On the Death of My Clicker: A Reflection on Technology and Pedagogy

At the risk of sounding ridiculous...I am grieving a small loss in my life. My faithful clicker that I believe I purchased during my last year teaching middle school science (in 2009) has died. It's a small grief, but I truly am sad about this.

Alas, dear Keyspan...we salute you.

Why grieve this ancient piece of technology? All right, grief might be too strong a word for it. But I did love this tool, and I used it well for a long, long time. The laser pointer still works, but everything else, from the forward and back buttons, to the volume controls, to the mouse buttons...all dead. I changed the batteries, just to be sure. No joy.

The clicker is kaput. A faithful tool that served me well for 13+ years...no more.

Why lament it's passing? Maybe it's just because it's so comfortable to use? Maybe it's just because it's so familiar to use? 

It's funny, the relationship we have with our tools. A quote often attributed to media theorist Marshall McLuhan (but I can't find a source for it?) gets at this: "We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us." I find this to be true in so many ways. The old saying is that if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail, and I think this is often the case with educational technologies as well--the tools we have at our disposal so often shape our thinking about what is pedagogically possible. 

With the death of my clicker, I have found myself much more closely tied to the podiums of the classrooms in which I teach. I don't like this much. I prefer to move around the room, getting a little closer to my students, teaching from the back of the classroom, or the side, or roaming around. The clicker represents some pedagogical freedom for me, I think. It shapes my behavior in the classroom, because it makes different things possible for my use of a slide deck. And without it, I feel more tethered--constrained, even. But notice that I didn't give up my slide decks, just because the tool that gives me more freedom in the classroom geography is finished. The technological ecosystem is disrupted, but not demolished by the removal of one tool from my toolbox. I think this is something worth thinking about.

Every tool has affordances (things it makes possible) and constraints (things it makes difficult.) Perhaps this is why I'm grieving the loss of the clicker a bit...it allowed me to expand the use of other technologies that I like to use when I'm teaching. The clicker's affordances expanded a few things for me, and made me, I hope, a bit more effective in my lecturing.

So, here's to the Keyspan, which served me well for so long! Rest in peace (or is that "rest in pieces?")

Ah, and...of course...I ordered a new clicker as a replacement. And this one has rechargeable batteries, and a green laser instead!

When Should We Go Digital?

I'm teaching a course this semester ambitiously entitled "Teaching and Learning with Technology." It'a actually the...eighth time I've taught it, and I have it almost dialed in where I want it at this point. (But it's always a process of refinement, you know? Always becoming, and never arriving...)

A perennial question that comes up at some point each time I teach the course is along the lines of, "When should we use technology, and when should we avoid it?"

I love it when students start asking that question. All too often, I think we assume that technology is somehow going automatically improve teaching and learning. But I think that "when should we use technology" might be the wrong question, honestly. Probably this has to do with the fact that I tend to take a very broad view of technology; sure, computers and tablets and projectors are technologies. But so are books, and pencils, and crayons, and paper, and white boards, and scented markers, and play-doh, and protractors, and juggling balls, and...well, you get the idea? We use an awful lot of different kinds of tools to support and encourage students to learn. Some are digital. Some are not.

So the way I'd like to reframe this question is, "When should we go digital?" Here too, there are probably a variety of answers, and it's not always clear.

But tonight I was in on a Twitter chat with one of my all-time favorite groups of Ttweeting teachers, #iaedchat (Iowa Educators Chat--but there's a lot of folks from beyond Iowa who join in.) Tonight's chat centered around this idea of leadership and learning in digitally-enhanced learning environments. As part of the chat, one of my long-time Twitterfriends, Devin Schoening, shared this wisdom:

I've always had 3 Qs I use when working w/teachers re dig tools. 1. Does it make something more efficient? 2. Does it enhance something you are already doing? 3. Does it making something possible that otherwise wouldn't be? Have to be able to answer at least one "yes". #iaedchat

— Devin Schoening (@dschoening) February 24, 2020

I love this! Great advice, Devin. I'm going to pass this along to my students, and hopefully we'll continue to spread this wisdom into lots more schools as well.

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

Flickering Flickr

In my field of Educational Technology, we sometimes talk about what actually makes a particular tech tool an "educational technology." Some tools are deliberately designed for teaching and learning; I'm thinking about educational software packages for example. Those of a certain age will remember games like "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" or "Number Munchers" or "Reader Rabbit"--all games ostensibly developed to help students learn particular educational content.

But what about a game like "SimCity" or "Civilization" or "Rollercoaster Tycoon?" These weren't really developed to be educational games...but as a games, they definitely have some capability for providing interesting learning opportunities for students. And so there is this tension about educational technologies: sometimes technologies developed for other purposes or contexts are co-opted into becoming educational technologies, because educators find interesting ways to use them for teaching and learning.

Because, if nothing else, great teachers are resourceful, and use the tools they have at their disposal...often in creative ways.

Breaking Out at the End of the Semester

I had to check my math because I could hardly believe it myself, but this spring was the NINETEENTH TIME I've taught science methods! This course is officially titled "Teaching Science Pre-K through Middle School"--which is pretty audacious--and it is, as they say, in my wheelhouse. I started adjuncting this course in 2007, and have basically taught it 3 semesters out of four since that time. That's a crazy thought!

I've found that when you teach a course that many times, there are three dangers to watch for, and keep in mind:

1. It's easy to assume that students know what you are talking about, because YOU (as the instructor) definitely know what you are talking about.
2. It's easy to accidentally tell the same stories over and over...or to think you've already told a story, because it can be hard to keep track.
3. It's easy to feel like you've got this one in your back pocket, since you've practiced it so much.

I'm continually working against these. It happened a few semesters ago in this course...I was a little too complacent, and because I had other, newer courses I was giving more focus, time, and attention, I fell into all three of these dangers all at the same time. Since then, I've tried to prioritize keeping science methods fresh, because--obviously--while it might be old hat to me, it is new for this group of students.

But one of the fun things about having a course that you feel very confident in teaching is that keeping it fresh means you can continuously tinker and experiment with things that you've never done before. Through out this semester, I tinkered with several lessons, trying new activities or different approaches to my lecturing/storytelling. I reworked parts of several lessons dedicated to teaching controversial topics in science, and invited colleagues to sit in--that keeps you on your toes! And, I decided I really wanted to try something completely new (for me) for a summative lesson at the end of the semester.

QR Tour: A First Day Experience

In my last post, I challenged my fellow educators--and myself--to consider making the first day an experience for students. Rather than just going over the rules and expectations, to consider how to draw students in, get them engaged from the very first day, and help them understand how we care about them and their learning.

Well, this idea resonated with a couple of my former students who are now teachers, and a few of them got in touch with me, either asking questions about how to do this, or--in the case of one passionate elementary school teacher--suggesting an idea for how she would like to take this approach.

In her own words (with her permission to share here):

A Tech Tool (Toy?): paperplanes.world

File this under the "how could I use this for a lesson" file... (with thanks to my twitterfriend, Kyle Calderwood, for sharing...)

1. Grab your phone and head over to paperplanes.world. (Seriously, you should do this right now...)

Another Six Helpful Resources for Teaching Geography

Those of you who are regular readers may know how much I love geography. I think maps are cool. (I was that geeky kid studying the maps in the back of the social studies book in elementary school...)

I'm always on the lookout for fun geography sites, tools, lesson ideas, and repositories, and I keep stashing them away when I come across them. In case you are interested, a few previous posts of geographic resources...
Eight Helpful Resources for Teaching Geography
Seven More Helpful Resources for Teaching Geography
And Six More Helpful Resources for Teaching Geography

Of course, it seems like there always another new one that crops up. So, in no particular order, here's my latest batch...

And Six More Helpful Resources for Teaching Geography

Image by Enrique Flouret [CC BY 2.0]

I have shared my love of geography here before, and though I'm not a geography teacher in an official sense, I think that every teacher should help foster a little geographic awareness in their students--in very much the same way we say things like "every teacher is a reading teacher" or "every teacher teaches writing."

Previously I've shared a few collections of fun resources you might be able to use to help your students develop a greater sense of geographic awareness; you can check out Eight Helpful Resources for Teaching Geography and Seven More Helpful Resources for Teaching Geography to help you get started.

It's in this same spirit that I offer this collection of six more resources. Enjoy!

Jargon

Oh, don't you just love educational jargon? (I sound like I'm being sarcastic, don't I? Maybe I am...a bit...but to be fair, I think every field has it's own jargon, and since I'm in education...)

Here's a toy for you to play with, edubabble lovers: check out ScienceGeek.net's Education Jargon Generator.

It will produce gems such as...

"We will unleash standards-based engagement structures via self-reflection."

"We will disintermediate child-centered education within a balanced literacy program."

"We will harness group-based mastery learning throughout multiple modalities."

"We will morph over-arching learning in authentic, real-world scenarios."

I'm sure you don't know anyone who talks like that though, do you? :-)

Maybe it's because I'm starting to think about the new school year that is just a few weeks away, but I'm almost ready for a game of buzzword bingo. Anybody else want in?

Created with wordle.net using selected text from ScienceGeek.

Tech Tool: Make Your Own Animated GIFs

I love animated gifs. Sometimes they just hit your funny bone, right? Like this one, for instance:

Even Vader loves pizza. [Scrounged from Smosh.]

So maybe you want to create your own animated gifs? Maybe you could use one for that online course you're teaching add a little interest and humor? Or maybe you just want to try and create the next viral hit?

Seven More Helpful Resources for Teaching Geography

One of my most-viewed posts to date is titled "Eight Helpful Resources for Teaching Geography." I'm glad this was--apparently--such a valuable collection of teaching ideas, because I think we (American educators) need to do a better job of teaching geographic awareness, frankly. So it's in that spirit that I've collected another seven resources that might prove beneficial for teaching geography...

Image by Kenneth Lu [CC BY 2.0]

What's In Your Desk Drawer? Day 17

How many CDs do you still have laying around?

It's interesting how educational technologies continue to shift and evolve. I wrote a bit about this a couple weeks ago when I was thinking about the filmstrip I have in my desk drawer.

Today I noticed that I have a spindle pack of blank CD's in there too.

My laptop has a CD drive. I'm trying to remember the last time I used it to actually play a CD or read information off of a CD-ROM...and I can't remember. Maybe last summer? Maybe it was the summer before that!

Remember these babies?
Image by Nafija55 [CC BY-SA 3.0]

I remember, back in 1998 when I first heard about Apple's then brand-new computer, the iMac, and thinking how crazy it was that they didn't have a disk drive. Remember floppy disks? I'm old enough to remember when floppy disks were still floppy. By the time I was in high school and college, they were instead rigid plastic. Today, the only example most kids have to picture a "floppy disk" is the symbol on the "Save" button in their word processor. (I once actually had a student ask my why that symbol was used for "save." I had to go scrounging through some boxes to find a "floppy" to show him. This was five years ago already...)

Okay, so Steve Jobs was a man ahead of his time, able to see the future day when we wouldn't need a floppy disk anymore. But how about the CD? I have this partial spindle pack of blank CD-ROMs in my drawer in case I need to back things up...but when was the last time I did that? I can't remember.

I also have several of these babies in my desk drawer:

When I was Tech Coordinator, I lived and died by the 32 GB flashdrive I kept on my keychain. It had all of my mission critical files, and they came with me all the time, just in case I needed them at a moment's notice. (And of COURSE I kept a back up copy, off campus, just in case...)

But I was looking at this flash drive, and I couldn't even remember what I had saved on it, because I wasn't sure the last time I had plugged it in to my computer. (Interesting collection of old files on this one...but I won't get into that.)

Today, most of my documents are saved and backed up in "the cloud"--saved on some other computer someplace else on the internet. Yes, I still keep files on my hard drive. But find I keep stashing more and more things out in the weird network of computers that collectively make up the internet.

I have this headset in my desk drawer too. I use it when I'm making instructional videos, so I have better audio quality. (If you'd really like to see an example, here's one I made to teach one of my classes some things about the history of middle level schools, which I created for my Middle School Curriculum and Instruction course.)

Why share this? I make enough audio and video files these days that my hard drive could be filled many times over if I were to save them all on my laptop. So I save them in the cloud--on YouTube, in the example above.

This has me wondering a bit about what's next? We went from "floppy" floppy disks, to "rigid" floppy disks, to CDs, to DVDs, to flashdrives, to the cloud in less than 30 years. What will the next 30 years hold?

And will we still use the image of a floppy disk to indicate "this is the button to click to save your work?"



---

(This post is part of a series about the weird stuff teachers have in their desk drawers. You can read more about this project here, and I hope you'll share the stories of the weird stuff you have in your desk too!)

Tech Tool: SafeShare.TV

Imagine the scene: you've found this excellent video on YouTube that is perfect for illustrating a concept for your students. You decide to show it in class...and it's a great lesson! Except...one of your students points out the slightly inappropriate (or wildly inappropriate!) video being suggested on the sidebar next to the main video window.

Ugh. How embarrassing!

Wouldn't it be great if you could turn off those recommended videos? Or even the recommended videos that pop up after your video plays? Or remove those annoying ads? Or select just the clip you would like to use from a longer video?

Check out SafeShare.TV, an online tool designed to do all of these things, for free!

Here's how it works:

PearlTrees: A Tool for Organizing Online Resources

I love learning new tech tools, and while I'd heard of PearlTrees before, I had never taken the time to work with it. It's a pretty slick tool!

Basically, PearlTrees is a social bookmarking tool, but the design of it makes it particularly conducive to creating a curated collection of resources about a given topic. This makes it ideal for educational settings in which you might want to provide students with a curated list of links, infographics, videos and the like to build background for a particular subject.

Here's an example PearlTree I created for my Introduction to Education Course. We spend a good bit of time in that course examining school reform initiatives, and this collection of resources will help them understand the history that brought us to the current point, some of the different reform initiatives currently being implemented, and the different perspectives in favor of or strongly opposed to these different reforms.

You do have to create an account to get started, but it's free and easy to do so. Once you do so, you can edit your profile, add a picture, give a few sentences to describe yourself, etc., or not, if you'd rather stay more anonymous.

You can create different categories for links and resources you want to keep track of and collate into curated lists. I installed the Chrome extension, which makes it drop-dead simple to add things to your collections and start new collections.

If you are the sort of teacher who might want to create and keep lists of links, videos, graphics, and the like for your students' use, PearlTrees might be just the solution you're looking for. I highly recommend it.

Nine Things Schools Should Consider When Creating a Technology Plan

I recently received an email from a friend who is on the school board of a smaller Christian school. Knowing that I have a lot of opinions about educational technology, he asked me for some advice: their school is developing a technology plan for the next five years and want to plot things out well so it will be successful.

I was really glad to hear that. I think many schools just go blundering into the realm of technology and don't have a well-reasoned plan for how to design how technology will be infused into the classrooms.

So after some thought and reflection, here's my advice: nine things schools should think about as they create a technology plan:

Eight Helpful Resources for Teaching Geography

I love geography. I was that weird kid in 7th grade who would not be reading along with the class because he was looking in the back of his social studies book to find the fun place names on the maps...

Map via CIA World Factbook

Ouagadougou.

Surinam.

Ulan Bator.

Lago Titicaca.

French Lick. (Yes, for real. Check it out...)

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. (Google it!)

Sometimes I think I should have been a geography teacher. And I suppose I am, after a fashion, because I can't help but talk about people and places and politics...which are all parts of understanding the geography of this world.

Over the past couple of weeks I started cataloging some interesting geography resources I've stumbled across via Twitter. Here are eight good ones you might find helpful in your own teaching practice:

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.

PBS LearningMedia

Great online curriculum resource to share with you here: PBS LearningMedia.

A selection, just for examples: (with suggested grade levels)

• An interactive introduction to chemistry (6-12)
• An interactive means of helping students understand topographical maps (6-12)
• A video interview with Brian Selznick, author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret (4-7)
• A video of ideas for building structures from recycled materials (PreK-5)
• A "President for a Day" game to help students understand the many parts of the President's job (3-8)

And this is just the tip of the iceberg! There are thousands of video clips, interactives, games, and lesson plan ideas. You can search by keyword, or browse by grade level, subjects, standards, or collections to find just the right tool to support your students' learning.

You can check out a few items to see if it's the sort of thing you'd use, and then you are asked to create a free account if you want to use more. Totally worth it! (Plus, it's free!)

No matter what grade level or subject you teach, you're likely to find something here that you and your students will find interesting!

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!)

Tech Tool: Story Starters

English teachers, this one is for you. Check out the Story Starters tool on Scholastic.com.

I was visiting a student teacher yesterday and she was starting a new unit on creative writing with her 6th graders. She had a variety of tools to help them generate ideas for stories, but this one was probably the class's favorite.

A screengrab from Scholastic.com