As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I am working hard to develop a curriculum that “Get[s] Past Teaching Apps [and helping students] Build and Use a Student Technology Toolbelt“ (Cool Cat).  This focus is defined in my curriculum in terms of  students’ technology fluency, which is defined in Cool Cat’s post as:

the ability to determine and use the appropriate technology tool(s) for the task at hand in a manner that allows seamless transfer of created objects and documents to flow easily between the selected tools without outside intervention.

I also want students to be able to think critically and solve problems within a computing environment since things keep changing. As Cool Cat notes and Karl Fisch supports, “We cannot fathom what the future holds for them but we know what it won’t hold: It won’t hold the software that we taught them this year in its present fashion.”

Incidentally, the best way to do this would seem to be Project Based Learning (PBL), which Edutopia defines as:

a dynamic approach to teaching in which students explore real-world problems and challenges. With this type of active and engaged learning, students are inspired to obtain a deeper knowledge of the subjects they’re studying.

I must admit, however, that despite being somewhat creative is several areas, when it comes to project ideas, I’ve always been a bit of a parasite.  I, of course, like to think of it as symbiosis, since I do add to the projects I steal and share alike.  This has brought me to a discovery that there is not very much in the way of good solid projects for a stand-alone CIT classroom.  Most of what is available via, Edutopia, for example is cross-curricular in nature, applying CIT in the context of multiple subjects.  This makes sense since it is the most authentic way to apply technology.  Of course, I teach CIT in a vacuum, made more pronounced by the fact that I’m on a 9-week rotation, whilst my colleagues in the core subjects are on a 180-day rotation.

Occasionally, I find a gem, like “This New House” from High Tech High.  Again, it’s a cross-curricular project, but I was able to tweak it for use in my class.  This was so fabulous that I’m using it for Seventh and Eighth grade this nine weeks… As you can guess, this means I need a new 8th grade project for next year… I have all summer, I suppose…

So, knowing that there are others out there like me, including my wife, who teaches a similar class in another district, I have a mission of sorts.  I intend to either find an online community repository of PBL resources for Computer Technology teachers or make one myself.

Beyond Apps, but Don’t forget them…

Again, Coolcat is absolutely right, we do need to get past teaching apps, but we are in turns limited and empowered by those apps available to us.  Coolcat, for example, is lucky enough to be working in a Mac lab, which seems to be considered unholy by most IT departments in York County.  Her district’s network security policy must also be a bit more liberal than ours.  She has access the the following:

I can’t complain, though.  I don’t need access to Mac’s myriad apps.  My district was forward thinking enough to have Adobe CS4 Design Premium licensed for grades 5-12, which gives me access to a wealth of opportunity in terms of what students can produce.  I also have MS Office, including Visio and Publisher.  Granted, network security is tight at my district, making me continually frustrated in attempting to use anything for online collaboration.  I’ve struck out with just about every white-boarding technology out there, but I can still access tools such as blogs and social bookmarking.  Whether my students can sign up for these or not is debatable because we do not have a system for student email.  My students, can thrive, though, because they do have access to a lot of great tools.

I happen to know an elementary computer teacher with a lab full of antiquated PCs, a poor network connection, a host of useless and cheesy games, and MS Office (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint ‘03).  Did I mention that the network connection is so bad that she can’t even use Office Clipart without crashing the workstations? Obviously, I can’t share many of my projects with her.  She’s very limited by the software available to her and a disheveled IT department.  Apparently MS Movie Maker is on her workstations, but it’s hidden and only accessible by those with administrative privileges (IT is working on that).  Yeah, my blood pressure rises every time I hear about it. Incidentally, she’s good to go for any projects that may include Carmen Sandiego or Oregon Trail.

Obviously, any attempt to share projects is going to hinge on the resources available.  If you don’t have a lot available, you’re limited in the scope of what you can do.  If you have some expensive specialized apps available, there’s a great deal of pressure to make sure they get opened and used.

Constructivism, Collaboration, Context, and Experience

I like to consider myself a radical constructivist. I’m also aware that the world is moving toward more and more collaboration, online & otherwise.  I’m aware of all the benefits of cooperative learning and have advocated them loudly and somewhat abrasively for a long time.  I’m not, however, entirely unaware of my surroundings, and I do tend to learn from experience.  Here are some observations I’ve made about cooperative learning and collaboration in the middle school context…

Group Work

Sadly, despite a wealth of research supporting such techniques and a seemingly unending barrage of educational workshops, staff development sessions, and in-service events on the subject, students still enter the Middle School entirely unequipped to function in small group dynamics.  What’s more, I’ve observed that despite individual teaching style and philosophy, it continues to be, with very few exceptions, only the first through third year teachers who seem to use group work.  Does this mean that teachers become lazy and disinterested in best practice as time goes on, or, as in my experience, do they discover that despite their best efforts, do they continually get work of a decidedly lower quality out of group assignments?

Yes, I know that you have to teach students how to work in groups.  I’ve had several classes in doing so.  I’m not some crotchety old codger who has tried this twice and given up.  My current course-wide project is being accomplished in small groups (thus far, to disastrous results , I might add).

Will I try group work next year?  Probably.  Should I have learned by now? Definitely.  Am I a glutton for punishment?  Evidence and experience would suggest “yes”.

Online Collaboration

You’re only as good as your lowest common denominator.

My newest San Juan Hill is Web 2.0 technologies for collaboration and publication.  I find myself viewing this issue with increasing urgency, particularly when I read articles, like the one quoted below.

Whether we like it or not, social Web technologies are having a huge influence on students who are lucky enough to be connected, even the youngest ones. Many 7- and 8-year-olds are busy exploring Club Penguin or Webkinz with other 7- and 8-year-olds half a world away, middle schoolers are connecting with global warriors in World of Warcraft, and adolescents preen themselves in front of their “friends” on MySpace and Facebook (Richardson, 2008).

As Susan McLester (2007) notes, “Our challenge as educators, parents, and community members: How do we empower and protect our students in an environment that increasingly excludes us?”  We have to get on board with this stuff.  I’m not just talking Blogs, either.  I’m talking Newsgroups, Social Networking, Real-time conferencing technologies and more.

Results of a 2007 national survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project show that 55 percent of all online American young people between the ages of 12 and 17 use social networking sites for communicating about everything from school-related issues to where the next party is taking place.

Clearly, this generation-poised to shape the future-has already found Web 2.0 applications integral to daily life. And for education not to step up and maximize these resources for teaching, learning, and driving innovation is to risk becoming marginalized as a viable influence in helping to shape the 21st century (Susan McLester, 2007).

With all of this urgency, one would assume that my classes singularly represent a Web 2.0 collage of collaborative awesomeness.  They don’t.  I’ve made a few relatively unsuccessful attempts at class-wide blogging this year.  Why? You’re only as good as your lowest common denominator.

It’s an unfortunate result of this highly-litigious age, where education is so often the target of frustrated parents, zealous politicians, and a sensational news media that we’re too darn scared to provide students with the most elementary of 21’st Century tools, an email address.  It’s all but impossible to unlock the potential of Web 2.0 tools without an email address, and roughly 1/8th of my students don’t have one.  Those that do cannot access it at school.  Thanks to a host of issues, then, from the digital divide to over-protective guardians who do not give kids their own email address, it’s all but impossible to teach these tools on a class-wide basis, particularly when your district is not will to invest in it with money for subscription services or server space.

A group of individuals: Whole class collaboration

Probably the most successful example of collaboration I’ve experienced in my lab was implemented through the use of multicolored Solo Cups.

I stole this technique from another teacher in my district and was heckled by my IT guys, who considered it flawed in light of the source, but I have found great success with it.

Basically, students have a stack of cups (green, yellow, red) on their workstations.  If they begin to run into a snag, they put their yellow cup to the top of the stack, and begin “Googling” thier problem, consulting the “Help” menu, and using any other available resources.  Meanwhile, nearby students, noting the yellow cup, may (and often do) come and halp the student.  When these resources are exhausted, and those nearby can’t help, the red cup goes on top.  This is like raising your hand for teacher assistance, but unlike raising your hand, you are still able to work on your problem with both hands and a fully attended mind while your red cup does the job of getting my attention.

This may seem silly, and somewhat elementary, but it works wonders for whole group collaboration, often allowing me to learn from students who are very savvy in a particular application.

What I’ve found thus far…

A list of resources for those of us teaching tech (in a vacuum or otherwise)

I intend to keep adding to this list as I find new resources.  I also encourage you to comment me with any resources you’ve found for the good of the cause.

Projects

• High Tech High
• Adobe Digital School
• Adobe Creative Suite
• “Lesson Plan” Sources
  • Integrated Technology Lesson Plans
  • Education World: Tech Lesson OTW Archive (great Elem resource)
    

Articles and Inspiration

• General Sources (where most everything is worthwhile)
  • Edutopia
  • Tech Learning
• Specific Articles
  • Footprints in the Digital Age
  • Get Past Teaching Apps: Build and Use a Student Technology Toolbelt

Curriculum

• Curriki

More to come…

So I feel like I’m always ranting.  I go forever without posting, and then something annoys me, and I go off. I’m really sorry about that… really… I am.  Sometime soon, I’ll write a non-ranting post.  Today, however, the Juvinalian Muse is upon me.

The Quest for Authentic Instruction & Fluency Building

In designing my current curriculum for CIT, I was heavily influenced by Cool Cat’s post, “Get Past Teaching Apps: Build and Use a Student Technology Toolbelt“.  I am particularly interested in building my students’ technology fluency, which is defined in Cool Cat’s post as:

the ability to determine and use the appropriate technology tool(s) for the task at hand in a manner that allows seamless transfer of created objects and documents to flow easily between the selected tools without outside intervention.

I also want students to be able to think critically and solve problems within a computing environment.  I focus quite a bit on teaching the students to use the skills I use personally to master computer applications, rather than just teaching them what I know.  As Cool Cat notes and Karl Fisch supports, “We cannot fathom what the future holds for them but we know what it won’t hold: It won’t hold the software that we taught them this year in its present fashion.”

So, how do I learn apps? Well, I certainly don’t take classes, and I don’t troll through all of those instructional tomes that are destined for Ollie’s when the app gets a version upgrade.  I do what every tech savvy wannabe super-geek does.  I Google it.  Through the use of these search terms combined with the app I’m trying to learn, I usually try to find resources in the following order:

• Video Tutorials
• Tutorials with Screen Shots
• Help from (app manufacturer, eg Adobe or Microsoft)
• Documentation

Thanks to the rapid improvement and dissemination of screencasting technology, there is a wealth of the first resource available, so much so that it is beginning to replace the the other resources.  Very few sites are providing text directions with screenshots anymore, and even forward-thinking software manufacturers are posting their official help and documentation in the form of screencasts.

Thus we arrive at…

The problem with Streaming Media

Allowing students to move between apps and choose the appropriate app for the task at hand is an admirable goal and one I continue to strive toward.  I also want to see students be able to work at their own pace in a self-directed way.  This however comes often into conflict with the reality of my teaching context.  I often have to stop everything and teach apps if I want quality work because I can’t teach students to use my technique for learning apps… Why?  Well, check out the following example.

One of the things I’m very blessed, fortunate, and proud to have in my lab, which is in a Middle School, no less, is Adobe Creative Suite 4, Design Premium.  (Yeah, I know… I should have nothing to rant about…ever). Anyway, Adobe used to have this great repository of online demos and tutorials for CS3, called the “Adobe Design Center”.  This was exceptionally handy for allowing students to get the basics of a program like Photoshop down (like how to use the interface and find stuff) before I provided mini-lessons.  This is exceptionally time saving and promotes independent, self-directed discovery rather than forced drill and practice.  With CS4, however, Adobe discontinued the design center and replaced it with Adobe TV, which is a really nice streaming site, containing way more than tutorials.  The problem is, since I started using Adobe CS4, in December 08, Adobe has redirected the streams for Adobe.TV at least 3 times.  I know this because I have to keep putting in IT requests to have it re-opened.

Another one of the things I’m very blessed, fortunate, and proud to have in my District is an excellent IT department, that manages to keep everything working smoothly despite servers that are hanging by a thread and buildings that are spread all over the county.  One of the reasons they run such a tight ship, however, is the level of security on our network.  For example, we’ve locked out all streaming media to all users with the exception of TeacherTube, Discovery Streaming, and (thanks to my incessant requests) Adobe.TV.  It’s because of this sweeping wall of defense that any minor re-direct changes undergone by Adobe.tv immedaitely cut off student access to the videos there.  This is why I haven’t invested any budget money in Lynda.com.  I would be really ticked if I were paying for this stuff and losing access when my students are trying to use it.

The last time one of our IT guys and I were trying to track down this re-direct (which took a double period by the way), he said to me “That’s the problem with streaming media”.  I wanted to say, “that’s the problem with backward-thinking overly-tight security”.  I didn’t, though, not because I was trying to avoid conflict, but because it isn’t necessarily true.  Our security keeps our network running smoothly.  It does agitate me, though, that I cannot teach my students the learning techniques that will help them build lasting tech fluency due to the limitations of our network.

Okay, let’s face it.  The world is moving toward more and more online collaboration.  We need to prep our students for this.  One project I currently have simmering on the back burner is a “design team” project where student groups would “meet” online with clients to discuss the design of everything from logos to web sites.  The ideal tool for such an undertaking is Acrobat.com:

• Acrobat.com

This tool is ideal for real-time online meeting, sketching ideas on the whiteboard, uploading sample files and presentations, and even sharing screens.  It’s even free.  The problem is, it doesn’t work on our student workstations…  It’s fine on my workstation and most of my colleagues.  My students, on the other hand, always get “invalid ticket” errors.  I swear this is deep freeze, but I can’t get anyone to believe me.

Here are some other possibilities that may not already be on your radar because they haven’t been mentioned in a summer workshop or whatever (I find we’re constantly told about the same old resources again and again). These, however, all require signup and therefore open up a whole other can of worms, particularly if your district doesn’t have student email…

• WizIq
• Thinkature

Free Apps you should have but probably aren’t allowed to install yourself…

Okay, so if you teach computer classes in the public education system and you don’t have a cool class like “Web Design” or “Desktop Publishing”, you probably get pretty sick of Microsoft Office.  You also probably are not in a position to beg your district to buy you new apps.

• Adobe Air (a world of widgety goodness and free mini-apps awaits)
• Google Sketch-up (who can argue with 3d drawing)
• Audacity (a little slice of near-pro podcasting goodness)
• Gimp (open source alternative to Photoshop)
• Inkscape (open source alternative to Illustrator)

Of course, you probably can’t install these yourself so put in an IT request, beg your tech department, and bake them cookies.

Okay, I understand.  Edublogs needs to make money to keep their servers running, but there are various degrees along the spectrum of supporting oneself and selling out.  Edublogs has sold out.  An appropriate banner ad or two is expected on most free web services, but embedded advertising links???

Will Richardson, whom I respect greatly, defines real blogging as,

Links with analysis and synthesis that articulates a deeper understanding or relationship to the content being linked and written with potential audience response in mind.

If this is the case, and links are an integral aspect of the connective writing process known as blogging, then what is one supposed to think when and ad agency can trump the links within a post with their own??  Ironically, Edublogs appears to be one of the sponsors of Weblogged.  I wonder what Will thinks of their new advertising practice??

Despite increased globalization; the need to prepare students to access, evaluate, synthesize, and build upon information and media; and the drive to promote Creativity, Innovation, Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, Communication, and Collaboration, the curriculum of our district’s Computer Information Technology program hinges on Keyboarding. I’m not kidding. This is apparently very serious stuff. One teacher commented at a recent curriculum meeting that this is “becoming a management and discipline issue at the high school.” Wow. It seems that students, who have formed bad keyboarding habits despite intensive training at the Elementary level, are resorting to the technique that works best for them when teachers turn their backs.  Huh…  The nerve of some people’s children…

The Answer

Never fear, though.  We’re going to get a handle on this pesky issue of students ignoring their homerow keys like they weren’t the most critical factor in their technology toolbox.  How?  We’re going to ignore most of the current research (poppycock) and move keyboarding instruction to seventh and eighth grade.  That should solve most of these issues.  Never mind the pervasive research that says “It is recommended that all students begin to learn correct placement of fingers on the keyboard as soon as they begin to use the computer. However, mastery is most efficiently attained at the fifth- to sixth-grade years” (Keyboarding research and resources).  Never mind that “Most research supports starting students on formal keyboarding around grade 4,” (Education World).

Honestly

Admittedly, the real point, as if it weren’t absolutely transparent, is that I don’t want to teach keyboarding! First of all, I would not pass our District keyboarding test (no, I’m not kidding… we actually have one of those) and I’m a successful web designer, online college facilitator, and middle school computer teacher.  Second of all, keyboarding feels like a ridiculous pursuit on this grade level, when so many middle school students are immersing themselves in a read-write web we’ve taught them nothing about.

Another aspect of our scope and sequence (educator-ese for what gets taught when) that became glaringly apparent during this meeting (in addtion to the aformentioned tragic neglect of middle school keyboarding instruction) was the simple fact that any mention of digital citizenship, online collaborative technologies, or responsible communication and online publishing begins in grade seven and is never mentioned again after grade eight.

This is exceptionally sad because, as Will Richardson notes in a recent ASCD Article, “Footprints in the Digital Age”:

A recent National School Boards Association survey (2007) announced that upward of 80 percent of young people who are online are networking and that 70 percent of them are regularly discussing education-related topics. They’re creating all sorts of content-some, as we all know, doing so very badly-and they’re doing all sorts of things with online tools that, for the most part, we’re not teaching them anything about. In the process, they’re becoming Googleable without us.

In a recent blog post, entitled “It’s the Parents’ Fault. Not“, Richardson expands this idea:

But whose job is it to educate kids to use those sites well and appropriately? I doubt that most of their parents really have enough of an understanding of what their doing to prepare them.

Ironically, The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, was mentioned multiple times during this whole keyboarding dialog, while the greater context was entirely ignored.  No one, with the exception of our Technology Specialist, even noticed the resounding lack of:

Creativity and Innovation

• Demonstrating originality and inventiveness in work
• Developing, implementing and communicating new ideas to others
• Being open and responsive to new and diverse perspectives
• Acting on creative ideas to make a tangible and useful contribution to the domain in which the innovation occurs

Information Literacy

• Accessing information efficiently and effectively, evaluating information critically and competently and using information accurately and creatively for the issue or problem at hand
• Possessing a fundamental understanding of the ethical/legal issues surrounding the access and use of information

Media Literacy

• Understanding how media messages are constructed, for what purposes and using which tools, characteristics and conventions.
• Examining how individuals interpret messages differently, how values and points of view are included or excluded and how media can influence beliefs and behaviors.
• Possessing a fundamental understanding of the ethical/legal issues surrounding the access and use of information

ICT Literacy

• Using digital technology, communication tools and/or networks appropriately to access, manage, integrate, evaluate, and create information in order to function in a knowledge economy
• Using technology as a tool to research, organize, evaluate and communicate information, and the possession of a fundamental understanding of the ethical/legal issues surrounding the access and use of information

Need I continue???

The wrong focus

This may be the first large technological shift in history that’s being driven by children (Richardson, 08).

Apparently, I’ve foolishly been blundering into this whole situation with the wrong focus.  I’m clearly wasting time on all this flashy fancy Web 2.0 garbage.  I should in fact be getting back to the basics, like keyboarding.  We’ll leave the largest technological shift of our time to the experts, our kids.  If they can use their homerow keys, they’ll be okay.

Richardson, goes on in his article to point out that, “In short, for a host of reasons, we’re failing to empower kids to use one of the most important technologies for learning that we’ve ever had.”  I agree!  Of course, he goes on to ruin his credibility here by saying, “One of the biggest challenges educators face right now is figuring out how to help students create, navigate, and grow the powerful, individualized networks of learning that bloom on the Web and helping them do this effectively, ethically, and safely”.  Sorry, Willy, old chap, but your focus is a wee bit off there.  Clearly, what you meant to say was, One of the biggest challenges educators face right now is figuring out how to help students find their homerow keys, sit up straight, face the screen, and effectively type 25 words per minute with 95% accuracy.

Economics or Steel?

I teach students a variety of technology related concepts and applications with in my seventh and eighth grade course called “Technology”.  The course centers on the following skills:

Learning and Innovation:

• Creativity and Innovation
• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
• Communication and Collaboration

Information, Media and Technology:

• Information Literacy
• Media Literacy
• ICT Literacy

Look familiar?  It should.  The primary focus is the Framework for 21st Century Learning.  The context within which I do this includes:

• MS Office
  • Word
  • PowerPoint
  • Excel
  • Visio
• Blogging
• Wikis
• Adobe Creative Suite
  • (Design Premium)
• Moodle
• WizIQ
• Novell Teaming
• Google Docs

Apparently, although most of these technologies have to do with communication, collaboration, and creativity, I, as a former Communication Arts teacher am not qualified to teach this class in the fair state of Pennsylvania.  In fact, in order to continue teaching this class I need to get a new certification.  Fair enough.  I am a Web Designer.  I have a Master’s degree in Online Learning.  I maintain my own web server in my home office.  I could easily certify to teach computers in PA, if there was a computer certification in PA.  There isn’t.  To teach a computer class in PA, you must certify in Technology (what we called shop class in my day) or Business.

Since I have little hope of explaining the why and how of particular aspects of steel manufacturing, I’ve decided to pursue the business certificate.  It’s my hope that I can actually pass a 125 question Multiple choice test on business vocabulary.  Of course, there is the snag that I know almost nothing about Business!  I’m a computer teacher.  If you bothered to check out the link above, you realize that I have the knowledge to answer approximately 17% of the questions on this test.  This is why I’m using my Discovery Streaming membership to watch such exciting videos in my spare time as “Business Basics: Supply & Demand”, which pursues the role of supply and demand in economics through real-life examples of how the laws of supply and demand work in the American economy; reading business textbooks; and listening to Marketplace.  Okay, to be honest, I enjoy Marketplace, and it probably won’t actually help with the test.

Really: NCLB, Highly Qualified teachers, and Finance

Apparently, while the spirit of the law is to help children by ensuring they’re never learning Calculus from someone with an Elementary Ed. Certification.  The letter of the law becomes quite ridiculous, particularly when you say the all things computer-related are the unique unapproachable realm of Business and Shop teachers… Really?

Apparently knowledge of carpentry, finance, energy production, and macroeconomics makes one uniquely suited to teach computer applications like Wordpress and Adobe Illustrator… Really?

Obviously, I realize that there are connections between both disciplines and computer technology.  I’m not arguing that point at all.  I can even see that for those teaching such subjects, the idea of trying to get an additional computer technology certification would be ridiculous.  My question is, how is it any less ridiculous for a Communication Arts, Science, or Math Teacher?  All of these disciplines connect as well.  What about blogs, wikis, web pages, and threaded forums makes them not a part of Communication Arts or “English”?  Incidentally, if you want to get really picky, the PA Standards for Technology fall under Science.

Resources and Sharing

Okay, so I’m going to do everything I can to collect resources and prepare for this test.  I also hope to share what I find here.  If anyone else has found anything useful, please share it.  Finally, if you’re teaching computers on the secondary level in PA, act now!  Register for a test and get it done before the policy changes.  Currently, there is talk of adjusting the law so one must take the schooling in order to add the certification.  If you don’t want your MBA or training on Bandsaws, I suggest you get moving.

Anyway, here’s some stuff that was shared with me or that I found.

• BCIT Study Notes (A google doc)
• Teachnology forums Thread
• A to Z Teacher Forums Thread

As a teacher of technology, I am very interested in the “new literacies” related to information management, often referred to as Information Literacy, Media Literacy, Digital Literacy, and Network Literacy. I recently read Judy Salpeter’s article, “Make Students Info Literate” in the May 22, 2008 issue of “Techlearning” magazine. In the article, Salpeter succinctly makes several points that I’ve been trying to make with colleagues for the last four years.

Salpeter (2008) sums up these new literacies as “The ability to access, evaluate, synthesize, and build upon information and media.” ISTE, The International Society for Technology in Education, (2007) notes that students should be able to “locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media and evaluate and select information sources and digital tools based on the appropriateness to specific tasks.” NCTE, The National Council of Teachers of English, (2008) says that students should be able to “manage, analyze, and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information; create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multimedia texts; and attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments.”

What does this all mean for those of us in the trenches, so to speak? It’s a sad truth, but despite the tremendous advances in information management we’ve seen in the last several years, many teachers are still requiring students to rely on antiquated research methods. Salpeter puts it beautifully when she says, “remember typewritten card catalogs, multi-volume print encyclopedias, and dusty library shelves with outdated topics and material for classroom research? Today’s students don’t” (2008). Yet, many of todays educators are pushing these methods on unwilling and disengaged students. I see it all the time in my school. Why? The reason that we can all relate to is, “many students cannot discriminate between posts that are accurate and attributable and those that are undocumented and misleading” (Salpeter 2008). The natural reaction; throw up our hands and stick with the Library. Oddly, our library isn’t even called a library any more. It’s a “Media Center”, and our “Media Specialist” works hard to teach information literacy through the use of subscription databases, such as POWER Library (http://www.powerlibrary.org/) or peer reviewed search engines such as NetTrekker (http://www.nettrekker.com/). The thing is, students don’t want to go through the complicated steps required to search POWER or even log in to NetTrekker when they can simply pull up Google and hit “search”. As soon as you turn your back on them or give them an independent project, they’re right back to Google and Wikipedia. Instead of trying to ban Google and Wikipedia, Salpeter argues and I agree, we should teach students to responsibly use these resources.

For starters, we need to teach students to search. Salpeter points out that, “young people, while perfectly comfortable using computers and the Internet, are not naturally adept at search strategies. Left to their own devices, students will depend on natural language to search rather than analyze keywords that would be more effective” (2008). Google actually has some great resources on searching that I use with my students already (http://www.google.com/educators/posters.html). One thing Salpeter suggests and I try to do is “challenge students to search using a variety of strategies and tools and report back on the most and least effective search approaches” (Salpeter, 2008). This might stick a bit more than an extensive 40 minute demonstration of Boolean searching using online subscription databases. On of Salpeter’s (2008) suggestions that I’ll certainly share with colleagues is, “as students prepare for a major research project, require them to include a number of keywords and search options they used along with their traditional, footnoted attributions”. That’s simply brilliant.

Of course in all of this, we can’t ignore that Wikipedia elephant in the room. Most of our students’ general information searches are going to yield results from Wikipedia. Indeed, a lot of attention has been “paid to inaccuracies found in the Wikipedia Web site and other collaboratively created online sources, prompting certain educational organizations to ban their use for research” (Salpeter, 2008). Stephen Colbert has brought a lot of attention to this idea, through his references to Wikipedia, which he refers to as his favorite website, generally in “The Wørd” segment. This all began on the July 31, 2006 broadcast, when “The Wørd” was Wikiality, defined as the concept that “together we can create a reality that we all agree on — the reality we just agreed on.” I would respond to such statements first by pointing out the work of Halavias (2004) and Giles (2005) mentioned in the Will Richardson’s “Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts” (2006), which compares Wikipedia’s accuracy to that of Britannica’s and Encarta’s. Then I would encourage teachers to, as Salpeter suggests, “have students do their own accuracy analysis as they explore a topic with which they are particularly knowledgeable—their home community, for example, or a favorite sport or hobby”. As a class activity, students could perhaps visit the site to check out a topic the class is particularly knowledgeable on, test the accuracy and maybe even contribute. Indeed we should “encourage students to responsibly edit Wikipedia articles” (Salpeter, 2008). I also like the idea of sharing the discussion section of Wikipedia, “where editors pose questions, raise concerns, and explain why they think certain items should be added, deleted, or modified” (Salpeter, 2008).

There is more out there than Wikipedia, though, and we need to discuss with students “what makes a reliable source and what makes a piece of information verifiable” (Salpeter, 2008). There are many great resources for this discussion on the web, including the following:

• http://www.kyrene.org/schools/brisas/sunda/webquest/evaluating_reliability.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources
• http://www.coastal.edu/writingcenter/wcdocs/credibility.pdf
• http://www.lib.purdue.edu/ugrl/inst/evaluatingsources.pdf
• http://www.virtualsalt.com/evalu8it.htm

Additionally, I agree that, “such conversations [should] also involve a look at the advantages and disadvantages of various resources—not only with regard to the accuracy issues discussed earlier but also in terms of the fluidity and speed at which information is updated” (Salpeter, 2008). Incidentally, use of the Internet for obtaining information has moved way beyond browsing. As Salpeter (2008) notes, “Forward-thinking teachers are encouraging students to explore the new generation of options designed to connect them with digital media as well as with other human beings—tools such as del.icio.us (for organizing and sharing links with others), Flickr (for photo sharing), or aggregators such as Bloglines (for consolidating information based on RSS tags).” I particularly like Will Richardson’s suggestions for setting up RSS feeds to “search” news stories based on a particular keyword or phrase found at http://weblogg-ed.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/RSSFAQ4.pdf.

Finally, we all know what students do when the do hit the information jackpot; copy and paste. This is a fact that makes content area teachers and librarians, excuse me, media specialists the world over cringe as though they had been struck. How do we respond to this? I would argue that the answer does not lie in the seven page MLA citation packet we throw at kids the first week of school every school year. Sure, “the ease by which we all cut and paste these days raises many questions about the definition of the word plagiarism,” (Salpeter, 2008), but students simply ignore such cumbersome style sheet information, particularly when they’re not working on a major research paper. In quick discussion papers, blog posts, or forum responses, often a URL would suffice perfectly without bogging students down in a world of carrots, quotation marks, underlines, and italics. Heck, I’ve used APA for so long, I can barely keep MLA straight. As Salpeter (2008) argues, “By expecting students to provide attribution to the best of their ability, and discussing the challenges they encounter as they try to do this, the education world can help redefine what it means to be an ethical and active participant in collaborative authoring ventures”. I’ve heard numerous student frustrations with this process during my lab periods as they try their best to find the “date of publication” for their “Document from an Internet site”. A great site I use to explain issues of copyright and teach students how to attribute their own work is Creative Commons (www.creativecommons.org). I particularly recommend the “Get Creative” video (http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/getcreative/).

Whether Information Literacy, Media Literacy, Digital Literacy, or Network Literacy, todays students need help in becoming “knowledgeable digital citizens who can operate in the unregulated online world” (Salpeter, 2008). It’s our responsibility to help them navigate these issues, and it is tragically neglectful of us to simply resort to antiquated methods in the name of academic honesty and source reliability.

Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press

Salpeter, Judy (2008, May, 22). Make Students Info Literate. Techlearning, Retrieved August 5, 2008, from http://www.techlearning.com/showArticle.php?articleID=196605232

This has been the case in my experience, particularly in my Communication Arts classroom, which is why I jumped at the opportunity to move into the Technology teaching position. As a radical constructionist, who strongly believes in providing an authentic experience for students where they “think critically, solve problems, analyze sources, make good judgments. gather, sort, internalize, and share information with others” (The Teacher’s Mission). As I made the transition from a class centered on PSSA Preparation to one built around multimedia authoring, Internet research, online collaboration, and desktop publishing, I experienced a welcome role-shift from what I had been so uncomfortable with in my CA classroom since the NCLB change back to the complex, multi-faceted role of Radical Teacher. I’ve never been able to succinctly capture this role in language. Typically, I have referred people to multiple articles and resources on the web by people like Alfie Kohn. As I read the material from Simkins, Cole, Tavalin, and Means (2002), I was provided with a very accurate word picture of what it is I do, or at the very least attempt, in the classroom, which is more than guide on the side. Incidentally, they did not have a magical term to sum this up, but rather triangulated the position of this concept by attacking it from multiple sides.

First there’s the idea of the teacher as project-manager. It’s hard to think about that without thinking of Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice”, but this role in the classroom is not near as fraught with conflict. According to Simkins, Cole, Tavalin, and Means (2002), this means “they have a host of responsibilities, not the least of which is planning. Many teachers find that the ultimate success of a project-based unit depends heavily on the thoroughness of advance planning. Once projects are underway, teachers provide coordination to ensure that things go according to plan” (p. 101). This is probably the most challenging facet of my changing role and in establishing the learning environment. I’m more of a fly-by-the-seater than a planner, but I understand the importance of planning in the constructive classroom, particularly when multimedia projects are involved. The “Executive” (Simkins, Cole, Tavalin, and Means, 2002, p. 103) is an essential role at the middle school level. My students, as seventh and eighth graders, are not used to being given enough leeway, at least at the beginning, to manage people and resources, determine appropriate standards of performance, or ensure that predetermined goals or objectives are met. The “Therapist” (p. 103) is probably one of the roles I most look forward to. I feel most satisfied as a teacher, when my students knowingly accept responsibility for their choices and approach their learning authentically without all of the posing and pleasing of myself or their peers. This is a point that segues nicely into the role of “Liberationist” (p. 103). This is the part of me that “Sees moral and intellectual values as part of the content of teaching [and] demands that work has value and purpose” (p. 103).

Ultimately, the more I encourage students to explore the applications we’re using and develop “the ability to determine and use the appropriate technology tool(s) for the task at hand in a manner that allows seamless transfer of created objects and documents to flow easily between the selected tools without outside intervention” (Vicki Davis, 2008), the more I will not be seen as the expert, at least not of computers. I’m okay with that.
In a world where so many of my students have “mastered software and conquered web site construction, can search for information, copy it (without thought to cybercitations), and produce a multimedia essay in less time than it takes [me] to write the assignment on [Edline]” (Relating to Students), it is more important for me to create an environment that encourages:

• Student learning through involvement with authentic, challenging tasks
• New roles for students and teachers
• Professionalization of teachers
• Creation of a culture that supports learning both in the classroom and beyond the school walls

(Overview of Technology and Education Reform). Also, I must allow for inclusive discussions of copyright as it relates to technology, calling upon sources such as CreativeCommons.org. This land of digital immigrants teaching the digital natives has made life a bit less comfy for those of us in education who still wish to kick it old-school, but it has also opened a great opportunity to make good on the old cliché that I learn as much from my students as they do from me.

Simkins, M., Cole, K., Tavalin, F., & Means, B. (2002). Increasing student learning through multimedia projects. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Southwood begins by posing the following question.

Q: Your students are most likely to be learning the real-world skills that employers demand when they are:

a) In the classroom, following the lessons in the textbook.
b) At home, completing assigned homework.
c) On line, playing World of Warcraft.
d) On a class field trip, visiting the offices of a local corporation.

The answer is, of course, WOW (World of Warcraft). More and more, educators, scientists, and business executives are apparently coming to believe that such games require players to master skills in demand by today’s employers, such as critical thinking, team building, problem solving, and collaboration.

There is one category of mainstream computer games that Southwood believes should be a standard part of the curriculum in every high school is Computer role-playing games or RPGs. These games are unrivaled in their complex structure and emphasis on team building.

My generation came up thinking of an RPG in terms of Dungeons and Dragons. Even with such pencil, paper, and dice based table top RPG’s you were able to work as a team, building a rapport with your group both in and out of the game and relying on each other’s strengths to accomplish epic feats. Admittedly, I am a tabletop role-player, and so I can speak to that scene first-hand. It was always limited, though, to those of us who were geeky or self-confident (take your pick) enough to participate without fear of being shunned by friends and potential mates.

Today, modern computer RPG’s, like the World of Warcraft, have brought the gaming culture into the mainstream, promoting social interaction among students who might not otherwise interact with each other. You may be online at home slaying orcs, escaping a galactic prison, or circumventing a sniper nest with a Football player from Penn State, an accountant in Chicago, and a 30 year-old grocery clerk in his mom’s basement. Additionally, Southwood points out, RPG’s can bring many of the “benefits of school sports programs to students who are unable to participate in those programs”. If you have the hand-eye coordination of a slug, like myself, how are you going to experience the team-building and collaboration skills that come with being on the soccer or football team?

Grouping, teamwork, and cooperative learning are all buzzwords, but for any of you who work with middle-schoolers and even some that work with high-schoolers know that most students see teamwork or group projects as an opportunity to divide up the work to be done “the way you would cut up a pie”. This essentially defeats the whole purpose and benefit of such activities, leaving teachers frustrated and wondering why bother. Most of us really want to give our students the tools to tackle the collaborative projects they may face in the workplace, using each others’ strengths to create products far superior to what could have been accomplished individually. Unfortunately, the acronym agenda (NCLB, AYP, etc), among other things, prevents most of us from having the time to build quality collaborative groups through repeated exercises, such as those they put us through in professional development classes on group dynamics. You know the drill. “Many tasks require a combination of different skills, and the best team for those tasks will offer a variety of abilities, with each person doing the part he or she can do best. Most sports teams are set up this way. Once the team is formed, the members must learn to trust each other and each member must show the others that he or she is dependable and worthy of trust” (Southwood 2007).

Personally, I see RPG’s as the ultimate constructivist activity.  A player is immersed into a situation where he or she must work with others to solve problems and succeed.  To get by, one must access everything in his or her repitoire of skills, knowledge, and people skills.

Will we ever actually see RPG’s in school?  Considering how well they build and reinforce real-world skills valued by business, I highly doubt it.  Anything that good is sure to not fit in at school for some reason.  If anything, educational software companies, like AutoSkill, will crank out some cheesy dumbed-down version that doesn’t really encourage any problem-solving or collaboration but does generate very concrete performance data of some kind.  It will no-doubt pupport to increase standardized test-scores, and districts will buy into it.  Ultimately, students will hate it with the same passion with which they hate “Academy of Reading”, and it will do nothing to prepare them for the real world.  Students will continue learning more at home and life will go on.      

In fact the entire point of the presentation this morning and this conference as a whole is examining where our students really are (or should be) with technology and learning and how to act with them to move forward. We are teaching a digital generation and failing miserably. We are clearly on the crest of a wave of extreme change in our way of life. As Karl Fisch notes, “shift happens”. In one arena, the world at large, our economy is moving from a manufacturing-based system to a global services provider, our children are becoming hyper-communicators and hyper-multi-taskers who are armed with gadgets that give them access to anyone and anything they need or want from anywhere at any time. In the other arena, public education, we are feeding our students the traditional diet of our old world:

• Attending school one location at a time
• Learning the teacher’s way
• Learning is solitary
• Feedback comes when it is ready
• There is usually limited or only one learning path or style used.

It’s not that education doesn’t mean well. We’re really trying. We buy lots of computers and software, we analyze lots of data, we discuss the needs of students and how they learn, and we even attend large conferences about how to do all of these things. So, why are we still failing so darn miserably?

For starters, we need to “act with” our students, as Deneen Frazier Bowen often says in her performance-lectures. What’s the point of analyzing technology related data without including the students in the process? We may be asking the wrong questions. We need to listen to the learner and value their opinions and input when it comes to technology. How much money does your school district spend on software that kids don’t want to use or refuse to use? Who controls access and choice when it comes to technology? Are the students ever involved, or is it just the teacher? Worse yet, is it a network administrator locked away in a server room somewhere? Today’s technology is designed and implemented around an intuitive, collaborative, and investigative model. This means, when a student wants to know something, he or she knows that the answer is not far away, and if a student wants to accomplish something, he or she knows that like-minded people are just as close. Yet, we are using our limited financial and technological resources to serve up such stale dishes as Autoskill’s Academy of Reading or courses on how to use Microsoft Word. Incidentally, have you ever heard of Google Docs or ZoHo? It begs the question, how many people beyond clerical workers will be using Microsoft Word in five years?

Second, in this highly-litigious age, where education is so often the target of frustrated parents, zealous politicians, and a sensational news media, we’re too darn scared to provide students with the twenty first century skills they’ll need to survive. We are rendered totally inept and inconsequential by FEAR.  While we sit around discussing AYP and analyzing data in the name of covering our own behinds, our students’ future survival is dying quickly. While they sit in classrooms meeting standards and in computer labs that are so crippled by strict filtering of everything from email to newsgroups and chat that they’re nearly a reflection of 20th century technology, rather than 21st, our students’ future survival is dying quickly. Our behinds are covered though… until, of course we’re in our sixties, living in a third-world country with a stagnant economy and a crumbling infrastructure because the generation after us just wasn’t able to keep up (sorry, that may have been hyperbole… but then again…).

The question remains then, how do we move forward?  How do we claw our way out of this gross ineptitude that is slowly rendering us inconsequential and irrelevant to our students?  How do we “act with” our students to help them become communicators, collaborators, and problem-solvers, equipped with the technical knowledge to survive a rapidly changing world?  How do we feed the digital natives an educational diet consisting of something other than the stale traditional diet that is failing us so miserably?  Perhaps we should start with an appetizer of:

• School that can be attended anywhere anytime. (Is your classroom available online? We’re not talking about a gradebook and homework list.  Can your students communicate with you and each other in a safe social platform?)
• Resources that are available to help students learn in the way that works best for them. 
• Learning activities that are social and collaborative.
• Real technology that students actually use in real life is available to provide the timely information and feedback students are accustomed to.

Finally, we need to get our heads out of the sand and stop being paralyzed by fear.  We should be embracing the technologies our students are using anyway, rather than filtering and blocking them wholesale. Results of a 2007 national survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project show that 55 percent of all online American young people between the ages of 12 and 17 use social networking sites for communicating about everything from school-related issues to where the next party is taking place. Many of the unsafe uses of such technology as blogs, social networking sites, MUVE’s, and MUD’s collectively referred to as the Web 2.0, have found their way into our collective consciousness as a nation, due to the many news stories chronicling the disastrous effects of unsupervised uses of this technology by our children. Clearly, this generation—poised to shape the future—has already found Web 2.0 applications integral to daily life. For education not to step up and maximize these resources for teaching, learning, and driving innovation is to risk becoming marginalized as a viable influence in helping to shape the 21st century. Too often, we, as adults, have decided that the tools that our students use when at home are inappropriate for school and learning. Since we do not like the content students produce on blogs without adult supervision we will not let them near a blog, even with adult supervision. Educators should co-opt these tools not only to increase motivation but also to teach appropriate, ethical, and safe etiquette for using such tools.

Additional Research and Resources:

Creating & Connecting: Research and Guidelines on Online Social – and Educational – Networking, National School Boards Association
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