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assessment Gaming

Study Shows Video Games’ Impact On Face-to-face Teaching

A new study conducted by faculty at NYU and the University of Michigan has uncovered some interesting results in regard to using digital games to provide formative assessment to students during the learning process. Jordan Shapiro, an expert in gaming and learning, shares this news in Forbes.

posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

In the past, I have covered many studies that look at the efficacy of game based learning. But a recent study from A-GAMES, a collaboration between New York University and the University of Michigan, is significant because it looks at the way games impact the learning experience and the relationship between teacher and student. It does this by considering how digital games support ‘formative assessment’ — a term educators and researchers use to describe “the techniques used by teachers to monitor, measure, and support student progress and learning during instruction.” It may sound fancy but “formative assessment” really just refers to the ongoing attention that all good teachers have always provided their students, monitoring student learning and offering ongoing and specific feedback.

A-GAMES stands for Analyzing Games for Assessment in Math, ELA/Social Studies, and Science. The project is one among many games and learning research projects funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The study, entitled “Empowering Educators: Supporting Student Progress in the Classroom with Digital Games,” was undertaken by Jan Plass at NYU and Barry Fishman at University of Michigan. Surveying 488 K-12 teachers from across the U.S., they found that “more than half of teachers (57 percent) use digital games weekly or more often in teaching, with 18 percent using games for teaching on a daily basis. A higher percentage of elementary school teachers (66 percent for grade K-2 teachers and 79 percent for grade 3-5 teachers) use games weekly or more often for teaching, compared with middle school (47 percent) and high school (40 percent) teachers.”

These numbers are more or less consistent with previous studies. particularly the Level-up Learning study that the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop issued this past fall. That study focused on teachers and how their thinking about digital games in the classroom impacts actual implementation. This A-GAMES study, alternatively, is looking in more detail at the way games impact the teacher’s ability to provide personalized attention, assessment, and feedback to individual students.

The NYU/University of Michigan study found that on a weekly basis, 34 percent of teachers use games to conduct formative assessment. What are they assessing? Facts and knowledge; concepts and big ideas; mastery of specific skills. And they are doing formative assessment with games in the same way they do it with other classroom activities: observing students in class; asking probing questions; looking over their shoulders. All of this suggests that “using digital games may enable teachers to conduct formative assessment more frequently and effectively.” Game based learning seems to be aiding and supporting existing strategies rather than radically transforming the practice of teaching.

“Formative assessment is thought of as one of the most important classroom practices to support student learning,” said Barry Fishman, professor of learning technologies at the University of Michigan School of Information and School of Education.  “And our study indicates that teachers who use games for formative assessment conduct assessment more frequently and report fewer barriers.”

One of the useful things about this new study is that it does not focus on radical disruptions to the culture of education. Nor does it focus on cost savings or efficiency–not even on student achievement. Instead, it focuses on the efficacy with which digital games enable teachers to do their jobs. Therefore, it may help to dispel some of the negative myths about game-based learning that have become obstacles to widespread implementation.

Believe it or not, the perception of video games in the classroom is not always positive. Many teachers that I’ve spoken to express a fear that games are going to replace human teachers with automated video game avatars. I’m not sure where that notion comes from. I talk to a lot of game developers and pro-tech educators and so far I’ve never met one who wants to replace teachers with robots. Most want to create tools that are help teachers to do their job with more ease and greater impact.

Still, many folks worry that there are nefarious legislators and big bank types who see technology as a way to reduce labor costs through automation. I acknowledge that such a fear is not totally absurd. I’ve read Diane Ravitch’s work and I understand why she worries about the ongoing privatization of the public school system. I see how what begins as a an effort to create a marketplace where parents have more choices could spiral into a mess of potential dangers. In fact, I’ve even argued myself that we need to stop thinking of education as a business or an industry, and stop thinking of teachers like factory workers or resources. There’s nothing hidden here. It is easy to see how our unwavering faith in the corporate mindset has created a tragic level of socioeconomic stratification.

But it is also important not to swing all the way to the polarized opposite perspective. Although lowering labor costs seems to be an inherent part of the Walmart way (which is certainly not in the best interest of our children), we should also acknowledge that financial considerations have always been part of the school conversation, even at the very beginning of the great U.S. public education experiment. It wasn’t all idealism at the start. Don’t imagine that everyone used to act in the best interest of equity, social justice, and democracy but somehow we wandered off the straight and narrow path. That’s just plain false.

While promoting her book Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession, Dana Goldstein brought renewed attention to Catherine Beecher, an early feminist educator who was not only an outspoken advocate for girls’ education but also played a pivotal role in the women’s movement by leading women into professional classroom employment.

In the 19th Century, Beecher argued that one of the reasons women would make good teachers is because they provided cheap labor. In an interview with Rebecca Traister, Goldstein explained that Beecher “needed to make this pragmatic appeal to cheapness because one of the main barriers for early education reformers was trying to make education compulsory, so that parentshad to send their kids to school. And resistance to raising taxes was the major barrier to this movement.” The economics have always been one of the biggest obstacles to equity in education.

So please don’t spout nostalgia from a meek-shall-inherit-the-earth anti-profit moral soapbox. Someone profits on pencils and blackboards and desk-chairs and lockers and magic-markers. Sure, we should watch the hucksters carefully. Be wary. They’re not to be trusted. But also, we don’t want to miss out on good innovations because we’re afraid we might get scammed. If we’re afraid to take risks and iterate, an education for reflective critical thinkers is already long lost.

Certainly I worry about the tragic impact edtech and game-based learning could have on our children were we to mistakenly prioritize the capacity to create high impact at a low cost. This criteria absolutely should not hold more weight then other factors which guarantee an education for human dignity. Were affordable scalability the only promise of game-based learning, I’d be the first to object. But that’s not the case.

Instead, game-based learning uses interactive simulation to blend content with context in such a way that students learn not only facts, but also how to use those facts in relationship with other individuals and with the world around them. What’s more, games make it easy to harness the power of play and creativity, creating a pedagogy grounded in discovery learning (hands-on exploration) instead of just direct learning (lecture, demonstration).

Now, thanks to this study, we have some evidence that game-based learning can also enable better formative assessment. Which means that it even helps facilitate the kinds of live interactions that have traditionally formed the foundation of good teaching. Remember, it is not a choice between video games and live teaching; it is a happy marriage of both.

 

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Uncategorized

The 16 Attributes of The Modern Educator

Original Source 

Posted By Ian Jukes

By Reid Wilson, December 30, 2014

As teachers and educators, we are constantly required to review, evaluate and renew our teaching strategies to align them with  the cultural, technological and pedagogical ethos of the era we are living in. In today’s era, the digital component is at the foreground which obviously calls for a new mindset, a novel conceptual framework that views technology not as an end itself but solely a mean to an educational end. It is a truism that digitally has opened a new horizon of unprecedented learning opportunities and experiences  but we can only tap into its full educational potential when we equip ourselves with the proper mindset: a growth and open mindset that as much as it adapts it also disrupts the century-old orthodoxies underlying teaching and learning practice. Teaching is a dynamic concept which is constantly evolving and expanding and that is why teachers and educators are forever learners.

Engaging in such a life-long learning journey entails that teachers develop a set of robust thinking habits that allow them to fit in the rapidly evolving educational landscape.These habits are, according to Reid Wilson, what make the profile of a modern educator. Below is an awesome visual created by Wilson featuring some of the characteristics of a modern teacher which I want to bring to your attention. Have a look and share with us what you think of it. Enjoy

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Digital Learning

106,000 Free Teacher-created Digital Textbooks Hit the Web

Times are changing. Old, outdated textbooks are sooo 20th century. Laura Devaney, Director of News at eSchool News shares the news of CK-12 Foundation releasing 106,000 free and open digital textbooks for teachers and students to utilize. Please read ahead to learn about this exciting initiative. 

posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

More than 100,000 teacher-created digital textbooks are now available online through the CK-12 Foundation’s free STEM content and tools platform.

The 106,000 digital texts, or FlexBooks, come from the roughly 30,000 schools using CK-12’s free and open digital resources. CK-12 is launching two new tools in addition to its new content.

One is a new physics simulation module that uses real-world interactivity to increase student engagement. Students relate often-abstract concepts to real-world examples to increase learning.

The second is called PLIX (Play, Learning, Interact, and eXplore), and it gives students an interactive and immersive experience that helps them learn by doing.

PLIX “makes it simple for students to play around with concepts, follow up, and model those concepts,” said Neeru Khosla, the executive director and co-founder of the CK-12 Foundation.

“Learning best happens when you’re exposed to something–you first learn very basic facts and then you think about the material in deeper ways,” she said. “[PLIX] takes students through deeper thinking, critical thinking, and creativity,” in the hopes that they use their knowledge to create new ideas, tools, and concepts.

“We want to make learning happen in any way that it happens for individual students,” Khosla said. “We’re giving them the tools to learn in their own way. We’re on a path to prove that free doesn’t mean low-quality.”

The El Paso Independent School District (EPISD) in Texas is using CK-12’s free online resources for high school science classes, with plans to expand the resources into other subject areas.

Instead of purchasing textbooks, money from the instructional materials fund went toward 15,500 laptops and resources for high school students. District leaders found that opting for CK-12 FlexBooks and purchasing laptops was still cheaper than buying new science textbooks, even with laptop upgrade or replacement costs.

Because CK-12’s resources and digital FlexBooks are adaptable, teachers can customize the resources in whatever manner suits their needs–and this, said EPISD Director of Instructional Services Timothy Holt, is invaluable.

“That’s empowering to teachers–they can modify resources on their own. That’s power that no paper textbook has,” he said.

Initial plans for a spring 2015 rollout were slowed to incorporate intensive professional development, ranging from practical use tips to in-depth tutorials and examples on how to integrate the FlexBooks into instructional practice.

“Nothing will kill a tech initiative faster than poor PD,” Holt said.

And come fall, EPISD leaders hope teachers and students will be using CK-12’s FlexBooks in as many lessons as possible.

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Digital Learning

Questions to Ask Oneself While Designing Learning Activities

Dr. Gerstein shares her expertise and insights into lesson planning. She provides teachers with some forward-thinking reflective questions to ask themselves as they plan learning experiences for their students. 

posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

I absolutely love planning lessons from scratch.  I just got a job teaching technology units for a summer camp for elementary age students. I can design and teach whatever I want – planning for a different theme each week. Some of the themes I am planning are: Expanding and Showing Your Personal Interests Through Blogging, Photos, and Videos; Coding and Creating Online Games; Tinkering and Making – Simple Robotics; Hacking Your Notebook; and Creating Online Comics, Newspapers, and Magazines.  I have begun the process of planning these classes through reflecting on what the lessons will look like.  Here are some questions I ask myself as I go through this process:

  • Will the learning activities provide learners with opportunities to tap into their own personal interests and passions?
  • Will the learning activities offer the learners the chance to put them “selves” into their work?
  • Will the learning activities provide learners with opportunities to express themselves using their own authentic voices?
  • Will the learners find the learning activities engaging? interesting? relevant? useful?
  • What “cool” technologies can be used to help meet both the instructional and the learners’ goals?
  • Will the learning activities provide learners with opportunities to have fun and to play?
  • Will learners be able to do at least some of the work independently?
  • Will the learning activities give all of the learners opportunities to shine?
  • Will the learners get the chance to share their work with other learners, with a more global audience?

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Digital Learning

Meet Pecha Kucha, the Japanese presentations changing everything about PowerPoint

PowerPoint has become such a go-to program for educators to present information with. Unfortunately, it can also be overused – spawning the phrase, “death by PowerPoint”. Ivy Nelson at eSchool News introduces users to Pecha Kucha; a presentation style that displays 20 images displayed for 20 seconds each. Ivy expressed utter joy at the improvement in her students’ presentations. 

Posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

As I prepare for my presentation this week at the Florida Educational Technology Conference (FETC) on “Presenting with Pecha Kucha,” my colleagues have repeatedly asked me, “What is Pecha Kucha?” The short answer is it’s a great presentation style that gets students thinking and learning, not reading slides. A longer one might be to explain that the term comes from the Japanese words for “chit chat,” so as you might guess this unique presentational style embraces a more conversational tone. But more importantly, it is transforming presentations as we know them.

My performance arts background as an actress, director, and theatre teacher gives me a great understanding of what it takes to be a dynamic performer, and an even greater appreciation of a great performance. Knowing this, it comes as no surprise that after several years of teaching high school theatre and English, I became utterly dejected by the quality of presentations my students gave.

It wasn’t their fault; my students simply had never been taught how to present information in a way that was engaging and interesting. In fact, many adults struggle with this same task. We have all seen so many bad presentations in our lives, we have come to think that’s what presentations are supposed to be like. My students honestly thought the act of giving a presentation meant looking something up on Google, copy/pasting some information into PowerPoint slides, and then getting in front of the class and timidly reading those slides verbatim to a disinterested and disengaged audience (myself included).

I had to stop the madness!

Around this same time, a teacher colleague of mine introduced me to Pecha Kucha. I was very intrigued by this presentation style, as it relies on visual images instead of slides crammed with a thousand bullet points and so much information it will only fit on the screen in 6-point font. I also liked the fact thatPecha Kucha forces the presenter to actually know what they are talking about and puts a conversational (“chit-chat-y” if you will) tone in their presentation (you can watch sample presentations online).

I had to try it immediately with my sophomores. They of course hated me for this. “We can’t read from the slides?!” they exclaimed. I apologized for trying to ruin their lives and being the worst teacher ever.

This did, however, make me reconsider my initial plan. A presentation in the true style of Pecha Kucha is 20×20: 20 images displayed for 20 seconds each. The presentation is timed so that it advances on its own, and the speaker talks along with it, making the presentation six minutes and 40 seconds exactly. My students’ protests helped me realize that I needed to ease them into this, and help them break the bad presentation habits that they had developed over time gradually, instead of cold turkey.

I decided that for their first Pecha Kucha presentation, they would be allowed to have no more than three pieces of information on each slide, but they had to include a picture that encapsulated the gist of that slide’s information. I decided to keep the 20×20 format for a 6:40 presentation, but allowed my students to work with a partner this first time to share the responsibility of presenting.

I was pleasantly surprised at how well my students did with this first go-round of Pecha Kucha, and they were too! For the next presentation I assigned students, they were required to have only images on their slides, but they could use speaking notes during the presentation. Eventually, all of my students were presenting in true Pecha Kucha style. Some ran with it and excelled, others plugged along, and some begrudgingly suffered through it. In time, though, their presentations improved, and their learning also increased. I didn’t see anymore slides with information copied directly from a website; my students were finally researching their topic, synthesizing the information, and presenting it in a way that showed me they actually understood the subject matter.

Here are four tips to other educators wanting to try Pecha Kucha in their classrooms:

1. Model the style for students and get their feedback. It will be easier for them to buy-in to this big change if they have a good example set before them and if they have discussed what makes a good presentation “good” (engaging, interesting, not monotone, not word for word from slides, etc.).

2. Don’t be too rigid at first. Explain what Pecha Kucha is to students, but feel free to alter the style for beginners. For example, you might want to allow minimal words on slides with images at first like I did, or you might consider allowing students to use notes. You could even tweak the format of 20×20 by beginning with 10 slides at 20 seconds each. Eventually, challenge students to use the true Pecha Kucha style. My experience has taught me that students will work to reach whatever expectations you have set, so don’t keep the bar low if you want them to achieve at a higher level.

3. Bad habits are hard to break. Students will need lots of opportunity to practice this skill in order to perfect it. With time, this will become the status quo in your classroom, and may even spill over into other teachers’ classes as well.

4. Don’t be discouraged. I joked earlier about being the “worst teacher ever” because I wanted to challenge my students to improve, and you probably will have students that will give you a hard time for pushing them. Stick with it.Celebrate the small successes you see and trust that, with time and practice, your students will only get better.

It wasn’t always easy when I was first implementing this into my classes; however, I am very happy that I did. When you first try Pecha Kucha with your students, you’ll get complaints, you’ll hear whining, and you may be tempted to take the easy way out because you are tired of being chastised for setting high expectations; however, that’s just a sign that you’re #winning at this whole teaching thing.

Ivy Nelson is the Technology Integration Specialist for the Harrisonville R-9 School District in Harrisonville, MO. She previously taught at Monett High School in Monett, MO.

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Gaming

4 Best Practices in Implementing Game-Based Learning

Using gameful design for teaching, learning and assessment is such an enticing learning approach. Student motivation and engagement are such powerful ingredients to deep learning. Yet there are also important factors educators must consider before implementing gaming mechanics in the classroom. Sam Patterson at Edutopia shares four such considerations for gameful design.

Posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

Are you seeking a high-engagement makeover for some content you’re required to teach? Do you need an organizational structure for individually-paced hybrid learning? Gamification might be just what you are looking for.

Here are some truths about gamification and some tips for success.

1. The game needs to play well with students and their parents.

Your gamified lesson needs buy-in across the board. When you introduce gamified instruction, make it an event. Write a blog post, send newsletters, run an ad campaign on the whiteboard — but most of all, send clear communication home about the learning goals for the lesson and how you will be helping all students to meet those goals. Be prepared for frustration from parents and students, especially those students who are good at traditional school. This won’t always be the case, but don’t let it surprise you. School is already a game, and now you’re changing the rules. If the gamification is effective, these students can learn more, but it also might be more work for them. By communicating early and often with parents and your administration team, you can help everyone understand how this instructional modality is helping all of your students.

While I’m doing a project like this, I drop into my principal’s office and give her informal briefings. I’m excited about the work happening in my classroom, and I want her to hear about it from me. These briefings also prepare her for conversations that she might have with parents or other teachers.

2. With great data comes great responsibility.

Some of the best uses of gamified instruction involve helping students navigate a large amount of content in a self-paced, hybrid-learning environment. Once we move the teacher out of the traditional “sage on the stage” role, we have to really pay attention to assessment. When I’m running a class, I’m constantly assessing how well my students understand the lesson. I ask them questions, peek over their shoulders while they work, and sometimes I even give quizzes. Most of this assessment is formative and informal, and I adjust the class based on the results.

Thinking about the gamified classroom, I want to know where this formative assessment happens. How will I design the game experience to assess how the students are doing? The opportunity in this challenge is that I can invite my students into the assessment process. Whenever possible, I ask them to self-report their progress and understanding, which brings them into an assessment dialogue. This is real empowerment. I’m thoughtful about the types of learning I ask students to self-report on, and the process requires auditing. In the best case, while they’re engaged in playing the game, I’m looking at spreadsheets connected to the Google Forms I designed to help the students self-report. The bottom line is that you shouldn’t waste the data opportunity in the game — have a plan for how the data you collect will shape instruction.

3. A leaderboard is no fun for struggling students.

When we think about gamification, what immediately springs to mind are levels, badges, and leaderboards — the visible trappings of the game. While I can imagine an amazing leaderboard at the front of the room proudly displaying the top students in the quest to understand Romeo and Juliet, I have to pause and consider the other end of this list. I see some clear connections to behavior charts, and I am reminded of Pernille Ripp’s blog post on charts and shaming, forcing me to ask, “If I am hoping to engage my most challenged students in a gamified instructional model, would they feel supported by a leaderboard?”

Clearly-defined levels of achievement are one of the most useful aspects of gamified instruction. In fact, that is what makes it such a great way to support individually-paced hybrid instruction. The kids know which level they’re on, and they’ll talk to each other and find out where their peers are. I don’t need to make a leaderboard available to the whole class. It would send the message that I highly valued those students in the lead positions. The challenge is finding ways to celebrate all learners in your classroom, and in this case you’ll have to work against the natural mechanics of most games. We need each student to be able to win his or her own quest.

4. Play is a powerful teacher.

When we have fun in a safe social setting, our brains are ready to learn and we are fully present in that learning moment. When you approach gamified instruction, discover how you can use game mechanics and choice to have fun together. Don’t just wrap some worksheets up in the trappings of play. Get the content off the page and into a more playful space. Don’t forget the fun. Friendly opt-in contests can give kids the option to compete directly with each other. If you design levels with flexible requirements, students can develop really fun ways of working together to show their understanding. For example:

  • Write a song about factoring.
  • Create a stop-motion movie that models water’s change in state from a gas to a liquid.
  • Design a Google lit-trip detailing some part of the Underground Railroad.

In these cases, the fun comes in the form of choice and creative empowerment.

Have you gamified a lesson or unit? What best practices can you add to this list?

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Uncategorized

The Characteristics of a Highly Effective Learning Environment

Terry Heick, the driving force behind TeachThought, examines ten crucial characteristics of a highly effective learning environment in which students learn deeply. 

Posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

Written by: Terry Heick

Wherever we are, we’d all like to think our classrooms are “intellectually active” places. Progressive learning (like our 21st Century Model, for example) environments. Highly effective and conducive to student-centered learning. But what does that mean?

The reality is, there is no single answer because teaching and learning are awkward to consider as single events or individual “things.” This is all a bunch of rhetoric until we put on our white coats and study it under a microscope, at which point abstractions like curiosity, authenticity, self-knowledge, and affection will be hard to pin down.

So we put together one take on the characteristics of a highly effective classroom. They can act as a kind of criteria to measure your own against–see if you notice a pattern.

10 Characteristics Of A Highly Effective Learning Environment

1. The students ask the questions—good questions

This is not a feel-good implication, but really crucial for the whole learning process to work.

The role of curiosity has been studied (and perhaps under-studied and under-appreciated), but suffice to say that if a learner enters any learning activity with little to no natural curiosity, prospects for meaningful interaction with texts, media, and specific tasks are bleak. (Interested in how to kill learner curiosity in 12 easy steps?)

Many teachers force students (proverbial gun to head) to ask question at the outset of units or lessons, often to no avail. Cliché questions that reflect little understanding of the content can discourage teachers from “allowing” them. But the fact remains—if students can’t ask great questions—even as young as elementary school—something, somewhere is unplugged.

2. Questions are valued over answers

Questions are more important than answers. So it makes sense that if good questions should lead the learning, there would be value placed on these questions. And that means adding currency whenever possible—grades (questions as assessment!), credit (give them points—they love points), creative curation (writing as a kind of graffiti on large post-it pages on the classroom walls), or simply praise and honest respect. See if you don’t notice a change.

3. Ideas come from a divergent sources

Ideas for lessons, reading, tests, and projects—the fiber of formal learning—should come from a variety of sources. If they all come from narrow slivers of resources, you’re at risk of being pulled way off in one direction (that may or may not be good). An alternative? Consider sources like professional and cultural mentors, the community, content experts outside of education, and even the students themselves. Huge shift in credibility.

And when these sources disagree with one another, use that as an endlessly “teachable moment,” because that’s what the real world is like.

4. A variety of learning models are used

Inquiry-based learning, project-based learning, direct instruction, peer-to-peer learning, school-to-school, eLearning, Mobile learning, the flipped classroom, and on and on—the possibilities are endless. Chances are, none are incredible enough to suit every bit of content, curriculum, and learner diversity in your classroom. A characteristic of a highly-effective classroom, then, is diversity here, which also has the side-effect of improving your long-term capacity as an educator.

5. Classroom learning “empties” into a connected community

In a highly-effective learning environment, learning doesn’t need to be radically repackaged to make sense in the “real world,” but starts and ends there.

As great as it sounds for learners to reflect on Shakespeare to better understand their Uncle Eddie—and they might—depending on that kind of radical transfer to happen entirely in the minds of the learners by design may not be the best idea. Plan on this kind of transfer from the beginning.

It has to leave the classroom because they do.

6. Learning is personalized by a variety of criteria

Personalized learning is likely the future, but for now the onus for routing students is almost entirely on the shoulders of the classroom teacher. This makes personalization—and even consistent differentiation—a challenge. One response is to personalize learning—to whatever extent you plan for—by a variety of criteria—not just assessment results or reading level, but interest, readiness-for-content, and others as well.

Then, as you adjust pace, entry points, and rigor accordingly, you’ll have a better chance of having uncovered what the learners truly “need”.

7. Assessment is persistent, authentic, transparent, and never punitive

Assessment is just an (often ham-fisted) attempt to get at what a learner understands. The more infrequent, clinical, murky, or threatening it is, the more you’re going to separate the “good students” from the “good thinkers.” And the “clinical” idea has less to do with the format of the test, and more to do with the tone and emotion of the classroom in general. Why are students being tested? What’s in it for them, and their future opportunities to improve?

And feedback is quick even when the “grading” may not be.

8. Criteria for success is balanced and transparent.

Students should not have to guess what “success” in a highly-effective classroom looks like. It should also not be entirely weighted on “participation,” assessment results, attitude, or other individual factors, but rather meaningfully melted into a cohesive framework that makes sense—not to you, your colleagues, or the expert book on your shelf, but the students themselves.

9. Learning habits are constantly modeled

Cognitive, meta-cognitive, and behavioral “good stuff” is constantly modeled. Curiosity, persistence, flexibility, priority, creativity, collaboration, revision, and even the classic Habits of Mind are all great places to start. So often what students learn from those around them is less directly didactic, and more indirect and observational.

Monkey see, monkey do.

10. There are constant opportunities for practice

Old thinking is revisited. Old errors are reflected on. Complex ideas are re-approached from new angles. Divergent concepts are contrasted. Bloom’s taxonomy is constantly traveled up and down, from the simple to the complex in an effort to maximize a student’s opportunities to learn—and demonstrate understanding—of content.

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Disruptive Innovation

Google to Revamp its Products with 12-and-Younger Focus

As a primary school teacher, I was always hesitant to allow my students to perform open searches using uncensored search engines. Leave it to an innovative company like Google to address that concern in improvements to their search engine. USA Today’s writer Marco della Cava shares the exciting new from Google.

posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

SAN FRANCISCO — With Google processing 40,000 search queries a second — or 1.2 trillion a year — it’s a safe bet that many of those doing the Googling are kids.

Little surprise then that beginning next year the tech giant plans to create specific versions of its most popular products for those 12 and younger. The most likely candidates are those that are already popular with a broad age group, such as search, YouTube and Chrome.

“The big motivator inside the company is everyone is having kids, so there’s a push to change our products to be fun and safe for children,” Pavni Diwanji, the vice president of engineering charged with leading the new initiative, told USA TODAY.

“We expect this to be controversial, but the simple truth is kids already have the technology in schools and at home,” says the mother of two daughters, ages 8 and 13. “So the better approach is to simply see to it that the tech is used in a better way.”

Google would not offer a timetable for the rollout. But executives noted this will be a full-time effort that comes on the heels of recent kid-centric efforts such as its virtual Maker Camp, Doodle 4 Google competition and Made with Code initiative, which Thursday will see the lights of White House Christmas trees illuminated based on coding programs created by kids from coast to coast.

“We want to be thoughtful about what we do, giving parents the right tools to oversee their kids’ use of our products,” says Diwanji, who will attend the White House ceremony. “We want kids to be safe, but ultimately it’s about helping them be more than just pure consumers of tech, but creators, too.”

Controversy may well follow in the wake of Google’s drive. While tech companies are always seeking out new markets, which in turn expand their user base and ultimately drive up revenue, traditionally kids younger than 13 have been off limits.

The Federal Trade Commission’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act so far has levied fines against 20 companies in its 15-year history for mining young user information without parental consent. In September, Yelp was fined $450,000 for failing to implement a functional age screen in its ratings app.

“We aren’t looking to play gotcha, it’s just about kids being protected and promoting business compliance,” says Maneesha Mithal, associate director of the FTC’s privacy and identity protection division.

Mithal says COPPA has been updated a number of times in the past decade to reflect the exponential growth of tech trends. Specifically, the act has been amended to include provisions for everything from geolocation data gleaned from mobile devices to photo- and voice-uploading protocols on social networking sites.

“One of the great things about technology is that we should be able to create safe places for kids,” Mithal says. “We don’t want to stifle that as long as parents are in the driver’s seat.”

But parents may have a tough time keeping track of everything their kids are into tech-wise, says Marc Rotenberg, president of the watchdog group, Electronic Privacy Information Center.

“The prospect of audio-based advertising targeting our children is very real, and that’s significant when you’re talking about an age group that is very susceptible to manipulation,” Rotenberg says. “The FTC will have to step up on this. I don’t think we want a world where our kids are sold things they don’t need.”

Diwanji says she understands those concerns, but adds that as a parent she “is a big believer in coaching moments for kids, rather than just blocking what they can do. I want to enable trust in them. Thirteen isn’t some magical number. I want to teach them what’s right and wrong, and bring families together using technology.”

If Google has a skunkworks for this kid project, it’s a small room in its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters dubbed the Kids Studio, where children of employees are encouraged to spend hours tinkering with various prototype projects.

Diwanji says that watching those kids tinker reminds her that a child’s-eye-view of, say, the Google search engine isn’t remotely the same as an adult’s. That fact was brought home by her younger daughter, who after Googling “trains” was stunned to see a list of Amtrak train schedules pop up.

“She came to me and said, ‘Mommy, you should tell Google about Thomas the Tank Engine, because Google obviously doesn’t know about him,'” Diwanji says, laughing.

Her point: User experiences for a range of Google products are ripe for under-13 makeovers. What also is being worked out are the ways in which parents will be able to oversee their child’s interactions with Google’s technologies, perhaps limiting usage to set time frames.

“We want to enable supervision but not be regimental,” says Diwanji during a visit to Google’s San Francisco outpost. “But that’s challenging because no two parents are alike. I have friends who are helicopter parents and others are even more liberal than me, but everyone has to be accommodated by whatever we create.”

Diwanji seems the right person for this push into unchartered waters. Growing up in a middle-class family in western India, she was technologically precocious, winning a coding content in seventh grade and eventually studying computer science as the only woman in her university program.

When she was accepted at Stanford University for a master’s degree in computer science, her father had to mortgage parts of his small software company in order to pay for just one quarter of his daughter’s graduate school education.

“I was determined to stay,” she says with a smile, describing how she approached a range of professors before finally landing financial assistance to complete her degree. A Sun Microsystems job and two start-ups later, she landed a job at Google a decade back.

“This is perhaps one of my greatest challenges,” she says. “We want to lay the foundation right, and then make sure every single part of Google is great for kids. They are the future, so why not give them the tools to let them create it.”

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Digital Learning Gaming

6 Minecraft Lesson Ideas for your Common Core Math Class

My son loves to play Minecraft. The sandbox game was just purchased by Microsoft and is still the rage with digital children. More and more teachers are starting to leverage Minecraft’s popularity and functionality to use as a tool to teach concepts in the classroom. Jim Pike via eSchool News shares six exciting ideas for incorporating the popular digital game into math instruction in the era of the Common Core.

posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

Last year I taught third-grade math in a whole new way. Combining elements from the wildly popular sandbox game Minecraft, I had students thinking visually and creatively about mathematical models and theories that went way beyond a typical third-grade curriculum, transforming math class into what I like to call Mathcraft.

Why Minecraft? I could say I am using Minecraft for a number of reasons, like how I find Minecraft enhances metacognition by increasing students’ memory storage capacity. The game itself creates a relatable enjoyable experience that can be internalized and shared in a community of learners. The limitations on the working memory are minimized because the gameplay itself is an extension of our visual sketchpad. Working with students they always say, “I can see it,” and when they see it they share it.

However, the real reason I use Minecraft is that the students chose it. The popularity of the game is so overwhelming and when the lesson became the engagement their attention, confidence, and motivation soared. Here are six great ways to use it in your math classroom.

1. Let students create their world.
If you have an aggressive Minecraft class, you can put them in a single world and either let them all build it by themselves, or allow all the students to build a world together. Personally, I just open up a world in MinecraftEDU (which makes it easier for the teacher since you can do things like freeze the students and transport). I don’t use worlds that have already been created, opting instead to let the kids build their own. I use MinecraftEDU as my server runner and open up the superflat world. We start building and we end up with a crazy math city.

2. Create your own visual, conceptual math world.
I’ve tried to use base ten blocks before because they’ve got a lot of great conceptional knowledge, but they’re just a nightmare to use—to get them to fit in and take out, and with the kids always messing up each other’s blocks. But with Minecraft, the blocks are digital so the kids can’t mess each other up, if you know how to manage them, and the bonus is that the students are incredibly engaged. Then you can throw in the fun part. You can let them PvP (fight) and chase each other in their world. The structures they’ve just made make a lot of fun things to hide behind, like funky-looking trees based on prime factorization or stacks of blocks in patterns that represent long division. It’s kind of a conceptual math world.

3. You can use Minecraft, even without access to computers.
We were only able to play Minecraft in the computer lab twice a week but that was perfect because I just ran math class using Minecraft as the lesson on those days. On other days, we’d be doing similar things. The kids would have graphing paper and would make their models with colored pencils and crayons and we would play math. I was really trying to teach them how to read and write algebra and to look at math as a different language.

4. Minecraft is just one creative tool in the toolbox.
In my third-grade class, we did a lot of tracking and graphing slopes, and I turned it into a maker activity as well. We learned how to read rise over run, and how to build a slope in Minecraft. Then we chopped up a bunch of different cardboard boxes and made racecar ramps at different slopes around the classroom, and ran averages on how far the racecar would travel with each slope—and this was a third-grade classroom.

5. Let the dog drive—at least sometimes.
One way to get started is just to try a whole class lesson and to see how the kids respond to it. And be prepared to let the dog drive at times—meaning when the class is playing the game, let them take control and just play. Give them their time but take yours as well. If you need a jumping-off point to get started, look for Minecraft lessons online, or see mine on the website Educade. The Parthenon lesson I created is one example. It turns algebra into a puzzle and it gives students simple instructions on how to build something cool. (There’s also a video that explains why the formulas actually work).

6. Use Minecraft to help change your classroom culture into something students love.
By far the greatest effect Minecraft has had on my students was a change in the classroom culture and attitudes about education. When we were preparing for our benchmark test I gave them ten Common Core word problems for homework. When I put them on our Edmodo page, they got mad at me. Mathcraft—at least the way I use it in the classroom—is not all in a video game. There is a lot of reading and writing of algebra and word problems. Before, they used to complain and give up when they had to do similar problems out of textbook. But now my kids turned even that part of the curriculum into a game and can not put down the pencil.

[Editor’s note: For more on Jim Pike’s use of Minecraft in the classroom, see the video, produced by Educade]

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Uncategorized

Privacy Concerns for ClassDojo and Other Tracking Apps for Schoolchildren

TMI? Not enough? The reality is that the world of big data allows us to store and analyze an unlimited amount of information about anything, including students. This is the medical model, coming to education, using past behaviors to prescribe future paths. It also allows us to predict activity, which, in the case of student behavior – both social and academic – can limit the possibilities and choices students are presented, leaving no room for inspiration, connecting with that magic teacher or learning approach, or having some kind of ah-hah moment that allows that lights up their minds.

Posted By Jason Ohler 

Original Source 

HUNTER, N.Y. — For better or for worse, the third graders in Greg Fletcher’s class at Hunter Elementary School always know where they stand.

One morning in mid-October, Mr. Fletcher walked to the front of the classroom where an interactive white board displayed ClassDojo, a behavior-tracking app that lets teachers award points or subtract them based on a student’s conduct. On the board was a virtual classroom showing each student’s name, a cartoon avatar and the student’s scores so far that week.

“I’m going to have to take a point for no math homework,” Mr. Fletcher said to a blond boy in a striped shirt and then clicked on the boy’s avatar, a googly-eyed green monster, and subtracted a point.

The program emitted a disappointed pong sound, audible to the whole class — and sent a notice to the child’s parents if they had signed up for an account on the service.

ClassDojo is used by at least one teacher in roughly one out of three schools in the United States, according to its developer. The app is among the innovations to emerge from the estimated $7.9 billion education software market aimed at students from prekindergarten through high school. Although there are similar behavior-tracking programs, they are not as popular as ClassDojo.

Many teachers say the app helps them automate the task of recording classroom conduct, as well as allowing them to communicate directly with parents.

But some parents, teachers and privacy law scholars say ClassDojo, along with other unproven technologies that record sensitive information about students, is being adopted without sufficiently considering the ramifications for data privacy and fairness, like where and how the data might eventually be used.

These critics also say that the carrot-and-stick method of classroom discipline is outmoded, and that behavior apps themselves are too subjective, enabling teachers to reward or penalize students for amorphous acts like “disrespect.” They contend that behavior databases could potentially harm students’ reputations by unfairly saddling some with “a problem child” label that could stick with them for years.

ClassDojo does not seek explicit parental consent for teachers to log detailed information about a child’s conduct. Although the app’s terms of service state that teachers who sign up guarantee that their schools have authorized them to do so, many teachers can download ClassDojo, and other free apps, without vetting by school supervisors. Neither the New York City nor Los Angeles school districts, for example, keep track of teachers independently using apps.

If parents wish to remove their child’s data from ClassDojo, they must ask the teacher or email the company.

“There is a real question in my mind as to whether teachers have the authority to sign up on behalf of the school,” said Steven J. McDonald, the general counsel of the Rhode Island School of Design and a leading specialist on federal education privacy law. “Since this is a free service,” he added, “one wonders if there is some other trade-off.”

Sam Chaudhary, the co-founder of ClassDojo, said his company recently updated its privacy policyto say that it does not “sell, lease or share your (or children’s) personal information to any third party” for advertising or marketing.

“We have committed in the terms of service to never selling the data,” Mr. Chaudhary said. “It’s the user’s own data.”

The company plans to generate revenue by marketing additional services, like more detailed behavior analyses, to parents.

But ClassDojo could make money from the information it collects in other ways. Another section of the privacy policy says the company may show users advertisements “based in part on your personally identifiable information.”

Mr. Chaudhary said ClassDojo gave students feedback as a way of encouraging them to develop skills like leadership and teamwork. Some special-education teachers also use the program to set individualized goals with students and their parents.

“Kids are being judged at school every day,” Mr. Chaudhary said. “They are just being judged on a narrow set of things. If we can broaden that set, it’s a good thing.”

But critics say that the kind of classroom discipline that Class Dojo promotes is not made effective by packaging it in an app that awards virtual badges for obedience.

“This is just a flashy digital update of programs that have long been used to treat children like pets, bribing or threatening them into compliance,” said Alfie Kohn, the author of “The Myth of the Spoiled Child” and other books on learning and child-rearing.

Teachers who use ClassDojo can choose which behaviors to reward or discourage. Kelly Connolly-Hickey, an English teacher at West Babylon Senior High School in West Babylon, N.Y., rewards students who “brought in supplies” or “brightened someone’s day” while docking points for cellphone use.

“Knowing that they are being graded on how they behave and participate every day makes it easier for them to stay on task,” Ms. Connolly-Hickey said of her students.

She added that she had not read ClassDojo’s policies on handling student data, but that she had shown the principal of her school how she used the app.

“I’m one of those people who, when the terms of service are 18 pages, I just click agree,” she said.

Teachers can decide whether to display students’ points or to use the system in private mode. Mr. Fletcher, the third-grade teacher, said he used ClassDojo publicly in an effort to be transparent. He deliberately awards many more points for good behavior than subtracts them for being off-task.

Last month, after a well-mannered class discussion about the motivations of characters in a picture book, Mr. Fletcher invited each student to the white board to award him- or herself a point for teamwork. With each point, the app emitted a contented ping.

“I don’t ever award the kids points or take away points without them knowing,” he said. “What I am trying to do is put the ownership back on the kid.”

Melinda McCool, the school’s principal, said she felt Mr. Fletcher used the app judiciously, and had asked him to show other teachers how he used it.

But at least one school is concerned that the app could make a student feel publicly shamed.

“I have told all my staff, ‘You cannot display this data publicly,’ “ said Matt Renwick, the principal of Howe Elementary School in Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.

His school also requires teachers to obtain permission from a child’s parent before they start using any app that transfers the student’s data to a company.

Parents are also divided over ClassDojo.

Some like being able to use the app to follow their child’s progress and receive reports from teachers.

“It’s a great way to get the prognosis on your child,” said Gabrielle Canezin, whose daughter is in Mr. Fletcher’s class.

But Tony Porterfield, a software engineer in Los Altos, Calif., asked a teacher to remove his son’s information from ClassDojo. He said he was concerned that it might later be aggregated and analyzed in unforeseen ways.

“It creates a label for a child,” he said. “It’s a little early to be doing that to my 6-year-old.”

ClassDojo has received nearly $10 million from investors, including General Catalyst Partners, Shasta Ventures, New Schools Venture Fund, Paul Graham and Yuri Milner. Mr. Chaudhary says he and his team have studied ClassDojo’s effectiveness by visiting classrooms, conducting weekly phone calls with a few dozen teachers, and surveying 1,000 teachers.

Such an anecdotal approach does not sit well with evidence-based educators.

“That’s like polling people in McDonald’s about how they like the food,” said Brett Clark, the director of technology at Greater Clark County Schools in Jeffersonville, Ind. “They are not asking the teachers who looked at the app, walked away and said, ‘Not in my classroom.’ ”