Virtual Tinkertoys

In response to yesterday's post on criteria that might impact large scale technology adoption by teachers, Generation YES's Sylvia Martinez commented:

I'm wondering if there is another criteria - something like "extensibility". The old idea of "no floor, no ceiling." I hate learning something new and then finding that there is no way to extend it, add options, go under the hood, etc. Not that everyone wants that, but in an educational setting, having tools that you only have to learn once yet can accommodate different learners and different styles seems like important criteria. Maybe there's a better word for it?

My response: 

I think I understand the concept. But could you give me a couple of examples? Maybe of technologies that are and aren't extensible? I've personally always liked what I call "Tinkertoy" software that lets me build instead of just use things that are already built. And a lot of kids do too. Not so sure about adults!

 And Sylvia replies:

Tinkertoy software is a great name for it! (and you know I'm always up for sneaking constructivist-like thinking in here somewhere!) I'm thinking that for example, Hypercard and HyperStudio were better than PowerPoint - because you could build more than just slideshows, you could actually program objects and actions. With PowerPoint, you can only make slideshows, and if that's all you wanted, you could make slideshows with those other applications.

It's too bad they are gone! But there are still things around today.

For a slightly higher initial investment in effort, you could use Flash or MicroWorlds. Both can make slideshows - but you have so much more under the hood for the future. For some kids, these tools will give them more range than they ever thought possible, it will unlock hidden potential and give them wings. I guarantee you PowerPoint won't do that.

For kids, neither one of those applications is hard to learn, or hard to use. But adults have this horrible reaction to them.

Or - Why not teach kids HTML instead of making them learn some "easy" editor. I know, I know I can hear the groans from teachers everywhere.

We talk about differentiated instruction, but that concept shouldn't stop at the instructional door. Everything we put in kids hands should have the ability to offer differentiated and leveled experiences for kids who are ready, willing, and able (and they are).

I really feel that a lot of the problems with teaching technology reflect adult fears, not student ability or needs.

Great, now I've got enough for a blog ;-) (And here is her blog posting!)

This set me to thinking about a couple things.

First, it was a good reminder that teachers' resistance to technology is less about technology itself but more about unfamiliar ways of teaching.  Learning HyperStudio is not an issue; adopting a new teaching philosophy in which students learn by creating instead of absorbing is an issue.

And happily, between reading Sylvia's comments, reading David Warlick's recent post, and thinking about a conversation I had with Mike Eisenberg back in January when I visited with him in Seattle, I am beginning to see some true educational possibilities for Second Life. 

I have to admit that Second Life does not strike me as a great teaching medium if you insist on doing stand-and-deliver. (Or as Ian Jukes puts it, full frontal presentation.) Chat is not how one delivers a lecture or even holds a decent guided discussion if you ask me.

BUT, Second Life is the ultimate tinker toy set. Mike E. envisions that the outcome of a student history research assignment be a virtual museum exhibit - a room in which are gathered photos, documents, analysis, etc. If a display is considered worthy, it would become a permanent exhibit in this virtual museum. How cool would that be?

But with the tools in Second Life, one need not be limited to a single room. Why not let a class build the whole museum? Or recreated Peter the Great's Hermitage? Or recreate the massacre at Wounded Knee? Or build Rosa Park's bus and populate it with avatars that reflect the points of view of the era? Design eco-systems in science? Build Huck Finn's raft or Well's Time Machine? Think of the physics simulations! (I was in Second Life's Transylvania recently, but it seemed more inspired by Ann Rice than Bram Stoker.)

I am sure I am day late and dollar short in my thinking on this. And remember that this comes from somebody who has created but a single object in Second Life and have relied on the charity of others even for simple furniture. 

Is Second Life the ultimate Tinker toy application? Are the examples from education that now exist and I just don't know about?  

At right, my avatar admiring his sole creation -  a picture  for his wall.

Predicting Large Scale Adoption of Technology

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past.  Original post, May 7 2007 See also an article that appeared in Australia's Educational Technology Solutions journal in 2008.

After I posted some criteria in an earlier blog entry, based on my column, There Isn't a Train I Wouldn't Take, I was asked if there were specific questions I would ask to determine whether a technology or its application has a high or low degree of success. I didn't, but now I do. Find here a pdf file with what I call The LSA Predictors rubric.

 

So far for my district, I'd say this works pretty well. I ran a few different technologies and this is what I got. (Mileage may vary with your own particiular district.) 

TV/VCR/DVD S=20, C=20, R=20, U=20, A= 10 Total =90
Digital still camera: S=20, C=20, R=10, U=10, A= 20 Total =80
Data warehousing/data mining S=0, C=20, R=10, U=20, A= 10 Total =60
Blogging S=10, C=20, R=10, U=0, A= 20 Total =60
Digital video editing S=0, C=0, R=20, U=10, A= 10 Total =40
Interactive field trips using ITV S=0, C=0, R=0, U=10, A= 0 Total =10

Does the rubric work for you? How does it need to be tweaked? Should we even be trying to predict the success of a technology  implementation? How does it hold up with IWBs and iPads?

Gianormous projects

Once again last week, the old fix/flex debate raised its scaley head on LM_Net. More often than not, these discussions produce more heat than light and I do my best to stay out them since I've already said my piece (and probably too much).

One percieved benefit of a flexibly scheduled library program is that it allows students blocks of time to work on a project "in-depth." As one writer puts it: From my perspective, the problem with "working around" fixed schedules is that these schedules often do not allow for more in-depth inquiry/research/literature projects that impact student achievement and life-long learning.

From both personal experience and from the comments of our district's LMSs, the elementary project that drags on, week after week while being worked on in 20- minute bits, is indeed frustrating for both students and teachers. Is having one or two gianormous reseach/tech projects a year the best way to teach information and technology skills in either a fixed or flexible schedule, especially at the elementary level?

From somewhere in my files I drug this up and it makes a lot of sense:

Brain research shows that permanent learning only takes place when research activities are assigned frequently enough that students can exercise and develop the essential skills of critical reading, writing, higher-order thinking, and presenting ideas and opinions with a purpose.

Brain research also shows that these activities must be related to student interests about their world and provide the opportunity for them to develop their own “reasoned opinions” based on researched facts and expert opinions. This desired learning is impossible to do for all students when schools depend on the “term paper” as their only research strategy.

A recent study of Social Studies teachers indicates that the age of the term paper is rapidly disappearing and being replaced by shorter and more frequent types of mini-research. Education Week – November 20, 2002.

One alternative to the semester-long project is by asking students to do "everyday problem-solving." In this earlier column, I wrote:

I am concerned that when we base our information problem-solving instruction around a single giant unit or two each year, students through lack of opportunity to practice also forget all these important defining, locating, accessing, synthesizing, communicating and evaluating skills. It’s why we seem to re-teach the use of the library catalog, search engines, website evaluation, online periodical databases, and even word processing commands year after year to the same group of students who seem to have once grasped them.

Practicing information problem solving needs to be a daily activity for every student in our schools, not just a biennial “event.” It’s easy to quickly brainstorm a whole raft of information problem solving mini-activities that can be done in either the media center or classroom:

• Use the Internet to check the weather forecast and make a recommendation about dress for the next day.
• Search and report an interesting fact about the author of the next story being read by the class.
  
• Email students in another class to ask their opinions on a discussion topic.
• Recommend a movie or television show to watch the coming weekend using a critic’s advice.
• Find two science articles that relate to the current science unit. Evaluate the credibility of the sources of information.
• Locate a place from a current news headline or class reading on an online map resource like .
• Recommend a book to a classmate based on other books that classmate has read using the school’s library catalog or an Internet source.
• Update the class webpage with interesting facts from units studied and links to related information on the web.
  
• Estimate the number of calories and fat grams in the meal served in the cafeteria that day.
• Find a “quote of the day” on a specific topic and use a graphics program to illustrate and print it out.
  

Note that most of these tasks take fewer than ten or fifteen minutes for a skilled information searcher to complete. Each has direct relevance to the student’s “real” academic or personal life. Reporting the results of the research is informal and interesting. Most of these activities are meaningful ones that adults do as well.

I'd hate to think that students would come to believe that the only time to do research is when they are in the LMC. That is is something done only for academic pursuits. That the end result is always a paper or presentation.

Aren't we all daily problem-solvers? Shouldn't our kids be as well?

Take one a day.