Making It Personal - Personal Learning Network

A Personal Learning Network (PLN) is a conglomeration of technological resources to help teachers connect to each other, resources and information in Education.  The key to creating my Personal Learning Network was the “personal” part.  Tools after all are only useful if you use them.  I created a PLN that worked for me; one that I would use. 

First, I explored many different education resources like Twitter, Facebook, Feedly and Pintrest.  In my previous work experience I used these tools regularly.  My experiment for this class was to see these tools through the lens of education.  How would my use of them change?  What seemed useful? What did not?

While others might use these tools in other ways that suit their needs, here are some of what I discovered worked for me: 

1.  Twitter:

In my prior work life, I have used twitter in conjunction with crowd sourcing sites to promote awareness and raise money. Twitter is also a fun way to "live comment" on events like the Academy Awards or the Olympics.  It's also a valuable resource for tracking breaking news.  Unfortunately, aside from Donald Trump, most businesses and high profile people who "trend" on Twitter have dedicated staff whose only job is to "tweet."  Smaller players usually use Twitter to push their own wares.  For these reasons, Twitter has not been an app that I really connected with or enjoyed using. I tweeted when my job required it, but not personally.

Looking at Twitter through a the lens of education, I feel less reluctant to use Twitter but it's still not my dream tool.  I created a "teacher" profile and started a new collecting education related Twitter handles.  I have been tweeting and following my feed for weeks. Ultimately, my conclusion is that Twitter is not personal enough to communicate with people with whom I have a relationship.  Also, I wouldn't feel comfortable receiving tweets from parents and students on the random happenings in their life.  Nor would I want my students and parents reading about my random happenings.  Twitter is easily abused and hard to contain.  A teacher friend of mine was stalked on twitter by a guy she dated once.  Can you imagine her student's parents happening upon those hashtag chains?

In the classroom, I would use Twitter to follow breaking news and stay on top of local emergencies, but it would not be my primary way find topics on education or to communicate with those in my network.  For example, there was a fire in the area and Twitter was the social media resource that provided real time information for those in the community. One day last year, we had a bomb scare at our local middle school.  Twitter was how the parents throughout the district communicated what was happening and if the students were safe.  We then took that information and communicated it through Facebook or by direct texting.  Twitter is also a good way to keep up on other educators pushing their wares - new articles, books and products.  In summary, for me Twitter is a one way road that I will use to receive information, but not communicate until I have my own edu-wares to push.

2.  Facebook

I have developed a sizable group of teaching friends on Facebook.  I have found it to be a great resource to share laughs and frustrations on a more personal level.  Teachers need to commune and share highs and lows and Facebook, I have discovered is the safe place to do it. 

Do I think about what I post now that I'm an educator, you bet!  But, for me, Facebook helps us celebrate the good times.  We share the good moments and it reminds us to celebrate them.  We share the heartache and it reminds us to care for one another.  Teachers sometimes friend parents with whom they have developed a special relationship, but mainly it's teachers friending teachers and keeping their pages private to "friends" only.  

As I teacher, I think I would like to find a Facebook like App, like Edmodo, to use in the class to connect over assignments and happenings.



3.  Feedly

My husband is a Podcast addict and has been hip to RSS feeds since their inception.  It wasn’t until this class that I was encouraged to use Feedly.  I love Feedly to keep up on the latest in Education.   Here’s a screenshot of my Feedly page.

Jen's Feedly

I can’t wait to read the article on inquiry-based learning.



4.  Pinterest



By far my favorite tool in my PLN is Pinterest.  I have a board called “Ideas for Classroom” where I have been pinning everything from classroom decorations to behavior modification tactics.  If I can’t sleep at night, I love to troll other educator's boards and collect ideas.  It is so easy to search for anything that you need.  I can see using and contributing to Pinterest more than any other tool in my PLN.

5. 

Teachers Pay Teachers



Another part of my PLN is https://www.teacherspayteachers.com.  I discovered this site through Pinterest after following a link to a lesson plan.  Teachers Pay Teachers is a great place to find ideas for lesson plans and other tools created by teachers.  The site is searchable by grade level or by subject matter.  Here is an example of what I found interesting after doing a search for Common Core 5th Grade Language Arts:

I plan on growing my PLN as I meet new educators and happen upon new resources.  Each connection I make leads to more connections.  This connectivity is one of the greatest resources teachers have at their disposal.  I'm very grateful that this class encouraged me formalize a PLN at the beginning of my journey as an educator.  I'm sure it will be one of the tools I utilize often as a I grow as a teacher. 

Choose Your Own Adventure 2.0

Edutopia is one of my favorite websites in my Personal Learning Network.  When asked to report on a new technology for educators it was no surprise I found something I loved there.  Matthew Farber described a new way he turned on his middle school students to writing using interactive fiction technology.  Interactive fiction technology is "similar to choice-based fiction, like the Choose Your Own Adventure book series that began in the late 1970s” (Farber, 2015).



In his article, New Tools For Interactive Fiction and Engaged Writing, Farber’s social studies class had to create a stories based on historical events.  They then used a free app called Twine to map out their stories, creating false and true options for the reader to select.  



According to Farber his students didn’t want to leave the classroom when the bell rang.  They actually told him that the writing project was fun.  Clearly, it was more than that.  The students had to research and learn the history lesson in order to retell the tale.  They also had to use creative and strategic thinking skills in order to create a “false” narrative that had the potential to fool the reader.

Interactive fiction technology also encouraged aspects of design, allwoing students to bring in music, video and photography.  

“Beyond writing, students were now applying remix principles (PDF) and becoming more digitally literate” (Farber, 2016)  He also commented that the lesson met one of the eight elements for project-based learning, “student choice” (BIE, n.d.).



When I teach a history lesson, this is definitely a technology I’m going to use.  Why not make learning fun?


Resources

 Farber, M. (2016, April 15). New tools for interactive fiction and engaged writing. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/new-tools-interactive-fiction-engaged-writing-matthew-farber

 Farber, M. (2015, April 14). Interactive Fiction in the Classroom. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/interactive-fiction-in-the-classroom-matthew-farber

Essential project design elements checklist | Project Based Learning | BIE. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://bie.org/object/document/pbl_essential_elements_checklist

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If Estonia Can Do It...

According to Mitch Resnick’s 2012 Ted Talk, Let’s Teach the Kids to Code, coding is not something just for computer geeks anymore.  Everyone should do it.  From Kindergarteners to his 83 year old mother, Resnick recommends coding for everyone.




Resnick likened learning to code to the ability to write in a language you can read.  He is skeptical that our iPad and iPhone wielding children are really “digital natives” (Resnick, 2012).  Sure they are great at what he calls “interactive technologies” like gaming and surfing the web, but they are lacking experience or knowledge in creative technologies.  “It’s as if they could read, but not write with new technologies. (Resnick, 2012).  



Resnick points out that other countries have already jumped on the teaching code bandwagon. Heck Estonia is teaching all their first graders to code in school.  A new day has dawned when the Baltics are leading the charge in technology. 



Thanks to websites like Resnick’s Scratch website kids can learn code the easy way.  No longer does code look like a field of incomplete sentences fenced in by pairs of forward slashes.  Scratch makes coding like driving on the Autotopia at Disneyland.  There's no chance you can run off the road.  Even a code dunce like myself can create a mini cartoon in seconds.
   

                   (Note:  The only thing this design accomplished was freak out my dog.)

One great point Resnick makes is that coding teaches skills that can be used across the learning curriculum.  Designing a game or a Mother’s Day card requires creative and critical thinking and systematic reasoning.  Many of the same skills we acquire through Language Arts can be attained in coding.  Resnick summaries saying that while not every student who learns to read and write will become a professional writer, nor will every coding student become a programmer.  The point is that the skill sets this education provides can be translated to any domain. 



 

Resnick, M. (2012, November). Let’s teach kids to code. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/mitch_resnick_let_s_teach_kids_to_code


Move over Accelerated Reading, There’s a New AR in town!

Traditionally, when a teacher talks about “AR" in a classroom it refers to the Accelerated Reading program.  That’s a popular program where students take tests on the books they have read in order to access their reading and comprehension.  Schools often give out awards and promote classroom competitions in who can rack up the most “AR Points.”  Here’s a link to an elementary school’s blog explaining how Accelerated Reading works.

In the article, Pokemon Go is the Future, Adam Gutierrez introduces a whole new “AR” to education.  

Pokemon Go has become a viral sensation in gaming.  It uses a technology called Augmented Reality, or AR for short, to overlay cartoon-like characters onto the reality you are seeing on your devices’s screen.  When my son looks through my iPhone’s screen while riding in the back of my car, he sees this little guy bouncing around next to him.  



Gutierrez mentions four new apps that take this technology into the classroom.  There are several ways AR can be utilized.  The article claims it's a great resource for visual learners.  



At a recent school board meeting, our “Teacher of the Year” from Bonsall presented the way she used an augmented reality app, Aurasma, to turn her fourth grade mission lesson into a project that would come to life for the parents at back to school night.  The class used green screen to film their report on a California Mission.  Then, using the Augmented Reality app, they keyed a photo of their mission as the backdrop.  When parents scanned a real life photo of their child’s mission with a classroom iPad it triggered the augmented report to play.  The AR made the child appear to be giving his report at the actually mission he or she was reporting on.  Beats the heck out of the popsicle sticks and glue projects I had to do as a child.

  Here's a video created by two teachers showing many ways they have incorporated Aurasma in their classrooms.

There are downsides to AR.  Children are easily distracted by the pretend reality presented on the screen while moving around in the real reality.  Falling down or walking into danger are serious concerns.  Also, since this technology requires the latest generation of mobile technology, many students and classrooms will be left in the digital divide without access to smartphones and iPads.



AR has augmented my thinking about what a classroom in the future might look like.
Perhaps Google will create a Google Glass for students.  Wouldn’t it be great to give all students glasses to wear while in the classroom so that everything they saw could be turned into an interactive resource through AR?  A word in a book could be instantly defined by a dictionary.  A map of a far off country could activate videos showing climate, culture and current event headlines in the region.  Food choices in the cafeteria could have their nutritional information instantly displayed.  If I'm fortunate enough to teach in a school which provides the students with iPads, I’m reading to earn some next gen AR points by finding new ways to teach with Augmented Reality.

 Gutierrez, A. (2016, July 22). Pokemon Go is the Future. Retrieved from http://www.edudemic.com/pokemon-go-future/

T. (2013, January 18). Teaching with Aurasma. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHIxYpBW7sc

Warning: 👁😖🤖

The article by Sherry Turkle, Can You Hear Me Now, is a blast from the past.  Written in 2007, the article has nothing to do with my friend Paul Marcarelli’s now infamous Verizon sales pitch.  In fact, the article recalls a time when Blackberrys were the cutting edge of mobile technology.  The article’s tone has an undercurrent of tech phobia which I found completely amusing, especially coming from an MIT, award-winning, scholar in Social Science and Technology.




Professor Turkle issued dire warnings in this article which at times verged on hysteria. “We are learning to see ourselves as cyborgs, at one with our devices. To put it most starkly: To make more time means turning off our devices, disengaging from the always-on culture. But this is not a simple proposition, since our devices have become more closely coupled to our sense of our bodies and increasingly feel like extensions of our minds” (Turkle, 2007).  Reading this article, I, too, became slightly hysterical wondering how Professor Turkle has coped with text messaging.



Her article then increased in scope to virtual realities and a critique of artificial intelligence in the form of robot caregivers in Japan.  Somehow, she bridged the gap from discussing the “always-on culture” to the complete devaluation of human life with an antidote about her daughter protesting a turtle’s confinement at the Natural History Museum.  The daughter, seemingly more connected to reality than her mother, stated empathy for the turtle having to live its life in cage and suggested a robot could have sufficed in its place.  Professor Turkle conducted an impromptu poll of how many kids agreed that the “real life” turtle was unnecessary.  She was shocked that most children didn’t value the fact that the turtle, which didn’t move much, was alive.  Her take away was that this was proof that we are losing our humanity in light of technology.  



Wow.  😱 How about this take?  The child felt like the turtle’s life was being unfairly taken for granted when the purpose of the display was to educate children on turtles.  The daughter rightly, in my opinion, accessed that all necessary education could more humanely be given with a life-like robot.  That seems like a win for valuing life to me.



Completing this article, I seriously started to worry about how Dr. Turkle has been dealing with the advent of iPhone, Android, Skype, Periscope, Twitter and Snapchat? Her latest offering is Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, published in 2015 by Penguin.  It hardly seems to be a vanguard in the field.

I wish Professor Turkle could have been at the dinner party I attended last night. It was an intimate gathering with some of the most tech savvy and tech-addicted people in the world. My circle of friends include a highly collected photographer, who is also addicted to video games, an award-winning editor of high-tech films and a partner in a law firm, (the last holdouts on the Blackberry technology were lawyers). We all spent our formative years glued to “the idiot box.”  We all have our phones (two Notes and two Iphone 6’s) with us at all times.  All of our jobs force us to interface with technology all day long.  And yet, somehow, we have sustained meaningful friendships that have lasted 30 years.  This tech-addled group somehow managed to stay around the dinner table, with no screens or devices in sight.  We talked until after midnight about life, love, politics and where we should move if Trump was elected.  I’m sure it would have comforted Dr. Turkle.



In my opinion, technology will not turn us into “cyborgs.”  It has not changed us into lesser people or made us not value human life.  Nor will it.  It has not forced us to become our best or our worst selves.  Who we are, I posit, remains unchanged. Technology has simply made it easier for more people to share and witness our best and worst selves.  Like violence against Black Americans, it has always been there, but now because of technology we see it more often. 



Resource

 Turkle, S. (2007, April 21). Can you hear me now? Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2007/0507/176.html 



#4: If Only...

The optimistic in me watched the video on Universal Design Learning and read the companion article with excitement.  This is exactly the type of teaching methods I dream about using in my own classroom.  My goal is to access each student’s abilities, get to know their individual qualities, interests and talents and try to accept their unique personalities in an attempt to meet them where they are when we start the year together.   As UDL suggests, I would love to offer various options to my students so that they may address the lessons in the way that best suits their abilities.  (Although, learning to process something in a way that challenges you is also a great skill to develop.)  Using the UDL techniques in differentiation will require a lot of time and effort.  I’m more than willing to go there for my students, but I wonder how realistic are my goals?  



The videos and reading themselves instill even greater doubts. The solutions offered to address the needs of the Kindergarten student with hearing loss and the fourth grade girl with below grade level language arts skills seemed anything but differentiated (Ralabate, 2011).   In fact, the methods suggested are nearly identical.  Furthermore, it was annoying that some of the links to pdf’s which promised to “drill down” on these methods were broken or nonexistent.  



Further research into “CAST” and the founders of UDL, Rose, Meyer and Hitchcock, uncovered that they have not been that active since 2014.  This raises the question if the UDL team interfaced with the development of Common Core? I would really like to know if they were involved or have modified their methods to incorporate the new standards?  The video references standards from 2008, which I assume were somewhere housed under the umbrella of NCLB.  



As someone who is dedicated to differentiation, I would like to know more about UDL and how/if this methodology is evolving to meet our current requirements.  I feel like the video and the reading gave a nice overview, but it fails to address in a serious way the real problems facing teachers when they approach differentiation.  Those issues include time, resources and support from the administration and parents.  So my take away is…  if only, that would be great.



Ralabate, P. K. (2011, August 30). Universal design for learning: Meeting the needs of all students. The ASHA Leader. Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/universal-design-learning-meeting-needs-all-students

Videos About UDL | National Center On Universal Design for Learning. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.udlcenter.org/resource_library/videos/udlcenter/udl#video0/

Flip or Flop?



Education is constantly looking for the proverbial magic bullet.  One could look at this as a delusional quest, but I see it as a product of our nature as teachers to try to do the best we can for our students. We have diminishing resources, often overcrowded classrooms and an ever-changing set of standards to meet.  Trying new innovations when the current methods fall short is a rational exercise.  The “latest thing” in our attempt to achieve better results is the “flipped classroom.”  In the article, Questions to Consider Before Flipping the authors weigh the pros and cons of adopting this latest trend based on several studies (Moran & Young, 2015).  



Moran and Young’s article suggests that certain subjects, like Math and Science, are more conducive to a flipped model than subjects like Language Arts and Social Sciences (Moran & Young, 2015).  While some aspects of Language Arts like the memorization of literary terms worked well in the flipped model, others such as, “dramatic performances, spoken poetry, literature circles, reading and writing workshops — would not be as appropriate for flipping and would still require an interactive and dynamic classroom approach” (Moran & Young, 2015, p. 3). 


I appreciated that the article highlighted that the strategies to make a flipped classroom work involved more effort from the teachers in creating and administering the lessons.  Anyone thinking that a flipped model made teaching easier should think again.  To make a flipped classroom more effective than simply assigning reading from a book, the teacher must make greater efforts to engage the students through technology.



The article suggested using a program called educanon.com (which is now playposit.com) to enhance video lessons.  Playposit allows a teacher to interject questions to make sure students are actually comprehending what they are watching through a series of interactive quizzes.  Students may not continue without answering the questions.  Results can be monitored and collected by the teacher.  I signed up for an account and plan on using it if I were to ever try a flipped model for a lesson.



Another suggestion the article gives teachers is to vary their lessons.  It suggests that flipping occasionally is a more effective use of this model than simply flipping exclusively.  

In conclusion, the article says we should not “flip out” completely.  If teachers do consider flipping they should also commit to the extra time and effort to make this latest trend a lasting tool. 




Moran, C. M., & Young, C. A. (2015). Questions to consider before flipping. Phi Delta Kappan, 97(2), 42-46. doi:10.1177/0031721715610090 Retrieved from http://pdk.sagepub.com/content/97/2/42.abstract 


Education Redesigned, But Will It Last?

Emily Pilloton’s 2010 Ted Talk entitled “Teaching Design For Change,” recounts a design job that turned into a complete life change for a pair of designers and a rural county. Her design company’s core philosophy was based on communal design implemented to create a difference in communities.  In 2009, Emily and her partner were hired by the new Superintendent to help revamp some classrooms in a failing school system in Bertie County in rural North Carolina. They created an outdoor play space that could also be used as an innovative, interactive outdoor classroom. They created a computer lab that was aesthetically more appealing to students than what Ms. Pilloton called the “kill and drill” testing facilities normally found in the county’s schools.  The new labs could also be used for computer based instruction. They also launched an awareness and support campaign to provide every student with a computer and access to the internet, but that was just the beginning.



The design job’s scope increased to include Ms. Pilloton and her partner creating a year-long, high school curriculum where students would create a design project aimed at improving their community.  The projects were a return to the hands-on skill learning of yesteryear’s shop class, but with a different target audience and goal.  Instead of shop classes aimed at the less academic-minded, students enrolled in “Studio H” were charged with building skills to use in college and the work force.  The students were to implement their design through their own labor thereby learning practical skills as well as developing teamwork, leadership, analysis, design and critical thinking skills.  The student’s first project was to create an open air farmer’s market.  The goal was to create a legacy of pride and giving back in the community.



The timing of this project was interesting to me because of its relation to the roll out of the new Common Core standards. I was struck how Studio H, as well as the redesigned classrooms, seemed in concert with the Common Core objectives.  If Common Core was to emphasize the development of critical, creative and analytical thinking as well as de-emphasize the “teaching to the bubble” created by No Child Left Behind’s test score mandates, then Ms. Pilloton’s projects seemed to be in step with the new age.  But, the design team was hired in 2009 which was a year before Common Core was first adopted and several years before full implementation of the standards were put into practice. Recently, North Carolina passed legislation to “review and replace” Common Core.   It remains to be seen if they will do away with the standards in the future completely. 

A Google search revealed that the forward thinking Superintendent Dr. Z, who initially orchestrated this endeavor, left the district for another job in Texas and died in 2014.  Ms. Pilloton (despite her proclaimed love for Bertie County) returned to California and now conducts her renamed “Project H” at a Charter School in Berkley. The Info tab on Project H’s website says that they have kept in touch with all 600 of their students and that 92% of their graduates have gone on to college.  

Could the story of Studio H be a harbinger for the fate of Common Core?  I hope not.  Like the old Christian parable, “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach him to fish and he will never be hungry,” I believe that we should be teaching our kids how to think, not what to think.  If we give them practical, analytical and critical thinking skills, they will be able to apply them to anything they wish to achieve. 

Clearly, if the statistics are true, Studio H was a tremendous success, but then why did it retreat to California?  Why isn’t there evidence of the program still existing in Bertie County’s high schools?  Sometimes good ideas are big.  Something big ideas need time to bloom into reality.  My question is will Common Core like Studio H (with its Common Core-esque curriculum) be a big idea that takes root or will it whither and fade away before its lasting beauty can truly be revealed?




Photo:  Meet Emily Pilloton, ThinkRevolution Product Evangelist | Lenovo

Sources: 

Pilloton, E. (2010, July). Teaching design for change [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/emily_pilloton_teaching_design_for_change (TED Talk, 16:43)



Sanchez, Claudio (2015, January 14)  North Carolina rethinks the common core [article] http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/01/14/371656747/north-carolina-rethinks-the-common-core

http://projecthdesign.org/info/

Boom! My brain just exploded! Or did it?

Everything I have been warning my seven-year-old about playing too many video games is wrong.  Dr. Daphne Bavelier, a self-described brain scientist, reveals in her engaging Ted Talk "Your Brain On Video Games" that playing video games might actually be beneficial to the brain. In her Ted Talk from 2012, she debunks common thinking about how staring at video monitors will ruin eyesight and exacerbate attention deficit. Instead, she sites scientific studies which show certain video games improve eyesight and help a “gamer” see more details in the real world. Dr. Bavelier also demonstrates the difference between focusing on a video game and distracting your brain with “media multi-tasking.” While video games sharpen focus; listening to music while texting and driving, for example, is destructive behavior.



The Ted Talk was focused on the physical manifestations of video games on the brain, but I wonder if learning patterns aren’t also a secret gift of gaming? When I bought my first Macintosh computer I remember marveling at the absence of instruction manuals. Today, I watch my son enter a game such as Mine Craft or Terraria where intuitive and deductive skills must be used in order to play. Kids today jump in and figure things out as they go. They also share what they’ve learned and see commonality before differences within their gamer community. They have “tags” and “skins” to represent them. This anonymity creates a commonality that isn’t often experienced in the real world.  Races, religion and citizenship are usually not identified in the gamer world. The gamer world is in effect “one world.” If I were a brain scientist or a sociologist, I would be interested in researching what lasting effects this aspect of video game culture could have on our society and in the world at large. Beyond the physical ramifications of frequent gaming, I ponder what the psychological and learning applications of gaming could be?



Dr. Bavelier closes her lecturer with the image of chocolate covered broccoli. It is an analogy for a game that would be beneficial to the brain while also being desirable to play. I firmly believe that video games teach children some of the modern day skills they will need to succeed in college and in the work force. If the scientific and entertainment community in fact do produce “chocolate covered broccoli” I want to play it with my son.



Source:  Bavelier, D. (2012, June).  Your brain on video games.  [Video file].  Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_bavelier_your_brain_on_video_games#t-199442