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Ever since reading The Digital Writing Workshop by Troy Hicks I have been increasingly interested in using Google Docs with students. This free, easy-to-use online MS Office-like productivity suite allows students to write anywhere they have an Internet connection. Google Docs stores their work and most amazingly even allows them to collaborate with others on the same document. In other words instead of emailing files back and forth, editors work in the same document whether its a text file, spreadsheet, or presentation file. These editors could be students in the same class, same school, or from half-way across the world. These editors could also be teachers providing feedback on student writing assignments without the headache of emailing files and hoping praying that everyone has the same version of MS Office.
Last week Google created a nice little PDF outlining just how Google Docs can improve the writing process and thanks to my friend Colette in Oregon I am posting it here. When you have a moment take a look at the document and start imagining how Google Docs could help your students. I should also mention that Google Docs is actually part of a larger collection of tools known as Google Apps. Below is a little blurb I copied from the Google Edu overview document.
“Google Apps gives your campus the power to securely create, share, communicate, and collaborate from any web browser. With Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites, and Google Video, Google brings collaboration to your existing systems without adding servers, software, or maintenance. Built for interoperability, Google Apps builds productivity across your campus and provides your students, staff, and faculty with the accessibility, easy collaboration, and maintenance-free updates that Google’s web-based solutions deliver. Google Apps Education Edition is free for educational institutions.”
Did you happen to notice that it is free?!?!? So, now I guess the only real question is why don’t your students have access to Google Apps for Education? Don’t worry you aren’t alone. I’m asking the same question myself.
Joe
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On Saturday at ASCD, Geoffrey Canada was the keynote speaker during the general session. The theme of his presentation was “Educating the Whole Child” and through this lens he explained his organization, the Harlem Children’s Zone. The Harlem Children’s Zone consists of a 97-block area in New York City’s Harlem where the community is focused on improving the lives of the neighborhood’s youth. I originally learned about the Harlem Children’s Zone, HCZ, during an episode of 60 Minutes a few months ago (the video is posted above). Initially while watching the promo for the HCZ segment I thought, “what an arrogant man.” However, after watching the actual statement I believed wholeheartedly he was on to something…and something I needed to learn more about.
As many readers know before making my move to the district office I taught 8th grade science at a high-tech middle school. Demographically, the students at my middle school were not that different that the children of the Harlem Children’s Zone. Many of these students came from single-parent homes, lived in poverty, and were academically far behind their peers at other middle schools in the same district. As a teacher I can honestly say that I felt ill-equipped to work at that school. I knew the system wasn’t working, but I couldn’t exactly identify the solution either. Many nights I went home emotionally and physically exhausted, convinced my efforts were futile, only to return the next morning unsure of what I should do differently. I left this school feeling like I never really had the answer. Since moving the the district office this school has always been my “home” and I have continued to feel connected to the students, teachers, administrators and staff. When I first saw Canada’s segment on 60 Minutes I felt like I might be learning about the beginning to the answer
According to Canada’s speech at ASCD, the HCZ operates with 5 key elements:
Start Young
As soon as children are born in the 97-block HCZ they are actively prepared to enter school. Until children are three years of age parents attend “Baby College” where they learn how to create home environments with positive, effective instructional moments based on the science of brain development. At four years old children start attending school. For their first year instruction focuses on preparing students for kindergarten by ensuring they will be on grade level. Classes are taught in Spanish, English, and French, the three most common languages in the HCZ. Since the inception of this program every single student has entered kindergarten on grade level. As students move beyond kindergarten the school and its services stay with the student through college.
School as a Community Center
The Harlem Children’s Zone is more than an educational institution. The school is the heart of the community and on its campus students and families have access to medical and dental care, social workers, recreation, and governmental services.
Accountability – Adults are Held Responsible
In the Harlem Children’s Zone adults are fully responsible for the students’ education and welfare. Canada described the school as a “no excuses” environment where all adults “do whatever it takes” to help all students succeed. For example, when students were falling behind the teachers started a Saturday school. Also, school calendars and teaching assignments have been adjusted to ensure all students succeed.
Safe & Involved Communities
During his speech Canada argued that we cannot have students living in communities where we wouldn’t live. As a result, he has worked with his teachers, parents, and community groups to help clean up the neighborhood surrounding the Harlem Children’s Zone. To illustrate his point Canada described a recent Halloween where gang members had threatened to stab children who were out trick-or-treating. Rather than following his staff’s initial suggestion of closing down the school for the evening to keep everyone safe, Canada worked with his teachers, parents, and community members to have adults out and about in the neighborhood that evening. Canada explained, “teenagers can’t run our neighborhoods” and “adults need to be in control.”
Data & Evaluation
At the Harlem Children’s Zone data drives everything they do from meeting instructional goals to ensuring students are actually attending school. Part of the success of the HCZ has come from the ability to collect, read, analyze, and plan based on real-time data.
To close his keynote address Canada discussed three final thoughts for the audience as each of us moves forward in our own schools. These ideas included:
Opportunities
We need to provide many opportunities for our students to succeed and find their “hooks” into school. These can include music, the arts, reading certain books, after-school sports, and technology. Its our responsibility as educators to repeatedly present opportunities to students and find the one thing that will connect a child to education.
Working Both Ends
While we need to help prepare students to enter kindergarten on grade level we also have to work with the students who are currently in our school systems. We need to connect emotionally and intellectually with these students and “do what ever it takes.” As Canada described, “we must save the drowners while also preventing future drowning at the same time.”
Thinking Outside the Box
Finally, as educators we must constantly think outside the box. We have to be willing to try anything to capture students’ attention and interests. At the Harlem Children’s Zone they have even gone as far as paying students for grades.
Even a few days later I still find myself reflecting on Canada’s speech. Many districts like mine are struggling with how to most effectively help students of poverty. As I think about my own experiences working with these students I can’t help but feel that we, are not doing enough. Often students of poverty attend low-performing schools and with a strong desire to drastically improve test scores these schools tend to focus only on academics. However, what we really need to do is focus on building relationships not only with the students, but with their community at-large. The “we” that isn’t doing enough is more that just the school system. As a larger community we need to find the”hooks” to engage students in learning and help them see the value in getting an education.
Joe
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My first session at Yong Zhao started bright and early 8am on Saturday. Keep in mind this was 6am Pacific, so I wasn’t sure my brain was going to fire on all cylinders. Fortunately, there was a Starbucks in the lobby of my hotel with a short line! I was really excited to hear Zhao speak. Above is an introduction video from the ASCD website. Zhao also has a second, very interesting video on the Mobile Learning Website.
A few months ago ASCD sent out his latest book, Catching Up or Leading the Way to ASCD members. Unfortunately, I was not a member yet and missed the book, but my colleague Cheryl has raved about it for months. In Catching Up or Leading the Way Zhao’s premise is that as Americans we might want to rethink our constant comparisons between our students and those in the rest of the world. The same theme lead the way throughout his ASCD presentation (downloadable PDF).
Zhao documented how for decades Americans have compared themselves to other nations predicting dire consequences of impending failure. These comparisons have often led to cries for reform to adjust the American educational system so that it mirrors these other nations. Ironically, at the same time these countries to are trying to emulate the US educational system. For example, currently many Americans are concerned that students in China, India, and other industrialized countries are performing better on international standardized tests. This concern has lead to calls for stronger accountability, more testing, and national content standards. Zhao cited Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind as simply the latest example of “reactionary policies to the misconception that America’s children are falling behind.” Meanwhile in countries like China policymakers are trying desperately to emulate the American education system out of concerns that their schools are producing “really good test-takers with limited critical thinking skills.” According to Zhao China is currently in the midst of implementing the following educational reforms:
Getting high schools to use information other than test scores to recruit and admit students,
Movement away from a core, centralized curriculum,
Incorporating teaching strategies that build critical thinking skills.
As an example of how these international tests might actually tell us very little, Zhao referred to the First International Mathematics Study given in 1964 to 13 year-olds where the United States finished second to last. Forty-years later (when these 13 year olds were now 53) each nation’s test score was compared with 2002 data points for economic growth, wealth, quality of life, democracy, livability, and creativity. Interestingly, each of these data points had a negative correlation with the 1964 data, meaning the better a nation performed on these exams the worse they were doing for that data point in 2002.
While the validity of international tests may be in question, the world has also experienced another massive change in the past 40 years – globalization. Through technology and improvements in transportation efficiency more and more jobs are being off-shored to countries such as India and China where the labor force and raw materials are cheaper. Globalization really begs the question do we want to be just like our competitors? This isn’t a healthy business practice, so is it a healthy educational policy? To reinforce this concept, Zhao referred to the following quote from Tough Choices or Tough Times by New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce:
“Today, Indian engineers make $7,500 a year against $45,000 for an American engineer with the same qualifications. If we succeed in matching the very high levels of mastery of mathematics and science of these Indian engineers – an enormous challenge for this country – why would the world’s employers pay us more than they have to pay the Indians to do their work? They would be willing to do that only if we could offer something that the Chinese and Indians, and others, cannot.”
Keeping these ideas in mind Zhao referred to the work of Amy Chua, How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance and Why They Fail, and Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class. In both of these works what really matters most for a civilization is diversity of talents, creativity, tolerance, technology, and entrepreneurship. According to Zhao we really don’t have an achievment gap as much as we have a creativity gap. Bringing all of this work together, Zhao made the following recommendations for America’s schools as we move into the 21st Century
Personalized Learning – Tailor education to each individual’s need, interest, and aptitude
Schools as Global Enterprises – Local autonomy, but with a global market and resources
Global Products
Global Resources – online resources galore
Global Market – with online learning who are you teaching?
Global Staffing – could you hire a Mandarin teacher in China to teach your students with videoconferencing?
Never Send a Man to Do a Machine’s Job
Technology should do things people don’t do well or can’t do – data management, repetition, multimedia learning, classroom response systems, video conferences
Input-Based Accountability – “What educational opportunity am I providing my students?” Might be a more realistic measure of performance.
Education is a faith-based business – what you do today will not show up for many years. This is very similar to going to church. We don’t stand up after the sermon and ask, “Pastor how have I grown?” because its not realistic. We should be paying strong attention to the following areas:
a. Physical Environment
b. Leadership
c. Learning Facilities
d. Teacher Quality
e. Diverse Opportunities
f. Tolerance
g. Student Voice
While Zhao’s session was quite fascinating and an interesting look at globalization and international competitiveness his message is only truly valuable in how it shapes my practice. Reflecting on Zhao’s message I am even more convinced that we have been moving in the wrong direction. Our schools and teachers must move in the direction of helping students become independent, creative, thoughtful and compassionate global learners. This does not mean that we abandon content standards or even our core curriculum. What it might mean though is that we abandon drill-and-kill direct instruction, lock-step fidelity to curriculum manuals and pacing guides, and the solitary focus on one annual high-stakes test. From a more revolutionary perspective it might also mean we abandon our current assumptions of school. Should the school day run from 8-3 for 180 days? Should students only attend school with students in their neighborhood or could we have them attend school virtually with students from all over the world? Why do we have grade levels, would it make more sense to organize students by current abilities? As you can see there are tons to rethink. Ultimately, if I just change one thing though it will be the notion of incorporating these ideas into all trainings I do in the future. For example, I will no longer show a teacher how to use a wiki unless we also have a conversation about how these tools can help build communication, collaboration, and written communication skills with students from the same class or school…or even with students who live a world away.
Joe
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This year in light of drastic budget cuts and state funding shortages I feel very lucky to be able to attend the ASCD Conference in San Antonio. A colleague of mine, describing her strategy for selecting sessions, referred to ASCD as “all gurus all the time” and she was right! So far the conference has been amazing. I’ve attended phenomenal sessions by:
My only complaint so far is that there are too many great sessions at the same time. I will definitely have to make use of the MP3/CD files and online resources when I get back to Sacramento. When I have a few spare moments and a robust wireless connection I will be posting and solidifying my thoughts here. This year’s theme is “Critical Transformations.” On the ASCD website many of the speakers have posted videos with their thoughts on critical transformations. Check it out. I posted Tapscott’s above.
Joe
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UPDATE (3pm PST) – Unfortunately, the conference center where Joe’s presenting doesn’t allow Ustream.tv access. Go figure. So Joe recorded the presentation and will be uploading it. As soon as it’s available, we’ll post it here. Our apologies for those of you that hung in there to see if he would ever come up live!
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Quite often I get asked questions like, “What exactly does an instructional technologist do?” “Why should teachers be using technology in their classroom?” “How can interactive whiteboards be used for student learning?” A student in our district nominated her math teacher for News10 Teacher of the Month. I’m fortunate enough to know this student (along with her fantastic mom) and the personal story of how technology in conjunction with a engaging, relevant, and caring teacher has helped this student reach honors student status in a subject that she previously called her “worst class” for many years.
Take a moment to watch the video. It does a great job of showing how technology, specifically academic discourse conversations facilitated by a classroom response system and video lessons on an iPods, can assist an effective teacher in reaching new academic heights with their students.
Joe
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With a reenergized focus on pedagogy, innovation, and technology I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading lately. As a matter of fact I have one of those reusable grocery bags full of books I lug to and from the office right now. I guess it gives a new definition to the job title “bag boy” :-)
One of my favorite new books, and this week’s Book of the Week is The Digital Writing Workshopby Troy Hicks. In this book Hicks makes a compelling case for taking Writing Workshop into the 21st Century by adding technology for every step of the process. From using RSS and social bookmarking to build student inquiry and choice to examining author’s craft through multimedia composition, Hicks clearly describes how technology can help students build their writing skills through a variety of tools. I’ve only had the book for two weeks, but the cover is already well worn and the pages are full of notes and highlighter marks. Between The Digital Writing Workshop and compelling stories shared by principals at our Writing Workshop schools, I am starting to think about how I can incorporate Writing Workshop into subjects outside of Language Arts and use it as the basis for technology electives. The marriage of technology and Writing Workshop naturally allows students to build the 21st Century Skills of information literacy, communication and collaboration, critical thinking, and media and technology literacy. When you have a moment check out The Digital Writing Workshop and even join the Ning for the book.
Joe
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If you attended the CalSPRA workshop today and are looking for the link to my presentation on 21st Century Teaching & Learning click on the image above. Even if you’re just a lurker and curious what I was talking about, that’s okay too. CalSPRA – thank you for taking the time to allow me to speak to your group and discuss meeting the needs of our 21st Century students.
Joe
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You might have noticed its been a bit quiet around these parts the last few months. Between a hectic new work schedule and a few “interesting” events this summer, blogging has always been the one thing I couldn’t quite get to. With a new district focus on reading and writing I have reflected quite a few times on how much I’ve missed writing in this little place in cyberspace, and even more importantly, receiving feedback from my friends and colleagues. With this in mind I wanted to announce a new writing schedule with a new focus. Really, the schedule is just a reminder for me. :-) As I have blogged in the past, my focus has often been random. I want to adjust my focus so that the topics found here are more aligned with the three areas where I seem to be spending much of my time these days: innovation, instruction, and reading. So adjust your Google Reader and Bloglines account, make sure you have this blog still dialed in and leave a comment or two in the next few posts to let me know if you’re still around.
A few of you may have read my post from late last week about trading in my Macbook Pro for an iPod Touch (aka iTouch). Starting last Friday night I closed my laptop and didn’t open it (with a few exceptions noted below) until Monday morning. My goal was to experience life with an iPod Touch as my primary connection to the online world. I started this experiment with this question in mind – “What would be a better primary learning device for high school students – a netbook or an iPod Touch?”
A few of you (especially Karen) might be wondering why I am just now, a week later, posting my findings. Well, Saturday afternoon I became a little distracted by installing a Mac Mini as an Apple Media Center in my family room and I wanted a few more days to pilot. I also wanted the chance to discuss my findings with a few colleagues and work and allow my thoughts to congeal with their in site and suggestions. So with any further audo, here’s are my results from piloting an iPod Touch as a primary learning device.
Pros
While I’ve had an iPhone for quite some time, having and iTouch was a little different. First of all, its a bit smaller and lighter. I actually like its form-factor a bit more than the iPhone. Just like the iPhone, the iTouch is a great tool for consuming video, audio, and even e-books. Another pro of the iTouch is that just like the iPhone its very simple to download and install applications. A simple stop by the iTunes App store will show anyone that there are tons of possible programs users can easily download on to the iTouch. Even the educational section has a vast variety of applications for any subject matter. For my own experiment I focused only on the free applications since school budgets are quite limited and more than likely many teachers I know will be asking students to download applications onto their own personal iTouches. A few of the applications I downloaded and enjoyed using for learning included Stanza, a simple to use e-book reader, Quick Graph, History Map, Wordpress, Google Earth, and Evernote. As a science teacher one of my favorites was iSeismo, which allows users to turn their iPhone/iTouch into a seismometer. Very cool, hands-on, fairly authentic tool to simulate how earthquakes are measured! On a similar note I’m looking forward to Pasco’s release of their iPhone/iTouch app that will allow students to use these devices to make real-world scientific measurements with probeware.
Cons
As I piloted the iTouch this past week, a few big cons became immediately apparent – first of all, connectivity. The iTouch works phenomenally well as long as you have a wifi connection. Many of the applications I downloaded required some sort of internet connection. Without wifi these tools were powerless. Having had an iPhone I felt kind of dead in the water with my iTouch outside of work or my own home. While this is no different than having a laptop, the fact the iTouch is much more of a “pull device” than a “push device” the lack of a internet connection can become a bit cumbersome unless all the user needs to do is watch videos, listen to audio, or read an e-book. This brings me to another con, the iTouch is a very challenging device to use for creative pursuits. The lack of a camera or built-in microphone makes collecting images and sounds quite problematic. At the moment, many of our teachers use laptops to have students tell some sort of narrative or expository digital story. iTouches do not easily have this capability. However earlier this week, Wired posted some rumors about a camera and built-in microphone in the next generation iTouch. In spite of the fact these tools are missing, users can still be creative by accessing websites including wikis and blogs to add and edit text. It is though a bit more challenging than using a laptop due to the small keyboard and screen.
Final Conclusions
The results of my brief iTouch experiment are a bit of a mixed-bag. Part of me is impressed by the convenience and access these tiny little devices possess. The plethora of highly-usable apps is amazing. However, the diminutive size of these tools, along with the lack of a built-in camera and microphone can also be a bit of a hindrance. iTouches are amazing tools for watching video, listening to audio, and reading digital text in an e-book. All of these are great examples of how the iTouch can be used powerfully as a “pull device” where data in the form of video, audio, and text is pulled down and consumed on the iTouch. Unfortunately though, these devices struggle when users want to use the tool to produce some sort of digital content. The screen size, keyboard, processing power, and on-board tools just aren’t there. As a result, at this point in time I would say iTouches are not good replacements for laptops. A few readers might be wondering why I would even make that comparison. “Of course iTouches aren’t equivalent to laptops,” they might say. Well, at this point in time I know of many schools that are asking themselves, “Should we buy netbooks or iTouches?” To that question, I would respond netbook with one caveat. If your instructional plan focuses on using technology for creative exploits inside of the classroom where students are going to demonstrate learning through creating digtial artifacts, such as a movie, podcast, presentation, wiki page, or blog post then you and your students will be much happier with a netbook. However, if your instructional plan takes a novel approach and inverts the whole notion of schoolwork and homework where students use technology for learning at home through watching videos, listening to audio, or reading text while using class time for hands-on independent practice assignments then you will love a classroom full of iTouches.
Overall, I think the ideal situation would include a classroom set of a laptops, along with a set of iTouches for students to take home. Students could use the iTouches to watch lectures and screencasts, listen to audio lectures, and read e-books all at home. Meanwhile, during class time they could use laptops to demonstrate the knowledge they learned through creative digital projects that also provide them the opportunity to build 21st Century Skills. Chances are if you teach middle or high school that set of iTouches already exists and is sitting currently as “backpack contraband” in your student’s bookbags. As you plan for next year take a moment and think about how you could could commandeer these tools as student learning devices. Think about using video lectures, screencasts, podcasts, or showing your students how to download classic novels (for free) onto their iTouches. These devices are sitting in their pockets and are just waiting to be used.
Ever since reading The Digital Writing Workshop by Troy Hicks I have been increasingly interested in using Google Docs with students. This free, easy-to-use online MS Office-like productivity suite allows students to write anywhere they have an Internet connection. Google Docs stores their work and most amazingly even allows them to collaborate with others on the same document. In other words instead of emailing files back and forth, editors work in the same document whether its a text file, spreadsheet, or presentation file. These editors could be students in the same class, same school, or from half-way across the world. These editors could also be teachers providing feedback on student writing assignments without the headache of emailing files and hoping praying that everyone has the same version of MS Office.
With a reenergized focus on pedagogy, innovation, and technology I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading lately. As a matter of fact I have one of those reusable grocery bags full of books I lug to and from the office right now. I guess it gives a new definition to the job title “bag boy” :-)
by 
CalSPRA – thank you for taking the time to allow me to speak to your group and discuss meeting the needs of our 21st Century students.
You might have noticed its been a bit quiet around these parts the last few months. Between a hectic new work schedule and a few “interesting” events this summer, blogging has always been the one thing I couldn’t quite get to. With a new district focus on reading and writing I have reflected quite a few times on how much I’ve missed writing in this little place in cyberspace, and even more importantly, receiving feedback from my friends and colleagues. With this in mind I wanted to announce a new writing schedule with a new focus. Really, the schedule is just a reminder for me. :-) As I have blogged in the past, my focus has often been random. I want to adjust my focus so that the topics found here are more aligned with the three areas where I seem to be spending much of my time these days: innovation, instruction, and reading. So adjust your Google Reader and Bloglines account, make sure you have this blog still dialed in and leave a comment or two in the next few posts to let me know if you’re still around.