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Digital Learning Disruptive Innovation Uncategorized

The Death of Reading As We Know It

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What follows is a message that everyone needs to hear regardless of how close they might be to retirement. Most of the people reading this post grew up communicating with text. That’s why today, most schools continue to focus primarily on learning how to communicate with text. Meanwhile, quite some time ago, in the world outside of school, communicating solely using text was superseded by visual communications.

The younger generations have been raised on multimedia. For them, visual communications have become the new standard –  the new normal. And things haven’t stopped there. The world has moved even further – beyond visual communication to a new video standard. Students today are using video production tools that as little as ten years ago would have cost millions of dollars to buy – but which today are free or inexpensive.

The younger generations’ world has fewer words and a greater number of images.

As a result, the younger generations’ world has fewer words and a greater number of images. Their brains are wired for the fast delivery of content, data, and images from computers, video games, and the Internet. This is why students are quickly moving beyond Google to YouTube. Current research had clearly demonstrated that unless you’re in the top 10% of readers and writers, you learn far more quickly and efficiently – and you retain far more information – by watching a video and then talking about what you’ve learned as opposed to writing an essay about it.  Case in point is the eight-year-old boy from Ohio who taught himself how to drive on YouTube, then packed his young sister into the car and drove successfully to McDonald’s without incident.

What’s known as picting or pixting – taking pictures and video rather than writing and reading – is increasingly the literacy of today’s youth. To the younger generations, words are an add-on – images are primary. In K–12 classrooms, today’s students spend 90 percent of their time with text-based materials – and 10 percent of their time with image-based materials. Outside the K–12 classroom, they spend 10 percent of the time with text-based materials – and 90 percent of the time with image-based materials using Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and dozens of other easy to use apps.

As just one small example, about 30 percent of millennials in the United States visit the Snapchat app at least 18 times per day – and they spend roughly 30 minutes a day using Snapchat – and about 10 hours and 39 minutes each day consuming media – or approximately 65% of their waking hours. The same trends toward visual learning show that games outperform textbooks in helping students learn fact-based subjects such as geography, history, physics, and anatomy, while at the same time games also improve visual coordination, cognitive speed, and manual dexterity.

That’s why some schools are now opting not to teach handwriting – and instead they’re letting learners use digital devices to record their progress using a range of different media. Many kids are completely immersed in the world of full motion video that they watch for both entertainment and to learn. And as a result, in less than a generation, many of our students have moved from simply being viewers or consumers of media to being prosumers of media – simultaneously consuming and producing media.

Amongst the younger generations, visual communication is challenging the supremacy of traditional reading & writing.

So what’s my point? You might not like what I’m going to say next, but you need to hear this. You need to understand that amongst the younger generations, visual communication is increasingly challenging the supremacy of traditional reading and writing. While reading and  writing will always have a place, in an increasingly visual world, visual communication and design must be an everyday part of the curriculum. Not just for senior students – but for students at every grade level and in every subject area.

Modern digital media has fundamentally changed the essential skills we all need to be informed consumers and producers of media in the world today. Students and teachers alike must be able to communicate as effectively in multimedia formats as we, the older generations, were taught to communicate with text and speech when we were growing up. Don’t get me wrong – the 3 R’s are still essential, but in the modern world, traditional literacy is no longer enough.

We all need to understand how differently modern readers read digital text from the way the older generations read traditional paper-based text. As a result both students and teachers alike need to understand modern information communication skills such as the principles of graphic design as well as how typography  shapes thinking – the effective use of colour – the principles of photo composition -sound production techniques – and the fundamentals of video production – not to mention how we use all of these skills to effectively communicate to different audiences.

The bottom line is that in the new digital landscape, traditional literacy – traditional reading and writing – is no longer enough. There are new basics of modern communication needed by all of us – not replacing traditional reading and writing…at least not yet – but rather augmenting traditional communications skills. As a result, in the very near future – for all of us – expressing ideas by creating a simulation or video is going to be as important if not more important than being able to write an expository essay.

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Uncategorized Digital Learning

Ian Jukes – Education in the Age of Disrupted Learning – Region 13 Video

Region 13 Education Service Center Presentation

Ian Jukes presents (Education In the Age of Disrupted Learning: Welcome to the Digital Revolution – August 2017) to the Education Service Center Region 13 staff members.  Education Service Center Region 13 is one of twenty service centers that serve the Texas’ educational needs. Education Service Center Region 13 purpose is to aid teachers and administrators in their role as educators. Education Service Center Region 13 serve as a liaison between the Texas Education Agency and the local school districts and the schools they serve by disseminating information, conducting training and consultation for both federal and state programs.

https://region13.wistia.com/medias/br1709vc52

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Digital Learning

What Will the Learning Device of the Future Look Like?

Dian Schaffhauser from THE Journal interviews a young innovator, a futurist and the CEO of the One-to-One Institute to capture their thoughts on what students will be using for learning one day. Here are their predictions, from the fantastical to the practical.

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Digital Learning Gaming

Video Games: A Powerful Medium for Learning with a Bad Wrap

Video games are a collaborative effort. They bring together different people and cultures that would normally never communicate with one another. Hordes of players from different continents and time zones ‘game’ for a shared goal. Despite many of the popular video game titles being interlaced with violence and vulgar material, many games have been published for an educational purpose and can bridge different cultures and teach tolerance and peace. Written by Ryan Schaaf and Nicky Mohan, this is an InfoSavvy21 original.

“We can’t undo the past, we have no idea what the future holds. Today, we have the ability to do something which can shape our lives and the lives of those around us.”
— Unknown

While many observers consider playing video games to be a complete waste of time, gamers play with extreme commitment and passion. What motivates gamers, especially those of the digital generations, to devote countless hours to their gaming worlds; and can education benefit from the use of gaming in the classroom.

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Digital Learning

Create a Class of GPS Explorers with Geocaching

Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor navigation and orienteering activity using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location. Cheryl Phillips at eSchool News introduces us to the exciting activity and links it to learning experiences in the classroom.

posted by Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

Several years ago I attended a Discovery Education Teacher Institute in San Francisco, and was pulled into the adventurous world of geocaching. It was there, near the windy shores of the San Francisco Bay, that I experienced my first techy treasure hunt. After giving a speedy lesson how to use a GPS device, facilitators helped split attendees into groups of three as we locked in a given set of coordinates to begin our search for a series of “caches,” or containers with coupons for free swag hidden inside. It was a terrific bonding experience for the group and friendships were quickly formed.

Geocaching is a location-based technology treasure hunting activity that combines the great outdoors with technology and learning. With a GPS device in hand, one can look for hidden containers anywhere on earth—anywhere! Like a homing pigeon, the device zeroes in on a hidden cache and the hunt is on—often through terrain and landscapes that otherwise go unnoticed. Most containers include a logbook of those who have found it in the past, and as a result, connect a community of geocachers.

As my school’s Instructional Technology Coach, I’m constantly in search of new and inventive ways to incorporate technology both inside and outside the classroom. And as I soon learned, geocaching is not only a unique way to integrate your standards, it also teaches responsibility and caring for the environment, as geocachers are expected to adhere to the movement’s creed of “Cache In Trash Out.”

Moving into fields and forests and making learning different and more enjoyable, geocaching creates unforgettable experiences for students that go well beyond the four walls of the classroom. Of course, there are a few hurdles to jump before diving in, but with a bit of planning teachers can be on their way to creating a fun activity for their students. First and foremost, a GPS device is needed, along with a solid lesson plan, and a safe place to hide the cache.

Geocaching no longer requires expensive equipment, making it much more accessible to beginners. For students, an expensive and elaborate GPS device isn’t necessary. GPS enabled smartphones offer the most economic option for geocaching, as many students already own the equipment, and need only purchase a geocaching app to participate.

For younger students, or those without smartphones, look for a device that is user friendly for inputting waypoints, accessible—and most importantly—durable. Expect to pay around sixty dollars per unit. I use the Garmin eTrex 10 Worldwide Handheld GPS Navigator with my students—though it is a bit more expensive than the Geomate Jr. Geocaching GPS.

Most geocaching is done in groups, so regardless of the device used, a successful geocaching lesson only requires a few devices. I have seven devices, which works out beautifully with a class of 25-30 students. For financial support, don’t forget to use the school’s PTO/PTA grants, fund raisers and Donors Choose (of course, purchasing a device will be a tax write-off!).

Here are a few of the smartphone apps I use with my students:

Geocaching ($9.99). The official geocaching app from Geocaching.com (the Mothership of geochaching), this is the most expensive app on the market as well as the highest quality. Users will get access to the locations of registered caches and clues, and the app even offers the ability to submit your finds. This app is very easy to use and perfect for beginners and pros.

Geocaching Intro (Free). This is the free version of the GroundSpeak geocaching app, the company that runs the Geocaching.com website. This is the app that I recommend to my students. While limited, this app reveals three geocaches near your current location per day; provides the necessary coordinates, hints, and descriptions; and delivers the directions to the hidden cache. I love the vibrating-chirping alert that warns you when you’re getting close to the cache site—a feature not included on the more expensive sister geocaching app.

Once equipped with devices, it’s time to engage the students in a meaningful lesson that will challenge their map-reading skills while affording them opportunities to work collaboratively and solve a problem.

There are several activities I have done with my students, from upper elementary to high school. To start, all students were taught how the device worked and learned how to input data as well as retrieve and set their own waypoints. Our fifth grade students became such experts that the principal asked them to lead the staff in professional development. From there, our principal hid staff handbooks all around the campus and had the teachers use the coordinates (and help of their fifth-grade buddies) to locate their handbook.

Activities can range from solving riddles to searching for hidden rubber ducks to embarking on geometry scavenger hunts. For a beginner lesson, hide caches near a specific tree, bush, or flower. Once students have located the cache, have them take a picture and identify the species of flora. (Placing a leaf from the tree or plant in the container would also work). You could also place a toy animal, picture, tooth, claw or hair sample inside the cache container and have students identify the object. Once all caches have been found, have them create a photo/identification booklet.

If you want students to develop curiosity about geography, math, science, and the world around them, then give geocaching a try. It’s a great activity for ESL and special needs students, allowing them the opportunity to work collaboratively and solve problems while incorporating the characteristics of an active and engaged learning environment.

For more, check out GoingApeForApps – Geocaching with Mobile Devices, which includes more lesson plans and ideas for getting started. Happy hunting!

Cheryl Phillips is an instructional technology coach in Prince William County, Va.

Categories
Digital Learning Gaming

How Video Games In The Classroom Will Make Students Smarter

Jordan Shapiro has written a wonderful post at Forbes identifying video games as wonderful tools for deep and immersive learning. Many game designers and educational advocates are crafting games to play in school. Games provide a natural space for rewarding metacognitive skills – the more the gamer plays and reflects, the more the gamer learns through experience and failure.

posted by Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

Around a billion and a half people all play video games of some sort. That’s more than 20% of the world’s population. Video games have become a part of life. They are now more than just leisure and entertainment. They are mainstream media, an everyday method of storytelling and representation. Games have become a common form of rhetoric for the 21st century.

Therefore, it is not surprising that educators, policy makers, investors, and developers are trying to build games for schools. However, the real reason game-based learning is so popular is not only because video games are extremely effective teaching tools; they are also relatively inexpensive to build and to distribute. In other words, they’re scalable, and replicable, and extensible, and all those other buzzwords that philanthropists, and venture capitalists, and policy makers like to hear. Video games have a lot going for them in a world that loves digital technologies and worships the concept of innovation.

Source: Forbes
Source: Forbes

Luckily, it is not all about semantics. Using video games as classroom tools that help teachers do their jobs with more impact is also good pedagogy. Video games can be exceptional teaching tools. To understand why, you don’t need any fancy education or psychology terms. All have to do is think about the avatar…the game character. In video games there are almost always two “I”s. There’s the “I” who holds the controller and the “I” that’s within the bezel of the monitor. Gamers are distanced from their avatar and are accustomed to thinking about their actions like an outsider looking in.

The fancy way to say that is: there is a metacognitive distance built right in. The term metacognition is a key term in educational psychology. It describes the ability to think about your own thinking. Strong metacognitive functions give students an awareness, or an understanding, of their own thought processes. Metacognitive functions provide one with autonomy or control of one’s own intellectual capacity. This matters in education because strong metacognitive functions lead to good academic skills. Through metacognitive functions, learners recognize their own strengths and weaknesses and adapt or iterate their performance accordingly.

In other words, academia can be understood like a video game: something students play again and again, practicing and improving with each new attempt. But what about the digital divide? If video games are so great, doesn’t that mean equal access to educational technologies is even more important? Certainly. But in an imperfect world, it is also important to remember that you don’t need fancy laptops or tablets to implement game-based learning. It is really just about imaginative play.

In his excellent soon to be released book (April 21), “The Game Believes In You: How Games Can Make Our Kids Smarter,” Greg Toppo writes: “Kids make mud pies and paper airplanes, they climb trees and play the piano. The entire time they’re exploring and learning about the world.”

This is why folks have been using play therapy with children for more than a century. Both the Kleinians and the Jungians fill their consultation rooms with toy menageries and mandalas and sandboxes. They’ve always known that games and play strengthen metacognitive functions. They’ve always known that along with the guidance of a mentor–a great teacher–games and play can help individuals learn to recognize their own context. Play helps one recognize the structures, the systems, and the economies in which one participates.

Toppo continues:

What looks like escapist fun is actually deep concentration. What looks like instant gratification is, in fact, delayed gratification in clever disguise. What looks like spectacle is a system that’s training players to ignore the spectacle and focus on the real work at hand. What looks like anything-goes freedom is submission to strict rules. What looks like a twenty-first-century, flashy, high-tech way to keep kids entertained is in fact a tool that taps into an ancient way to process, explore, and understand the world.

In the presentation that I gave at the 2015 Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai, I explain how and why learning games and game-design-thinking can help to develop students’ metacognitive skills. I also explain why this is an essential part of creating innovative citizens. What’s more, I make a philosophical argument that this kind of thinking is an foundational component of basic human dignity.

VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNo8Fxn238Y

Jordan Shapiro is the author of FREEPLAY: A Video Game Guide To Maximum Euphoric Bliss and The Mindshift Guide To Digital Games and Learning.

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Digital Learning

Parents Struggle to Balance Screen Time Rules With Digital Homework | MindShift

Original Source

Posted By Sherwen Mohan

As technology becomes a more common feature of classrooms and computer-based testing becomes the norm, even the youngest learners are being pushed to master keyboarding and computing skills. But what does it feel like for a kindergartener, whose family has faithfully followed the American Academy of Pediatric’s suggestions to limit screen time, to arrive at school and immediately be assessed on a computer?

In her PBS MediaShift essay, Jenny Shank describes the tensions emerging between parents with low-tech child rearing styles, teachers frantically trying to prepare students for computer-based tests that could determine the future of their careers, and districts following the latest trends. Shank’s essay gives voice to that “stuck in the middle” feeling when a parent supports the idea of technology integration in school generally, but isn’t sure she thinks it’s being done well. Shank writes:

“I’m all for teaching kids about technology, which will be a part of their personal and work lives forever. But shouldn’t they learn how to write software programs rather than how to scan a text and answer multiple-choice questions on a screen? Shouldn’t they learn about how to assemble computer hardware, build an object with a 3-D printer, or shoot and edit digital video footage rather than passively watch as a computer reads them a book? Many studies suggest that when people read on a screen rather than paper, they read less attentively and retain less. So why aren’t schools using computers for what these machines are actually good at instead?”

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assessment Digital Learning

Digital Exit Tickets: 6 Tools for Creating Powerful Formative Assessments

I have been using exit tickets for years! It is an assessment approach that is easy to implement and provides wonderful insights into how your students are doing and feeling about their work during class. Below, you will find 6 free tools educators can use to develop a digital exit ticket.

Written by: Ryan Schaaf

After an instructional lesson is over, educators are left with a classroom full of students looking at them. Did my students get the lesson? Are there any ideas, concepts or skills they are still unsure of? Do my students have any misconceptions about the lesson and its content? Do I have to review anything tomorrow? These are just a few of the questions reflective educators are left to contemplate after the bell has rung. 

In truth, many of these reflective questions educators are left asking themselves can be addressed if they use an exit ticket. Exit tickets are a simple, quick and oftentimes insightful formative assessment method employed close to the end of a lesson. It is a simple task that requires learners to answer a few questions or perform certain tasks explored during the learning process. 

The format of an exit ticket varies. Educators can use a variety of question/activity types. There are multiple choice, true or false, short written response, matching, cloze (fill in the blank) and survey or polls to name but a few. In terms of classroom implementation, exit tickets should be short, concise and engage learners in a review of the skills, concepts and experiences explored during the lesson. They are also ideal for continuing the learning into the next class – many educators begin with the exit tickets from the previous lesson to activate students’ previous knowledge.

In the age of digital learning, exit tickets are no longer confined to small slips of paper collected by educators as students leave their classrooms (although this method is still fine). There are numerous digital tools at the disposal of educators to collect this valuable performance data from their students.

Here are six tools to choose from:

1. Google Forms

Educators can set up exit tickets with varying question types and submit requests to participate via email or sharable link. Recent upgrades now allow questions to include images and You Tube links. All participants will have their responses populate a single spreadsheet. Educators will be able to review every single exit ticket on the same document.

2. Socrative

Socrative lets educators assess their students with educational activities on tablets, laptops or smartphones (ideal for BYOD environments). Through the use of real time questioning, educators and students alike can visualize the data to make decisions about upcoming learning.

3. Plickers

While using Plicker cards, students are able to provide answers to their teacher’s questions. The educator can use a smart phone or tablet to capture student responses and the app collects and reports the data. 

4. Twitter

Ideal for older students, educators can ask students to post a 140 character summary of today’s lesson and allow the discussion to transpire after the class has officially ended. 

5. Geddit

Another app that is ideal for a  BYOD or 1-to-1 computing classroom, Geddit gauges how students understand with the use of multiple choice or short answer responses. What makes it truly unique from the other apps and tools is Geddit allows students to provide feedback on the pace of the class – beginning, middle or during lesson closure. 

6. PollEverywhere

PollEverywhere allows educators to provide a poll for students to complete. Data can be displayed to the class in real-time in order to provide immediate feedback and clarity for students.

Of course there are hundreds of additional digital tools or strategies connected educators could use for administering an exit ticket to students that are not listed here. Please add a comment with some of the digital tools you use for your classroom exit tickets.

Categories
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.

Categories
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?