But here’s the best part… this is one of the coolest things ever to play with on a Smartboard. Like Google Earth, it cries out to be tried on a large interactive touchable surface. I know it’s summer vacation for many, but bookmark this for when school starts up again.

Let’s talk education… you probably can’t bring this into most classrooms, which is unfortunate. The clip sizes are perfect for grabbing the right amount of attention. Followed up by a round of discourse, it could an awesome opportunity for learning. YouTube has brutal honesty. PBS has quality content. VBS.tv brings it together. And older kids will get it like nothing else. If you can bring this into the classroom, embed the videos. And kudos to you. There is some R-rated stuff on the site. Like life itself.

Wesley Fryer was kind enough to podcast the talk and post it to his blog. I’ve posted the Powerpoint at Slideshare here. Here are some of the concepts I’ve been working through:

1. I believe technology can greatly assist learning by scaffolding learning at different levels. Kids, as much as NCLB would like to have you believe, do not all learn at the same level. I brought this up by going back to the Herrnstein and Murray’s The Bell Curve. It’s not that I like what the book concludes, but I do see statistical facts for what they are. And to force a common testing paradigm on kids across all intelligence levels is simply criminal. As mentioned in a previous post, kids with high intelligence need the opportunities to excel, and kids with low intelligence need proper scaffolding and support the the smarter kids can offer. In the adult world, we work together as a community, finding a place for everyone at all levels (at least we should). We collaborate in order to bring out the strengths in everyone. And we don’t compare each through test taking (except the few weirdos who get into Mensa . I never even got to the considerations of multiple intelligences, such as the very important topic of how Emotional Intelligence factors into learning. More posts on how technology can help in that arena later.

2. Engagement is key. Kids today have found technology engages and they are going to great lengths to get their hands on it. During a visit to EA Games in California a couple of years ago, A question was asked about the increasing incidence of Attention Deficit Disorder and computer gaming. The response from one gaming programmer: “We don’t really see that as an issue. A kid will sit and concentrate on a game for 17 hours in a week.” Technology has tremendous power to engage students. A wonderful report recently released by the National School Boards Association (I will post in further detail later) makes a fundamental shift in U.S. education thinking about online social networking: this is not something to be ignored. Kids are using it, learning from it, and schools need to be thinking of ways to engage students with it. Online social networking tools can be summed up in one word: participation. Participation through creative activities online. Students are engaged when they participate and technology makes it happen.

3. How do we move away from our current paradigm of teaching that increasingly ignores differences in how students learn and fails to keep up with emerging technologies that are capturing the undivided attention of kids today? Change must take place in our schools. Change is not an easy process in educational reform, but the K20 Center has found a way that can move a school in the right direction. Development of Professional Learning Communities has found student achievement increases as well as reforms in teaching practice. This is a school-wide cultural change that brings action research into the classrooms, leading to adoption of new pedagogies. But here’s the icing on the cake: technology makes a wonderful catalyst for change. The year-long work of the K20 Center in schools, using technology as a catalyst for change, has proven to be highly effective. And all this without adding content or pushing for more test preparation.

I only take issue with one aspect of the OK-ACTS program: the technology going into the schools has one wonders to engage students, but it has been primarily by taking existing curriculum and presenting it in new and engaging ways. Instead of a lecture, the teachers are making Powerpoint presentations and showing them on Smartboards. They are getting feedback using student response systems. This is not across the board. Some teachers are increasing student participation in the learning process by having the students create the Powerpoints, but it still fails to engage them at their level.

I’m working on it. But I need to find more research on how creativity can raise student achievement. Yuck. I hate having to revert to finding methods that increase test scores, but until NLCB leaves the learning alone, I’ll work with the system. Kudos to Marco Torres for bucking the system. I wish it were so easy for the majority of teachers.

In the short-sighted effort to bring low achievers up to par with other students, it has made it possible for our best students to spiral into low achievement. This is not democratic education. These are the children that have the most potential to be out next leaders. It is that leadership role that we should cultivate in these students.

Admittedly, that takes pretty special grooming. And that’s not to say that our leaders only come from the brightest, but we tend to like it that way and statistically, it happens. The article’s author, John Cloud, likes the unique schools and grade skipping to help the highest achievers. And as a short term solution to get our education system fixed, I would agree. But we can do better.

As we look down the road to education reform, or just look into exemplary schools like the MET School in Providence, project-based learning dominates. Students work on individual projects and collaboration exists to provide peer support. That creates an environment for leadership development. The MET works. Individual project-based learning works.

At the MET, kids enter at all levels. It’s not just a school of high achieving students. In fact, it’s important that there be a mix. Leadership development doesn’t come from throwing a bunch of bright kids together and expecting them all to come out leaders. There must be the opportunity, naturally, to lead.

High achieving students showing by example and providing elaborate descriptive support to middle achievers. Middle achievers doing the same for low achievers. It needs to trickle down a step at a time. This is described in Noreen Webb’s paper (1991)* on collaborative groups in mathematics. She summarizes what happens to learning when you mix kids into groups:

1. High achievers + Middle achievers + Low achievers = Less effective. (High achievers end up helping low achievers with too simple explanations and middle achievers are left out. High achievers don’t get to excel at elaborate explanations which strengthen their own learning.)
2. High achievers + High achievers = Less effective. (High achievers don’t talk since they assume they all know the answers.)
3. Low achievers + Low achievers = Less effective. (They can’t adequately provide explanations to each other.)
4. Middle achievers + Middle Achievers = Effective.
5. High achievers + Middle Achievers = Very Effective. (High achievers can use elaborate explanations to provide support, strengthening their own learning.)
6. Middle achievers + Low Achievers = Very Effective. (Middle achievers explain to low achievers strengthening their own learning.)

Instead of isolation or grade skipping (individual project-based learning is grade neutral), let’s allow them to do their own projects and give them opportunities to foster their leadership development.

*Task-Related Verbal Interaction and Mathematics Learning in Small Groups, Noreen M. Webb, Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, Vol. 22, No. 5 (Nov., 1991), pp. 366-389

First of all, Dimitri A. Christakis, MD, writes a thought provoking editorial in the same journal as the paper entitled, “What to Do About the New and Growing Digital Divide?” Christakis writes:

We may be alarmed by the fact that 1 in 3 children report having friends that they have never met in person. This simple statistic reveals just how the Internet has changed children’s social networks.

We also may be alarmed that the majority of children shared personal information online including their real name, phone number, and address. We may be alarmed that 20% of children reported unwanted interpersonal victimization online.

Should we be alarmed? Perhaps. In an earlier post I describe being online is like being in a big city with the red light district just around the corner. Kids will peek down those streets. Some will even venture onto them. And some will try to slip in the doors. The world is changing. There have always been kids that have lived in big cities with red light districts. As parents, many of us have avoided those neighborhoods for a reason. But today, the neighborhoods are coming to us. It’s time we teach our kids responsible street behavior, just like parents and teachers do in big cities. Christakis continues:

Online victimization appears to be about as prevalent as in-person bullying, suggesting that it is not a new or added harassment but rather uses a different format.

The most salient risk factors for victimization found in the study by Ybarra et. al. are just what parents might expect: talking about sex with someone known only online and being rude or nasty oneself. The ways children put themselves at risk in the virtual world appears to mirror the ways they do in the real one.

So, if a door swings open and a child gets an “unintentional” peek at the dark side of bedroom behavior, what happens? What emotional trauma occurs? Well, actually, no one really knows. The Ybarra summary report admits:

There is still no research that sheds light on whether, how, or under what circumstances involuntary exposure to pornography may trigger adverse responses in youth. Clearly the extent of exposure is great enough that even if adverse effects occur to only a small fraction of youth, the numbers in absolute terms could be fairly large. Researchers in the field of sexual development do not know whether there are important “primacy effects” relating to early exposure of youth to sexual material or what the effects of such exposures might be on
anxieties, normative standards, or patterns of arousal in some youth (Escobar-Chaves, et al., 2005; Rich, 2005).

Hmm …interesting, especially since research does show lack of sexual knowledge has been shown to lead to sexual dysfunction. I’m not advocating children intentionally be exposed to pornography, but I do think we should be taking into account our own cultural bias towards sexuality when we begin wondering what harm unintentional exposure might cause. Much of Europe, for example, is very open-minded when it comes to sexuality.

The summary report concludes to say:

Obviously we need to look more closely at this problem to identify additional tools to decrease unwanted exposures.

I’m going to disagree. Pouring money into ineffective software solutions (i.e. “tools”), threats to ISPs, and mandates into public institutions to protect our children perpetuates the fear-based strategies we’ve been following since the first YISS. We need to shift strategies and teach responsible use and street smarts as kids venture out into the internet. Take a clue from Europe.

Can I have my *french* fries now?

Here’s what I really like about it:

1. It’s kid classroom friendly. A teacher can create one account with her email, then create separate identities with photos for each kid. Awesome! No need to create separate student accounts!
2. It’s easy to use. The layout is minimal, clean, and intuitive.

Check it out and let me know what you’ve created! Willow and I created this one today. Register and leave her a comment!

I thought this might be a good start to sharing these strategies, so here goes…

Topic: Online Advertising
Time to teach: 10-60 seconds.
Ages: 5-8
Content area: Information Literacy
Method: Glance over your child’s shoulder occasionally while he/she is online. Ask to point out the online ads. Make a game of it. Strengthen the concepts by explaining how you recognize ones he/she misses. This also reinforces positive POS (parent over shoulder) experiences which will be important later.

Having students create and present what they are learning is a highly effective teaching strategy. Web connected students have a community that goes well beyond the classroom. They have the potential to engage with a global audience, one of the themes of Alan November’s BLC conference, which becomes a powerful student engagement strategy.

Powerpoint presentations are a common teaching and learning tool used both by teachers and students. I have often found Powerpoint to be a modified high tech version of the old didactic teaching paradigm when used by some teachers, but it can become a powerful teaching tool if used creatively. I’ll post more on creative uses of Powerpoint in the future, but do want to introduce one creative and powerful tool: Slideshare.

Slideshare provides an easy way to post Powerpoints. The slide show is converted to a Flash object that can be viewed on any web connected platform. A voice annotation feature makes slidecasts easy, although the voice file must be uploaded elsewhere. For classrooms using Powerpoint, Slideshare is a great way to have students share their knowledge and receive feedback on the Slideshare website or through embedding the slideshow in a blog.

Besides a great tool for students, I would highly recommend teachers use Slideshare to share their own Powerpoints. Students can review the presentations without needing the Powerpoint application. Combine it with a classroom blog!