Integrating Technology Intelligently

How will you use Wallwisher?

Teachers Love Post-Its

Today in the Illinois Writing Project Summer Leadership Institute to set an agenda for the technology PD.

You can check out our Wall by clicking here.

I believe that it’s really important that we move beyond thinking that technology PD is just about the tools.  In many places, teachers are shown a whole lot of tools in an hour or so, and then left to figure them out on their own.  This isn’t effective.  Teachers need exposure to tools, but MORE IMPORTANTLY they need time to brainstorm ways that the tool will improve the teaching and learning in their classrooms.

Brainstorming always works better in a group, so … now that you’ve seen Wallwisher, add a pedagogical usage in the comments below.

How could you use Wallwisher in the classroom?  How might Wallwisher enrich homework?

Best Practices in Tech PD

I WANT MORE PD!

Ask almost any teacher and they will tell you they want more technology professional development.  That request means something different to each teacher:

• exposure to new technology tools
• step-by-step guidance to new tools
• help creating lessons that utilize technology
• a day to be out of the classroom checking their FaceBook page and complaining

There are workshops and blogs and books about Web 2.0 tools, but I believe they overwhelm most teachers because they try to do an information dump.  They don’t help teachers change their mindset to someone willing to take risks with technology or help with where to start, and it just becomes an avalanche.

I’ve been reading instructional design blogs recently and most emphasize that the true goal of e-learning is not information but action.  A rapid demonstration of a bunch of snazzy tools rarely leads to teachers actually changing their use of technology in the classroom.

I think we’re missing the underlying message though when we hear requests for more PD.  We assume teachers want “how-to” technology professional development.  What they are really trying to say is “I am not comfortable using technology and I want help becoming more comfortable.”  What a technology coach needs to do is help teachers learn how to learn technology.

You can learn any technology if you know/do the following basic steps:

1. Sign up with a separate “junk” email account, which you’ll use only for trying out new online tools.  If you like the tool, you can change the email to one you regularly use, but you won’t clutter up your mailbox with garbage from those tools you try and discard.
2. Immediately SAVE your work after you start.  For most programs, this means that the software will now start automatically saving your work at regular intervals.  If you don’t do this you run the risk of losing all your work if the program crashes, not just the last minute of work since the last automatic save.
3. If you are using desktop software, when you make significant changes, save a second copy, so that you have a backup file if you “destroy” your work in some way (or lose a flash drive).  If you do that, it’s easier to feel like it’s OK to experiment.
4. Find the next most important menu item/toolbar button after save — undo.   You’re a smart person and you can figure it out.  Just start clicking on each of the buttons on the toolbar and see what happens.  If you don’t like what the result is, hit undo.
5. Finally, make sure you find the help menu/toolbar button.  If you have something specific you want to accomplish, check the help menu.  For many online tools especially, this is often created by users just like you, and sometimes is even in the form of videos so you can watch and learn.

Baby Steps to a PLN (NOT)

I keep reading about how invaluable a PLN (personal learning network) can be on all the blogs I read.  Its been hard for me to make the jump from reader/lurker to commenter within my RSS reader.  All of the bloggers mentioned Twitter as the best way to build a PLN.

So I decided that building a PLN on Twitter would be a summer project.  It’s become a bit more of a need than a want in recent weeks, as I am unexpectedly job hunting (budget cuts).  So I need to learn how to network.  But I also trust it will be a valuable learning tool far far in to the future.

I started by following a hashtag for an edtech conference (ISTE) while it was in session.  OMG!  It was like building a PLN on steroids.  I’m following something like 500 people and they are twittering madly, not just about resources and sessions from the conference, but also about lunch plans, inside jokes, goals scored in the World Cup, etc.

I’ve attended a lot of conferences, but I am not a good networker.  I am actually a bit shy and introverted, especially if I don’t have a clear role (or my role is audience member and therefore I’m supposed to be quiet unless called on).  Usually  I don’t really talk to that many people at a conference.  People who know me are probably double checking that this really is my blog because they know me as a  talker in my day-to-day life.  But at a conference I’m an introvert.  In the past I’ve always been a happy camper going to sessions and exploring the booths on my own, and talking to the occasional person as I wait in line with them or sit next to them in a session.  But attending this conference virtually, via Twitter, broadened my horizons.

Twitter almost seems built for introverts to help us network.    It’s better than being a wallflower at a party and overhearing all the conversations, because you can just jump in and no one turns around and gives you “that look” that lets you know you’re not included.   My first post was actually a RT, agreeing with another speaker.  Baby steps.  But all of the ideas from the conference accelerated my networking skills and soon I was participating.

After listening in for a while, a tweet passed that made me think.

Just for fun I responded.  What I previously found overwhelming, the stream of information, is actually freeing.  I have a “role” during this conference — newbie — and that helps me be a bit more extroverted.   Amidst all these tweets I believed I would  get lost and I was OK with that — I had still taken the first step in building a PLN.

What surprised me was that the conference presenter (not the person who tweeted, a fellow learner) but the actual presenter,  responded to me.

Even more surprising within a few days I was helping somebody by answering a question.  By observing all of the other participants tweets, I had learned that PLNs require both give and take to keep them going.

The last few days have been like a crash course on PLN building.  I couldn’t help but participate, largely because my introvert barriers to participation were down.   As an introvert I thought I might be a wallflower forever.   But to my surprise, I wasn’t ignored — I was welcomed!   In addition to the above exchange, 20 different people took the time to send me a direct message, welcoming me and responding to other newbie questions I had tweeted.

I’m looking forward to continuing to get to know them on Twitter so that we build the kind of relationships I observed at the beginning of my Twitter escapade — those with inside jokes and family pictures interspersed between the professional networking.  Join me so that we both can build our networks of professionals to learn from.

Making Help Signals

Computer SOS

Regardless of the age or politeness of your students, they will yell your name when they need help at the computer. Since the computer can’t move, they “can’t” either. So the normally quiet hand-raiser or the help-seeker who approaches your desk will sit at the computer and yell. This is especially true if the lab is arranged in a u-shape and their backs are to you.

What you need is a silent help signal. With computers it’s especially important to be able to prioritize the “can’t move on without help” over the “am I doing it right?” requests.  Otherwise you spend time validating the anxious and not enough time supporting the students who really need your help.  Since most students will just sit at the computer, waiting for you to help, you need a way to determine how to prioritize.

Create a triangular prism out of card stock (like a Toblerone box).  Color one side red (I’m completely stuck), one side yellow (bit o help) and green (I’m on a roll all on my own).  This can rest on top of the computer monitor and give students a visual way to signal how things are going.  You can easily see who needs your help and how much help they need at a glance.  Of course, you have to train them to turn the sign back to green if they solve their problem independently or if another student helps or you can “waste” time checking on students who no longer need your help.  On the other hand, that offers you an an opportunity for you to praise their independent problem-solving skills and there can never be enough praise in the classroom.

If you create a simpler version, just card stock folded in half with only red and yellow sides, you can stack them up like name tents for easy portability to the computer lab.  Students can just lay them flat on the monitor when it’s green for go.

With a  flat-screen monitor it gets a little harder, but maybe you can get monitor clips and use colored cards.  Clips cost money of course, but maybe you can get a computer supply store or an office to donate the clips.  Unlike the prism or name tent variation, the clips can be multipurpose.  They are really helpful when the students are typing something they have previously handwritten or to keep directions easily within view.

One year I tried plastic cups (red, green & yellow).  Students were supposed to just stack them, open side down,  so the appropriate color was on the top.  But I don’t recommend it — there are all kinds of fun things to do with plastic cups that were pretty distracting.  Well, live and learn!

Tips for Computer Lab Management

Monopoly 4 Teachers

Go directly to the Computer Lab.  Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

Teachers often are afraid to take their class to the computer lab because it  seems chaotic.   Classroom management in a computer lab is completely different than it is in a regular classroom.  It’s especially scary if you are not personally comfortable with computers.  What will you do if something doesn’t work?

I consider myself technologically literate, but I learned the hard way that being a computer literate USER doesn’t necessarily translate to being a great computer literacy INSTRUCTOR.  So, for those of you who have been putting off taking your students to the computer lab, I thought I would share some of my hard-learned tips here.  The two biggest challenges are helping students who lack computer skills and monitoring improper usage.

Need for Hand-Holding

Students need a different kind of support to help them with computer-based activities than they do with paper/pencil tasks.  This is especially true if your students aren’t computer literate or the community is on the wrong side of the digital divide.  They need a lot of hand-holding because they are afraid of  doing it wrong.  You’re faced with all these kids saying “my computer doesn’t work” and “I don’t know what to do” and the next thing you know you’re running around in a frenzy trying to help them all one by one.  And it’s not just a few students who want your help.  A 2003 survey of incoming Colorado State University  students found 52% of students prefer to learn new technologies in a one-to-one situation (only 28% prefer a class).  And to make it worse, those students who are waiting for you will quickly become helpless, so that they can do what they want to do on the computers, saying “I kept calling and you didn’t come to help me.”

Leads to Off Task Behavior

Students who are stuck, or those who see an opportunity while your back is turned, would rather check personal e-mail, play games or watch NBA video highlights than do the assigned work.  Kids who don’t have regular computer access find it really difficult to avoid these forbidden things once they finally have some screen time.

This is hardly surprising.  Think about it –what’s the first thing you do when you sit down to the computer?   I bet it’s similar to one of the things on the student off-task list above.  The pre-teen and teen years are all about social connections, so why are we surprised/frustrated that that’s the way students want to use computers?  Good teachers are proactive about solving these two main problems:

Lab Management Tips

• bring your own lab rules poster and review it
• provide clear step by step directions to EACH student
• SOS signal — create an indicator to sit on top of monitor to indicate student’s need for computer help
• learn (and perhaps teach) some easy “broken computer” troubleshooting
• group students with least comfortable nearest you and put the most computer literate at the ends of rows or every 5 students or so
• do a small group training of your most technologically literate students the day before so they can act as teaching assistants
• allow play time at the end (if you stay on task for X minutes, you can earn Y minutes of computer free time)

I’ll update links to each of these posts in the series as they are written.

Do you have management tips to add?

The Digital Bluestocking’s Mission

Mind the Gap –

This post is the first one in a new blog where teachers can discuss technology integration in schools struggling on the wrong side of the digital divide.

The Digital Bluestocking’s purpose is to generate support for teachers who want to create a rigorous, academic, digital culture in schools where teachers, families and students are not comfortable with computers because of limited access.

My goal is to reflect on the challenges and successes of integrating technology in my classroom, in the hopes of motivating other teachers to work with me to bridge the achievement gap and close the digital divide.

Let’s not just mind the gap, let’s erase it!