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.

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.