Managing distractive technologies 2 of 2

I've been asked to write an article on classroom management related to technology. The editor writes:

This topic is interesting because I hear so many teacher say they don’t want to use technology in the classroom because their “kids can’t handle it” or the “students would be uncontrollable.” I think it would be good to give some reluctant educators some tips so they feel more comfortable diving in.

Here's the deal. I have a pretty good general feeling for the topic, but I would love to gather some "front line" comments, advice, strategies and experiences from my readers, the real experts. I will fully credit your input. Remember the audience is the beginner and reluctant user!

I'll be doing this in two parts. Link to first. Here's the second.

4. Enhance traditional educational practices.

In The Digital Backpack, Karen Greenwood Henke describes ten technologies that are entering the classroom by way of our student's backpack. For each devices, Henke describes its common, intened use, but then goes on to list it's "learning" uses. For example:

CELL PHONE
Common Use:
Call & text-message friends
Learning Use:
• Jot down reminders, due dates, and notes with alarms
• Share ideas and drafts
• Poll groups of students (locally and geographically dispersed)
• Access assignments in visual, text, or audio formats
• Practice speeches using the stopwatch
• Photograph research documents that can’t leave the library

No technology, no device is inherently educational or recreational. It's all in how that device is used. And savvy teachers will figure out how to change "distraction" to "focus" - and use students' personal technologies to improve teaching and learning.

One very simple way to begin thinking about how individual classroom technologies can stop being distracting and start being engaging is to start with common classroom practices and adding a technology “upgrade.” Nearly any common teaching strategy or practice can be enhanced by the judicious use of technology. For example:

Lectures can be supplemented by polling students with cell phone response systems such as Poll Everywhere. Other teachers record their lessons, post them to a video streaming/downloading site, and allow students to view them multiple times on their phones, PDAs or laptops. Some teachers allow students to record their lectures and instructions for later review.

Worksheets/study guides that may have previously been distributed as paper can be moved to electronic "forms," using tools like GoogleDoc's forms or downloaded in template formats. Completed work can be saved online or moved to a teacher's drop box, cutting down on printing costs and simplifying the "paper chase."

Learning games in physical form have long been an educational mainstay (Spell Down, anyone?) Educational games accessible via mobile devices run the gamut from "flash card" reviews to sophisticated online worlds. Manipulatives have made a successful transition from cardboard and wood to digital formats, especially on touchscreen devices.

Assigned textbook readings can be supplemented or supplanted by more lively writings accessed online.

The written expository paper is no longer the only format through which students can share their understanding of a subject. Videos, audio recordings and multimedia presentations created by "distractive" devices allow students to display multiple talents and are more likely to ask for creativity (and are less subject to plagiarism.

The key any of these "technology-enhanced" activities is that there is a genuine benefit gained by adding a technology component. A criticism may be that this type of use is simply maintaining the traditional model of education, but if the traditional model can be made more engaging, more interactive, I don't see a problem.

5. Use the technology to restructure the educational process.

To the disappointment of many progressive educators, technology in the classroom had not been the transformative agent they had hoped for. But the increased amounts and kinds of technologies available to students in the classroom may spur the kinds of changes needed for schools to prepare students for academic, career and civic success.

The ISTE NETS Standards can certainly be addressed using student technologies in the classroom, including:

Inquiry-based, problem-solving is enabled by student's abilities to access information sources from within the classroom. While younger students may be given small "everyday" problems to research, older students may independently or in groups work on genuine problems and questions related to a subject. One possible classroom structure would be to allocate a small percentage of class time to set out a problem(s), a large percent to do research on the problems, and the remainder of the class to report and discuss findings. Individual students can be designated as a "Google Jockey" to research questions that come up during class discussions.

The ability to do inquiry using primary sources can be facilitated by student devices. Taking polls, conducting/recording interviews and taking photographs are all good uses of those "problematic" cell phones.

The provision of materials electronically allows for true differentiated instruction, even individualization. Using the results of formative tests, teachers can give students access to learning materials to meet specific learning styles (visual, auditory, verbal) and to meet specific learning tasks. Students needing remediation in a math concept, for example, can complete an online tutorial/practice during class. Special needs students have long had their particular needs met through adaptive/adoptive technologies. The question we might ask is if not all children can be considered "special" needs?

Accessing social/collaborative online workspaces is possible when enough students can get to wikis, blogs and other websites like Buzzword or GoogleDocs that allow for sharing and joint creation of work. My experience is that collaborative work helps keep kids on task - there is a certain degree of peer-pressure brought to bear on slackers. Collaborative activities do not require that a 1:1 device to student ratio be in place - one laptop per team is often better than one per student.

Whole-class collaborative efforts can be enhanced with the use of group editing tools like GoogleDocs or Wall Wisher that are then projected for the entire class to view.

Online collaborative tools enable the "conversation" to continue past class time - at home, in study halls, anywhere that students have access to an Internet connection. Such communication vehicles have shown to "bring out" the comments of shy students. And publication for an audience of peers raises many students' level of concern about the quality of their work.

Interaction with students from other countries and cultures is possible with communication technologies like Skype, chat and e-mail. "Keypals" have long been a staple of creating global communities of learners with students sharing observations and perspectives of issues from different cultural standpoints. The Flat Classroom project is a popular and powerful effort to expand this connectivity using a variety of classroom technology tools.

Let's face it, personal communication and computing devices are here to stay. "The horse is out of the barn." and trying now to close the door is futile. Instead of trying to get the horse back in the barn, smart educators will be figuring out how to saddle and ride the it. An increasing number of educators are writing about and sharing practical strategies for using technology productively in the classroom. Seek out those specific projects and application and turn those "distractive" technologies into technologies that make your classroom more effective.

Henke, Karen Greenwood "The Digital Backpack," Threshold, Fall 2005 <http://www.ciconline.org/thresholdfall05>

Image: http://www.canby.k12.or.us/News/740.html

Managing distractive technologies 1 of 2

I've been asked to write an article on classroom management related to technology. The editor writes:

This topic is interesting because I hear so many teachers say they don’t want to use technology in the classroom because their “kids can’t handle it” or the “students would be uncontrollable.” I think it would be good to give some reluctant educators some tips so they feel more comfortable diving in.

Here's the deal. I have a pretty good general feeling for the topic, but I would love to gather some "front line" comments, advice, strategies and experiences from my readers, the real experts. I will fully credit your input. Remember the audience is the beginner and reluctant user!

I'll be doing this in two parts on the blog. Here's the first:

Managing distractive technologies in the classroom. Part One

I don’t have A.D.D. I’m just ignoring you. Student t-shirt

Christensen, Clayton and Horn in their 2008 book, Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, suggest that technology has the potential to customize the educational process, make classrooms student-centered, and radically transform our current model of education. Technology will be the meteor and many of us educators are the unsuspecting dinosaurs. Scary stuff.

Yet many classroom teachers are less concerned about the disruptive technologies of an indefinite future than they are about today's “distractive” technologies.

The ability to distract has put the use of laptops, netbooks, cell phones, PDAs, iPod/mp3 players and portable game players on the banned list in many schools and classrooms. Students are more interested in online resources like Facebook, game sites, chat, and YouTube than classroom lectures and textbook chapters about the Crimean War, square roots or past participles.

"Those darn kids are just listening to the filthy lyrics of rap music on their iPods instead of my lecture," pretty much summarizes the argument. So, no device, no access, no distraction, reason these schools.

As I have learned from my experiences both as an instructor and as a student, technology can indeed be a distraction in the teaching/learning environment. I find it discouraging, to say the least, when a participant in one of my "enthralling" workshops starts texting or banging out something on the keyboard instead of hanging on each brilliant nugget of wisdom emanating from the front of the room. But then, I've found reading my RSS feeds more interesting than more than a few lectures myself.

How does the K-12 instructor compete with tablets, cell phones, netbooks, and text messaging? How do we manage the distractive qualities of technology in schools? And more over, how do we use these very technologies to actually improve teaching and learning?

Let me say right up front that there is no one-size-fits-all set of practices for managing or using student technologies. Different sources of technology (one-to-one laptop projects, laptop carts, student-owned technologies) will result in different amounts of access, various levels of uniformity of applications and functionality, and uncertain connections to online resources. Different teaching styles, different age levels and different learning outcomes will make some uses practical and others not so much.

However good teachers have never relied on a single method, a single approach or a single tool to teach - neither will good teachers always use a single technology is a single way. Today's effective teachers will use the technology available to them.

Some approaches to managing technology in the classroom:

1. Ban it. This has been the first and most common approach to dealing with distractive technologies - especailly student-owned devices. Simply create a policy or rule for the district, school or classroom that forbids their use.

Keeping technologies out of classrooms and libraries is a temporary strategy that is unsustainable in the long run. Information/communication devices are getting smaller, more affordable, and more powerful. They are increasingly an extension of everyone's brains - both adult and child. There is movement to unblock the YouTubes and Facebooks and game sites in our libraries, labs and districts where educators and students have learned the positive value of these resources. Where such devices are banned, student use often simply goes underground with students texting from within pockets, hiding earbuds under hair and hoods, or simply concealing devices behind books or in desks.

Parents see cellphones as tools for helping keep their children safe, insisting their children carry them in case of an emergency. Parents who have purchased laptops and tablets and smartphones want their children to be able to take educational advantage of these devices.

And since a growing number of educators see the educational value of such devices, a school or district-wide ban doesn't work.

2. Do business as usual, let distracted students become distracted, and let the chips fall where they may. It's tempting to simply rationalize that we should just let students tune out in the classroom,  focus in on their Facebook pages or text messages, and let the natural consequences of such actions happen. Yet ethically we have always had a professional obligation to make sure all students are engaged in our classrooms. Besides, it's harmful to the ego when students who pay little attention in class do better on tests and assignments.

3. Limit the use of technologies. Clear expectations of when and how technology can be used in one's classroom or library should be a standard classroom management practice. Setting reasonable rules is a simple task. Your "technology use" rule might read:

Student-owned technologies such as cellphones and laptops may be used in the classroom when there is not a whole-group activity, when its use does not distract other students, and when the district's Acceptable Use Policy is followed.

Many teachers find that such rules and expectations are best developed at the very beginning of the school year in collaboration with the students themselves.

Part 2

Image source: http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/iotw/20060522/200/1860

Let kids use the Internet for non-school purposes

People who do surf the Internet for fun at work - within a reasonable limit of less than 20% of their total time in the office - are more productive by about 9% than those who don’t... Freedom to Surf (thanks to Committed Sardine for link)

Kids should be allowed to use the Internet at school for non-school purposes. Period.

Pursuing personal interests and recreational pursuits (so long as not illegal), should actually be encouraged, especially in our school libraries. Why?

1. Personal use gives teeth to the threat of suspending Internet use for disciplinary reasons. If Johnny likes accessing the world soccer scores each morning in the library, he may think twice about doing something that will suspend his Internet "privileges*."  If students are only allowed "academic" use of the Internet, how many will actually find such a consequence punitive?

2. Gives practice in reading, research, problem-solving and creativity. Kids online are practicing a lot of skills. If fluency, vocabulary building and intrinsic motivation for reading are goals, what difference does it make that a student is reading the reading primer or a personal interest website?

3. Show consistency of with other formats. Does your library carry Sports Illustrated and Seventeen? Have you developed a fiction collection for voluntary free reading? Do you have board games in your library or classroom? So why treat digital resources differently from paper?

4. Creates a positive school atmosphere. We have got to get over the idea that schooling has to be serious and boring to be effective. Think how much easier educators' work would be if kids actually wanted to be in school.

5. Helps close the digital divide. Many students still do not have access to online resources from home. Seems somehow cruel and unusual to deny this huge cultural influence to some students.

A common reason for disallowing "recreational" computer use has been that these resources may be in short supply. The reasoning goes that school work (writing papers, doing academic research, etc.) takes precidence over "fun." For all the reasons mentioned above, we need to re-think this blanket policy and find other means of "fairly" allocating computer time.

* I believe a successful case can be made that Internet access is a right rather than a priviledge given its uses in politics, business, education, medicine and other basic parts of society.