Technology Self-Efficacy

Imagine this scene, teachers:

You have a colleague down the hall who has been telling you all about this great new educational technology that she has been using in her classroom to amazing results. The kids are so motivated and engaged, and they are so enthusiastic about their learning. "You should try it too," your colleague encourages you.

So, you start to plan a lesson. How hard can it be? Your colleague makes is sound like the kids can just sort of dive right in and go with it. And, hey, your students are "digital natives," right? Shouldn't be a problem for them.

As your lesson rolls out, things aren't going quite so smoothly. A hand goes up, calling you over to help out. Then another hand, and another. While you are looking over one kid's shoulder at his screen, you realize that half the class is currently "stuck," and waiting for help. They start whispering to each other...

"I'm so confused!"

"Why are we doing this?"

"I'm frustrated..."

"This is dumb."

...And about that time you decide you are never doing this again. What a waste of your time--and theirs! Why did you put yourself through this anyway?

---

People who know me well--and my proclivities to experiment in my teaching practice, and my love of all things techie--might be surprised to hear that I am describing myself in this story.

Telling Tales in a Technopoly: Getting Started with Digital Storytelling

I believe that storytelling is central to our humanity. We tell stories all the time, from personal histories, to imaginative bedtime stories, to morality tales, to socio-political narratives...the way we use "story" is a central part of our lives. Even the main way God has revealed Himself--the Bible--is largely comprised of stories, that combine to tell The Big Story of scripture: the Creation, the Fall, the Redemption, and the Consummation. And honestly, I think that part of how we reflect God's image is through our creativity (i.e., He is the Creator, which means we have the capability of being creative as well.)

Stories have a unique pull and an emotional element that "just the facts" cannot provide. Kieran Egan, in his lovely little book Teaching as Storytelling, says, "A good story-teller plays our emotions, as a good violinist plays a violin" (1986, p. 29). And I believe that it is this aspect that makes storytelling an essential teaching methodology, even in our high-tech world; perhaps it is even more important in our high tech world! In his book Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, Neil Postman writes that one of the essential features of a Technopoly (a culture in which technology not only plays a central role, but actually is the dominant worldview-shaper) is "the elevation of information to a metaphysical status: information as both the means and end of human creativity" (1992, p. 61) This rings true for me: we've often heard the old saying "knowledge is power," right? But is "knowing" the information enough? Information in what context? And for what purpose?

Visualizing the Internet in Real-Time

The internet has changed almost everything about almost everything.

A bold claim? Perhaps. But think about the mission statements of some of the best-known entities on the web today:

• Wikipedia, a massive (free!) online encyclopedia "dedicated to expanding access to the sum of human knowledge."
• Amazon, the digital shopping mecca, exists "to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online."
• Facebook, that social media behemoth, has ambitions "to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected." 
• Google, the king of search (in the Western world, at least) intends "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." 

And, (with the exception of Wikipedia), these are companies, looking to make a profit on the information--or access to information--that they provide, channel, control, and shape.

On the internet, facts are (generally) free. Information flows--channeled, perhaps--but flows in an unrelenting stream.

When I start to really reflect on this, I start to wonder. I wonder how much information travels the internet each day? And what kind of information?

Computers Programming Kids?

For a reading for one of the classes I'm taking this semester, we read part of Seymour Papert's classic book Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas. If you are Lego fan and have every worked with their robotics kits--also named "Mindstorms"--you are working with materials developed in collaboration with Papert. And, if you are of a certain age, you perhaps remember Apple LOGO (the "turtle" you could command around the screen?) which was developed by Papert as a way of teaching young children how to program computers.

I don't think I understood it this way when I was playing with LOGO as a kid. I was just messing around...though Papert would probably say that is the point. His philosophy is an off-shoot of constructivism called "constructionism" that involves creating (constructing) physical objects to represent complex ideas. This comes through pretty clearly when you think about the Lego robotics kits, doesn't it?

A functioning model of the Curiosity Rover, created using Lego Mindstorms NXT
Image by Erre [CC BY-SA 2.0]

Is Technology Really Making us Antisocial?

I saw this tweet from History In Pictures yesterday, and it made me laugh:

"All this technology is making us antisocial." pic.twitter.com/b2u9xhVmDA
— History In Pictures (@HistoryInPics) October 27, 2014

What do you think? Is it really all that different than this one?

Image by Susan Sermoneta [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]

I'm not saying there isn't a time to put the devices away...that would be like saying there was never a time to put the newspapers down, which is obviously ridiculous.

But I think we are quick to demonize the influence of digital technologies, and somehow think more idyllic thoughts of yesteryear without them.

Yes, we (I) need to be mindful of being "present" and putting the phone down. But is technology really making us antisocial? Or is it just more socially-acceptable to be "antisocial" today because we carry phones (which are really pocket-sized computers!) everywhere we go?

Digital Citizenship and Netiquette

Hey, it's Digital Citizenship Week! (Yeah, I didn't know that either, but Twitter told me. I checked...it is!)

As an EdTech fanatic, this is something near and dear to my heart. Schools have always had a role in socialization and teaching citizenship. In the 21st Century, that definitely has to include teaching students how to be good citizens in online interactions as well--because online life is "real life" for our students today...nothing "virtual" about it. (And honestly, online life is "real life" for all of us who use the internet for any part of our personal or professional life.)

I love CommonSense Media; I used their materials quite a bit for teaching digital citizenship when I was Technology Coordinator at a K-8 school. They have great stuff for parents and teachers and a lot of it is designed for use directly with the kiddos. I recommend you check out their ideas and resources for Digital Citizenship Week.

I also came across this great infographic this morning for helping to teach netiquette. What do you think? Does this seem like it covers everything?

Graphic shared by Educational Technology and Mobile Learning.

Copyright...and Copywrong

I've written before about how I think teachers are among the worst culprits at breaking copyright, and that we aren't doing our job if we don't model appropriate use of copyrighted materials for our students. (Our students are probably right up there too, but at least we tell them things like "cite your sources," right?)

I recently came across this video online (thanks @DailyGenius!) and it helps to explain how complicated copyright issues have become in the digital age. Consider it food for thought...

Given the immense complexity of copyright law, are we justified in throwing up our hands and saying we can't hope to keep up, so why bother citing sources for things? Tempting as that might feel sometimes, I think we need to model digital citizenship for our students and explicitly teach it.

How do you approach digital citizenship with your students?

Footprints

Think with me for a moment about footprints.

Footprints in the sand wash away when the tide comes in. We sometimes place handprints or footprints in wet concrete to leave our mark for the future. And an old adage for those who love the outdoors is, "Take only pictures, leave only footprints."

Footprints are evidence of where we have been, what we have done. I think it makes sense then that we sometimes describe the trail we live through the online realm as our "digital footprint." But unlike footprints in the sand, your digital footprint is more like footprints left in concrete. Indelible. Hard to remove.

When I used to serve as Technology Coordinator at a K-8 school, I taught a unit on digital citizenship unit for middle schoolers. One of the ideas I shared with the kids was "the Internet has a long memory." Digital footprints, set in concrete.

Perpetual walking [Image by pulpolox CC BY-NC 2.0]

Becoming a Digitally-Competent Teacher

It kind of drives me crazy when educators try to argue that they don't need to be tech savvy. Yes, it takes work to keep up with rapidly changing technologies. No, not every new tech tool (toy?) needs to be adopted into a formal education setting. But it's not 1989, people. I think it's safe to say that computer technology is firmly in place in schools. And, yes, there has been a shift in the expectations for teachers because of this.

But it's not as if this kind of shift hasn't happened before.

Shaping Digital Citizens

I came across this graphic today--might be a good one for the elementary teachers especially? (If you can get beyond the cutesiness, I think it's actually great advice for all of us...not just kids.)

Image from Global Education Database. Check out the full-size image here.

This is a great reminder for us all that our students--while perhaps having a higher level of comfort working with technology than some of their teachers--are not "digital natives" as they have been painted. Research bears out that students don't think about technology more natively than their teachers. The supposed digital natives and digital immigrants actually adopt technologies in very similar ways.

That said, all of us--students and teachers alike--can continue to develop as digital citizens.

How Can We Expect Our Students to Cite Sources if We Don't?

A couple weeks ago I was doing an EdTech workshop with some 4th grade teachers and the topic of teaching kids to cite sources came up. How should we do this at the 4th grade level? How should we do this at any grade level?

While it is important to have explicit instruction in how to cite sources, I'm convinced that we have to model this. All. The. Time. This will make it a "normal" part of kids' culture--an expectation that they have to give credit for the work of others.

Thank you, someecards.com for
allowing me create things like this...

And--honestly, teacher--you can't in good conscience admonish your students to cite sources without also doing so yourself!

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Let's be real about this: we are busy people. Most of the time we want to do the right thing, but we are in a rush and figure, "what harm can it do?"

It's not that skipping citing one source is the end of the world. But a pattern of not citing your sources is a terrible model for your students. Getting yourself in the habit can be a great chance to point it out to your students later when you are teaching them (and requiring them) to cite sources themselves.

Manners Matter! (Even Online...)

The topic of helping students develop good citizenship (especially online) came up in one of the discussions in a class I'm taking. I've thought quite a lot about this--especially when I was teaching middle schoolers how to be safe online, how to conduct research online, etc. Somehow, many students--even well-mannered, well-behaved kids--simply don't act nice when working and playing online. Kids need to learn that manners matter--even online!

In general, I think schools need to do a better job of this, but I also think some of the burden lies with parents. In the same way that parents should influence their children's citizenship habits in face-to-face settings, parents have a responsibility to foster good online citizenship habits as well.

I came across the infographic below the other day. It's from Know the Net, a pretty fantastic group in the UK with lots of resources to support parents and teachers in helping kids learn to conduct themselves well online. I hope you will give them a look, and consider using their resources for your own children or students.

Here's a great summary of what kids should learn about being well-mannered online. What do you think? Are there things they missed? What would you add?

Image from educatorstechnology.com

Easy to Use iPad Animation Creator

So you want to have your elementary or middle school students create short, narrated animations on their iPads? I just came across a nifty app to do just that.

Check out Tellagami. This free app is ridiculously easy to use. After downloading it, I handed the iPad to my 7-year-old and told her to check out the new app. First use, she had figured it out in about one minute with no coaching from Dad.

Easy to animate. Gestures added automatically and the mouth
movements sync to the audio (or text-to-speech) quite well.

Royalty-free Music for School Projects

I've been thinking quite a lot this spring about how to teach students (and teachers!) copyright law as it applies to school. I'm concerned that many teachers don't know enough about copyright and how to model good practices for how to use materials and media appropriately. I've written before about finding good graphic resources that teachers and students can use for projects, but how about other media resources?

Thanks to my Twitterfriend, Sean Junkins (@sjunkins) for sharing this great resource for royalty-free music for school projects.

Royalty Free Music by Incompetech is provided by Kevin MacLeod, a musician who shares music he has written for free on his website. If you read through the FAQ on the page, he explains his philosophy for this sharing. He recognizes the need for high quality media--such as these songs--for students to use, but many schools simply don't have the resources to afford the high costs of licensing music properly according to copyright law. Since the costs for him are very low, he is willing to share this fantastic resource under a Creative Commons license--basically giving away the music for free so long as you credit him as the source. Pretty fantastic, isn't it? (Thanks, Kevin!)

Zeen: A Beautiful Way for Students to Display their Work

I'm always on the lookout for great ways for students to share their work--and especially with authentic audiences. Zeen looks like one of those ways! (Thanks to @mrsebiology for the tip.)

A screengrab from zeen.com. Go explore!

Teachers and Copyright

I'm occasionally part of a twitterchat on Saturday mornings (#rechat -- "Rethinking and re-imagining education" -- @johntspencer moderates...if you're a teacher on Twitter, you should follow him. Smart guy, and he'll challenge you to think about your teaching practice.)

This past Saturday, our chat centered on teaching digital citizenship. Several fellow chatters suggested that we need to stop differentiating between digital citizenship and "real life" citizenship. The implicit here is that digital life is part of "real life" and the rules should be the same. That is, your online rules should be the same as your offline rules.

I basically agree with this; people should be courteous, honest, kind, polite, helpful, and respectful whether they are online or offline. I want my students to be people of integrity no matter the venue! That said, I still think we need to teach students how to have good manners--both online and offline. And further, we need to model this for our students as well.