cteachr's thinking space

As I come to the end of my MET journey, I thought I’d leave with an excerpt from my essay. The title is: Are computers making us stupid? The deskilling of Canadian students.

The concluding paragraph: In Technological Literacy and the Curriculum Apple states that technological changes are really changes in relationships. Is this not the crux of the question that I posed in the title of this article? Is the reason we perceive today’s students as being less intelligent since the introduction of technology in the classroom not as simple as acknowledging that there has been a change in our relationship to technology? Micheal Wesch explained it so eloquently in his video The Machine is us/ing us. Once we accept that this shift has occurred, we can start to understand its implications in education today. Teachers must evolve their methods to include digital literacy, critical thinking skills and a return to distributed learning and constructivism. Traditional methods of assessment must evolve to consider the many literacies and new skill set needed to function in a technologically charged environment. Without these shifts, students are no further ahead than if they were to sit in a room with every bit of information known to man and be expected to come out years later fully equipped to take their place as functional and productive citizens, only to find the world has changed immeasurably while they were in their learning incubator. This is the stuff of experiments, not real life.

I know many of you have watched some of Wesch’s videos in your MET courses and you may have been impacted by them as I have. As I drew up my bibliography last night, I was sitting beside my 20 yr old daughter so I decided to ask her to watch another Wesch video “A vision of students today”. Her response was to upload the link to FB and share it with her (377) “friends”. These are the comments that were posted on her page:

T – This video never even mentioned drinking… what’s school without drinking?
A – it’s not about drinking. it’s about how technology has taken over class rooms and using chalkboards is obsolete
K – what it should be about is how everything we learn from a proff we can learn from a book … all you need is a library…
AB – Maybe professors should be allowed to set off EMPs before class.
P – our sad reality –
A – is it sad for reality and society to evolve? why stay in the past with chalk and books when literally every resource we need is now online. we write more e-mails than we do essays. c’mon. it would be sad for us to not utilize our tools from our generation

I’ll let you guess which comments were made by my daughter (the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree). Why do I bring this up at this point in my journey? Because we must never lose sight that we are studying, implementing, integrating, using technology in our teaching for the benefit of the students. We have a duty to understand their needs as well as the tools that are available to fill those needs. The difficult issue with technology is that we are no longer sure if it has not artificially created those needs or whether we are witnessing the natural evolution that occurs whenever a new tool is introduced and becomes widely accepted,  no more radical than the shift from orality to writing (said tongue in cheek). I can only assert that technology is not neutral.

Lastly, thank you to all of my colleagues for their valuable contribution to my education.  These discussions have been my classroom and library, my soapbox and almost constant companion since September 2009.  I wish you all the best in your learning journey.

This week’s reading and assignment has taken us into considerations of how to build communication opportunities into our online Moodle course.  Anderson states that once the teacher has established the content and direction of the course, the second step of  “teaching involves devising and implementing activities to encourage discourse between and among students, between the teacher and the student, and between individual students, groups of students, and content resources”. (Anderson, p. 345)  It is here that we begin the task of designing communication opportunities, both synchronous and asynchronous, to facilitate this interaction between students and their community of learning, as well as between teacher and students.  This is an important distinction between an online course and a tutorial, where little interaction, and more importantly, little feedback is possible.  The online course allows assessment and feedback such that the course can evolve to suit the needs of individual students (Anderson, p. 346).  The students therefore begin to take ownership for their learning.  This is truly self-directed learning.

As a starting point to designing my course, I thought I’d revisit previous courses I wrote on Blackboard about 8 yrs ago as well courses I wrote for the Min of Education more recently.  As I read Anderson, I felt I had overlooked many opportunities to add assessment into my course designs.  This seemed like a good time to re-invent or at least improve on the wheel.  I asked one of my students to show me an online course she just started last week to see if any new features had been added to the design.  Our board uses Blackboard to host the content of courses written by teachers for the Ministry of  Education.  I recognized the format I had used in courses I wrote.

The student took me through the course as we searched for opportunities for discussion and feedback.  Sadly, no opportunities were provided other than an email link to all students and the teacher.  I asked if she would be able to see her grades and she answered that she could call the teacher or email her for any mark she wanted to see.  It was clear to me that the student had not realized the power of assessment for learning, rather than of learning.  Lastly, I asked how she was introduced to the course.  She stated that she had a short f2f meeting with the online teacher to show her the course environment and answer any initial questions.

From this knowledge, I tried to improve the format I used in previous designs.  The course I chose for Moodle is grade 11 Marketing.  I am teaching this class this semester.  In the past, students have been difficult to engage in this class simply because it’s been a mix of keen Business students with some who see it as a filler course.  Unfortunately, optional courses don’t always attract the most academic students.  My challenge has been to create meaningful activities and allow for discussion in a group that doesn’t listen well or structure their ideas very well.  Giving everyone an opportunity to join the discussion is an important aspect to building communications opportunities.  The other design consideration is offering short answer assignments mixed with group projects to balance the demands made on students who are not terribly literate in the traditional sense.  Discussion questions are well suited to thoughtful consideration and opinion giving in a safe environment.  Anderson refers to research from Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000) in his model for online learning, of which one of the components, social learning, requires ” establishing a supportive environment such that students feel the necessary degree of comfort and safety to express their ideas in a collaborative context…” (Anderson, p. 344)

The elements I have built into my course are as follows:

Asynchronous discussion:

• Icebreaker – student get to introduce themselves by researching their name and creating their own slogan to reveal themselves to the class.  I have posted the first entry as an example and in an effort to show a more approachable side.

• Discussion – an introductory discussion on a current topic, the Vancouver Olympics, allows students to experience discussion boards and state their hypothesis on how things are done in the advertising business.  This brings in previous knowledge, another element in establishing a safe environment.  The opportunity for peer to peer communication is an added feature to all discussion groups.

• Regularly Scheduled Discussion – each week, students are to view an episode of Dragon’s Den and answer the posted questions.  This allows students to plan their learning time and get used to answering short answer questions using terminology they have covered in the chapter.

• Group Discussion – an assignment on Product Life Cycle asks students to answer questions related to the chapter and comment on at least 2 other assignments created by other discussion group members.  The groups are set up to reflect varied abilities.  It would be difficult to set up groups until at least 2-3 weeks into the course if you plan to group students according to ability rather than randomly.

• Ask the teacher – the important panic button for all students.  It also serves the  function of allowing student to find answers to problems between themselves while waiting for the teacher to respond.  Students are encouraged to check her for answers in this section before they contact the teacher.  It is my hope to build a FAQ section in future iterations of the course.

Synchronous Communication:

Finally, an opportunity is given for a chat session in the form of a Q & A session with a guest speaker.  This is scheduled a little further on in the course as part of the career exploration expectations in the curriculum.  The teacher will lead the discussion, followed by an open question period from the students.  It would be a good idea to have each student prepare a question before the actual chat session to improve the amount and quality of the questions.

You can find my Moodle course at http://moodle.met.ubc.ca/course/view.php?id=118.

References:

Anderson, T. (2008). Teaching in an Online Learning Context.  In: Anderson, T. & Elloumi, F. Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Athabasca University. Accessed online 3 March 2009 http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/14_Anderson_2008_Anderson-DeliveryQualitySupport.pdf

I’ve just finished reading the seven principles of good practice as assigned in this section.  I haven’t got to the Bates and Poole reading yet.  Maybe it’s just that my day started of with finding my car had been vandalized or maybe it’s just that we are at the end of the semester and the rush is on to get as many students to catch up and get the credit, maybe it’s finding students continually disregard school property as they destroy school computers, bit by bit (because they are old and slow and kids today have little respect for what they don’t own or what is not the latest technology) but… I am not very excited about what I am reading so far.

On a day like this, it all seems irrelevant that I make every effort to ensure that students try new ways to express their work, that differentiated learning and experiential learning are the norm in my class, that feedback comes from me not just in the form of a mark on a test but also in questions on discussion boards and comments about their answers.  Never mind that I use the computer to show the latest episode of Dragon’s Den so the class can discuss relevant examples or that I use episodes of The Apprentice to model good (and bad) group dynamics.  And I won’t even mention the many, many little chats I have, outside the classroom (sometimes via email) with students about what they are trying to accomplish (either with their good or bad behaviour) and what I am trying to teach them in my own style (respecting curriculum expectations, of course).

On a day like today, when I find myself hurriedly printing off copied notes for them to memorize so they can pass the final (because they didn’t settle down enough to let me teach all the material or the blasted flu caused so many absences), I shake my head and think:  “Who cares about technology?  They don’t see it as educational, they see it as a way to pass the time until the bell rings and they can get out of there (with the credit, I might add).  Gaddddddd!!!!!!!

What I am trying to say is that I think I am missing something here.  I feel like I am reaching my students less and less every year.  Are the students changing?  Am I getting too old?  Is the technology in our school outgrown?  We all know that a child’s mind is like a sponge.  I am delivering the content using as many approaches as I know how, adapting as quickly as I can.  Yet I feel as if I don’t know the magic password for them to open their minds to this information.  Is it that their minds are too cluttered with the many stimuli they are receiving at any given moment? (Not to mention the effects of teenage hormones.)

Where and what is the key then?  I guess I’d better continue my reading.

The NETS standards read much like my school board’s professional development policies, combined with the Ontario Ministry of Education’s graduate expectations.  I feel somehow familiar with the text as if I have measured myself against these standards recently, both while applying to the MET program and more recently when applying for a teaching job in a NATO school.  It’s difficult to sell yourself for a job unless you are very familiar with your strengths and have a good idea of what direction to take to fill in the blanks in your resume.

Professional Development has been a priority of mine since I started teaching in the 1990s.  I was constantly told that I had an affinity for technology so I seemed to naturally position myself in that field.  At the time, the field was wide open, with very little curriculum being available.  The career path was simple enough – do what few others can and do it well.  And so, through mostly intuition, I started accumulating as many skills and experiences as I could to achieve my career goals.

Many years later, I can now articulate, with the use of educational terminology, the strengths and weaknesses I can identify in my education and experience.

I am very comfortable with the flow of technology.  That is to say, I welcome innovation and don’t feel intimidated when my students know more than me.  It’s more a case of wondering how I can use new tools and knowledge in my classroom to keep students engaged.  Student success is a very big motivator for me.

Since I am asked to state what I hope to improve upon or accomplish in this course, I’ve made the following list:

1. I’d like to increase my knowledge of web 2.0 applications so as to synchronize my resources with my students’ ever evolving learning needs and styles.

2.  I’d like to increase my repertoire of assessment tools to align them better with today’s reality.  I often feel that students have so much to contribute, that they are more than willing to explore their creativity but the assessments don’t reflect their talent or don’t properly test their learning.  In particular, I’d like to find assessments that work with blogs and wikis.

3.  I’d like to pursue my interest in Global Citizenship through the development of a certificate program for my students.  This would include their inquiry into the cultural differences they will encounter when travelling and working abroad, their exploration of ethical issues such as environmental sustainability and hopefully will result in an increased tolerance of cultural differences both in their own community and abroad.  The use of inquiry tools, discussion boards and any other multi-media platform that allows them to articulate their findings would be promoted.  For this purpose, I need to find out as much as I can about the latest tools available to us.

4. I want to continue to position myself as a leader in educational technology within my school board and be a valuable contributor to the learning communities I have joined.  Our board has created a Ning where some of our brightest tech savvy teachers contribute.  Not only do I have to keep up, I want to continue the leadership role I have already established.

5.  Last goal, and certainly not the least, I want to participate in this process because it is so intellectually stimulating.  And if I am happy, then it is reflected in my professional activities as well. The joy of teaching is enhanced by the joy of learning!