Teaching Children to be Good People. Admittedly, her book has absolutely nothing to do with iPads in the classroom but I figured I would try to mix things up a little. Bring some humanity back into my digital domain as it were, because when it comes right down to it… School is still about creating good people, good citizens and good learners. Isn’t it?
The following is the good stuff from our conversation and if the truth be known, it actually has a lot to do with going digital. I hope you enjoy it.
Me: When you say “good people” what are we talking about?
Annie: When I say, “S/he’s a good person,” I’m usually referring to a generosity of spirit. Someone who consciously looks out for the wellbeing of others. Someone who turns toward a person or situation that needs help rather than turning away.
Me: In your book you talk a lot about communication with your child and how this is the key to raising a “good person” In your introduction you say, “We parent-educators are gardeners. We plant seeds and offer nurturing lessons that our kids can internalize.”
Is it possible to communicate effectively or nurture another human being, through a digital device?
Annie: Of course you can communicate effectively through a digital device, but because we are social critters who have managed to survive throughout the millennia by “reading” each other’s subtle facial expressions and body language, And observing each other in the context of our relationships, I don’t think we can fully nurture another person without being right there with them… at least a good part of the time. So when tweens and teens tell me about some guy or girl they met online with whom they’re “in love” it gives me pause. I don’t doubt for a moment that their digital connection is important to each of them. And I don’t invalidate the support and encouragement they may be providing for each other. However, this isn’t the way teens truly learn the fundamentals of creating and maintaining healthy relationships. The digital connections can certainly support “real world” relationships, but they shouldn’t be a substitute for them. Same with parents and kids. Texting is not a substitution for parent-child conversations.
Me: There is a HUGE push education to make kids more digitally literate. They say it is a crucial skill for the future but it seems to me that the digital device can be extremely dehumanizing. Is it possible that the digitization of our schools is compounding the difficulties we seem to be encountering in raising, teaching and nurturing our children to become “good people”
Annie: I agree. Increasing reliance on digital communication reduces (in the minds of many kids) the need to actually have real conversations. And they seem to have lost confidence in their ability to have real conversations. Hey I understand if you’re having a conflict with a friend or a bf/gf, you’re going to feel uncomfortable, worried, confused, stressed, etc. When we’re uncomfortable we tend to want to avoid the source of that discomfort. I understand, if you’re really hurt or angry that it might seem easier to text your friend or your bf/gf: “I can’t believe you did that! You’re such a #$%#@!!” rather than sit down, face to face and discuss what’s going on. But a face-to-face conversation (without technology), where I talk and you listen and then you talk and I listen is more likely to lead to greater understanding. And that’s going to lead to healthier relationships.
Kids need to understand how to manage their destructive emotions. That’s the biggest challenge in growing up. But the availability of the digital connection to peers discourages kids from taking the time they need to calm down and step back from the precipice before they respond. The result is a culture where the go-to place is anger and we’re all in the habit of adding to the “social garbage” that has become the air we breathe.
Schools embracing technology aren’t to “blame” for any of this. Nor are parents who provide their kids with access to tech toys. But it’s a question of balance, isn’t it? And I don’t see a lot of adults modeling and teaching that kind of balance within their family. When we fail to set limits on social media and web use, we fail to expose our kids to other ways to nurture our intellect, our creativity, and our relationships. Follow that path and it’s harder to teach kids to be good people.
Me: The next question I suppose has to be, is it possible to teach appropriate use of a digital device at school, if the same message is not being delivered at home?
Annie: If by, digital device you mean a cell phone, many schools wisely restrict their use during class or during school hours. That’s not to say though that schools shouldn’t teach their students to be responsible digital citizens. They should be part of the solution in that way! If the same message isn’t being reinforced at home, yeah, that’s a missed opportunity on the part of parents. And yes, it makes the school’s job that much harder. Better if parents, educators and students come together to discuss the use and abuse of technology in an open community forum. And together, as fellow stakeholders, come up with policy and guidelines for home and school.
Me: You mention in your book about the pressures kids feel to be someone else or something else in order to fit in. We see examples of how the digital world can facilitate the façade and sometimes ending with tragic results.
Annie: Like I said before, it’s a matter of balance. Technology’s not going away and that’s a good thing! We need it to solve many of our current problems on the local, regional, national and international levels. Technology makes a powerful servant. But it’s a lousy master. But we have to recognize that there is an addictive quality to using technology. Changes in the brain have been observed after a relatively short amount of time surfing the net! Our brains are adapting to the new ways of searching for and processing information. What has also been observed is a change in the part of the brain that is associated with empathy. Which may explain why teens aren’t always responding with their “higher angels” when they’re online with peers. Combine the “connection addiction” with changes in the “empathy sector” of the brain” and add in the fact that most tweens and teens suffer from peer approval addiction (doing and saying whatever it takes to fit in) and we’re faced with the perfect storm.
Me: Can you suggest any possible ways that a digital device and the digital world could be used to help kids become secure in their identity and ultimately the kind of “good person” you are talking about?
Annie: There are plenty of game and story apps that use the technology as a way to get kids thinking about themselves and others in respectful and compassionate ways. My own Middle School Confidential graphic novel apps do that. And there are thousands of wonderful websites that promote just causes that appeal to the hearts and minds of young people. Remember the Save the Rainforest campaigns that got elementary school kids raising money in the ‘80’s? Well I just googled “Save the rainforest” and got to an incredible site by the Nature Conservancy! What an awesome example of technology teaching kids about philanthropy and social responsibility and environmental activism.
Bottom line, we’ve got to insert balance in our kids’ lives. There’s great stuff to be had through digital connections and there’s also great stuff to be learned from unplugging, talking to each other and stepping outside and looking around at the natural world.
THE END
So there you have it folks, human connections are still required to raise a functional, caring human being… Hooda thunk it?
Well I called it. My powers of EdTech prognostication have once again hit the mark. Way back in December 23, 2011, I did a post called Digital Learning in 2012 – My Predictions. In this post, I predicted a push back from parents and other concerned individuals and groups about WiFi in schools.
Although I was a tad off the mark in my prediction, In 2013 the anti WiFi movement began to get some legs in British Columbia when the representatives at the 2013 British Columbia Teachers Federation (BCTF) AGM tabled a four resolutions which addressed the membership’s concerns over WiFi in schools.
In the middle of the four resolution Anti WiFi package is Resolution 138, which backs up parents in BC and supports the BCCPAC’s May 2012 AGM resolution, calling for WiFi free education choices at both elementary and secondary levels in Province of British Columbia.
Resolution 137: The BCTF recognizes the World Health Organization’s classification of Radio-frequency Electromagnetic fields emitted by wireless devices as a 2B possible cancer risk to humans; that the BCTF ensures all teachers have the right to work in a safe environment, including the right to work in a Wi-Fi/ wireless-free environment.
Resolution 138: The BCTF supports the BC Confederation of Parent Advisory Council’s May 2012 resolution, which calls on each Board of Education to allocate one public school at each educational level (elementary, middle, secondary) to be free of wireless technology such as Wi-Fi, cordless phones and cell phones.
Resolution 139: The BCTF supports the BC Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils’ May 2012 resolution calling Boards of Education to cease to install Wi-Fi and other wireless networks in schools where other networking technology is feasible.
Resolution 140: The BCTF supports members who are suffering from Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity by ensuring that their medical needs are accommodated in the workplace.
Further to these resolutions, some School Districts in both Canada and the USA have already moved to ban WiFi outright and some WiFi wary administrators are making executive decisions and pulling the plug here there and everywhere.
The push back is here and it is looking like things are about to get heated but I do have some questions about people’s understanding and motivations behind the WiFi bans. Sure I get it, we want our kids to be safe from what MIGHT be harmful but look around, everything is deemed as “possibly harmful” these days. Whats more, it is hard to take people seriously when they are rallying against WiFi with clenched fists in the air and inside that fist is their beloved cell phone.
I am not sure if people really understand that EMF’s or Electro Magnetic Fields are everywhere and emitted from things as mundane as your clock radio, hairdryer, kitchen appliances and baby monitors. EMF’s are even emitted from every wall socket in your home and yet WiFi is singled out as the lone crocodile in the reeds.
If this is an issue we are going to choose to fight in our schools we need to look beyond just WiFi. We should ban cell phones in schools (Good luck with that), get rid of computer labs, microwaves in cooking classes; welders, band saws, table saws and all other electric-powered tools in our shop programs… While we are at it, I am not sure if I should put my students in work experience placements where EMF’s are abundant or supporting their career choices where they might be at risk of EMF exposure. IF we are going to make this an issue in our schools, we are opening the door to liability issues way beyond the walls of the padded cells we call our classrooms and I am not sure I want to expose myself to that.
Whether you like it or not, Lightning the horse has been let out of the barn long ago and unless we can pinpoint examples of people dropping dead from the EMF’s emitted from WiFi, she ain’t gunna come back in any time soon.
Perhaps our time might be better spent trying to educate kids (and parents) about appropriate use of personal digital devices. Not unlike they way we do with sex and relationships, alcohol and drug abuse, poor diet and fitness and a litany of other 21 Century lifestyle pitfalls. Planting a scarlet letter on WiFi and calling for a good ole fashion public linchin solves nothing and eliminates any positive outcome WiFi might be able to deliver to our children’s learning environment.
JMHO…
Question: What do farmers and teachers have in common?
Answer: They are both outstanding in their field… but they also have a few other commonalities.
And now you are asking yourself… “Where is he going with this?”
Well this post started when I was marking some end of term assignments in which the kids looked at “Super Foods” and why they are better for you than the corn syrup saturated, genetically modified Franken-Food you can find in your local grocery isle.
This past term we spent a significant amount of time looking at the modern food industry and how it has changed our food supply so significantly, that there is very little food available these days that hasn’t been touched in some way by mechanization and science.
We talk about how big multinational companies, control virtually everything that gets produced on most modern farms. I talk about how the food industry in the United States, has successfully lobbied government to put into place the Veggie Libel laws, which effectively muzzle any kind of dissent or criticism about how food is produced. We talk about how only those with enough income can afford to make healthy food choices and that in some States there are even laws put in place that prevent farmers from selling healthy organic food products, to people who want it. Finally, as if the planets had aligned on queue… Just as we were wrapping up the unit, the Horse Meat scandal hit the news and illustrated that, food producers don’t have to tell you what is really in your food.
The kids were obviously relieved to hear that things are not quite so wacky up here in Canada but I caution them that we are on a similar road as the good old US of A. The question I then put to them is, how did this happen? How did “the people” lose control of their food system?
By the end of the unit, I usually have the kids looking at the food they eat with a much more critical eye and parents asking me “what in gods name did you tell them?”… Which brings me to how I came up with me Teacher – Farmer comparison.
gawker.com/
Between marking sessions I was perusing my twitter feeds and saw one tweet, which led me to the headline you see to the left.
Upon reading the short article, all I could think was that I am really happy that I teach in Canada. Unfortunately , I had to remind myself that same sort of teacher bashing is happening here too. It would seem that all over North America, the teaching profession is under attack and public education is on life support.
It was then that I made the huge cognitive jump required to connect farmers and food, with teachers and school. I started listing off the following comparisons on the back of a students assignment (Thank goodness for erasers! ) and it all seemed to fit together like a shiny red apple on the teacher’s desk.
Laws are being put in place to silence teachers and their supporters, just as the Veggie Libel laws silence anyone who questions the food system.
Many jurisdictions in the USA already live with the reality that only the wealthy can afford to send their children to good quality schools, just as they are the only ones who can afford to purchase good quality food.
If public school systems are dismantled and handed over to private interests, it is conceivable that a single corporation will own the curriculum that teachers deliver, just like Monsanto owns the seed that farmers plant?
If big business is handed the keys to public schools, it is not unimaginable that they will administer them much like large stock yards or chicken houses.
The final comparison is one I came up with as I was writing this very post and it is a bit disconcerting to me but none the less carries some weight. The massive changes we experienced in our food production over the past thirty years, came on the back of technological advances. Those advances and the people who were offering them, promised a gastronomic utopia, where everyone would be fed and the world would be happy but at some point things went sideways. In many respects, these changes we are seeing coming down the pike in our education system, are fueled by a similar promise of a technological driven utopia in education.
As someone who is one of the purveyors of the technology that is being sold as education’s salvation, this is a bit problematic. I can rationalize my position by saying that I am one of the few who encourages thoughtful adoption of technology in the classroom but is that enough?
Even after my little (if not bizarre) revelation, I still feel there is a place for technology in the classroom. Technology is not the problem. The problem is allowing private interests to control that which is intended for the common good. Just like our food supply, our education system will become toxic if private interests get control of it.
Just say no to Education Inc. There is too much at steak. 
K-12 Database Jazzes Tech Start Ups, Spooks Parents
When private interests dictate public policy
Knowledge and Public Education in Crisis. “Accelerated Privatization of Global Education”
Why Are Walmart Billionaires Bankrolling Phony School “Reform” In LA?
I am elated to introduce the single best tablet ever designed for the classroom. Finally we have something that works the way a Classroom Tablet should… I give you the EDUTAB
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Construction
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Network Capable
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Complete File Freedom
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Wireless Printing anywhere anytime
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WiFi Enabled
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Bluetooth
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Google Tools Friendly
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Full complement of productivity Apps
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Flash Support
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Fully Functioning Browser
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Multi Media Capable
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Physical Keyboard
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E Reader Ready
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Audio
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Camera
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USB & Memory ports
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Battery Life
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Cost
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Cool Eh! And then I woke up.
Device makers have yet to come to grips with what educators need out of a digital device.
I am quite certain that an educator, has never been involved in the design of any tablet on the market today. The utility of the tablet as a classroom device, continues to be more of a function of marketing than design.
The classroom is a flexible, ever-changing and frequently unpredictable place and as such, digital devices need to be able to keep up and roll with the needs of the student and teacher as they arise. The confines of a device’s limitations or lack there of, is the true measure of its value as a learning tool.
A multinational’s vision of what a classroom should look like, matters not. We need to remember, they are selling devices not education. What I have listed above is what I need as a teacher in a dynamic digitally driven classroom. I don’t care about proprietary posturing and protection of trade secrets. Give me something that does what I want it to do, when I want it done. No restrictions, no workarounds, just pure unadulterated classroom utility.
Happy Weekend.
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Multi User Profiles
Shared by @_valeriei & @KEgilsson |
 image credit Radix Management |
Classroom Management Tools
Shared by Michael from Radix classroom management system |
Got my hands on a new Surface RT this week. Found it just sitting there on my Principal’s desk doing nothing, so I absconded with it. Actually, being a charitable fellow, Le Grand Fromage let me have it so I could give it a good going over. So I present to you, the Microsoft Surface – Ed Tech Smack down. I will have it for about a week, during which time, me and my cracker jack team of digital device experts will put the device through its paces.
Grumpy old dad Seasoned Educational Technology Expert with a keen eye for innovative design and application
Crazy 14-year-old Emerging Ed Tech aficionado who has a knack for finding practical Ed Tech solutions for herself and classmates.
Tenacious 10-year-old Ready willing and able to lay thumpin on the 14-year-old to get equal time on the household digital devices. Budding Blogger and Ed Tech neophyte
Grumpy Old Dad
Really like the look and feel of the surface. Doesn’t feel cheap and has some heft to it. The iPad… Well it is the iPad what more is there to say that hasn’t already been said
After trying to set up my user profile on the surface, I thought to myself “Man the iPad is Fisher Price Simple” but here is the thing. The iPad is a one person device. You set it up the way you like it quick and easy and it is a reflection of that one user. The surface on the other hand, might not be Fisher Price Simple BUT you can set up multiple users on one device.
This makes me think the surface would be a better device for a school, which might have dozens of different users, especially districts that are running on a Microsoft Network. With the surface you can set up workgroups and other useful multi user functions, especially if your organization is running a Share Point Network. (SPN) This leads me to the second important distinction between the iPad & Surface.
Historically, Share Point did not to play nice with Apple products. It would drive me nuts when kids using an Apple product couldn’t access my online classroom. With the most recent version of Share Point however, Apple users can navigate through an SP site without too much trouble BUT with that said. The iPad still has some annoying issues with scrolling and rendering a SP site. The Surface on the other hand has full functionality in a SP environment.
Once I set up my profile and visited my Share Point classroom, I figured I would grab Google Chrome and load it onto the Surface. Unfortunately Chrome does not have a Windows Surface RT version… I assume it is coming but for now I am stuck with Windows Exploder.
After I mucked about trying to get Chrome loaded on the surface, I had to get to an Online meeting so I tried to load the Blackboard Collaborate applet and lo and behold… No applet for the Windows Surface RT operating system.
I see a theme building here…
14 Year old
10 Year old
I am a little less pleased with the surface at the moment. It is almost like the Surface tries to be too much, both a tablet and a computer. As such, it is not Fisher Price simple like the iPad. Perhaps it will just take some time to unlearn Apple and get the functions of the Surface burned into my thick skull.
A couple other negatives I discovered in the past 2 days. I haven’t found a decent twitter app and Internet Explorer wants to render everything in compatibility mode. Both are little things but very annoying, sorta like a thorn in your sock that you can’t track down.
What I do like about the Surface is that I can upload documents into Edmodo with it, something that has been a Royal Pain in my backside with the iPad since I started using it in the classroom. As user-friendly as the iPad may be up front, it is far too restrictive when it comes to moving YOUR OWN FLIPPING FILES! around. The old “Apple way or the highway” thing gets a bit wearing when you are trying to get work done. This is something that the Surface does not do to you. Need to put a file someplace, no Problem! Just like a regular computer.
I also found that I liked the sound quality of the Surface when the kids discovered the live streaming radio feature. It is part of the Xbox live integration on the device. I have a deluxe Xbox live membership, so all the cool features available to me on the TV, are now available on the surface. Kinda nifty!
The last thing on today’s list is the keyboard cover combo. I like the ergonomics of it but I don’t really like the feel of the keyboard but with that said, it is better than having to pack around a bluetooth keyboard for the iPad. My dislike of the touch and feel of it is probably more a function of 30 years of using real keys. I don’t even like my Macbook keyboard. I like big, stiff, noisy keys like those on an old Hewlett Packard electric typewriter. The kind that you can actually feel the mechanical parts clicking and clacking under your fingertips. Ahhh Those were the good old days.
14 Year old
10 Year old
Well, as usual… I am light years behind the curve. I always seem to be a little slow to arrive at the party and when i finally do, all the cool people have already left but I never no mind, it’s all good. Better late then never my dear old pappy use to say.
My most recent late arrival, was a book called The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell. I found it sitting on the old and irrelevant table at Indigo while doing some Christmas shopping. Normally, I would have never even noticed the unassuming title but since I spent most of 2012 listening to educators yammer on about the “Ed Tech Tipping Point…” When I saw a book with “Tipping Point” in the title, it caught my eye.
Now that I have finally arrived at the party, long over though it may be, I can finally put my two bits worth into the Ed Tech Tipping Point discussion.
First of all, I have to say, I enjoyed the book. Gladwell brings up some very interesting points about social epidemics and I certainly understand why some educators are looking for just such an epidemic to occur with Education Technology. However, after hours of careful consideration, my conclusion is that there wont be a Gladwellian Tipping Point in Ed Tech. Instead, advances in Educational Technology will to continue to be (as it has always been) more of a slow submersion into the digital domain. A dipping point as it were.
Coincidentally, not a week after having come to this conclusion, I stumbled upon a Blogpost from Mind Share Learning, talking about the Ed Tech Tipping Point in their Top Ten EdTech Predictions for 2013. They seem to think that 2013 WILL be the year the Ed Tech tipping point occurs but I am holding my ground…. There will be no tipping point in 2013 or any other year and here is why.
I will try best I can, to relate Education Technology to Gladwell’s book. If you haven’t read the book, give the original article (on which the book is based) a quick read The Tipping Point – June 3, 1996 (New Yorker Magazine).
Stickiness
From a purely hardware perspective, the tipping point has already happened. If you don’t believe me, just look in your nearest high school classroom. There is a digital device in the hand of 90% of the kids and based on the degree of digital distraction going on at staff meetings, one in the hand of 90% of the staff as well. If I ask kids if they have a digital device to use for any given lesson, the majority of the class reaches in their bag or pocket and pull out more computing power then put a man on the moon. Now I realize that this situation is not the same for every school community but at my school, we long since tipped and are swimming in the digital deep end. The hardware is here and in the hands of many if not most but still we have not seen an Ed Tech tipping point.
Just as Gladwell tells us in his book, in order for an epidemic to occur we need “it” to stick and technology stuck to education long ago. The jump from scroll to bound books is an example of technological change. A little more recently, I remember how people thought VHS was going to revolutionize education; then desktop computers came along and were suppose to change everything; then the internet came along and distributed leaning systems were born, which promised to change the way we learn. Now mobile devices are being held on high and trumpeted by proponents as the most revolutionary thing education has ever seen… Adoption of new technology has always been a part of education but there is still no tipping point as Gladwell describes it.
In my mind this can only mean one thing, although technology itself is sticky, hardware is not. We find ourselves chasing the hardware, not unlike a heroin addict chases the dragon. The last hit is never enough and this is one of the reasons we have not seen an Ed Tech tipping point. When we focus on hardware acquisition, what we end up doing is moving the tipping point further and further away. If this continues, a Gladwellian tipping point will never occur.
Law of the Few
This is the idea that there is a small group of people who start, champion and spread a social epidemic to the masses. Gladwell refers to these people as Mavens, Connectors and Salespeople. Any one of these types of people can act as a tipping point but these types of people frequently act in more than just one of these roles. For example, many well-connected people are also good sales people, like Chris Kennedy (my superintendent). He has taken on the role of consummate Ed Tech ambassador. Myself, I am more of a grunt or as Gladwell calls it, “a Maven”. I don’t do a very good job of connecting with others or selling the idea of Ed Tech but if anyone asks for information or help with Ed Tech, I am your man.
Believe it or not, Gladwell’s law of the few is alive and well in education. These types of people are littered about the education profession and they have done a very good job selling the idea of Education Technology to their colleagues. New converts are joining the Ed Tech epidemic daily but just like the social epidemics Gladwell uses in the Tipping Point, it doesn’t infect everyone. Not everyone in Gladwell’s social epidemics bought Hush Puppies, got syphilis or committed suicide and just like a Gladwellian epidemic, not everyone in the teaching profession has bought into the epidemic of Education Technology.
Championing, Connecting and convincing others to join or become a part of a social epidemic is a difficult task and there is no reason to expect that everyone in the teaching profession will buy into the Ed Tech Revolution. Does this mean these are bad teachers? No… By Gladwell’s measure, it simply means they didn’t need, connect or were sold on the value of Education Technology.
Context
The third element of a Gladwellian epidemic is context, or the place where the would-be epidemic lives. This element can involve social, geographic, economic and other factors both big and small. It is here, I believe, that the most significant Ed Tech’s tipping point is hiding. The two most significant being, access too and pedagogical value of, Educational Technology.
Access to Educational Technology comes in many forms. As I described in the stickiness section, the school I work in is not starved for hardware. It is readily available but we still struggle with access to what we need to run a technology rich classroom environment. We have become victims of our own success and as such, we have significant difficulties assessing resources on the web because we frequently exceed the bandwidth capabilities of our network. (insert eye roll here and say… “Rich people problems!”) As ridiculous as it sounds however, if our digital tools don’t work, there isn’t much point in using them and teachers tend not to use things that don’t work.
If we want teachers to use all the latest gadgets, we need to give them access to not just the gadgets but the information sources they are built to use. I have done workshops where staff want to use iPads in the classroom but they have no wifi. This immediately relegates the iPad to nothing more than a high-tech paper weight. There are other school districts in this world that can’t afford to maintain their existing hardwired networks, never mind creating a learning environment that delivers ubiquitous access to all staff and students.
Without dependable and equitable access to the digital landscape for all stakeholders, we will not be seeing an Ed Tech Tipping point anytime soon, never mind in 2013.
As for the value of Educational Technology, It has to be said… The jury is still out. Proponents see wonderful things just waiting to be unleashed on our children’s learning spaces, yet the stalwart traditionalists have yet to be sold on its value. Kids who function well in the absence digital tools or perhaps I should say are not dependant on digital tools, still seem to out perform those who are immersed in the digital world. My own children are a case in point, they excel because they have strong reading, writing and numeracy skills, learned the old-fashioned way. In my household, digital skills are an adjunct to these old school skills not the means by which these skills are acquired.
The fear amongst many however, is that we are trying to replace the tried and true with the flashy and new. In doing so we are moving in a direction that puts engagement before good old-school foundational skills. A colleague said to me the other day.
“Our push to adopt digital learning environments seems to be an effort to engage the academically weak kids at the expense of the academically strong kids”
It is this kind of thinking on which Educational Technology has become hung up. Does technology really improve learning outcomes and who are we sacrificing in the process? Some feel the solution is to simply “unload the dinosaurs” then you will be rid of this kind of fear mongering but it has been my experience that this question resonates within the teaching profession, from newbie to retiree.
It is here that I believe the most significant Ed Tech tipping point lies. Prove to the world that technology improves learning outcomes for everyone. Make people understand that Ed Tech is not a replacement but an addition to a child’s foundational skills. Show people that old-school and new-school can coexist, that a learner who uses technology to amplify their foundational skills, will out perform those who don’t. If we do this, you might have a Gladwellian epidemic on our hands.
To conclude
As I said early on in this post, in some respects, the Education Technology Tipping point has already happened. Thousands of teachers have bought in and are using technology in their classroom on a daily basis but people like me, seem to look at EdTech integration as an all or nothing proposition. It is almost like we are in a bad episode of Star Trek – The next Generation and the Ed Techies have taken on the roll of the Borg and Old-School Teachers must be assimilated into the continuum but this is not how Gladwell’s epidemics work.
Not everyone is a part of a social epidemic. Technology has its place in education and it is becoming more significant as the years go by but an en masse adoption of technology in the classroom will not happen because epidemics don’t infect everyone, nor should they. As with any population that is exposed to an infectious agent, you don’t want everyone to get the plague. You need a portion of the population to survive and carry on.
I am glad there are people in our education system that stop and say “What the hell are we doing?” “Is this right?” and “Is this what is best for everyone?” Our education system doesn’t need lemmings, it needs thoughtful practitioners who challenge social or technological epidemics.
My final word… There will be no Ed Tech Tipping Point in 2013.
2012 was once again an interesting year for Public Education. From Delaware to Chicago to British Columbia and back to Ontario, pundits and the politicians sold the story that all the struggles our youth encounter can be laid squarely on the shoulders of every teacher that has ever walked this earth. Just short of being the spawn of satan himself, teachers are source of all that is wrong in this world, especially as it pertains to today’s youth. unemployment, failure to launch, mental health issues, drug and alcohol problems… you name it, it is the education systems fault.
I however, would beg to differ. Yes I know, as one of satan’s classroom cronies, my objection is predictable but read on, I might actually make some sense by the end of this post.
I see education as being waaaaay down on the list of roadblocks the youth of today face. From the bedroom in which our kids are conceived, to the boardroom in which they are received, our children have more stacked against them than just what people perceive as an inadequate public education system. In fact, I would say there is simply one roadblock our youth face and that is, we have stolen their adulthood or at least postponed it indefinitely.
The obvious question then becomes, who is an adult? and I found a satisfactory answer in a Psychology Today article entitled Who is an “adult?” The path from adolescence into adulthood. March 3, 2010 by Jennifer L. Tanner, Ph.D.
…it became apparent that becoming adult was about, well, becoming. Across cultures, Arnett’s findings have been replicated. Accordingly, an adult is someone who-accepts responsibility, makes independent decisions, and becomes financially independent.
The article goes on to discuss the precise thing I am talking about here and what I refer to as the Abyss of Suspended Adulthood
The funny thing is, the evidence is all there right in front of us. Most of it already identified, researched and publicized. Anyone who isn’t seeking election or is remotely sober, should be able to see that education isn’t the biggest problem our youth face but alas society is myopic. Scapegoats are easier to understand then our own miserable misdeeds.
Although the central issue here is the deadultation (new word) of our youth, the process has three parts working in concert to sideline anyone under the age of 30.
Wow! Another year has come and gone and I am still employed. Not that I shouldn’t be, just that this blogging thing puts you under a bit of a microscope. One wrong word and BAM! You are collecting unemployment and rummaging through people’s road side recycling, while the kids are at school and the wife is at work.
This year has certainly been eventful and rewarding but I am definitely not on the same track I was last year at this time. Last year’s Christmas reflection was all about the student, the device and the classroom. This year, my iPad cohort went to hell in a handbasket and thus my attentions are not quite so focused on iPads In The Classroom so much as they are Technology and the Classroom Teacher.
As a result of this shift in focus, this years reflection has a more teacher centered slant… and defies the laws of physics apparently. 
So here goes this years moments that make you say “hmmmmmmmmm?”
This was the Acronym of the year and perhaps the single most important part of my professional development over the past year. The Personal Learning Network has gone digital and in doing so, has revolutionized how we communicate as professionals.
I have gone with a three-legged stool approach and have built my PLN on the following.
These three items have come together and have profoundly changed the way I do my job but more importantly, how I see my self as a teacher. The Digital PLN is a POWERFUL tool and I highly recommend it to any and all teachers.
See further resources below
Building Your Personal Learning Network
21 Century Literacies: An iPad Resource
Pinterest – Personal Learning Networks
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It has become crystal clear, that if we expect teachers to make digital technology a more significant part of their teaching practice, they need more Professional Development. When I say “More ProD…” I don’t mean a series of rinky dink hour-long workshops on “using twitter in the classroom” or “The latest apps for teaching…” I mean purposeful hands-on experience with technology both in and out of the classroom.
In order to get an idea of just how much time the “experts” with educational technology have put in, I will use myself as a “Average Joe Blow Educational Tech Geek” example.
The very first day of my practicum in 1993, I was introduced to a program that made word searches and crosswords that you could print out for use in the classroom. Since that day, I have logged innumerable hours using technology to make my life in the classroom easier and hopefully my teaching practise better.
To get an idea of just how much time I have spent, assume that since that day in 1993, I averaged a single hour a day using technology for the purpose of improving my teaching practice. Multiply an hour a day by approximately 180 school days for 19 years and you get 3429 hrs of hands on time with educational technology. I am quite certain however, that number should be doubled if not quadrupled. In the past 12 years, I have easily met and far surpassed Malcome Gladwells magic 10,000 hour mark to becoming an “expert” in anything.
What is most important to keep in mind here, is that these 10,000+ hrs have been purposeful. It wasn’t just time sending emails, surfing the net, watching silly kitty videos or squandering time on some social network. What is also important to note here is that, until this year, the hardware used and the time spent has been almost entirely on my nickel. This time has been a HUGE investment for me and I did it because I love the stuff but other people have other areas of pedagogical interest; therefore, we can’t expect that everyone is willing to put in the hours on their own dime, like I have.
Finally, if we look at proficiency with Ed Tech from a “purposeful time spent” perspective, it goes a long way in explaining why “digital literacy” is not all that common in the classroom. It also helps to dispel the digital native myth and explain why new teachers are not coming hard out of the gates, with the digital skills necessary for the 21 Century Classroom.
Technology in the classroom will always remain on the fringes if teachers are not provided the opportunity to play, practice and implement the technology they are being asked to use.
There are two sides in this Educational Technology debate and I have tried to situate myself squarely in the middle of them, not because I am afraid to take sides but because I firmly believe both sides have value and can coexist.
There are those however, who are hunkered down in their respective battlements and are preparing for the looming battle that lies ahead but like any war, little good will come of it.
This past week our director of Educational Technology in West Vancouver said to me, something along the lines of… “With my own kids, I just wish “we” (as in education system) would just decide to which world we are going to educate in” He then suggest that I read a book by Steve Johnson – “Future Perfect”. I have yet to crack the binding but my understanding is that the premise is that technology is changing the way we think and that going digital is just part of our evolution.
Although I can appreciate the premise, I cannot buy into it. As a classroom teacher and a parent, I watch the kids who straddle the two worlds (hardcopy and digital) and they are excelling. The ones who are all digital and in the rare case, all hardcopy, seem to me to be struggling.
At this point in the game, I don’t think all in or all out is wise. Kids need to be able to think and function in both, in order to be successful.
At the beginning of this year, I was much more Pro BYOD then I am now but I will go out on a limb and say it here and now. For instructional purposes, having a set of single platform devices in the classroom is far superior to having a rag-tag, hodgepodge, mix-in-match, dogs breakfast set of devices in the classroom.
I know that there are a number of people out there saying how wonderful BYOD is BUT! It is not a plug and play scenario. A single OS classroom makes things simple because it is easy to have everyone seeing and doing the same things on the same application at the same time. Yes we need to personalize education but there are times when uniformity kicks the stuffing out of diversity and instructional time is just one of those times.
Situations where BYOD works
For the past 2+ years, the iPad has been seen as the only single OS option worth considering because of its portability, functionality and moderate price but now with the new $250 Chromebook on the market, that should change. I am really quite excited about the Chromebook and think it will go a long way in making the single OS classroom, an easier task.
This is a biggie. Access to digital tools and digital networks is simply a must have, in order for Educational Technology to be effective.
Get the a device in the hands of the learner piece, is a no brainer. No device, then no digital assisted learning. Although 1:1 seems to be the “ideal” scenario, lately I have been hearing noise that 2:1 is actually better. It creates a situation where kids have to work together because they actually have to talk to each other, share the device, their ideas and even plan how they can best accomplish the task at hand. In a 1:1 situation, you have kids so immersed in their device, nary a word is spoken.
The second piece is Access to a network that will give you access to the Web, without which, much is for not.
Late last summer, I was doing an iPad workshop at a school that didn’t have any wifi and from what the staff said, there didn’t seem to be any plans to have it installed. It was certainly a challenge, running a show and do workshop with no wifi but it wasn’t near as difficult as it was going to be for them, trying to implement iPads in the classroom with no wifi.
Wifi access is even an issue in a wired school district like West Vancouver. We have become victims of our own digital success. We are stretching our wifi capacity to its limits and using your digital device is frequently more of an exercise in frustration, then it is a learning experience. I have even had to used my phone as a wifi hot spot, just to get through a lesson. Not only is this an annoyance, it is costing me $$$ in data use.
The thing that makes the digital device so powerful as a learning too, is its ability to access and share information. Without network access, both you and your students are handcuffed.
I will wrap up with a couple one liners I heard over the year that resonated with me and are worth sharing, as I think they are very important as we move ahead in the world of Technology in Education. All but one I agree with.
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“Failure is inevitable but from this failure will come innovative teaching practice” – Tony Wagner
“Teachers who are using technology effectively in their classrooms, need to share” – ???
“I take offence to the notion that I cannot do my job without a digital crutch” – Spencer Capier
“I’ve yet to have student tell me they can’t use technology in class because they haven’t received any PD on it.” – Sean Junkins
“The B.E.S.T. conversations I have had with the people who know THE MOST about TECH has never been about TECH.” – Jen Wagner
“A notion of public education that’s anchored in technocratic values functionally inhibits the realization of democratic values.” – Toby Steeves
And so wraps up another year of iPads In The Classroom.
Stay Tuned for an exciting project my good friend and colleague @Scapier are working. We will release it in the new yearand hope to turn the teaching world on its ear!
Merry Christmas!
I had a very interesting conference call this week, with a gentleman named Michael Leifer. He is the Co Founder of an organization called EcoDads, which has been “recently made an Advocacy Network Partner of the California Environmental Protection Agency’s (CA EPA) groundbreaking Education and the Environment Initiative Curriculum (EEI) for K-12th grade students“
Michael had contacted me to see if I would give their new app a gander and share my opinion, a dangerous thing to do since I am after all, the Eeyore of Edtech. Try as I might, I have a tough time giving ringing endorsements of anything. I have test driven three apps in the past year and not a single company has used my feedback in their promotional copy. I am starting to get a complex…But I digress.
During my perusal of the new EcoDads app, two things struck me. First and least significant was the interface itself. It was simple, easy to navigate with plenty of multi media elements to mix up content delivery. What I really liked was the use of interactive visuals, which included a nice landmark identification task. There was also a manipulable, 360 degree image from the top of the Golden Gate Bridge and a cool time-lapse video of the bridge at night. Although none of the media elements within the book are new, in and of themselves. It is the intent with which they come together, that makes this App a diamond in the rough.
This leads to my second observation…
The most interesting thing I noticed, was the content itself. Since the app is delivering content for a Californian audience, they focused on using local environmental and geographic information. This means that students are using material they can identify with and perhaps interact with on a daily basis. The goal of the EEI Curriculum, is to get kids to be aware of their own environment so they are more apt to Act locally and think globally, around environmental issues. What the EcoDad’s app is doing, is attempting to facilitate a functional learning relationship between the classroom and the great outdoors.
Michael hopes that the app will help teachers and students
In order to accomplish all this however, the app will have to become much more than it currently is and from what Michael was saying, development has only just begun.
In discussing how to improve the app and allow kids to engage with their local habitat, we discussed a number of improvements which will be coming down the pike. The most exciting of which, was the ability to customize content to fit the region being studied. If a teacher could customize content to suit, THAT would be MAGIC! The key to engaging kids is making the information relevant. If kids are looking at environmental issues in their own back yard, they are more likely to become stewards of that environment.
Some of the additions we discussed included:
There is so much more that this app could be and from what Michael was saying, it is headed that way. I am looking forward to seeing what this App evolves into as it moves ahead, especially if its reach goes beyond the state of California and up into my neck of the woods.
Currently, EcoDads is doing a Kickstarter campaign trying to raise capital, to move their App Development beyond the product they currently have. Check out what they have on the go.
