education reform – Page 9 – iLearn Technology

Stories of Learning: Antarctica Inquiry Unit and the Power of Twitter

July 14, 2010Kelly Tenkely1 Comment1031 views

In addition to iLearn Technology, I keep two other blogs (about to add another): Dreams of Education and Stories of Learning. Stories of Learning isn’t really my blog, it’s your blog. It is a place to share what is working in education. I don’t plan to post my original work often. It is a place to collect and gather guest posts and re-posts of what you are doing every day in the classroom that transforms learning. The most recent post is a must see, it is from edublogger alliance member Henrietta Miller and is a re-post of a post that she wrote for her excellent blog, Classroom Chronicles. This story of learning is about an inquiry unit that Henrietta did with her students about Antarctica, as you will read, the learning stretches far beyond your typical unit on Antarctica thanks to the Power of Twitter.

If you have a story of learning you would like to share as a guest post or as a re-post, let me know about it via my contact form here.

TED Talk Tuesday: Games and Fun

July 13, 2010July 14, 2010Kelly Tenkely6 Comments4806 views

In today’s TED Talk Tuesday, Jane McGonigal offers the premise that games (video games) can change the world in meaningful and positive ways.

She builds her case convincingly. I am currently reading Daniel Pink’s book Drive. There are some similar ties between the two ideas. Blissful productivity, we are more productive when we do things that we have to work at, and think about. When we have some direction and there is meaning behind it.

The principles learned through gaming can be used to solve real world problems. I can’t help but wonder what implications this line of thought has for education. How can we change the daily school “game” so that students don’t just sit on the sidelines, but experience “epic wins”. We all want to know that what we do matters and matters deeply. Games give us this feeling that what we are doing is having an important effect.

Learning should be an act of play. It seems to me that if we can tell a difference between learning and play we aren’t doing one of the right. Consider babies in any species, how do they learn to do life? Through play.

I’m not sure that I can envision what this looks like in the practical sense in the school setting. But I think that McGonigal has something here. What do you think, what could games and fun do for education? How can we use from what we know about games to change education and, in doing so, change the world?

ISTE 10 Recap: From Add-on Technology to Essential Technology: Constructing a 1-to-1 Aware Curriculum

July 7, 2010Kelly Tenkely7 Comments4319 views

One of the sessions I attended at the ISTE 10 conference was Elliott Soloway and Cathie Norris’s entitled: “From Add-on Technology to Essential Technology: Constructing 1-to-1 Aware Curriculum”. It is hard to go wrong with a session by Elliott Soloway, his humor is contagious.

I was interested in this session because I am currently working on a proposal for a 1-to-1 iPad pilot program and study for next year. I came away with some new perspectives on mobile technologies that I will share at the end of the post. To begin, here is the gist of the session:

“Within 5 years every child in every grade will be learning with mobile technology, it will be bigger than the Internet”- Elliott Soloway
There are 7 billion people on the planet and 4 billion mobile devices.
The greatest challenge we face as educators is to teach ALL kids. We need to teach kids “brain jobs” not “back jobs”. This is 21st Century skills and content.
“Right now looking at all the school data is just like moving deck chairs around on the Titanic.” – Elliott Soloway
Mobile technology is the game changer.
In Singapore, Nan Chi Primary school saw a significant increase in tests scores after introducing smart phones in the 3rd grade science classroom.
In a classroom using 1 to 1 mobile devices, not a single child failed to turn in a single homework assignment all year. Why did that happen? Because they are engaged.
Time on task = success
The tools have to be used as essential tools, not supplementary. Supplementing with technology doesn’t move the needle. Essential means that technology is in hand 24/7 students have complete access to the tool. Essential means that students are actively engaged in doing and creating. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t other tools being used.
Most things can be done on a mobile phone device.
Mobile devices connect students to the real world. Learning doesn’t end when school does.
When you look closely at the studies that show that technology has no impact, you will see that it is because technology was used as a supplement.
Technology should be like oxygen, invisible but essential.
Mobile devices like the cell phone are ideal because the cost of the device is $0 and what you pay for is the connectivity. It is a cheap solution.
It is about the kids, not the technology. Let them use their own tools.
Mobile devices are growing at a rate of 50% a year, this is the fastest growing technology. We used to tell teachers to get on the technology bus, now we have to say get on the technology bullet train because it is moving!
Elliott mentioned that he doesn’t think that the iPad has a place as a learning device. His reasoning is that it isn’t what kids are using. He argues that kids are using cellphones and mobile devices, that the iPad isn’t natural for them.

Elliott was an excellent presenter. He made some great points about using cellphone technology in the classroom. I have to disagree with his assessment that the iPad isn’t a good device for kids. While I like the idea of using cellphone technology and just paying for connectivity, it isn’t what every classroom needs. The conclusion that I kept coming to is that no classroom situation is the same. While an inner city school with low access to technology and resources might benefit best from a smart phone for learning, it might not make the same sense in a suburban school with more ubiquitous technology access. In a poorer neighborhood you will find homes that lack wireless Internet access, putting an iPad in the hands of those kids might not be as successful as giving them a cellphone that they could use to access a cellular data network. But in a wealthier, suburban neighborhood where wireless Internet is around every corner, an iPad is the perfect device. What I realized is that there can be no one-size-fits-all approach to education. One solution isn’t going to solve the education problems of the world. We need to look at each population and each classroom and choose the solution that makes the most sense for that instance. Education has to be tailored to the individuals, not the masses.

Soloway is right, we keep trying to make the data tell us a new story. Policy makers implement new standards and tests as a way to save education. But that is like moving deck chairs around on the Titanic. Sure things look different, but it is still a sinking ship. We need to cut our losses and build a new ship all together. That new ship should be tailored to fit the needs of the students who are boarding it. For some that means mobile phone technology, for others iPads, and for some netbooks. I can argue all day long for the benefits of the iPad in learning but when we get right down to it, the reason I hold that view is because it is perfect for the student population I work with. It makes sense in our situation. That may or may not be true of you.

To learn more about the session visit here.

Ten Ways to Boost Learning with Technology

TED Talk Tuesday: Tom Wujec Build a Tower, Build a Team

June 22, 2010Kelly Tenkely4 Comments2597 views

The group that consistently fails at the marshmallow task: recent graduates of business school.
Business students are trained to find the single right plan and then execute it. The problem with this strategy is that they wait for the last minute to add their marshmallow to the top of the structure and when their plan fails, it is a crisis.
The group that consistently succeeds at the marshmallow task: recent graduates of kindergarten.
Kindergarten students start with a model and they build successive prototypes of their structure. They always keep their marshmallow on top. They have multiple opportunities to refine their structure until it is working. With each version of the prototype, students are getting instant feedback about what works and what doesn’t and they can adjust accordingly.
Kids don’t spend time trying to be CEO of Spaghetti Inc. They aren’t jockeying for power, they are working together creatively and having fun.

What stands out to me about the data that Tom Wujec shares, is not that architects and engineers build the best towers (as he says, we would expect that), but that kindergartners are not very far behind. This makes me wonder about what important things we are deprogramming kids to do as we send them through the education system. If the education system was really working, I would expect that adults would be able to construct the best, highest towers. I would expect that those with the most education would build the best towers. But as we see, this isn’t the case. In school we teach students that everything has a correct answer. Sometimes that answer means filling in the “c” on a bubble test, and sometimes it means getting your teacher to nod and say “that’s right”. School has become a game of “guess what the teacher is thinking”. As a result, we have students who can come up with one correct solution to any problem. In the real world, we often need more than one right solution. Many times we need several solutions and creative thinking applied to the problem. Our most recent example of this is the BP oil spill. I can’t help but wonder what great solutions kindergartners would come up with that adults aren’t even considering because we have been deprogrammed to think that way.
What does this mean for schools? It means that we need more opportunities for students to explore multiple solutions to a problem, it means that we offer kids the chance to discuss and stop asking the one answer questions all the time. Sometimes there is one correct answer, but in life that isn’t always the case. Students need to be given the chance to explore both options.

(As a side note, it is interesting to me that when the incentive of a prize was offered, not one team had a standing structure. I am working my way through Daniel Pink’s book Drive right now and it mirrors what he says in the book.)

TED Talk Tuesday: Tim Brown urges designers to think big

June 15, 2010June 15, 2010Kelly Tenkely3 Comments3314 views

Today’s #edchat discussion on Twitter was all about training kids as critical thinkers. I believe that we are losing students as critical thinkers because in our current model of education, where we are standardizing education with tests, we teach kids that there is one correct answer to every question. We limit their thinking to what we have already determined is an acceptable answer to the question. This is extremely limiting. Critical thinking means that we aren’t satisfied with the easy answer, we think about multiple solutions to the problem and even think of additional questions. We approach a problem differently, more creatively.

In today’s TED Talk, Tim Brown talks about his journey in design and his tendency to think about problems on a small scale, limiting himself to the obvious answers and a single solution. Design wasn’t always this way, design used to be big. Design thinking solves problems and works to create world changing innovations. It seems to me that there is a strong correlation with what Tim refers to as Design Thinking and what we call critical thinking. Roger Martin calls this integrative thinking, the ability to exploit opposing ideas and opposing constraints to create new solutions. Isn’t this what we are asking our students to do when we are looking for critical thinking? What we really want students to do is think as designers. When I watch children who haven’t yet entered the classroom, I notice a strong correlation between the way a child thinks and the way a designer thinks. They are questioners, tinkerers, and are never satisfied with one solution.

Design thinking could be our model for critical thinking in the classroom, but beyond that design thinking could be our solution to reform in education. Exploiting opposing ideas and opposing constraints to create new solutions.

Design is human centered, it starts with what humans need or might need. It means understanding culture and context. From destination to active participation that is meaningful and productive. Value is added through collaborative experiences and not through monetary gains alone (think Twitter). In times of change we need new thinking and new ideas. We are in the midst of massive change and we need to rethink what we accept as basic fundamentals. We need new choices because our current options are becoming obsolete. We need to take a divergent approach and come up with something that hasn’t been done before. What is the question we are trying to answer? What is the design brief for education.

The first step is to start asking the right questions. (I think #edchat does an honorable job of this!) What are the right questions?