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Gen Z: Growing and Learning with Mobile (Infographic)

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Posted By Ian Jukes

While educators have been busy trying to understand and teach to Millennials and Generation Y over the past several years, a new generation of mobile natives has been growing in the background.

Generation Z, which includes those born after 1995, now fills our K-12 classrooms, and they’ve brought their mobile habits with them.

To give you a better understanding of these students, including the role mobile devices play in their home and school lives, we’ve put together an infographic, titled Generation Z: Growing and Learning with Mobile.

Mobile Trends Around the World

Studies show that, by the year 2017, the percentage of smartphone users in the US will reach 80 percent – triple the percentage of users we saw in 2011. In the UK, this number is set to reach slightly more than 80 percent, while in China and India, the percentages are set to rise at a slower rate.

Globally, mobile learning is growing at a rate of 18.2 percent per year, suggesting that learning organizations will need to adopt appropriate technologies in order to keep up with growing demand.

Mobile in the Classroom

Today’s middle schoolers use mobile devices for everything from checking grades to writing papers. Of those students using mobile devices:

  • 78 percent use devices to check grades
  • 69 percent to take notes
  • 56 percent to access text books
  • 64 percent to write papers

Teachers are also on the move, with 35 percent using a tablet or e-reader in class in 2013, up 20 percent from 2012.

Impact on Student Achievement

Studies show that standardized test results are higher in classes where students have access to mobile devices.

In one case, test scores of low-income students climbed as much as 30 percent after being given access to smartphones – an increase attributed to the fact that students were able to keep connected with teachers and classmates, even while at home.

 

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8 Technologies That Will Shape Future Classrooms

Classrooms

What does the future of learning hold? What will classrooms of the future be like? Emerging technologies such as cloud computingaugmented reality (AR) and 3D printing are paving the way for the future of education in ways we may have yet to see. At the very least though, we can extrapolate from what these promising technologies and predict how schools will adopt them in time to come.

However, just as the original intentions for new technology often give way to innovative and unpredictable usage, we can never be sure if a twist is waiting for these rising stars. As for now, let us observe their progress and speculate on how these 8 up-and-coming technologies could potentially change education for the better.

Recommended Reading: Major Tech In Education Trends In 2013 [Infographic]

1. Augmented Reality (AR)

We’re still waiting for Augmented Reality to take the world by storm by way of Google Glass, gaming and awesome apps for astronomy.

It’s expected to wow audiences with its AR capabilities, which allow users to see additional information layered over what they see through the lens. Currently, however, access to AR technology for educational purposes is mostly limited to smartphone apps.

Read Also: 5 Top Augmented Reality Apps For Education

Apps like Sky Map lets you scout the night sky for constellations, but they are not fully integrated as a component of education as they have yet to reach the stage of seamlessness. The AR experience must be immersive enough to blend information readily with the reality.

With Google Glass and the other AR-enabled wearable devices that will soon follow, students explore the world without having to hold up a device which could distract from the experience. Created by Will Powell, an AR developer for Oxford, a simpler version of the Google Glass showcases how effortless this can be. Check out this video to enter a world with seamlessly integrated augmented reality.

Read Also: How Augmented Reality Is The Next Big Social Experience

A New Way To Teach

Virtual field trips are also possible with AR. Physics teacher, Andrew Vanden Heuvel, taught from inside the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, streaming what he sees through a beta Google Glass to his students thousands of miles away. They see him, and he sees them; it’s as if they are in the same classroom! The “Hangout” feature in use here is particularly promising for team collaborations in projects and assignments.

In other cases, students may be able to see supplementary and interactive information appearing on historical artifacts for them to get to know more about its history, just like how this AR advertising app can recognize images in the real world and interact with them.

Read Also: A Geek’s Wishlist – 10 Things We Want To Do With Google Glass

2. 3D Printing

What’s a better present for your 10-year-old than a LEGO set? How about a 3D printer, one specifically for children? The 3D printer should really be a must-have in classrooms. Instead of being restricted to what they can play with, pupils in the classroom of the future can print out 3D models for various purposes, including show-and-tell.

Engineering students and teachers are prime examples of who could directly benefit from 3D printing technology. In Benilde-St. Margaret’s School in Minneapolis, the school’s Dimension BST 3D printer lets students create design prototypes.

The 3D printer produces working mini-models to test out engineering design principles, so students can perfect their design before making an actual prototype. Together with CAD (computer-aided design) modeling software, 3D printing allows these students to experiment freely with their designs without expending considerable costs and time.

Abstract Thought, Real-Life Models

As it will be for many other subjects that require some form of visualization, the decreasing cost of 3D printers means that more teachers will be able to reconstruct complex concept models to teach theoretical concepts. For instance, the concept of molecular structures and configurations may be hard to grasp, but by printing out physical versions of these structures, this can help students put a form on abstract thought, and aid in better understanding.

Read Also: 20 Amazing Creations You Can Make With 3D Printing

3. Cloud Computing

“My dog ate my homework” just won’t cut it with teachers in the near future. Cloud computing is buzzing these days and will most likely continue to change many aspects of our society, particularly education. In a bid to modernize education in China, the city of Zhuji in Zhejiang has installed more than 6,000 cloud computing terminal devices in 118 schools.

Read Also: 9 High-Tech Toys & Gadgets Designed For Kids

In the future classroom, students may just need an electronic device to access all their homework and all other learning resources in the Cloud. This means no more lugging heavy textbooks to school, and having constant access to your reading materials as long as you have an Internet connection.

Such convenience will provide students the freedom to work on their projects or homework anytime and anywhere. The digital library is accessible even when the campus library is not. In fact you can skip hitching a ride there, or to the bookstore or even to class (but being sick may no longer be an acceptable excuse to skip “attending” class from your bedroom).

An Online Learning Opportunity

Cloud computing seeks to virtualize the classroom. Schools can now leverage on cloud technology and set up online learning platforms for students to log on and attend classes in a virtual environment.

Take for example, the concept of cloud-based virtual learning environment (VLE), which allows students to access learning content and participate in discussions in forums. Assignments or even tests can also be easily disseminated to the class, minimizing the need for students to be physically present, but to encourage interaction and discussion, educators require another channel.

4. Online Social Networking

Numerous universities have already registered themselves with the online virtual world, Second Life to provide students with an online platform to socialize with each other. As a big part of the cloud platform, such social networks allows students to share their ideas freely, while teachers moderate.

This is a very empowering notion because it will imbue learners with a new perception – that learning is a personal responsibility and not that of the teacher’s.

For Homework… Discuss

Furthermore, this many-to-many interactive learning where ideas are allowed to flow freely will be more aligned with real-world scenarios where collaboration is usually the norm. Social networking tools can be incorporated to enhance collaboration and team-building initiatives.

Still, if there is a need, teachers, lecturers and professors can lend some guidance in the form of responses to forum queries or by uploading useful information to the cloud community instantaneously. Another benefit is that It also serves as a great feedback tool, to help improve the courseware. A social-based approach to education will seem more than relevant to students of the future.

5. Flexible Displays

Note-taking on memo pads is still very much alive during lectures although there may be a shift from paper to laptops, netbooks or tablets. As educational settings become more digitalized, how will the future classroom reconcile the differences between pen and paper versus keyboard and screen?

The answer might just be flexible OLED-based displays. Just like regular paper, these displays will be lightweight, flexible and extremely thin. This means we can roll them up into tubes or fold them like newspapers.

Read Also: Are Flexible Display Smartphones Here To Stay?

Paper-Thin Smartphones

Unlike regular paper however, these plastic e-papers are not only durable (“unbreakable” is the correct term), but also provides interactivity. With swipes, taps and pinching (maybe), these flexible paper-thin displays can take over paper-centric industries.

Feast your eyes on this paper-thin, A4-sized digital paper prototype by Sony which weighs only a mere 63g. Laptops and even smartphones can’t hold a candle to that kind of portability.

6. Biometrics: Eye Tracking

One technology that’s been gaining recognition is biometrics. Conventionally biometrics are associated with the security industry, as it uses what is unique to each one of us to authenticate our identity: fingerprints, facial recognition, iris patterns, voice. In terms of education, some schools are only using fingerprinting to prevent truancy and for borrowing books from their school library.

Read Also: A Look Into: Biometric Technology

However, eye-tracking can be helpful for instance, in providing invaluable feedback for teachers to understand how students absorb and understand the learning content. As a matter of fact, advertising research have been using eye-tracking technology to see how consumers respond to their ads and to determine what captures their attention.

Similarly, the same form of analysis can be conducted to ascertain course effectiveness or individual learning styles. Mirametrix is using its S2 Eye Tracker to assess how students learn by getting details of where they look during online learning sessions.

Cheaper alternatives are turning up in the form of Eye Tribe for Windows and Android, so it’s only a matter of time before this data is attainable by educators.

Read Also: 9 Minority-Report-Inspired Touchless Technology

The data may then be integrated with interactive adaptive learning systems in a manner that adjusts the content to best suit each student’s learning style. Alternatively, the eye movement patterns may also guide the delivery of the content, taking into account concepts students might have trouble understanding evident in the longer time they spend gazing at that particular section.

7. Multi-Touch LCD Screens

Over the past few decades, we’ve seen the transition from blackboard to whiteboard, to overhead projector and to video projector for computers in schools. If you’re guessing that the next in line will be something that is akin to our smartphones and tablets, you may be right. Specifically speaking, the next “board” is likely to be a giant touchscreen LCD screen which allows a greater amount of interactivity.

After all, we’re talking about a screen that will be attached to a computer capable of generating infinite combinations of images, sounds and videos, just like our smartphones. The major difference with this new “board” and our smart devices is that it will be capable of detecting multiple touch inputs from many students simultaneously.

LCD Touch boards

Instead of the traditional big board in front of the classroom, it will probably be just like the Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface, a giant tablet with its LCD screen lying flat atop a table-like structure. Students will sit around the table tablet, swipe on the board to manipulate and drag images around the screen, or type notes with their onscreen keyboards.

Think of the possibilities if every pupil gets one of these desks. Along with the social networking feature, these multi-touch surfaces will also allow students to collaborate live with peers around the world by manipulating virtual objects in real-time. The Multi-touch project by SynergyNet in Durham University is a great existing example of how such technology can be used by school children.

8. Game-Based Learning

Growing up at a time when the world is connected by the internet, kids today seems to have very short attention spans. This is unsurprising, since their childhood revolves around YouTube, Facebook and smartphones that provide them with on-the-go 24-hours updates and the answers to all their queries through Google and Wikipedia.

To cater to such a fast-paced generation, schools will eventually abandon traditional teaching methods of rote learning to align themselves with the times. One great way to achieve that is to use what had always been considered as a major distraction to learning – video games.

Gaming For Grades

KinectEDucation provides a one-stop online community for interested educators and students who want to use Microsoft Kinect for learning purposes. As can be seen from their video, some of the best suggestions on how educators and students can benefit from the motion-sensing technology include enabling students to learn sign language and how to play the guitar by detecting their hand movements.

In another example, a professor from the University of Washington Bothell teaches mathematics to her class by giving them the first-hand experience of learning through their motions which are captured by Kinect. Along with successful devices like Wii Remote and PlayStation Move, the motion-sensing technology is believed to be able to provide the necessary level of interactivity for students to feel more engaged with learning.

Learning To Design Games

Another concept adopted by educators does not focus on the gameplay or interactivity; rather, it emphasizes on how learning the game design process can educate students. In Gamestar Mechanic, the idea is to impart students with basic game designing skills (without the complexity of programming) to create their own games and consequently help them develop broad skill sets such as language, systematic thinking, problem-solving (through simulation, trial-and-errors, etc), storytelling, art and many more.

School children from fourth to ninth grade learn how to design one by playing a game itself where they assume the role of a young aspiring game designer who’ll go through quests, missions, etc to be awarded with various Sprites to use in their Toolbox (an area for them to design their own games). This is not unlike the role-playing video games we see in today’s market.

This illustrates how educators are moving away from traditional classroom teaching to that of letting students have fun and learn while they play interactive games. It’s inevitable that students in the future who grow up with such technology will require much higher levels of fun and excitement before they see education as appealing and captivating.

Education Beyond the Classroom

In the future, education will no longer be restricted to formalized institutes like schools and classes. Using AR, cloud computing, online social networking and adaptive learning systems utilizing eye tracking technology, learning can take place outside the tradtional classroom.

Experimentations and mistakes will also be encouraged as simulations are made possible through 3D printing and game-based learning without actually incurring real-world consequences or costs. Chief among all, students will soon be imparted with the wisdom of seeing learning as not a chore, but as a critical and gratifying part of their life which requires their proactive involvement.

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63 Things Every Student Should Know In A Digital World

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Posted By Ian Jukes

Digital World

It could be argued—and probably argued well—that what a student fundamentally needs to know today isn’t much different than what Tom Sawyer or Joan of Arc or Alexander the Great needed to know.

  • Communication.
  • Resourcefulness.
  • Creativity.
  • Persistence.

How true this turns out to be depends on how macro you want to get. If we want to discuss our needs as humans in broad, sweeping themes, then food, water, shelter, connectivity, safety, and some degree of self-esteem pretty much cover it.

But in an increasingly connected and digital world, the things a student needs to know are indeed changing—fundamental human needs sometimes drastically redressed for an alien modern world. Just as salt allowed for the keeping of meats, the advent of antibiotics made deadly viruses and diseases simply inconvenient, and electricity completely altered when and where we slept and work and played, technology is again changing the kind of “stuff” a student needs to know.

Of course, these are just starters. Such a list really could go on forever.

The Changing Things They Need To Know: 13 Categories & 63 Ideas

Information Sources

1. The best way to find different kinds of information

2. How to save information so that it can be easily found and used again

3. Distinguish fact from opinion, and know the importance of each

4. How to think critically—and carefully–about information

Learning Pathways

5. How to self-direct learning

6. How to mobilize learning

7. How to identify what’s worth understanding

8. How to relate habits with performance

Human Spaces

9. The relationship between physical and digital spaces

10. The pros and cons—and subsequent sweet spots–of digital tools

11. What mobile technology requires—and makes possible

12. The nuance of communication in-person (e.g., eye contact, body language) and in digital domains (e.g., introduction, social following, etc.)

Socializing Ideas

13. The consequences of sharing an idea

14. The right stage of the creative process to share an idea

15. That everything digital is accelerated; plan accordingly. And this kind of acceleration doesn’t always happen in the brick-and-mortal world—and that’s okay.

16. The need for digital citizenship—and how to create their own rules citizenships in general–digital and otherwise

Digital Participation

17. How to remix, mash, reimagine, tweak, hack, and repurpose media in credible, compelling, and legal ways

18. How to identify what information is private and what is “social”—and how to make changes accordingly

19. What expertise they can offer the digital world

20. How to take only what you need, even when the (digital) resources seem infinite

Publishing Nuance

21. How to leverage both physical and digital media for authentic—rather than merely digital–purposes

22. The kind of information people look for on the internet

23. What to share with one person, one group, one community, and one planet. (And the difference in permanence and scale between a social message, email, threaded conversation, and text.)

24. How to take advantage of the fact digital text is fluid and endlessly updated and changing

Applying Technology 

25. What the relationship is between a smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop, and wearable technology

26. How to use the cloud to their advantage; how to preserve bandwidth when necessary

27. How to effectively use technology in ways that might contradict their original purpose or design

28. How to use technology to perform tasks not traditionally thought of as technology-based—e.g., improving vocabulary and literacy, perform and update financial planning, eat healthier foods, etc.

The Always-On Audience

29. How to choose language, structure, tone, modalities, and other considerations based on a specific purpose and audience

30. Knowing the difference between who’s listening, who’s responding, who’s lurking, who cares, who doesn’t care, etc.

31. How to listen with curiosity when there are a million other things to do

32. Popularity and quality often fail to coincide; “traction” is as much timing and ecology as it is design

Social Rules

33. When it is socially-acceptable to check messages, update statuses, check scores, and so on. (Just because everyone at the table is doing it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have significant consequences.)

34. The acceptable timing of human responses depending on social channels

35. Even in a digital world, patience still matters

36. That mobile devices are “me” devices; the real world isn’t like that

Diction

37. Tone is everything; word choice is crucial when every thought is shared

38. Vocabulary & jargon can obscure communication, but also can communicate specific ideas and can’t always be avoided

39. Structure–essay level, blog post level, paragraph level, sentence level, world level, and acronym and initialism level–changes depending on where you publish

40. The benefits of being a polyglot (speaking more than one language) are increasing (not in lieu of, but because of digital translation tools). (This includes localized figurative language in the context of global communication.)

Connecting with Experts

41. Who the experts are

42. How—and when—to reach them

43. The difference between someone knowledgeable, someone experienced, and someone adept

44. When you need a closed group of friends, a crowd full of moderately-informed people, or a professional and/or academic expert

The Self

45. How to identify and fully participate in critical familial and social citizenships

46. How to prioritizing possibilities in spaces where it all seems so endless

47. How to self-monitor and manage their own distraction

48. How to choose the proper scale for work, thinking, or publishing

49. How to recognize niches and opportunity

A Life Built Around Software

50. The consequences of using a single operating system (e.g., iOS, Android, Windows, etc.)

51. The pros and cons of using social log-ins (e.g., facebook) for apps

52. How to evaluate an app for privacy permissions

53. That apps are businesses and some close–and take your media, files, or data with them

54. Nothing is free

Other Internet Pro Tips For Students

55. Passive-aggressiveness, snark, arrogance, unjustified brazenness, cyberbullying-without-being-obvious-about-it, blocking-for-dramatic-effect, ignoring people, and other digital habits carry over into the real world

56. A 140 character comment may not fully capture the nuance of a person’s stance or understanding of a topic. Don’t assume

57. Typos and grammar errors don’t make people stupid

58. Popularity is dangerous

59. Video games can make you smarter. That doesn’t mean that they do

60. People change their minds. That post from 2012 probably feels as dated to them as it does to you

61. If you often find yourself needing to “kill time” with Candy Crush and related fare, check your life choices

62. Just because you can sing, hack, code, paint, run, jump, lead, or dance doesn’t make you any more worthwhile than the next human being, no matter what your follower count suggests

63. Log-in info, passwords, old email address, and other trappings of digital life are a pain. Use password keepers and plan accordingly

63 Things Every Student Should Know In A Digital World

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Game Face On: Gamification for Engaging Teachers in PD

Game Face On: Gamification for Engaging Teachers in PD

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Posted By Ian Jukes

This article by Matt Baier, for Edutopia, published on February 19, 2015 outlines a professional development program that inspires teachers to feel the emotions of creativity, contentment, awe and wonder, excitement, curiosity, pride, surprise, love, relief, and joy while learning and developing skills that promote more effective use of technology tools.

Creativity, contentment, awe and wonder, excitement, curiosity, pride, surprise, love, relief, and joy. These are the ten emotions that game players experience, according to Jane McGonigal in Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Change the World. Do teachers report feeling any of these emotions when they describe professional development? No (except for maybe relief when it’s over).

Conquering Technology

My colleague Kathy Garcia and I decided to create a professional development program that inspired teachers to feel these emotions while learning and developing skills toward more effective use of technology tools. We created a professional development game, accessed through the iTunes U platform, called Conquering Technology. Our teachers learn skills like taking advantage of the iPad’s accessibility features, digital workflows, creating their own iBooks, using Google Apps, and authoring their own iTunes U courses.

The critical component for success was for teachers to become self-motivated in advancing their skills. For inspiration, we incorporated badges, awards, levels, gift cards, and public recognition, as everyone is uniquely motivated. Our focus has remained on positive motivation rather than a fear of negative consequences.

Conquering Technology was created for the novice-to-advanced user. Starting with basic skills, faculty members progress through challenges with support resources available any time, anywhere. While some challenges develop general iPad skills, our focus revolved around using the iPad effectively and creatively in our 1:1 iPad educational environment. We didn’t have too much difficulty creating a list of skills in which our faculty should be proficient. Our challenge was determining how faculty would demonstrate their knowledge. We called each skill-learning unit with assessment a challenge and grouped them into levels, which in turn were grouped into episodes.

Motivation and Recognition

Each level has an associated badge that is displayed within faculty profiles on the Cathedral Catholic High School website once all challenges have been completed. We wanted faculty to be publicly recognized for their hard work, so when they pass all the levels in an episode, they earn a $50 gift certificate. In addition, they receive an award that is presented to them either in front of their class or at an all-faculty meeting. Public recognition is a key component — not only do we want to publicly acknowledge our pride, but it’s also critical in motivating some people.

All faculty members are expected to complete one episode per year. As an iPad school, we find that iTunes U is the perfect tool for delivering our professional development game. iTunes U is an outstanding platform for delivering a wide variety of content to an iPad. Videos, links, apps, documents, audio — anything from the iTunes Store, App Store, or iBook Store can be easily added. Even more importantly, any training content that we create ourselves can be easily delivered to our learners.

We use a private course with our faculty but have made the first two episodes public. The third episode is still in development and should be published before the 2015-2016 school year begins.

The first episode focuses on how teachers can use the iPad for themselves. The second episode focuses on how the teacher can use the iPad to manage his or her classes and engage students. The third episode will focus on how teachers can help students to use the iPad to create. The fourth will focus on helping students connect to the wider world (e.g. publish content, connect with other learners or professionals, etc.).

Accessible Resources

As technology trainers we saw several positive outcomes.First of all, there was a marked increase in teacher motivation to participate in our technology training. Even reluctant learners were willing to take part, and many of them reported that they appreciated the opportunity to have all of the necessary resources available to them on their own time. We saw much more buy-in than we expected across our whole faculty. We cannot seem to publish episodes fast enough for our most motivated teachers. This is a great problem to have.

In addition, teachers worked on the game on their own time. Even though we have professional development time set aside once a month, teachers were working on their own during prep periods, after school, and even on the weekends.

Another benefit is that more teachers would actually use the resources that we created. Kathy and I have made many tutorial videos and screencasts that unfortunately were not used as widely as we hoped. Now that they are part of Conquering Technology, they are being used more frequently by teachers.

Anyone can do this. Many of you probably already are. Let’s share and collaborate! Our courses are public and available for free in the iTunes U catalog. Use your iOS device to subscribe to Episode 1 and Episode 2. We’re proud of our work but are always eager to see what’s working in other schools as well. Please let us know about any technology-conquering PD you’ve used or created.

 

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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
Digital Learning

8 Engaging Ways to use Technology in the Classroom to Create Lessons That Aren’t Boring

Teachers are constantly vying for their students’ attention. A great deal of the trouble teachers face with engaging students in their classrooms is because some of the old ways of teaching no longer work with the digital generations. Kelly Walsh at Emerging EdTech shares with readers wonderful tools and strategies to use with students to boost engagement in the classroom while promoting crucial 21st century skills.

Source: iStock
Source: iStock

posted by: Ryan Schaa

Original Source

Dozens of free web tools and ideas that can pack a technology integration punch and kick those lessons up a notch

Are you tired of delivering the same old lectures on the same subjects year after year? Are you using the same lesson materials over and over and wishing you could make learning in your classroom more interactive?

While lectures and lessons can be informative and even “edutaining” when delivered with passion and good materials by knowledgeable experts, sadly many traditional lectures and lessons are boring, and even worse often ineffective. The good news is that the Web is loaded with great free tools that can enable teachers to bring a sense of fun and engagement to their lessons.

Of course, you do need devices with Internet access to give these tools a try. Even if you don’t have computers or tablets available in your classroom, the fact that an increasing number of High School and college students have smartphones is making it easier than ever to leverage technology to create engaging, active lessons students enjoy working on. For younger grades, if you don’t have access to devices with Web access, perhaps you can access a computer lab by request, or use devices in your library.

Here’s a whole bunch of ideas for leveraging technology to kick those lessons up a notch!

1. Incorporate Student Input & Gather Feedback

There are many applications that allow students to provide live feedback. A lot of them can be used from smartphones. You can also gather feedback by creating a “back channel” using Twitter.

  • Quick, easy Polling ApplicationsPollDaddy andPollEverywhere are two of many applications that make it quick and easy to create simple polls that can let you gather feedback from students – determine if they are struggling with a topic, if they know the correct answers to questions you ask, and so on. They can often participate in these polls using a smartphone.
  • Take it up a notch with Socrative: Socrative is a powerful free app that lets you go well beyond simple polls to more elaborate quizzes. Learn more here.
  • Plickers: This is a pretty cool lo-tech approach to collecting student responses during class that doesn’t require students to use technology. Learn more here.
  • Twitter: Twitter is a great way to gather input by creating an easy to use ‘backchannel’. This is great for students with smartphones (they will need the Twitter app and an account). Simply create a unique hashtag and have students post feedback to Twitter using that hashtag.

2. Gamify It

Leveraging gaming mechanics can make learning more fun is probably easier than you think. For example, any time you bring competition or levels of achievement to a classroom exercise, you’re gamifying your classroom. For example, in one recent assignment in my classroom, I had students search through an interactive computer history timeline for specific facts. The first student to correctly identify a fact (like “what was the first computer bug?”) that I had them seek out “won” for that question!

Here’s a variety of resources and ideas for using gaming in the classroom:

3. Let Students Create

There are so many fun free tools and apps available today that can let students create all kinds of awesome digital content. Below is diversified set of different article and resources that share different tools and ideas for students (and teachers) to create digital content – presentations, interactive digital posters, eBooks, videos, and more. In the spirit of creating in the classroom, we also included an article introducing the burgeoning Makerspace Movement in education.

4. Get Interactive

Many teachers enjoy using interactive tools with their students. Here’s a few tools and ideas to consider.

  • Online Interactive White Boards: Did you know that there are several good free interactive whiteboards available online? If you have a computer and a projector, you can make them work a lot like a “smart board”. Some of these applications even allow students to log on online and collaboratively edit content. Check out these 6 Online IWBs to explore this idea further.
  • Bounceapp (bounceapp.com): You can review, notate, and share any web page with Bounceapp. Just paste a web page address into the “app” and it turns it into an interactive screenshot where students can jot ideas.
  • Interactive apps that work with Smartphones: Many of the tools in this article work on smartphones!
  • If you happen to have a physical white board in your classroom, get more out of it with these creative ideas.
  • Explore additional tool and ideas in this popular article that we published earlier this year.

5. Have Students Collaborate

Getting students to work together as partners, in small groups, or maybe even as one large group, teaches them about team work. Collaborative work can be fun. It is even possible to collaborate with students across the world thanks to many of today’s technologies.

Here are a number of tools and techniques for classroom collaborations.

  • Share writing and encourage feedback with NewsActivist:NewsActivist is a free tool that lets teachers set up their students with a private area where they can write about selected subjects. You can enables them to share what their write with just their classmates, or with the larger audience of students from across the world using NewsActivist. Students can then provide feedback on other students’ writings. Learn more in this brief article.
  • Collaborative Document Edited with Google Drive(drive.google.com): Google Drive lets you share and collaboratively edit Google Docs with anyone else who has a Google account, for free. This is a powerful capability.
  • Collaborative Mind Mapping with MindMeister(mindmeister.com)This applications lets users easily create mind maps that can be edited collaboratively.
  • Collaborative Research: Working in pairs or small groups to find, assess, summarize, and present content in specific topic areas make for a great learning experience and assignment.

6. Project Based Learning

When students apply what they are learning to projects that they undertake, the topics they are learning about can take on a much deeper meaning. Not only does the activity and the increased sensory exposure of project work help to stimulate the mind, the extended time often required of project work, and the visible, tangible results further reinforce learning.

Here are two excellent, rich resources for further exploration of PBL from TeachThought.com:

7. Simulations

Simulations can be a powerful addition to the classroom. Since they tend to be somewhat complicated, they are typically suited towards high school, college, or post-graduate or professional studies. Here are some examples of simulations being used in education:

  • Economics: This site, Economic-Games.com, offers free online classroom games for teaching economics.
  • Marketing: Have you ever wished you could give your Marketing students the chance to practice different e-marketing skills and techniques? Check out Simbound.
  • Medical: Simulations have been a significant teaching and learning tool in the medical field for many years. Harvard Medical School has even created a web site focused on their use of Simulations.
  • BusinessBusiness Simulation Games are a great way to bring active, applied learning into Business courses.

8. Bring in a Guest or Two

With the power of video conferencing apps like Skype, Google Hangout, Facetime, and others, our ability to connect with people all across the world has never been better or less costly. Teachers have been using Skype and similar tools to being guest lecturers, experts, students, and others into the classroom for years. Nothing breaks up the monotony of “same old thing” like an enthusiastic subject matter expert from another county or a room full of students from another continent!

Check out this great video about Skype in the Classroom. This is a perfect way to wrap up this post about leveraging tech in the classroom to make lessons captivating, fun, and exciting!