Your Digital Footprint is an Ad Campaign

I’ve taught 7th and 8th graders about their digital footprint for years. In that time they have listened and not quite believed me, despite articles and demonstrations that I think clearly show that I know what I am talking about. Luckily, I teach in a student centered learning environment that encourages (ok, REQUIRES) us to continually check and adjust our teaching so it brings us the desired results.

Did my students do well on their assessments? Sure they did. And then they went right out and did the opposite on their own time. “This calls for a change in plan,” I thought. Clearly there was a disconnect between what I assumed I was teaching and what they were learning.

The idea of a digital footprint is pretty fuzzy when you are 13. After all, who sees what you post? Nobody but those 786 friends and followers, and they would never interpret a picture in a whole different way than my students intended it be seen. I finally came up with an idea to help shift their thinking.

My students ignore a lot of advertising but they LOVE commercials…especially those that are part of a campaign.  They watch them on Youtube and talk about them regularly. I wondered if they understood that their digital footprint is actually an ongoing ad campaign that they are putting up about themselves. I decided to test it.

I started with this video made by Nike. It doesn’t have any words and it doesn’t advertise a particular product.  It’s designed to invoke feelings, emotions, and perceptions- all important elements of a student’s online reputation. I used a microblog in Edmodo to allow students to write the words they thought of when watching the video. The answers were as varied as the students and gave them a good grasp of how visuals can influence how viewers make assumptions about a product- and how those assumptions can be very different from person to person. They quickly made the leap to understanding that when it comes to a digital footprint, THEY are the product that is being advertised.

Will it change their behavior? Time will tell. I am hopeful.

Edmodo: 12 weeks later

In the infancy of this blog, I wrote a post about Edmodo. I was looking for a platform upon which to build my 7th and 8th grade class sites. The post describes the pros and the cons of using Edmodo and is still a good place to start learning about it.

I didn’t ultimately use Edmodo. I had just discovered GoogleDocs and decided to put my efforts into learning how to use Sites. Not a bad tool…but this year my needs changed and I gave Edmodo a try. The rest of this post is a synopsis of my trimester.

In a nutshell, Edmodo is a self contained classroom that looks like Facebook. There really is no learning curve for students- they get it right away. It’s easy to introduce and the workflow for students is simple- log in, check the progress pane to see where you are, and get to work.

From a teacher’s viewpoint, the advantages to Edmodo are many:

1. Notifications: Students and parents (yes, there is a parent login) can receive updates from you via text message or email. The text option has proven to be quite popular with both parents and students. I even have my notifications set so I get a text whenever someone posts something. This helps kids stay within the classroom rules that we set about what the Edmodo wall is for.

2. The Library/Backpack/Activity Stream: I often find extra resources that I’d like students to have access to outside of class. The Backpack allows me to share folders in my library that show up in the student’s backpack. The activity stream shows me who is accessing them so I can tell which ones are most readily used.

3. Differentiation Tools: You can easily create small groups within Edmodo. Have kids that need remediation? Create a group, add members, and assign work to just these students. Need more complex assignments for your students who are ahead? The same process works for them as well.

4. Progress Page: Students and parents can easily see progess. The progress page has visuals as well as links to assignments and the status of each. No more wondering if a teacher has graded an assignment and not put it into the grading software. Teachers can grade work as they review it, comment on it, link to resources etc., cutting down on the time it takes for feedback to reach students. Students can also ask questions about the assignments without having to wait to see the teacher or hoping he or she gets an email.

5. Connections to other communities: As teachers living with non-existent budgets, professional development can be hard to come by. Edmodo has subscriptions to communitites to help you bridge the gaps that budgets create. I subscribe to a smartboard group (Teq). By following a community, you get updates on YOUR page without having it show on your students’ pages. Of course, they could follow the community as well if it enhances what you do in your class. Communities and resources are well categorized which is a good thing because there are SO many of them!

6. Badges: Think of badges like virtual stickers. Even 8th graders like to collect them! They can be customized as you wish and assigned for anything- academics, work ethic, or anything else you celebrate in your classroom. Just be prepared to stay on top of it once you start doling them out!

7. Tech support: This probably should be in the number one place. Edmodo’s tech support is unsurpassed. First of all it’s done by live people in real time. I almost always get an answer to my questions within an hour of asking them- and frequently its much quicker.

Oops! They did it again….

My posts of late seem to be less about technology integration and more about my teaching philosophies. Perhaps it’s because it’s the end of the year and the big picture becomes more evident as June approaches.

Today I had two “reluctant learners” stay after school with me. One was a track athlete who had to miss a practice; the other, a creative lad who insisted that he was needed at home to put away camping gear ( a phone call home cleared the matter up- all gear had been stowed the previous night). The point of their quality time with me was to get them somewhere close to what we call “teacher pace” in our standards based environment. While students are given latitude to learn at their best speed, we hold them accountable to be somewhere within reasonable limits. These two young men were in no danger of exceeding the teacher pace speed limit.

The track athlete settled in after a meager struggle to get out of working. He has let his intelligence show on numerous occasions so it was no surprise that he was able to knock out his work. The other student was more difficult. He pulled out every evasive stop in his deep repertoire. I countered with every redirect I had and was thankful I had had a full nights sleep and a bit of patience left.

As often happens, fate (or something like it) dangled a life vest in front of me when this student started to talk about his use of Minecraft. All of a sudden a transformation occured before my eyes. This young man, reluctant to even consider the idea of writing a complete sentence, was suddenly talking about circuitry, electrical design, and the “what if” possibilities that come with creative ideas.

My quiet questioning produced a plethora of ideas from him. In the course of finding the relevancy of his interests to his learning, this young man determined that he could show what he knew about history (the firebombing during WWII), physics (using water to move other objects) and how he could simulate tectonic plate movement.

Once again- find what they love, use what they love, let them use their creativity to help them learn. My job is to help craft a system that allows them to use the tools they need to fascilitate their learning. It’s a delicate but essential balance.

One look at the energy in this young man convinces me that it’s worth the effort.

Starting at the End Point

Lisa Nielsen, creator of the Innovative Educator blog, has written a really relevant post for those of us who are evolving within a performance based learning system. This post focuses on why high school students are so disenchanted with school and offers a list of great suggestions to turn this culture of disconnection around.

I’ve been trying to put this into practice in my own classroom. The performance based system encourages this but sometimes students need a little push to see how their own strengths and fascinations can be worked into classroom projects.

I feel compelled to share the story of Brendon, an 11 yr old tech student of mine. Brendon has had a little trouble working in our “lively” classroom and while perfectly willing to attempt the work, he had little follow through. Because he did not attend the school’s field trip for his grade I had some time to work one on one with him. He shared some tech discoveries with me and while watching him describe these to me I saw the emergence of a totally different student- vibrant, engaged, intelligent and totally focused on what he was doing.

What he had discovered was an add-on to GoogleApps called Floorplanner. It’s a home design tool that stores your designs and attaches them to your googledocs for easy access. It’s not so much the tool as what he did with it.

Brendon’s Emergency Room

Brendon designed an emergency room for a hospital. Not just a square room but a 3D floorplan with a variety of different doors (he explained his criteria as well as his choices for each), an ambulance bay, a reception area and treatment rooms. He considered the traffic flow within each of the areas and arranged furniture to help keep things moving.

Keep in mind he’s 11.

Was this a part of his cyberbullying project- the work we were “supposed to be” doing? Not literally. The project involved writing a short digital story showing their understanding of cyberbullying and a way to solve a problem.

It was apparent early on that there was a lot of heavy intellectual lifting going on and that to stop him at this point would be counterproductive. We talked about how this emergency room model could fit into the story- together we decided it could be used as the setting for the story.

Will his story be great? No telling. Will his engagement in the project be higher because he had the latitude to “start at the end?” Hopefully. I’ve resolved to err on the side of relevance on this one.

TechEthics 24/7-Students Create a Code of Conduct

September is an exciting time for Maine 7th graders because they FINALLY get their own laptops. They dutifully sign the acceptable use policy (after reading it thoroughly and discussing it with their parents, of course!) and wait breathlessly for us to put that shiny white MacBook into their hands. They promise never to play games during school on it or go to inapropriate sites. Then off they go with good intentions and little understanding of ethical technology use.

Our AUP is a good first step but it’s crucial that we involve students in the development of a code of ethics for technology use. Our AUP refers to the laptop- but students have so much other technology available to them that we need to encompass it all as we teach them not only how to use it, but how to use it ethically.  My goal is to separate the expecations for behavior in school and out of school and create a culture of responsible technology use 24/7. This year this will happen on day 1.

Our school has adopted the RISC model. As part of this model students are involved in the creation of classroom codes of conduct which are referred to regularly throughout the year. We’ll be branching off of this and creating a Technology Code of Ethics to help guide students to make good decisions when no one is there to watch them. In a nutshell, here’s how it will work:

• As students enter the room, they will be given a closed envelope with a scenario in it. This will be used to create discussion groups later on in the lesson.
• Students will determine what values are important to them in general, and then will align those with behavior with technology.We’ll use a Wiffiti screen on the whiteboard to collect the original values- then edit the text in the values so the technology behavior is in the same post.
• They will look at a series of scenarios involving ethical questions that arise when using technology and discuss what they should do versus what they might actually do.
• They’ll determine as a class  their 3 or 4 most important values. I will collect the data from all three classes and put it into Wordle format. We’ll use this to narrow down the most important values and create a written code of conduct- what they will actually DO (or at least try to do) while using technology of all kinds.

We’ll post this around the school in written form, and I’ll post it on our classroom website so they have the opportunity to see it often.

I based this lesson plan around one created by Amanda Gentine at HSJournalism.org. 

Sample technology scenarios

When the Honeymoon’s Over

This may seem an odd topic to be posting in late July, but bear with me- you’ll see the relevance shortly.

School starts in about a month, and the first week or so usually goes quite well. We are enjoying seeing colleagues and meeting new staff. It’s fun to reconnect with the kids, some of whom are unrecognizable from just 3 months ago. We have a lovely couple of weeks, or, if you are lucky, months.

Then reality creeps back in. Kids stop doing work. Your “across the hall” teacher won’t keep her kids in the room. The administration’s requirements pile up. That one parent is beginning to work your last nerve and it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet.

The common denominator here is that real work requires us all to address conflict. Some of us hate it, some of us relish it, but many of us wait until it has us sleepless and/or in tears until we address it. Amy Pope Castro, president of Innovative Communication & Training Solutions, offers 10 Valuable Tips to Conquering Conflict that can be customized to work in and around the classroom environment.

Her suggestions are simple and doable. As I try to use them myself, I’ll also be teaching these tips to my 10th grade advisees. I’ll spend some time this month thinking about how can become living parts of my classroom management strategies.  How will you use them?

“Open Here”

I asked my students an interesting question to start class the other day. I said, “How do you think I learned how to teach?”  Almost all of them thought  I went to college to learn it, and that I learned to teach from other adults, probably women. I then asked this- what would they think if I told them I didn’t have a teaching degree.

They had a quick minute of horror- and then the comments. “Well, we wouldn’t think you were a bad person.” “We would think you weren’t as smart as we used to.” “Maybe someone could help you.”  (I supressed the chuckles.)

Then I dropped the bomb. I don’t have a teaching degree. My degree is in Equine Studies- a glorified horse trainer. My masters is in technology, but not with a bend towards teaching. So who taught me how to teach? They did.

The kids teach me every day. If I have behavior issues in my classroom, it’s not because a kid got up that morning dreaming up ways to make me mad. It’s more likely because they are bored or confused.

Having said all that, it sometimes takes me a while to learn.

When I asked  my first two classes to come up with ideas for a different way to do school, I stood on one side of the class. I told them the situation-that I needed their ideas about how we could change school. I talked about changes in schedule, setting, groupings, etc.

They came up with the idea of having bean bags instead of chairs. That was the best they could do- the farthest out they could see.

I was a bit deflated. What was wrong with these kids? They had no imagination. Couldn’t they see the possibilities in front of them? Why weren’t they reaching farther?

DUH! I had sat them firmly in the same old box. Sit at your desk, listen to me while I stand in front of you, think quietly and answer the question. Oh, and by the way, be very creative and think about something that clearly doesn’t exist.

Today I did it differently. We left the chairs and sat on the floor- anywhere in the room was fine so long as they could see and be seen. They could lean against the wall or lay on the floor. Most chose to be part of a cluster but not all.

I took a banana and asked how I should open it. Most of them suggested grabbing the stem, twisting it, biting it, or cutting it with a knife.

We all agreed that was the way you open a banana.

But what if we looked at it differently? A banana has two ends. How about if we pinched the other end? It actually works better- and opens easily. They were amazed- and it set the stage for thinking from a different angle.

We (teachers and students) often look at school from the “stem” end. We twist teaching, we bite at curriculum, we struggle with what we know because it’s what we know. I asked the kids to look at school from the other end- how could we do things drastically differently to get the job done? And maybe more easily.

They were enthused and brainstormed with a great deal of energy. Here are some of their ideas-as they wrote them:

• Each student has their own teacher
• Pick your own classes and schedule
• Make compost and don’t waste so much food
• Have school for 12 hours Mon -Wed
• Everything should be hands on and only have supervision, warnings to dangerous things, and a idea from the teachers.
• Have a vote (by teachers and students) which subjects are more important and teach them first.
• I learn best about animals. I wish I could learn at the zoo.
• Less stuff to carry around
• More exercise aloud during the school day.

The moral of the lesson for me was this: If I want them to think “out of the box” then I have to step out of it as well. Thank goodness those kids are patient teachers.

Texting in Class with Wiffiti

Nothing gets a kid more excited than when you tell them you will be using their cell phones in class. Talk about instant interest! AS IF you are actually going to let them text and “get away” with it!

I tried this experiment today with my 8th grade classes. We talked about Wiffiti,  a dynamic bulletin board that is sort of like Wallwisher on steroids. It provides a place where a person can create a “board” with a specific address to text to. It looks like this:

Wiffiti example

(see the actual board here)

Students can contribute to the board in one of three ways. They can text to the number at the top of the screen. They can send a “tweet” from their twitter account. Or, they can go to wiffiti.com and search for a discreet tag you have put to identify your board. Because they come up anonymously (unless they have a twitter or wiffiti account), a discussion needs to be had about responsible use.

Give your wifitti board an unusual tag. This will make it easier for your kids to find it (it will be the only one with this tag if you do it right) and will make it difficult for others to access without your knowledge. You may end up with a sabotaged board if you make the tag broad or vague.

Results post in quickly from texts, and a bit more slowly from twitter messages. I see a bunch of ways to use this in class:

• 1 minute math problems
• brainstorming activities
• “backchannel” chat for questions during presentations/lectures
• observations during explorations- field trips, science experiments

Some other thoughts and suggestions:

• Using this technology requires students to learn some self control and focus. I wouldn’t use it as a class long project- the posts tended to get off topic once an initial post was made.
• Set clear expectations for the content of texts ahead of time
• Understand the developmental level of your students- most middle school and high school students will not be able to ignore incoming texts during this time. How will you handle this?
• Be careful not to shut off developing conversations. As my sample board went on, students started asking questions of each other. Although it did draw some other students off task and into “silly-texting,” the value of the conversation outweighed the offtask behavior.

Let Go or Be Dragged

(Caveat- this post does NOT reflect the views of RSU2 or the administration of same. The viewpoints in this post are those of the author only and do not represent policy of the RSU2 school district).

Let go or be dragged

My cousin finds himself in an unusual spot. At 54, his friends and colleagues are looking forward to college graduations and weddings for their offspring. Truth be told, he’s been through the “father of the bride” routine himself. Most of the time, however, he finds himself shuttling his second family from karate to Little League to ballet as the father of 3 under 12. His frustration with the pace sometimes shows up in his FaceBook posts.  One of his friends offered sage advice: “Let go or be dragged.”

Five short words that speak volumes. As often happens, I looked at this phrase through the lens of education. We are rapidly approaching the time when, no matter how fast we run, we can’t keep “control” of our kids with technology. The tools and technology have simply outpaced our ability to keep our kids where we want them to be easily.

Here’s an example. In 2008, 71% percent of kids had cell phones. According to Pew Research, 19% of Americans used a mobile phone to access the internet on any given day. In 2007, the number was 11%.  Today, 32% of Americans have mobile internet service. It’s anticipated that 43.5% of users will have internet access on mobile phones by 2013- the year today’s freshmen graduate from high school.

The time is coming when most cell phone plans will offer internet access as a standard feature. 3G networks are making their way across the country. Students often have internet access on three different devices at once- their iPods, their cell phones, and their laptops.

How is this relevant? It means that in short order, our kids will have filters on their 1:1 computers that are not on their phones or iPods. The student who can’t access FaceBook on their laptop will be freely able to post status messages on their phone from English class. It will quickly make our filtering and “control” systems obsolete.

So what do we do? We can’t “keep track” of what they are doing, who they are talking to, and where they are going to access information.  It brings up the question- should we?

I imagine what it must be like for a college freshman in 2010. All through high school, they have worked on a laptop that has had iChat blocked. Their webcam is disabled. They have been filtered so that they can’t access YouTube. All of the control of their behavior has been external. Three months after graduation we have opened all the gates and said “Here. You have a diploma and all the ability to monitor your behavior. Go forth unto college and be successful, even though you haven’t had the ability to monitor YOUR OWN BEHAVIOR WITH TECHNOLOGY WHILE YOU ARE AT SCHOOL.”  Kind of like always telling a kid when to cross the street without teaching them to look both ways first.

We are charged, as high school teachers, to create a population that is ready to move into a 21st century world. We are asking students to hone skills that use collaboration, communication and critical thinking, and at the same time tying their hands. Why not give them the tools they need to develop these skills, and teach them to use them responsibly? I’m not advocating that every student is ready for every option that is available to them. The important thing is to teach acceptable use at every turn and use “indiscretions”  as opportunities to make students understand how important that acceptable use is. Sometimes, we may need to restrict access to certain elements for students who are unable to manage them given their maturity level. Let’s not paint all students with the same brush and assume that because a few of them are not ready that ALL of them are not ready.

The bottom line is that both teachers and parents need to take a hard look at how they manage technology both at school and at home. Its going to require a paradigm shift for all of us. Teachers need to think about how they teach. Pedagogy and classroom management will have to change. Parents will need to educate themselves about what they are providing for their children and how they can monitor and manage the technology at home. We need to be prepared for the changes that are coming.

No Free Lunch

I was responding to a post on Mr. Keenan’s blog “Adventures in Teaching and Learning” about the effective use of iPods in the classroom when it hit me. There is no free lunch. Tools that result in gains in learning require increased effort on the part of the teacher. No exceptions.

Technology is a GREAT tool. It flattens the world. It opens doors for students- sometimes ones that we wish would stay closed. But it is what it is, and we  aren’t going backwards.

Technology doesn’t replace supervision. I flashback to 9th grade social studies. Every Friday afternoon we sat in 5 rows of 5 and watched filmstrips while our teacher (who was also the football coach) prepped for the next day’s game. We had little direction other than “watch the filmstrip.” As you can imagine, my attention was captured by the quarterback in back of me rather than the filmstrip in front of me.

The coach never left his desk and paid us little attention. We returned the favor. Notes were passed, we did other homework, and all I can tell you about the filmstrip is that it was about Africa. I think.

My point here is that teaching with technology is ACTIVE teaching. It requires that we get up, walk around, and engage with our students. It’s less about “knowing what they are doing” and more about finding out what they are thinking. My students teach me a lot on those walkarounds.

The off task student often has something to teach you as well. Ask they why they are off task- they are, most likely, either confused or bored or both. Feeling them out helps you in two ways. It lets you know how you can clarify either your objectives or your directions. It also makes you look at the relevancy of what you are asking your students to do. Admittedly, sometimes kids just don’t want to do the work; but I’ll stick my neck out here. When you take the time to ask a student what they think, they think. You get some credibility when you show that what they say has value to you.

Not much has changed. It’s important to have a purpose to the technology that you use in class- and it can’t be so that you, as teacher, can disengage from your classroom. If anything, it requires more diligence on your part than the worksheet requires. When well done, the payoff is worth the effort.