Month: November 2014

Categories
Digital Learning Gaming

Some Struggles Teachers Face Using Games in the Classroom

Although many educators are starting to see the potential of using digital games in the classroom, there is still several barriers they must overcome they are accepted as mainstream classroom tools for deep and meaningful learning. Katrina Schwartz at MindShift offers a teacher’s accounts of the challenges they face using gaming in the classroom.

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posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

Teachers have long known that making content more playful can be a great way to engage students and add diversity to classroom activities. As technology becomes an ever more significant part of modern classrooms, it makes sense that teachers are using video games for everything from teaching content, to keeping tabs on learning progress, and for skills practice. In a recent survey, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center found that 74 percent of K-8  use digital games for instruction in some way and 55 percent use them weekly.

While digital games are becoming more common, many teachers still use them primarily as supplemental material or as a reward when the “real work” has been accomplished, not as the main instructional tool. Many teachers are still skeptical that students will learn mandated content from digital games well enough to prove mastery on state exams.

TIME IS THE BIGGEST BARRIER

Tony Mai experimented with some digital games in his middle school English Language Arts classroom as part of a pilot project at William McKinley IS 259,  a junior high school in New York City. His principal chose him to participate because he’s comfortable with technology and likes to play video games himself. The game, The Sports Network 2, required students to take on the roles of employees at a media company trying to market a product to a younger audience.

In addition to the virtual gameplay, students had to do offline research on solutions they could use within the game. The Sports Network 2 is aligned with Common Core ELA standards but places the skills within the context of real-life tasks. “They had to read fake email and highlight important things on screen,” Mai said. “I saw improvement with students’ ability to figure out difficult vocabulary words using context clues.” He also said students stayed more motivated.

Still, playing the game took precious time and Mai slowly started to fall behind the other eighth-grade ELA teachers on the mandated curriculum. “It does take someone who’s willing to make sure the rest of the curriculum is covered while using these games in the classroom,” Mai said. Teachers are under a lot of pressure to make sure they cover a jampacked curriculum, and that can make any game feel like one more thing to do, something extra or supplemental.

“At the end of the day, if the teachers know that their curriculum already addresses all the other standards, then they won’t feel there’s a need for the game in the classroom,” Mai said. That’s why he thinks games that have robust data tracking and clear corollaries to standards will get the most teacher buy-in. “Teachers want to be able to see the gains that students are making on a specific skill and be able to link it to a specific question or part of the game,” Mai said.

The immersive quality of the game deeply engaged students and showed them how the skills they were learning applied to the real world, Mai said. But it was those same game qualities that made him worry that he wasn’t covering the basics. The more that a game maps exactly to the standards, the less game-like it becomes, he acknowledged, and the more it resembles educational software, not a game.

Concerns about time and explicit instructional standards being met are mirrored in the Cooney Center report. “Few teachers are using learning games of the immersive variety, the kind that lend themselves to deep exploration and participation in the types of activities that set digital games apart from more didactic forms of instruction,” writes Lori Takeuchi in the report’s executive summary. “Most teachers instead report using short-form games that students can finish within a single class period. While lack of time is a likely explanation, teachers may also find shorter-form games to be easier to map to curriculum standards.”

ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT

Heather Robertson teaches English language learners (ELL) in a K-5 school in Wisconsin.
The district has great access to technology — they’ve gone one-to-one with Chromebooks, but the devices are mainly used for what Robertson calls “worksheets on a computer.” She’d like those setting policies and vision in schools to recognize that while online testing may have brought the devices into schools, they can be used for far more than that. “We’re so focused on our testing and we’re not going deep in our learning,” Robertson said. “We’re just really trying to get through the surface of it.”

Robertson used to teach in a less conventional district in Madison where she had more freedom to explore different teaching strategies. “The most exciting thing is that research around ELLs shows that concrete experiences are the best way for them to learn,” Robertson said. But how can teachers give students concrete experiences of abstract ideas like government? Robertson has used the digital game iCivics to help give students that virtual experience.

“Games like that allow kids to interact in an almost concrete way that is very powerful,” she said. “They take on the role of the characters and understand it in a much deeper way than they would otherwise.”

That virtual experience, paired with conversation, can be very powerful for students who are having trouble accessing the content. “I believe what English language learners need more than anything is a lot of talking and interaction,” Robertson said. “Game-playing is actually a key component of that.” She treats games a bit like she would a text, scaffolding learning around gameplay, and using students’ excitement about the game to connect more meaningfully. Kids play the game for a while and then stop and talk about it with Robertson.

“I think [games are] best when paired with reflective conversation,” Robertson said. “It’s developing the awareness of what you’re doing. The only way to really develop metacognition is to have a conversation with someone who can ask Socratic questions.”

Robertson still uses games in her classroom, because she has support from her principal, but she doesn’t feel that same commitment from the district leadership. “Localized leadership allows me to use games during intervention time, but it’s not something that’s supported broadly,” Richardson said. Despite the barriers, she pushes on with the practice because she has experienced how motivated struggling learners can be by games and how much that inspires her.

But without support it’s getting harder to hold onto that conviction. For example, this year Robertson put MinecraftEDU on her supplies list and got it approved by her principal, only to have the request held up at the district level. Another time, Robertson was invited to help develop a game-based assessment by World-Class Instructional Design and Assessement (WIDA), an assessment consortium focused on English Language Learner growth. “Which seems to me like an incredible learning experience, but I was told no because I’d already used my three professional development days,” Robertson said.

It’s these experiences that make Robertson understand why so many teachers are reluctant to step out of line or try something new. Most teacher professional development focuses on the subjects that are tested — reading, writing and math — not tools like digital games that could provide a more engaging way of teaching those things. And teachers don’t have a lot of extra time to experiment and play with unfamiliar games, let alone find quality games that suit their needs.

There are some good game-rating sites now available, but too few teachers know about them. And, when districts are actively encouraging teachers to focus on prescribed curriculum, there’s little incentive to put in the time to play around and test out more immersive games.

The obstacles to widespread teacher adoption of games as the primary means of instruction are many, but despite the struggles, many teachers do use digital games creatively to push students to think critically. Those early-adopting teachers will be the ones to inspire and teach their colleagues about what works and where the pitfalls lie as this trend grows.

Categories
Digital Learning Research

Inclusion in the 21st-century classroom: Differentiating with technology

Today, teachers are required to meet all of their students learning needs. However, as students needs become more diverse and curriculum becomes increasingly more difficult, teachers are finding it challenging to meet students where they are and to bring them to where they need to be academically. Bobby Hobgood, ED.D., and Lauren Ormsby describe how the incorporation of technology in the classroom can serve as a strategic tool for differentiating to meet students growing and changing academic needs.

Posted by: Devin de Lange

Original Post

The diversity of the 21st-century classroom creates numerous challenges for teachers who may not have known the same diversity themselves as students. Among these, teachers must balance the requirements of high-stakes accountability while meeting the needs of diverse students within their classroom. The 26th Annual Report to Congress on IDEA reported that approximately ninety-six percent of general education teachers have students in their classroom with learning disabilities.1 This is not a surprising statistic, considering there are over six million students with disability classifications in the United States. The frequency of special education students in the classroom, however, is only one of the obstacles that teachers face. Teachers must also contend with an increasing number of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and from high-poverty families.2

While many teachers express frustration over high-stakes accountability standards, they acknowledge pressure to “teach to the test,” fearing non-proficient scores, dissatisfaction from school administrators, and in smaller systems, the potential risk of embarrassment when scores are made public. Compounding the issue, data has shown that students with disabilities perform well below their peers in standardized testing.3 In their research, McTighe and Brown articulate a disconnect between the instructional practices found in today’s classrooms and educational research that delineates “requirements for promoting genuine student engagement, understanding, and longitudinal achievement progress.”4 The popular practices and attitudes critiqued by McTighe and Brown include developing curriculum that is too broad, teachers’ flawed perception of the necessity to “cover” content, the overuse of worksheets that are modeled after test formats, and “teaching to the test” in order to boost test scores.

Differentiation as effective instruction

By contrast, the practice of differentiating instruction helps teachers address rigorous standards while responding to the individual needs of students. Differentiation allows teachers to focus on essential skills in each content area, be responsive to individual differences, incorporate assessment into instruction, and provide students with multiple avenues to learning.5 The result is a classroom where specialized instruction is the norm for all students. Students with disabilities have access to appropriate modifications, while students who excel have access to appropriate challenges. This model for instructional planning and delivery is not a new idea and is widely touted as the most promising solution to many of the obstacles presented by the proliferation of diverse classrooms.6

But while numerous studies have established the effectiveness of differentiated instruction, research indicates that some of the practices central to differentiated instruction, such as flexible grouping and specialized instruction, are not widespread.7 A 2005 U.S. Department of Education study found that whole-class instruction was the most common format experienced by secondary students with disabilities as well as students in regular education academic classes.8 The same study showed that only thirteen percent of secondary students with disabilities in general education classes experienced substantial curriculum modification or a specialized curriculum.9 If we know that differentiated instruction is effective in improving student performance, while still meeting required performance standards, why aren’t more teachers using it?

Overcoming obstacles to effective differentiation

In a pivotal piece in 1991, Schumm and Vaughn explored teachers’ perspectives on making adaptations for students with disabilities in inclusive settings. Their findings indicated that teachers largely do not feel prepared to address students’ diverse needs. Furthermore, teachers felt pressured by the necessity to cover a wide range of content in a short amount of time, the excessive classroom management needs of the classroom, and a lack of time to prepare lessons.10 If we compare this to the criticism of instructional practices by McTighue and Brown, we see that these feelings have not changed over the last decade.11 In fact, in addition to these problems, teachers report the additional obstacle of decreasing resources in their classrooms.

Many of the obstacles to implementing differentiated instruction can be overcome with the effective use of technology. Teachers who feel ill-prepared to address the diverse needs of their students, for example, have ready access to more options than ever before as a result of the wide range of software and hardware tools available. Technology can equip teachers to address students’ needs in an almost limitless number of ways, through content input, learning activities, and opportunities to demonstrate comprehension. And because many students come to the learning environment with a predisposition for using it seamlessly, technology can become an intermediary that bridges the relationship between teacher and student, allowing the teacher to meet a student in a familiar realm.

Technology also addresses the necessity to cover a wide range of content in a short amount of time by minimizing the need to take curriculum at a slower pace. Students with special needs may benefit from technologies that assist them, allowing them to keep pace with their peers. For example, a student with dyslexia who might normally struggle with a reading passage could benefit from reading the text while listening to an audio recording through headphones. By providing audio, visual, or concept-mapping supports while introducing new concepts, teachers lessen the need for review and remediation after the initial instruction.

The pressures of classroom management needs can also be alleviated as a result of using technology to differentiate instruction. Classrooms enhanced by technology provide support and structure to students who need scaffolding and enrichment to students who thrive on challenge. The result is a learning environment that is task-centered and predictable, in which students understand what’s expected of them and how to succeed.12 In a classroom where gifted learners, learners with learning disabilities, and learners with other special needs are all challenged at appropriate levels at the same time, students are more likely to be engaged in learning activities and less likely to be engaged in inappropriate behaviors. In such environments, classroom management works differently: Teachers act more as facilitators, which allows for more individual attention to students who need attention and might otherwise behave inappropriately as a result.13

The obstacles presented by limited financial resources need not prevent teachers from differentiating with technology. Many tools and practices that facilitate differentiation, including many suggested in this article, make use of free software and programs, as well as basic technologies found in almost every classroom.

The obstacle presented by a lack of time to prepare lessons is perhaps the most difficult to overcome when implementing differentiated instruction, even with the aid of technology. Learning to effectively differentiate instruction does take time. As with any instructional practice, fluency comes with experience. But the initial investment of time to develop facility with a new strategy can offset time that might otherwise be spent re-teaching material that students failed to learn as a result of a non-differentiated approach. Teachers who seek to differentiate but are hampered by limited time may find success in focusing on just one strategy at a time, gradually building fluency with differentiation practices.

Setting the scope

A complete discussion of using technology to differentiate instruction could fill several volumes. The range of tools and resources is vast, and the instructional practices that make use of them are innumerable. By necessity, the scope of this article is limited, and focuses on students with learning disabilities (including disabilities with spoken language, written language, mathematics, and reasoning), students who learn differently because of their linguistic or cultural backgrounds, and students who are academically gifted.

A framework for technology integration

Before exploring specific technologies that can support a teacher’s differentiation practice, it’s important to consider how to effectively integrate technology into instruction. The first and most important principle of technology integration is that the focus should be on the outcome of the instruction, and not on the technology itself. When technology is used just for the sake of doing something new and different, teachers fail to harness the affordances of the technology to support the needs of the learning situation.14

Before making the decision to use a particular technology for a particular lesson, teachers should first make decisions about the learning goals, activities, and assessments that will shape the learning experience. During the process of making these decisions, teachers can more easily envision opportunities to integrate one or more technologies. This perspective is central to the conceptual framework for educational technology known as TPACK: Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge.15

TPACK proposes that thoughtful technology integration occurs when teachers are attuned to the interplay of content (the subject matter), pedagogy (the methods of teaching, both general and content-specific), and technology (both electronic and “traditional”). Considering all three domains together results in a lesson in which all the component parts are aligned to support the learning goals and outcomes of the instructional plan.

The TPACK model acknowledges a distinction between use and integration of technology. While a teacher may understand how to use a handheld device like an iPod touch to listen to music or access the internet, her facility with the device does not ensure understanding and application of sound pedagogical practice with the device within the context of the classroom. Skillful integration of any piece of technology demands a more intentional approach to its instructional use.

Judi Harris and Mark Hofer identify five basic instructional decisions that form the basis of planning a learning event.16They are, in order:

  • Choosing learning goals
  • Making practical pedagogical decisions about the nature of the learning experience
  • Selecting and sequencing activity types to combine to form the learning experience
  • Selecting formative and summative assessment strategies that will reveal what and how well students are learning
  • Selecting tools and resources that will best help students to benefit from the learning experience being planned.

This framework emphasizes that the selection of tools and resources should follow naturally from the other instructional planning decisions. Following this model increases the likelihood of seamless, successful technology integration that meets the needs of all learners.

Differentiation in 2-D

Differentiated instruction comprises two major dimensions — the teacher-dependent dimension and the student-dependent dimension. The two dimensions play off of one another, and each consists of its own set of variables:

  1. Teacher-dependent dimension
    1. Differentiation through content
    2. Differentiation through process
    3. Differentiation through product
    4. Differentiation through environment
  2. Student-dependent dimension
    1. Differentiation according to student readiness
    2. Differentiation according to student interest
    3. Differentiation according to student learning profile

Differentiating instruction involves manipulating the teacher-dependent dimensions — those variables over which teachers have control. But differentiating instruction effectively requires manipulating those variables with attention to the student-dependent dimension — the variables over which teachers have no control, but that make each student unique.

The power of technology lies in the teacher’s ability to use it for customizing instruction. It helps teachers to address those student variables by manipulating the complexity or level of difficulty of the content, the ways in which students receive and engage that content, their options demonstrating what they have learned, and the circumstances under which they do so.

Understanding learners’ needs: The student-dependent dimension

While teachers cannot control the variables that make up the student-dependent dimension of differentiation — students’ readiness, interests, and learning profiles — they can learn to differentiate instruction effectively as a result of understanding those variables. Knowing the contents of a student’s Individualized Education Plan (IEP) is important, but does not provide enough information to create a differentiated classroom. A student learning inventory, an example of a diagnostic assessment, offers a solution for addressing this initial challenge. With the aid of technology, a teacher can create, host, and administer a learning inventory, and then easily analyze the results — all without students feeling put on the spot.

For example, at the beginning of the year, students may respond to a teacher-created online survey that asks questions about their preferred learning styles, where and how they typically study, and what the teacher can do to help them to learn. Sites like Zoomerang and SurveyMonkey offer free, customizable surveys that will display both individual results and a composite of a group of students. Using one of these tools, the inventory might include a question like this one:17

  1. Rank your learning preferences for learning math by ranking the following activities:
    • Using manipulatives
    • Observing demonstrations
    • Sketching out the problem
    • Reading
    • Comparing work with a partner
    • Solving problems as a team

Having this knowledge of student learning preferences is very useful when designing instruction and creating flexible grouping for students during classroom activities.

Student response systems, or “clickers,” offer another strategy for collecting data from students. These devices connect to a computer and LCD projector or an interactive white board and allow students to answer questions in class without sharing their responses with classmates. This option requires devices that must be purchased, but because some interactive white boards are packaged with clickers, many schools may already have them. Clickers provide immediate data that is aggregated with no additional effort. The data can be either anonymous or tied to the individual learner, as many systems can associate the number of the device with a given student to keep a running record for that student. Once collected, student data can then be used to develop either an individual or classroom learning profile.

Using clickers to conduct a learning inventory is a formative assessment technique that provides feedback for both teacher and student. And for students who are challenged with dysgraphia, which affects the ability to write, clickers focus their attention on identifying the appropriate response, avoiding preoccupation with writing so that a student can participate as readily as his or her classmates.

Less expensive and even free alternatives to student response systems include web-based tools like Poll Everywhereand PollDaddy, which allow users to create polls that can capture data on a group of students. These options record responses students submit through text messaging, handheld devices like iPod Touches, or laptops. Poll Everywhere also includes an option to store data for individual students.

The article “Using Student Responders Responsibly” offers a thorough discussion of how to make the most of clickers and web-based alternatives.

The teacher-dependent dimension: Four variables

The teacher who develops a basic understanding of his students’ readiness, interest, and learning profile is ready to use that information to adapt his instruction based on the four variables of teacher-dependent differentiation: Content, process, product, and environment. As instruction continues, the teacher can return to these student-centered formative assessment techniques to adjust and enhance his understanding of his students’ needs.

Differentiating by content

Differentiating by content can happen in a variety of ways, but the two primary means include 1) using different content to teach the same subject to students with different needs, and 2) enhancing or augmenting existing content to make it accessible to all students. Technology can facilitate both strategies — finding new content and augmenting existing content.

Video: Using Technology to Differentiate by Content

In this video, classroom footage and interviews with educators illustrate a variety of ways to differentiate by content using technology.

LOCATING CONTENT

The use of the worldwide web to find information is now so ubiquitous that it’s easy to forget how we taught — or lived — without it. But it wasn’t long ago that teachers and textbooks provided the sole sources of content for students in the classroom. Now the range of material immediately available to students is almost without limit, and includes research-based articles by university professors, digitized books, manipulative images, archived radio programs, scientific videos, and much more.

Most teachers already understand how to find relevant content for students on the internet. What isn’t always so obvious is how to find content that supports the learning goals for a lesson while meeting students’ individual learning needs. How do you find just the right piece of content, in the right format and at the right level, to reach a particular student? Unfortunately, there’s no magic formula that can answer this question correctly every time. Formative and summative assessment strategies are necessary to gain feedback on whether a certain type of content is successful with a particular student. But there are certain basic concepts that can provide a useful starting point:

Students with ADHD

Students who have problems attending to lecture or reading lengthy texts benefit when verbal and textual input can be supplemented with visual reinforcement by video or images. Video-streaming subscription sites like Discovery Education Streaming offer authentic content produced with the learner in mind. These online video databases are easily searchable and offer a range of topics and levels.

English language learners

Students for whom English is not a first language can become frustrated when presented with information that meets their English comprehension level but is far below their cognitive level. These students also benefit from supplementing verbal and written information with videos. Discovery Education videos include closed-captioning, which reinforces the language by providing spoken and written speech at the same time, while supporting vocabulary acquisition with images.

Students with reading or processing difficulties

Students who have difficulty reading or processing text similarly benefit from visual reinforcement for a reading passage. Supplementing a reading passage with images provides valuable context that can scaffold the learner’s understanding. Before sharing a reading selection with students, the teacher can identify the elements of the passage that lend themselves to visual enhancement and create a list of images to enhance comprehension. Image databases like Flickr and the Wikimedia Commons provide easy, searchable access to countless images, which can be displayed in slideshow format as a pre-reading strategy for the entire class. Alternately, images can be inserted into a multimedia presentation to be viewed individually alongside a text while the student reads. If the text is available electronically, it may be possible to insert both the text and the associated image in the presentation.

AUGMENTING CONTENT

Just as technology offers a way to bring different content to students, it also provides a way to make the same content accessible to students for whom that might not otherwise be a possibility. A reading passage that may not meet the needs of every student in a classroom can easily be made accessible with the aid of technology. As with all differentiation practices, begin by considering the needs of the learner, and let the technology follow.

 

This concept map, created using the free program Bubbl.us, illustrates key ideas and relationships from a reading passage about animal habitats. Click on the image for a larger version.

Screen-reading software

If the chosen text is web-based, an initial starting point to support students who have difficulty with reading is to use screen-reading software. This category of software assists students with learning disabilities by reading aloud text from a web page or document using a synthesized voice. In some instances, the software highlights the words as they are being read, allowing students to follow along as they hear the text. This strategy is also useful for English language learners, although it’s important to ensure that the quality of the audio input offered is comprehensible to the listener. Screen readers have suffered harsh criticism because the synthetic voice may not provide the fluency and authenticity needed by some learners. But in recent years, these voices have become more human-like. Most screen-readers offer a free trial and some of the more simple programs are available for free.

Concept mapping

Sometimes the challenge posed by the text is one of understanding and remembering relationships. The ability to understand these connections can frustrate the learner, interfering with comprehension of the text. In a narrative passage that centers around character interaction, students with processing difficulties may have trouble retaining the relationship between key characters. In a social studies classroom, the problem may be one of grasping how key events relate to a historical construct. In an English language arts classroom, the challenge might be understanding and remembering the organizational structure of a research paper.

Concept maps support students’ comprehension by identifying key concepts and making visible the relationships between them.18 These visual representations allow students to read the same passage as their peers without the frustration caused by the inability to synthesize information. To use concept maps as a pre-reading strategy, teachers can create concept maps and give them to students with processing issues or dyslexia prior to reading a text. Depending on the level of the students, the teacher may use this to preview the passage with the whole class or individually. Students can also create their own concept maps after completing a reading. Used in this way as a post-reading activity, concept maps can help students more closely review what they’ve read and can serve as formative assessment.

Concept maps can be created using web-based applications or stand-alone software programs. Tools like the web-based Bubbl.us allow the user to create a simple concept map that may be either printed or downloaded as an image file. Stand-alone software like Inspiration and Kidspirationfor younger learners, offer a broader range of features including the ability to insert images to represent the major nodes, and the ability to insert text to state the relationship between those nodes. While this software is not free, a trial version is available for download.

Digital textbooks, eBooks, and audiobooks

Digital textbooks, both online and CD-based, offer options for accessing the same content at different levels of complexity. The digital format offers an advantage over traditional textbooks because digital publications can incorporate time-based and interactive media directly within the text. For example, North Carolina History: A Digital Textbook contains a map of North Carolina agriculture from 1860-2007, illustrating the acres of farmland by county. By dragging a sliding bar underneath the map, the learner can visually see the decrease in land devoted to farming over time. Students who are dyslexic or who have processing issues benefit from multi-sensory input afforded by textbook features like this one.

CD-based digital textbooks provided by textbook publishers offer a variety of features, including pronunciation guides, text-to-speech, and vocabulary support, as well as features that allow the reader to change the formatting of the text to improve readability.

Many digital textbooks allow students to hear the text. This feature supports students with learning disabilities and English language learners, who benefit from the ability to hear and view the text simultaneously. Perhaps one of the best sources for audio-enhanced books of all kinds is the federally funded Bookshare. Operating under an exception to U.S. copyright law, Bookshare allows registered users to download books, textbooks, and newspapers to be accessed via text-to-speech readers. Bookshare is freely available to qualifying schools and students.

CAST UDL Book Builder

Some learning situations may require further customization not possible via pre-fabricated content. In these situations, the teacher must seek tools for enhancing text as opposed to already enhanced text. One of the gems of the web is the CAST UDL Book Builder, a free digital book database and book builder. Developed and hosted by the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), Book Builder helps educators “create, share, publish, and read digital books that support diverse learners according to their individual needs, interests, and skills.” The database and tool integrate a number of technologies like screen-reading software to make content accessible to students with learning disabilities, yet at the same time integrating functionality that engages the reader through the use of built-in avatars who pose questions and offer ideas as the students reads.

For example, imagine a student who has difficulty understanding cellular mitosis. The teacher may write his or her own explanation of the process, including illustrations, and upload them into a “book” on the Book Builder site. In addition, the program includes built-in avatars, up to three per book, that appear underneath the book as icons. The teacher may elect to use them to offer addition commentary on a page or to post comprehension questions for the reader. In this example, an avatar might ask at a certain point, “Who cares about cellular mitosis? Why is it important?” Just like the text of the book, the text of the avatars can also be read to the student.

Microsoft Word

One of the easiest differentiation tools for a reading passage is a software program that most teachers have readily at hand — Microsoft Word. Smaller reading passages, copied and pasted into Microsoft Word, can be easily enhanced to aid comprehension using standard formatting features within the program. Using the highlighting feature can help students focus on particular aspects of a text like parts of speech, literary devices, or key elements of a paragraph or research paper. Teachers can also use the comment feature to provide scaffolding or context for a student who needs help with a reading passage. Comments allow a user to insert a call-out box elaborating on a difficult vocabulary word, idiomatic expression, or complicated idea.

For example, imagine an English language learner reading a passage about summer vacation activities. One section of the reading mentions a family that spends the day at a water park, enjoying a water slide. Since the concept of a water park and a water slide are somewhat culturally bound, the mention of this activity might impede comprehension for the ESL student. By creating a comment associated with the term, the student receives support at the point at which it is needed. This strategy allows the student to continue reading with relatively little disruption.

Differentiating by process

As with differentiation by content, using technology to differentiate by process requires first attending to the student-dependent dimension of differentiation. Focusing on student readiness, student interest, and student learning profile yields effective differentiation centered on learners’ needs.

Video: Using Technology to Differentiate by Process

In this video, classroom footage and interviews with educators illustrate a variety of ways to differentiate by process using technology.

FLEXIBLE GROUPING

One way to attend to those student-dependent variables is to implement flexible grouping. In flexible grouping, students are organized in groups according to one of the three variables — ability/readiness grouping, interest grouping, or grouping by learning profile. The strategy is termed “flexible” because students may be grouped differently according to the activity or learning objective, and because students can move from one group to another.

A teacher might draw on an initial learning inventory to group by learning profile, identifying students who have similar preferences like learning through writing, learning by discussing, or learning by creating something. Grouping by interest would organize students based on their preference when given a choice like researching different careers that use biology. Grouping by ability or readiness would organize students according to their background knowledge of the subject or their ability to proceed through the information at a certain pace.

The strategy allows teachers to simplify their planning by preparing for two, three, or four basic groups. And because the groups are flexible students don’t feel pigeon-holed into one niche in the classroom.

PROCESSING AND RECORDING INFORMATION

Technology can be used to support how each student works to integrate new information, either alone or in flexible groups. A student with a learning disability like dysgraphia may feel frustrated that she cannot easily take notes or render responses to assigned questions because of her difficulty with writing. Using a laptop or portable word processor can alleviate that frustration, freeing the student to render notes or answers by keyboarding.

Technology can similarly support students who are diagnosed with dyscalculia, a learning disability related to mathematics. The use of a hand-held calculator can help students who have difficulty writing numbers in the proper sequence. For students without access to handheld devices, many online calculators offer the same functionality. Alternatively, students with dyscalculia can use spreadsheet programs like Microsoft Excel, which have built-in formatting options to help students organize and see data. The ability to color-code columns or rows of data, for example, can help a student who needs support to distinguish numbers.

Microsoft Word also offers a free Mathematics Add-in that can be used to create graphs and solve equations within the word processor. The add-in lets students choose mathematical symbols from a specialized menu and insert them onto the page. This level of scaffolding can make a difference when students are faced with a blank page and are not sure where to begin. The availability of mathematical symbols as choices from a menu creates a more equitable situation for these students.

MANIPULATING INFORMATION

For students with processing difficulties or kinesthetic learners, virtual manipulatives can be another powerful way to learn math. Crawford and Brown note that virtual manipulatives “create a conceptual understanding of mathematical theories beyond the mere formulaic models of traditional mathematical coursework.”19 The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives, supported by the National Science Foundation, is a database of freely accessible manipulatives and tutorials for K-12 mathematics. One example allows students to manipulate the variables in a linear equation using a web-based graphic of a balance beam. The tool helps students visually understand the concept of balancing an equation. Students who learn by doing or by touching things can gain tremendous insights into mathematical concepts by using virtual manipulatives.

EXTENDING LEARNING TIME
(WITHOUT EXTENDING YOUR WORK DAY)

Outside of the classroom, students with learning disabilities benefit from opportunities to access online tools and tutorials that enhance their integration of new information. Extending access to class content beyond the actual instructional period can make a big difference for students who require additional processing time. The ability to repeatedly review material like video tutorials, demonstrations, and archived lecture recordings outside of class can aid students’ comprehension and provide invaluable access to instructional materials for their tutors or parents.

Online course platforms like Moodle and Blackboardprovide a structure for content, allowing teachers to organize materials in a way to make them easily accessible to students. Teachers who do not have access to a learning management through their schools can create their own class websites using any of a number of free tools, including wikis and template-driven website creators like Google Sites and Weebly. (The process of creating a class website is beyond the scope of this article, but is addressed in the article “Keep Parents in the Loop with a Class Website.”)

Teachers can also use web-based tools and screen-capture programs to create archived presentations that combine images, video, and voice-over narration. Some programs also feature the ability to insert screen-based annotations in the form of callouts to draw attention to a particular element visible on the screen.

A science teacher might create a series of multimedia slides to illustrate a laboratory set-up for students who have difficulty with task differentiation, or breaking a project down into its component elements. Then, using a screen-capture tool like TechSmith’s Jing, the teacher could develop a tutorial, recording his or her voice to lay over the visuals. The end result is a stand-alone resource that allows the student to view it at his or her own pace, as many times as needed to understand the content.

Video: Screen capture demonstration of a geometric proof

In this screen-capture video, a high-school math teacher demonstrates the process of proving that a quadrilateral is a parallelogram. The video was recorded using a Mobi device.

Most interactive white boards and associated tables have built-in capture software, making it possible to create or re-create a class demonstration or tutorial to be viewed at a later time. Features like these help teachers save time in teaching and planning since the archived presentation, including all the component images, demonstrations, and discussion, can be used immediately for students who need to review the materials.

Differentiating by product

Student demonstrations of learning reflect who they are as individuals, who they are as creators, and who they are as learners. Differentiating by product means offering options for how students will express their understanding of the target learning goals and objectives. Allowing students to choose from several options empowers them and increases their motivation and engagement. And because numerous studies have shown a positive correlation between student engagement, appropriate academic activities, and high achievement, differentiating by product often translates to improved student achievement.20

The range of technologies available for students to create and store products is vast and constantly increasing. Johnassen and Reeves consider these technologies “cognitive tools” because they “enhance the cognitive powers of human beings during thinking, problem-solving, and learning.”21 The options and flexibility provided by these cognitive tools offer support for a range of learning disabilities. As with all other aspects of differentiation, the key to successfully harnessing the affordances of these technologies lies in using the TPACK model — start with the learning goals and move through the steps, selecting the technology as the last step. Effective selection of technology should also be done with attention to students’ readiness, interest, and learning profile. For every learning objective and student need, there’s an appropriate tool that can play to students’ strengths while engaging and motivating them.

Video: Using Technology to Differentiate by Product

In this video, classroom footage and interviews with educators illustrate a variety of ways to differentiate by product using technology.

BLOGS, WIKIS, AND OTHER WRITING PLATFORMS

For students who do well with written products, online text platforms like blogs and wikis can increase motivation by offering the promise of an attractive product with a “real” audience. Some blogging sites offer teachers the ability to create a classroom blog linked to individual student blogs. For example, the Landmark Project’s Class Blogmeister is free to teachers and provides a secure environment where students can safely share and comment on the work of their peers.

Before students publish their written work on an online platform, they should first compose the work using word processing software like Microsoft Word. Built-in features in the software can support students who have difficulty with written language and processing:

  • Spell check helps students with dysgraphia and other learning disabilities — although it’s important to acquaint students with the pitfalls of relying on this feature. The autocorrect feature can be enabled or disabled depending on students’ strengths and needs.
  • Grammar check helps students identify awkward grammatical constructions like passive sentences.
  • Text-to-speech add-ins support auditory proofing before students submit their work. Numerous free text-to-speech add-ins for Microsoft Word are available.

DEMONSTRATING UNDERSTANDING THROUGH MULTIMEDIA

Students who struggle to organize their thoughts and students who have dyslexia are often paralyzed by anxiety when they’re assigned written work. When written work is a necessity (and in many cases, it is), appropriate supports should be provided. But in some situations, the appropriate use of multimedia products — either to supplement or replace written assignments — can be used to free students whose expression is often impeded by their learning disabilities. Free web-based multimedia tools provide students with options that respect their individual strengths and weaknesses:

Digital posters

Digital poster displays, like those created using Glogster EDU, incorporate media elements like images, videos, audio recordings, and drawings with text. Gifted students and students who thrive on creative freedom find engagement and challenge in such a format, and students with learning disabilities find support in the options for expression. For a thorough discussion of using digital posters in the classroom, see the article “Digital Posters: Creating with an Online Canvas.”

VoiceThread

Voicethread is an online platform where students can respond to a topic using text, audio, video, or images. The variety of options makes it possible for students with learning disabilities to contribute to the presentation using the method that works best for them. The option to record an oral response, rather than delivering it “live” in class, benefits students who need time to compose their thoughts, as well as students who have speech disorders like stuttering. In this third-grade example of a picture book of poetry, students have commented with both text and audio. (See the article “Using VoiceThread to Communicate and Collaborate” for a thorough explanation on how to use VoiceThread with students.)

Digital storytelling

Digital storytelling projects, in which students tell fictional or true stories, are another example of differentiating product by student interest: Each learner draws on his or her background or interest to provide the content for the product. Digital stories can be created in a range of formats, including pure audio, image slideshows with static text, image slideshows with voiceovers, and pure video. The options that prioritize audio over text benefit students who have difficulty with writing. The University of Houston offers a useful introduction to using digital storytelling in the classroom.

Free, downloadable audio-editing software like Audacitycan be used to create and edit digital stories. Students who need support in mapping out the characters, setting, events, and sequence of their stories can use concept mapping software to organize their thoughts.

EVALUATING STUDENT PRODUCTS

All students need the support of clear project guidelines in order to succeed. But students with special needs may need additional support to stay on task and complete each step in completing a project. Creating separate rubrics for students who have different skill sets can provide the appropriate level of support for those students.

For example, an oral presentation rubric might include criteria like, “Share multiple drafts with teacher,” to remind students with organizational/procedural issues of the importance of viewing the final presentation as a series of tasks. Web-based tools like Rubistar, a free rubric generator, can help teachers easily create a master rubric and then adapt it for students with special needs.

Alternatively, project-based learning checklists can help students who have difficulty organizing their work. Checklists break down projects into small component parts to make it easy for students to see the steps toward completion and the order in which those steps should occur. Consistent use of these checklists can scaffold students toward their own understanding of how to organize tasks. Teachers can use theonline PBL Checklist tool from 4teachers.org or create their own using a word processor.

Differentiating by environment

The importance of the fourth element of teacher-dependent differentiation, manipulating the environment to support all learners, has been established in numerous studies.22 The environment refers to the physical space where learning takes place and all the elements within that space that have an impact on student learning. While it is important to know students’ backgrounds and needs in order to effectively teach them, we must also attend to how students learn best and how environmental factors impact their ability to learn optimally.

Obviously, some elements of the environment cannot be manipulated. Where desks are bolted to the floor or the temperature is controlled elsewhere, teachers face limitations on how much of the environment they can influence. But even in the realm of the classroom environment, technology can support differentiation.

Video: Using Technology to Differentiate by Learning Environment

In this video, classroom footage and interviews with educators illustrate a variety of ways to differentiate by environment using technology.

CONTROLLED CHAOS

Differentiated classrooms are not quiet places of learning. Students move throughout the room as they collaborate with classmates. Table discussions occur on a regular basis. Students listen to (and create) audio recordings, and text-to-speech devices sound off, making reading passages accessible to all students. While this may sound like a symphony of learning to a teacher, a student with processing issues might experience it as an overwhelming cacophony.

Fortunately, where technology amplifies the learning noise of a classroom, it also provides solutions for keeping that noise under control. Individual student headsets are a critical component of a differentiated classroom, allowing students to access audio and video at any time without disturbing their peers. Effective differentiation by environment also requires careful planning so that some students work individually using headsets while others work in groups. The noise of students’ collaborative groups doesn’t distract students who are using headsets to access audio content, and vice-versa.

In schools that have adopted one-to-one initiatives, in which each student has access to a laptop, students have their own “differentiation in a box.” While each student has the same tools, those tools can be manipulated in ways that serve individual needs. A one-to-one environment simplifies other aspects of differentiation, because students have ready access to differentiated content, tools for differentiated learning processes, and resources for creating differentiated products. Teachers who don’t have the benefit of a one-to-one environment can use the same principles of differentiation, but need to plan more carefully to distribute resources equitably and make effective use of the school’s media center.

THE SENSORY EXPERIENCE

Sometimes the standard tools we use for teaching and learning do not meet the needs of students who are affected by environmental factors beyond anyone’s control. For example, some students have sensory aversion or motor skills issues associated with using common classroom tools like pen and paper. While these students are perfectly capable of completing the work and may even be identified as gifted, the physical sensation and auditory impact of putting pen to paper interferes with their ability to participate in classroom activities. These students may find that using the computer enables them to demonstrate learning while navigating around difficult or unpleasant sensory experiences.

CULTURALLY INCLUSIVE CLASSROOMS

Environmental differentiation also includes making the environment conducive to learning for students from a variety of cultures and backgrounds.23 A culturally inclusive classroom environment includes ready access to materials that provide a rich and global perspective on the world and allows each person to feel valued as a result of his or her background. Classroom displays provide a valuable avenue for creating such an environment. In a classroom that includes Latino students, for example, a display for National Science Month should include the contributions of Latino scientists. The ease of finding information on the web makes creating such a display far less time-consuming than in the past. Teachers can also use technology-aided communication like class websites or wikis to learn from students about their cultures. The ability to integrate students’ cultures and experiences into the classroom validates who they are as learners.

Breaking down the barriers

There’s no doubt that effectively differentiating instruction presents challenges to even the most experienced teacher. While technology cannot eliminate every obstacle, it can make differentiation easier for teachers and more engaging for students. Teachers who invest the time and effort to integrate technology into their differentiation practice can reap enormous benefits in classroom management, student engagement, and the pacing of instruction.

Successful technology integration, however, relies on intelligent planning. Teachers must understand those variables they cannot control — students’ readiness, interest, and learning profile. Planning should begin by acknowledging those variables and understanding the learning goals. The selection of technology follows as a natural result, as teachers select appropriate tools for manipulating those variables they cancontrol — content, process, product, and environment. Differentiated instruction designed with these principles in mind ensures classrooms that are rich centers of learning for all students.

Categories
Disruptive Innovation

Google, Gaming, and Going Mobile: Today’s 5 Tech Trends

Many technology trends are entering classrooms. Currently, some are widely adopted, while others are slowly creeping into instructional or institutional practices. eSchool New’s blogger Stephen Noonoo explores five such trends.

posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

Trends point to a handful of major ed-tech focus areas that grab educators’ attention

A few years ago the education world found itself entranced by the iPad, a powerful tablet that promised to revolutionize one-to-one programs and revitalize teacher engagement with technology in the wake of sweeping mobile device adoptions. For years, the iPad seemed to dominate educators’ discussions. Now, that storm seems to have passed, as educators and ed-tech enthusiasts are broadening their horizons and looking to the future.

Last week, a group of educators from California and across the U.S. converged on a Napa Valley high school for the Fall CUE 2014 Conference, centered around a theme of next-generation learning.

Here are 5 takeaways from the sessions, tweets, and conversations that came up time and again during the conference, and which offer a revealing glimpse into the types of technology and interventions educators are turning to now.

1. Google is everywhere. Glancing at the conference schedule, observers might be forgiven for wondering whether Google is now the new Apple. Although that claim may be tenuous at best, given that Google, in one way or another, has always been a classroom mainstay, there were an uncanny number of sessions devoted to Chromebooks, Google Classroom, Apps for Education, and deep dives into niche tools (think Google Drawing or the social studies godsend, Google Tours). More than a few hours were devoted to picking apart every facet of Google Apps for every conceivable classroom environment. Simply put, a solid integration framework across a range of platforms seems to be pushing Google into more classrooms and onto more educators’ lips than ever before.

2. But the iPad isn’t going anywhere. Given that, at last count, schools have invested more than $400 million getting iPads into student hands, it would be rash to expect them to drop of the radar so precipitously. Now that the initial gold rush has died down, educators are looking at more intentional uses. Some speakers hailed from districts with renowned iPad success stories and were eager to share their stories; others promoted sessions that went “beyond giving you a shopping list” for apps. These days, educators appear likely to embrace the iPad’s strengths, accept its weaknesses, and engage in thoughtful discussions on finances and the merits of sharing devices.

3. Games have arrived—-in a big way. Gaming and gamification have bubbled just under the ed-tech surface for years, even cropping up on the New Media Consortium’s trendsetting Horizon Report from time to time. The snowball growth of Minecraft in the classroom, however, may finally be helping to tip the scales. While Minecraft was on many educators’ minds at the conference, attendees also listened raptly to a teacher speaking in a large auditorium who described infusing her middle-school classroom with “XP” and level-ups—-terms closely associated with role playing games. Indeed, GameDesk’s Lucien Vattel, a conference keynote speaker, built his talk around the benefits of experiential learning, the brain science behind fun and lasting memories, and gaming’s facility for teaching difficult concepts to students while removing what he called the “fear of failure.”

4. Reaching students outside class. Curricular shifts—-such as the Common Core and a greater emphasis on STEM skills—-have made learn-by-doing technology a relatively easy sell for educators, and much was made of novel ways to reach students through after-school clubs and passion projects. Trendy tech and buzzworthy terms-—think maker spaces and 3D printing—-certainly commanded their share of airtime, but educators also discussed coding clubs, robotics competitions, and ways to engage girls in STEM subjects. Adapting famous concepts from tech behemoths was also a hit, and educators learned how to apply Google’s 20 percent time idea in the classroom, and training students to staff school Genius Bars, as a way to teach students valuable skills and relieve beleaguered IT departments.

5. The focus is still on students. At a time when so much technology and potential for learning is at students’ fingertips, speakers and attendees kept consistently focused on how technology can best benefit students. Keynoter and educator Diana Laufenberg pushed her audience to think creatively and critically about their strengths as educators and how they can use those strengths to best reach students through inquiry-driven, project-based classrooms. Elsewhere, educators discussed how best to engage students in learning in ways that were both authentic and relevant to students, and which taught them how to apply the skills they were learning to real-world situations. That last point was an idea later echoed by Laufenberg in her closing keynote. “It’s not what you know,” she told attendees, “but what you can do with what you know.”

Categories
Gaming

7 TED Talks about Gaming’s Potential

TED Talks are an incredible resource for the classroom. Some talks are great for professional development for teachers, some are great for student resources, and many still are great  for demonstrating presentation/speaking skills to students. Laura Devaney at eSchool News shares seven TED Talks that explore the potential benefit of gaming and learning.

Minecraft Screenshot
Minecraft Screenshot

posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

These TED Talks highlight promising and inspiring concepts, including gaming in education

Every educator needs some inspiration now and then, and these days, such inspiration can be found online in just a few seconds.

The internet brings inspiring and motivational speakers and experts to anyone with a connection and an internet-ready device.

TED Talks are some of today’s most popular examples of the internet’s power to expand learning opportunities to all.

Each month, we’ll bring you a handful of inspiring TED Talks. Some will focus specifically on education; others will highlight innovative practices that have long-lasting impact. But all will inspire and motivate educators and students alike.

1. Gaming can make a better world
Games like World of Warcraft give players the means to save worlds, and incentive to learn the habits of heroes. What if we could harness this gamer power to solve real-world problems? Jane McGonigal says we can, and explains how.

2. Gaming to re-engage boys in learning
In her talk, Ali Carr-Chellman pinpoints three reasons boys are tuning out of school in droves, and lays out her bold plan to re-engage them: bringing their culture into the classroom, with new rules that let boys be boys, and video games that teach as well as entertain.

3. Your brain on video games
How do fast-paced video games affect the brain? Step into the lab with cognitive researcher Daphne Bavelier to hear surprising news about how video games, even action-packed shooter games, can help us learn, focus and, fascinatingly, multitask. (Filmed at TEDxCHUV.)

4. Massively multi-player…thumb wrestling?
What happens when you get an entire audience to stand up and connect with one another? Chaos, that’s what. At least, that’s what happened when Jane McGonigal tried to teach TED to play her favorite game. Then again, when the game is “massively multiplayer thumb-wrestling,” what else would you expect?

5. How games make kids smarter
Can playing video games make you more productive? Gabe Zichermann shows how games are making kids better problem-solvers, and will make us better at everything from driving to multi-tasking. (Filmed at TEDxKids@Brussels.)

6. 7 ways games reward the brain
We’re bringing gameplay into more aspects of our lives, spending countless hours — and real money — exploring virtual worlds for imaginary treasures. Why? As Tom Chatfield shows, games are perfectly tuned to dole out rewards that engage the brain and keep us questing for more.

7. The game layer on top of the world
By now, we’re used to letting Facebook and Twitter capture our social lives on the web — building a “social layer” on top of the real world. In his talk, Seth Priebatsch looks at the next layer in progress: the “game layer,” a pervasive net of behavior-steering game dynamics that will reshape education and commerce. (Filmed at TEDxBoston.)

Categories
Uncategorized

9 Tips For Smarter Teaching With YouTube

One of the latest developments in the education world is the growing use of YouTube, the popular video sharing Web site where any user can upload and share videos of every possible kind.vThe first thing that many people associate with YouTube is that it is an easy, convenient way to view music videos, television or movie clips. Meanwhile, it is also becoming clear that YouTube has much more potential than that. Many incredibly talented people have been discovered through YouTube, but more significantly, it is now beginning to make a name for itself as a hugely convenient and versatile tool for many teachers to use in the classroom. This November 13, 2014 TeachThought article and accompanying infographic by Marlon Gallano demonstrates just how powerful a learning tool YouTube can be.

Posted By Ian Jukes

Original Source 

Let’s face it, times have changed.

The way we learned in school by sitting at a desk with a book, notebook and pencil are no longer the norm. Textbooks and notebooks are being replaced with tablets. The pencil is being replaced by the stylus. Touchscreen technology and cloud computing are revolutionizing how, where, and even when students learn and share information.

Although this sounds like doom and gloom, it’s actually a very good thing. Virtual lessons, tests, worksheets and textbooks are much easier and far less expensive to update or replace online. And the implications are grandiose. This type of technology has the potential to bring people closer by providing a clearer understanding of our cultures, history, current affairs and much more.

Enter YouTube. From fixing a flat to creating a gourmet dinner, people have turned to YouTube to solve their everyday problems. But if you look a bit closer, you’ll find that teaching with YouTube offers a variety of learning channels that students can relate to and engage in, making learning interesting and exciting for them. (See also, How To YouTube Your Classroom for context.)

If learning, rather than teaching, is the goal, you’ll need to have the attention of the students–and few things commands their attention better than a compelling video. YouTube enables educators to share their educational lessons from classroom to classroom ­without walls. Videos can be a helpful addition to books, by helping those who need a bit more help to grasp a complex concept. This frees up teachers to focus on the individual student, and take more time to create more interesting, innovative class lessons.

Students are changing, and education must keep up with those changes. Today’s modern educators need to reach out to students by using the same devices and techniques they’re using. Teachers have a world of information at their fingertips, as long as they have the technology to harvest it first.

Teaching With Video: 9 Tips For Teaching With YouTube

Ed note: Most of these appear in the graphic below, but we’ve revised and exchanged a few in hopes of having the best list possible.

1. Look for shorter videos

2. Check out the YouTube Education Channel

3. Watch the whole video before showing in class

4. Search channels rather than the entire site

5. Find videos to complement lessons, not the other way around

6. Have a way for students to “engage” the content on paper while watching

7. Assess #6

8. Consider a breadth of video content–music, video game trailers and gameplay, mini-documentaries, even seemingly whimsical content

9. Download the videos if the site is blocked in your district

Categories
Digital Learning

8 Ways Technology is Improving Education

From increasing student engagement to improving assessment efficiency, the implementation of technology in the classroom has observable benefits for teachers and students alike. Sarah Kessler from Mashable describes eight ways technology is improving classrooms.

posted by: Devin de Lange

Original Post

Don Knezek, the CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education, compares education without technology to the medical profession without technology.

“If in 1970 you had knee surgery, you got a huge scar,” he says. “Now, if you have knee surgery you have two little dots.”

Technology is helping teachers to expand beyond linear, text-based learning and to engage students who learn best in other ways. Its role in schools has evolved from a contained “computer class” into a versatile learning tool that could change how we demonstrate concepts, assign projects and assess progress.

Despite these opportunities, adoption of technology by schools is still anything but ubiquitous. Knezek says that U.S. schools are still asking if they should incorporate more technology, while other countries are asking how. But in the following eight areas, technology has shown its potential for improving education.

1. Better Simulations and Models

While a tuning fork is a perfectly acceptable way to demonstrate how vibrations make sound, it’s harder to show students what evolution is, how molecules behave in different situations, or exactly why mixing two particular chemicals is dangerous.

Digital simulations and models can help teachers explain concepts that are too big or too small, or processes that happen too quickly or too slowly to demonstrate in a physical classroom.

The Concord Consortium, a non-profit organization that develops technologies for math, science and engineering education, has been a leader in developing free, open source software that teachers can use to model concepts. One of their most extensive projects is the Molecular Workbench, which provides science teachers with simulations on topics like gas laws, fluid mechanics and chemical bonding. Teachers who are trained in the system can create activities with text, models and interactive controls. One participant referred to the project as “[Microsoft] Word for molecules.”

Other simulations the organization is developing include a software that allows students to experiment with virtual greenhouses in order to understand evolution, a software that helps students understand the physics of energy efficiency by designing a model house, and simulations of how electrons interact with matter.

2. Global Learning

At sites like Glovico.org, students can set up language lessons with a native speaker who lives in another country and attend the lessons via videoconferencing. Learning from a native speaker, learning through social interaction, and being exposed to another culture’s perspective are all incredible educational advantages that were once only available to those who could foot a travel bill. Now, setting up a language exchange is as easy as making a videoconferencing call.

3. Virtual Manipulatives

Let’s say you’re learning about the relationship between fractions, percents and decimals. Your teacher could have you draw graphs or do a series of problems that changes just one variable in the same equation. Or he could give you a “virtual manipulative” like the one above and let you experiment with equations to reach an understanding of the relationship. The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives, run by a team at Utah State University, has been building its database of these tools since 1999.

“You used to count blocks or beads,” says Lynne Schrum, who has written three books on the topic of schools and technology. “Manipulating those are a little bit more difficult. Now there are virtual manipulative sites where students can play with the idea of numbers and what numbers mean, and if I change values and I move things around, what happens.”

4. Probes and Sensors

About 15 years ago, the founders of the Concord Consortium took the auto focus sensor from a Polaroid camera and hooked it up to a computer graph program, thereby creating the ability to graph motion in real time. Today there are classrooms all over the world that use ultrasonic motion detectors to demonstrate concepts.

“I’ve taught physics before, and you spend a lot of time getting these ideas of position, and what is velocity, and what does motion really mean and how do you define it,” says Chad Dorsey, the president and CEO of the Concord Consortium. “And you end up spending a lot of time doing these things and trying to translate them into graphs. You could spend a whole period creating a graph for an experiment that you did, and it loses a lot of meaning in that process. By hooking up this ultrasonic motion detector to a graph right away…it gives you a specific real-time feel for what it means to move at faster rates or slower rates or increasing in speed or decreasing in speed and a much more foundational understanding of the topic than you could ever get by just drawing the graph by hand.”

Collecting real-time data through probes and sensors has a wide range of educational applications. Students can compute dew point with a temperature sensor, test pH with a pH probe, observe the effect of pH on an MnO3 reduction with a light probe, or note the chemical changes in photosynthesis using pH and nitrate sensors.

5. More Efficient Assessment

Models and simulations, beyond being a powerful tool for teaching concepts, can also give teachers a much richer picture of how students understand them.

“You can ask students questions, and multiple choice questions do a good job of assessing how well students have picked up vocabulary,” Dorsey explains. “But the fact that you can describe the definition [of] a chromosome … doesn’t mean that you understand genetics any better … it might mean that you know how to learn a definition. But how do we understand how well you know a concept?”

In Geniverse, a program the Concord Consortium developed to help students understand genetics by “breeding” dragons, teachers can give students a problem that is much more like a performance assessment. The students are asked to create a specific dragon. Teachers can see what each student did to reach his or her end result and thereby understand whether trial-and-error or actual knowledge of genetics leads to a correct answer.

The organization is also developing a program that will help teachers collect real-time assessment data from their students. When the teacher gives out an assignment, she can watch how far along students are, how much time each a spends on each question, and whether their answers are correct. With this information, she can decide what concepts students are struggling with and can pull up examples of students’ work on a projector for discussion.

“What they would have done in the past is students would make a lab report, they’d turn it in, the teacher would take a couple of days to grade it, they’d get it back a couple of days later, and two to three days later they’d talk about it,” Dorsey says. “But they’ve probably done a couple of lessons in between then, [and] they haven’t had time to guide the students immediately as they learned it.”

6. Storytelling and Multimedia

Knezek recently saw a video that was produced by a group of elementary students aboutBernoulli’s Principle. In the video, the students demonstrated the principle that makes flight possible by taking two candles and putting them close together, showing that blowing between them brings the flames closer together. For another example, they hung ping pong balls from the ceiling and they pulled together.

“With a simple assignment and access to technology, researching and also producing a product that would communicate, they were able to do deep learning on a concept that wasn’t even addressed in their textbook, and allow other people to view it and learn from it,” Knezek says.

Asking children to learn through multimedia projects is not only an excellent form of project-based learning that teaches teamwork, but it’s also a good way to motivate students who are excited to create something that their peers will see. In addition, it makes sense to incorporate a component of technology that has become so integral to the world outside of the classroom.

“It’s no longer the verbal logic or the spoken or written word that causes people to make decisions,” Knezek says. “Where you go on vacations, who you vote for, what kind of car you buy, all of those things are done now with multimedia that engage all of the senses and cause responses.”

7. E-books

Despite students’ apparent preference for paper textbooks, proponents like Daytona Collegeand California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are ready to switch to digital. And electronic textbook vendors like CourseSmart are launching to help them.

E-books hold an unimaginable potential for innovating education, though as some schools have already discovered, not all of that potential has been realized yet.

“A digital textbook that is merely a PDF on a tablet that students can carry around might be missing out on huge possibilities like models and simulations or visualizations,” Dorsey says. “It takes time and it really takes some real thought to develop those things, and so it would be easy for us as a society to miss out on those kinds of opportunities by saying, ‘Hey look, we’re not carrying around five textbooks anymore. It’s all on your iPad, isn’t that great?’”

8. Epistemic Games

Epistemic games put students in roles like city planner, journalist, or engineer and ask them to solve real-world problems. The Epistemic Games Group has provided several examples of how immersing students in the adult world through commercial game-like simulations can help students learn important concepts.

In one game, students are cast as high-powered negotiators who need to decide the fate of a real medical controversy. In another, they must become graphical artists in order to create an exhibit of mathematical art in the style of M.C. Escher. Urban Science, the game featured in the above video, assigns students the task of redesigning Madison, Wisconsin.

“Creative professionals learn innovative thinking through training that is very different from traditional academic classrooms because innovative thinking means more than just knowing the right answers on a test,” explains The Epistemic Games Group’s website. “It also means having real-world skills, high standards and professional values, and a particular way of thinking about problems and justifying solutions. Epistemic games are about learning these fundamental ways of thinking for the digital age.”

These eight technologies are redefining education. Which technologies would you add to the list? Let us know in the comments below.

Categories
Uncategorized

What Worries Me About This Tech Obsessed Generation: Is Our Gain Also Our Loss

Posted by Ian Jukes

Original Source

“When I was your age, I had to wait for the hourly report on TV in order to get the information that you have right at your fingertips. That’s the problem with the world today.”

It was the summer of 2012, and I was standing in the kitchen with my dad and sister — holding my iPhone — a towel and bathing suit thrown over my shoulder. I had just finished reading aloud the full-day weather report, and, until my dad spoke, had nothing on my mind but the gleaming pool water that seemed to be calling my name. I waited a moment for his comment to process, then looked down at my phone, analyzing it in a way that I had never before: feeling the cold, hard, metal in my palm, and the smooth, sleek screen underneath my thumb.

I asked Dad to elaborate on his comment.

When I was a young boy, we had a pool in our backyard. My brothers and I weren’t allowed to go swimming until the temperature reached 75 degrees — not one degree less. And so us boys spent our summer mornings waiting by the TV for the hourly report that read the temperature, praying that it would say the number we wanted it to so that we could dive in. I have vivid memories of those mornings.

Suddenly, life in the 1970s seemed distant, and people detached. It occurred to me that my dad has experienced life like I will never know it, and that I have experienced life like my children will never know. I even started to think about how things have changed in the years that I’ve been alive. It’s not just technology that’s changing, either: it’s our way of living. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and it’s only becoming clearer as the years go by.

Gradually, evenings spent doing homework at lamp-lit desks covered in pencils, paper and textbooks are turning into late nights under bedsheets and blankets, a Google Docs page pulled up, fingers typing aggressively on a keyboard that can barely be seen in the dark. It seems as though I am part of the last generation that will know the satisfied feeling of stapling together a completed research paper, pages still warm from the printer. People of the next generation will never go on a family trip to the local Blockbuster in search of candy and a comedy for movie night. They might miss out on handwritten letters from their grandparents, available to read and re-read for years. Do we even realize what we’re all leaving behind?

This morning, I was sitting at the breakfast table eating cereal when my dad came in to say goodbye before he left for work. When he saw that I was eating Life cereal, a huge smile immediately crept across his face, and he started excitedly reciting a commercial that he remembered from his childhood. He called me into his office, where he threw himself down in front of his desktop computer to search for the ad on YouTube, eager to take me back in time with him.

Watching the commercial, my modernly-adjusted ears picked up on a faint hum in the background of the actor’s voices. There were no snappy graphics or fast-paced cuts. In fact, the colors were a bit faded and the actor’s faces were only highlighted in dim lighting. Then I turned to my dad, who was still beaming, as if all the happy memories from his childhood were flashing before his eyes. Judging by his enthusiastic clapping at the end, he sure didn’t seem to miss modern technology during those 30 seconds.

In a world of iPhones and missions to Mars, is it even possible that my childhood will ever be looked at in the way that I look at my dad’s? By then, will our TV shows be even crisper? Will it be unimaginable that we needed long, easily-tangled wires in our ears in order to listen to music? Will my kids marvel at the idea of us old-fashioned teenagers having to wait by wall outlets for our phones to get out of the dreaded red battery zone before heading out for the night? Will they laugh at us for using pieces of green paper to buy things?

The thing that has really stayed with me, though, is my dad’s comment about how all these new technologies are a “problem.” One day, will us late-millennials feel nostalgic as we look back on our simpler days, where we sometimes got a 10-minute homework break when our laptops lost battery, giving us an excuse to sit in peace in front of a warm fire while we waited for them to charge? Will a lack of instant-charging mechanisms become the new lack of a weather.com app? Will we pull out our old Nintendo 3DS XLs to smile at what was once the hottest new piece of technology, recalling memories of online play with friends, in the same way that my dad smiled at an old commercial? Will we wish that things had never changed? They say that you should never try to fix what’s not broken: does the charm of the way things are now trump the need for things that are fresher, newer and more advanced? Will we ever reach a point where there is no possible way to make any more “improvements?” And does this possibly-inevitable peak signal impending doom or the continuation of tradition?

In my last-period sociology class the other day, the teacher ended off a class discussion on changing technology’s impact on society with a statement that summarized my thoughts on the matter and left me with something to think about:

“I don’t know how new technology will affect future generations, and I don’t know if it will do more good or bad.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Follow Cailin Loesch on Twitter: www.twitter.com/twinswholaugh

Categories
Digital Learning Gaming

A Third Grader’s Plea for More Game-Based Learning

 

Listen to young Cordell Steiner makes a sincere argument for using video games in the classroom in this TEDx talk. His talk introduces two positive aspects of digital game-based learning teachers can take advantage of for deep and powerful learning. Thanks to the folks at MindShift for sharing this treasure.

 

posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

Third grader Cordell Steiner makes a pretty convincing argument for using video games in the classroom in this TEDx talk. He describes feeling more motivated to learn and master new skills because of his eagerness to beat his own high score or finish before the clock runs out. He says he used to be bored in class when his teachers had to slow down to explain concepts, but now each student plays games intended to help him or her with specific skills they’re trying to master. He even gives examples!

Check out his call to teachers, administrators, parents and students to think differently about education.

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Uncategorized

10 Ways To Fake A 21st Century Classroom

Well more than a decade into the 21st Century there’s still loud debate about just what “21st Century skills” are. There are many who equate technology with 21st Century learning. As we have come to expect, in this February, 2013 Teachthought article, the incredible Terry Heick once again nails it.

Posted By Sherwen Mohan 

Original Source 

21st century learning isn’t a trend as much as a reality.

It’s 2013, so whatever you’re doing in your classroom right now is technically 21st century learning. Semantics aside, we all can improve, and many of us are being held accountable for improvement by administrators, blogs, and the local PLC to “bring the next generation into the 21st century.”

With that kind of pressure—and constant district walk-throughs—it may be necessary for you to fake a 21st century thinking and learning environment to make the right kind of impression with the right people, and give the appearance of forward-thinking.

10 Ways To Fake A 21st Century Classroom

1. “Do Projects”

Projects are what students do in the 21st century. (This is distinctly different than project-based learning, mind you.)

One of the most powerful ways to employ a 21st century learning tone and process is to start big–with broad, sweeping projects that change the world, and give students constant opportunity to revise thinking, innovate, design, publish, and curate.

2. Create a class twitter account

Then use it to announce trivial things like due dates of 20th century work. (No one will notice—you’re on twitter, and that’s all that matters.) And when you bring up a new idea in a data team meeting, tell them you heard it on twitter. #streetcred

3. Force collaboration

And when students have trouble collaborating, tell them collaboration is a 21st century skill, throw a calendar at them (or maybe just toss it on their desks casually) and tell them to get with the program.

If that doesn’t work, find the closest map and pound your index finger on China and tell them everything’s about to get real in the next fifty years if they don’t wake up.

4. Video conference with strangers!

Video conferencing with classrooms in India—or even in surrounding counties—is a sure-fire example of a 21st century classroom if there has even been one. Fire up the ol’ Mac, exchange awkward questions, smile a lot, and it’ll be over before you know it. No in-depth planning or technology integration necessary! Just conference!

Bring on George Jetson!

5. Be dramatic

Play Ken Robinson and Shift Happens videos every 6-8 weeks to keep students on their toes and increase the sense of urgency in your classroom. When parents ask what students learned at school, they’ll definitely remember the video, play it on their iPhone, and create an instant certainty in the mind of the parents that good stuff is happening in your classroom.

6. Buy iPads

iPads support mobile learning, allow access to hundreds of incredible apps, and make children grin. If it’s a 21st century learning environment you’re looking for, a classroom full of students pinching and zooming on little glass rectangles will give it to you in spades.

7. Make students blog

The blog is the new novel. (I read that on a blog.) It gives students an instant audience with millions of potential readers, allows for constantly fluid text to be revisited and revised, and can be even be seen from outer space.

Do it yesterday.

8. Apps on apps on apps

And lots of them. Download more than you use, to the point that your iPad can’t even update the ones you actually use because there’s no room left. Try for at least a 10:1 ratio here of download-to-use rate.

9. Blend, blend, blend!

Go all Kitchen Aid on your curriculum and blend it until it’s unrecognizable from what you taught 3 years ago.

Create short YouTube videos, prime students with questions, and watch them all show up to class chomping at the bit to make magic happen. Ignore that many of the students who need the “flip” lack either the access or the thinking habits to make use of it all.

Like a great margarita, if you blend good things happen.

10. Add a column for “Creativity” on every rubric

Creativity is a 21st century currency, and the best way to make sure it happens is to give points for it. They’ll get with the program stat.

Conclusion

So there you have it–10 ways to fake a 21st century classroom. 

Categories
Uncategorized

Scientists Develop A Brain Decoder To Hear Your Inner Thoughts

Imagine a teacher in a classroom full of student thoughts. Or being able to hear the thoughts of family members at an otherwise quiet family dinner. Are we sure we want this technology? Only if we also create a thought blocker helmet too

Posted By Jason Ohler 

Original Source 

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have invented a brain decoder device that’s able to work out what you’re thinking based on neuron activity inside the brain — essentially, the experimental system means your private inner thoughts are no longer so private. Researchers invited test subjects to read a passage of text out loud and then again in their mind, monitoring brain activity each time to look for linked patterns.

This is about more than spying on your secret thoughts, though — it could be an invaluable method of communication for people who have lost the ability to speak, for whatever reason. Further down the line we could find ourselves controlling smartphones, computers and other devices using nothing but the power of our minds.

Related: Brains are being hacked to fight mental illness, mine marketing-friendly data

“If you’re reading text in a newspaper or a book, you hear a voice in your own head,” the University’s Brian Pasley told New Scientist. “We’re trying to decode the brain activity related to that voice to create a medical prosthesis that can allow someone who is paralysed or locked in to speak.” Pasley and his team based their work around the hypothesis that hearing words in our head causes the same kind of brain activity as hearing them spoken.

The hardware required for this sophisticated decoding is still at the developmental stage and isn’t accurate enough to be used outside of the lab yet, but the signs are promising. “It’s preliminary data, and we’re still working on making it better,” says Pasley. The researchers are also looking into the effects that hearing music has on the brain.

At the moment, the technology only works if the subject has been carefully monitored for some time, and the algorithms underpinning the system can vary from person to person. Still, when an all-encompassing instant mind reading device does appear, remember that you heard it here first.