Technology in the Classroom:Tools or Temptation?

•  If your school/district were to go 1:1 (one laptop/tablet per student) or BYOD (students bring own devices), how would you approach this issue (e.g., behavior management strategies, have a conversation with students, have students develop an acceptable use policy)?

Um, Brittany, could you please put that away?

It was Tuesday, the second day of my new placement.  I was circulating the class during independent summary work.  I passed by Brittany's desk and noticed her phone openly displayed. She was bent over her device, entering lines of text; long blonde hair falling neatly around the corners of her cluttered desk space.  I was a bit taken aback at her seemingly bold defiance, and wondered what the school wide policy was on texting in class.  Coming straight from a junior high that enforced a total technology lockdown, I began preparing my spiel, complete with pink-rimmed allusions to the assistant principal, all framed in a neat 'for your own good' message--a language I've recently become so fluent in.  She turned to look at me, with a mixed expression of slight fear and self-justification on her face:  

But Ms. Nordwall, this is my dictionary.

Her voice carried a thick, graceful German accent.  She revealed the screen of her iPhone, in which I could see the parallel German-to-English translation occurring. I felt  an immediate sense of guilt--I had called out an innocent student, who was struggling to understand the article we were reading and using technology as support.  the iPhone screen imaged what must have been going on in her mind as she read the article--a translation of every English word on the pages into her home language of German, mental processing, and restructuring into English on her summary page.  She had discovered an app on her phone that merely speeded up the process for her, and allowed her to keep pace with her tenth grade English-language-native colleagues. I marveled at her speed with her "dictionary", and her ability to keep up with her classmates.  I wonder if she would have the same success a dictionary in print form.  Her ability to enter the answers and quickly retrieve them certainly made the process much faster than had she been struggling with Mr. Webster in full printed form.  

Five minutes later I looked up from a conversation with a student and saw one of my student smiling down at the broad "unknown" under her desk.  Unlike her classmate, Ali was not likely academically engaged.  This time I walked over and glanced at the screen of her phone before beginning a discussion.  Not even the shadows of her desk could hide the brightly shaded emoticons from my peering eyes.  All she needed was a reprimanding glance from the head teacher (precursor to a lecture on the consequences of cell phone use in class)--the cell phone disappeared from sight, and this time, fully.  

And herein lies my question.  Within the span of ten minutes or less, I had experienced every high school teacher's conundrum: when is technology a tool, and when does it merely lead towards temptation?  The allure of the device is sweet--sleek silicone city's lights bloom brightly.  The desire to know, the desire to hear, and be heard--the desire to share our human experience, even if it's just to a vague audience of psuedo-friends on social media. 

How can they resist the pull, when their textbook lies open on their desk, every page creating knowledge for them; an unwelcome virtual reality buried in foreign jargon. And why should they, when they can create their own reality through their personal virtual portal.  

When is technology a tool?  In my yet unproved and unexperienced opinion, it is the format of the class itself that determines the use of technology.  If a class allows students to create their learning, perhaps students won't need a virtual escape.  At least their longing for it might be lessened. When knowledge is presented to them, they needn't search for it.  The difference between my two students is not merely the way they used technolgy, but more their need for technology.  My German student needed technology to create an interpretation of the article, and to engage with the material that otherwise would have been inaccessible.  Her whole world in that moment was needfully in the classroom, in the present moment.  My American student's article was fully unlocked to her--she had no trouble decoding the words on the page.  In fact, she had no trouble slightly participating AND creating her own reality via text, all in the same moment. She could effectively be present in the technological middle-earth--the place in which one is neither here nor there, neither present nor absent. 

 

When is technology a temptation?  When the class allows it.  When the coursework is such that opens the door to boredom, to an escape.  Maybe if we designed classes and assignments that engaged students, and them to create something in the classroom environment, they wouldn't have time to slip out the cell phone escape.  Maybe they wouldn't want to.  

Call me an idealist.  Call me anything you want.  But I would like to believe that given the right academic environment and class structure, technology becomes a tool for students to use, not a temptation for them to abuse. 

The Salad Bar: Blogs and Learning

In the brief window-shutter spaces of my free time, I have recently been perusing various educational blogs in search of inspiration and wisdom.  Using my Feedly site I have collected several resources that sparked my interest as a future educator and life-long learner.  Much like a salad bar, good educational blogs bring readers edifying texts that while easily consumed in their brevity, enrich the soul of the reader with a sense of personal growth and betterment.

 Currently, one of my favorite cites is an online production of The New York Times, entitled The Learning Network , is actually an collection of educationally directed blogs from various writers. Generally quite interesting and vibrant, the blogs share a similar format and often include classroom application and interesting discussion.  The general set-up of The Learning Network's blog center incorporates a relevant film about 2-5 minutes long with a short, easily accessible article.  The questions and educational application materials, along with a short review of the article, are generally on the first page, with the video.  If you click on the central heading it will lead you to the main text of the article (slightly deceiving).  The format and layout of the page: clean, and very appealing.  The multimedia focus of the website makes it incredibly appealing to educators trying to reach potentially disengaged students.  The blogs are current, featuring captivating topics while including relevant and interesting information. This site would be incredible both as a resource for educators (think--three-dimensional lesson plans) and students, who I can easily see exploring the site for assignments even for pleasure.

While reading through some of the marvelous blog posts by contributing bloggers, I ran across this vibrant posting.  Rich in creative detail and themes of diversity, this blog post seems to channel a few of the most positive aspects of the blog site. A recent image from the September fires in the Southwest frames the introduction, followed by a gorgeous work of poetry. The poem is followed by a few lesson recommendations and a relevant news article. It is well worth a few moments of your time.

Check out this link for an inspirational pairing of "A Small Story About the Sky" by Alberto Ríos with a recent news article, posted by blogger Shannon Doyne.

Be sure to take time for the Salad Bar this week.  You never know just what might be growing.

Shakespeare and...?

When should technology be used in an English classroom?  

Where does it fit? Wedged between Shakespeare and sentence frames?  Book-ending Emily Dickinson and Poe? Is a beautiful accessory useful in conveying traditional learning or supplementing a traditional curriculum?  Or does technology and the modern era call for a revolution of language learning and communication?  Will the classics die in a tidal wave of informational texts and graphically embellished electronic novels?

 Could our modern culture be advancing at such a rate as to finally put Shakespeare himself  (at least in his printed form) in the musty edges of a cultural grave?

As lovers of literature, we hope that day will never come.  But we must embrace the benefits of using technology to connect with our students and their learning.

Tom Whitby, in his October 1st blog post entitled "Do We Really Need Connected Educators?" relates the imperative of digital literacy in education:

"...access is no longer limited to a select few, but rather it is available to anyone who is digitally literate...Ubiquitous access is one reason why digital literacy is now going to be taught in American schools as we move forward. Students in our school system today will be given the keys to the information lock boxes of our society for their consumption".

Students now have access to thousands of years of knowledge acclimation at their fingertips.
But though they have the keys, they may not be using them to unlock said 'lock boxes'.  As we are learning as future educators, students need a reason to search out the information.   And I believe that it is a humanistic connection students need to make with the material in order to peak their interest.  Literature builds a humanistic connection in an incredibly deep way.  Reading allows us to participate in the writer's creation, through activating our imaginations, instead of filling them with completed images, as video games, movies, and technologically based learning usually do.  And we need to understand the writers of the past, in the context of our shared humanity, in order to fully understand our human state.  But technology appears to be the 'language' of our students.  The question then becomes: if our students speak the language of technology, how do we 'translate' the meaningful influence of great literature into a relevant format?


At this point early in my career as an educator, I believe that technology can never substitute for:

• Authentic reading:  Students can use technology to aid reading, such as Kindle, iPad, computer, iPhone, ect., but no matter the depth of the technological tool, nothing will ever replace the educational value of reading.  Reading is essential in all learning, and literacy is the foundation of education and academia, and there is little evidence that academic learning will ever be effective without a reading component.  
• Face-to-Face conversations and collaboration:  social media and google docs are great for collaborating on projects and working on assigned tasks.  But have you ever noticed how hard it is to brainstorm and converse naturally in a 'physically separated' environment?  Nothing beats being able to see the faces of the people you are working with, and brainstorming is so much easier, and I believe more enriching and effective, in person.  
• Note-taking and writing: it's extremely easy to type out notes.  A good typist's fingers respond nearly automatically to the words being communicated, with little thought processing.  Its much easier to remember the things you manually write down, and for junior highers, many or whom do not have access to a working computer or printer, this is one of their only options for most of their coursework.
• Real books and classic authors:  nothing will ever fully replace a real book.  New authors will come and go, their works drifting about on the scales of cultural value.  I am all for new writings and diverse authorship. But the voices of the classics have called loudly out to humanity for many years, and there is likely good reason.  Our culture will shift and change, and so will our values, but good writing remains because it continually reveals to us our unarguable and un-aging utter human nature.  Our literary cannon can grow, but it should never be reduced. 

Technology is beautiful as a tool to gather information and communicate in conjunction with the foundation of original texts and unique ideas. I believe that using technology to open the gates of communication for our students is central to their development as young learners.  But the learning should not be fully encompassed in the act of communicating or acquiring information, but rather in the ideas and concepts that are being communicated. Below are a listing of activities that I believe are ideal for technological supplement:

• Group work on assigned tasks: once group work has been brainstormed and assigned(perhaps in class), technological wonders such as google docs create an ideal workspace and allow for distance communication and simple collaboration.  
• Access to articles and informative texts:  Save the earth, and preserve trees. For a brief reading of a homework assignment article for high school students, online access is great.  
• Optional assignments and extra credit
• Presentations: video clips and multi-media art
• Responses to literary works: blogs, websites, multi-media art...
• Online quizes and forums 
• Submission of essays
• Dictionary access for at home use
• Plagiarism checks

Creating an Online Forum as a Quiz

TodaysMeet In the Modern English Classroom

TodaysMeet : 1 2 3 4 5 

Three out of five stars for usability in the secondary classroom.

A few days back I was sitting in the faulty lounge, working on various projects in preparation for the coming school week.  I began investigating "TodaysMeet", an online chat/forum site developed for academic use in secondary schools.  After starting my own chat room I spent a few minutes amusedly playing around with a rather one-sided conversation.  The format was clean and simple, and there was little to distract or intimidate.  The chat responses appeared quickly and looked clean and well formatted.  The responder's name was in grey beneath the response.
After enjoying my narrative experience, I returned to my supervising teacher's classroom for her prep period, and noticed that she was preparing an online forum for her classes.  Thursday she will take students into the lab to experiment with an online discussion focused on questions from their "Greatness" unit.  I remarked to my CT that I had been just experimenting with a chat program.  She asked to look at it, and after I pulled it up, immediately remarked that the names beneath the writing were fairly difficult to see and identity.  It would take a second longer to identify the writer of the response.  She then reminded me that EDU 2.0, along with many other comparable programs, include a forum or chat response segment in the assignments section.  These responses can actually be electronically graded, based on participation.  She told me that although she liked the format of TodaysMeet, it was an extremely simple concept, quite common in many database and grading software programs.
While I did enjoy creating conversation on TodaysMeet, I would have to agree with my CT.  Forums are quite common these days, and many have more advanced features that lend themselves to higher academic purposes.  This particular forum is clean, simple, and easily visually scanned for length of response, ect.  Not having the students' names obviously presented near the response poses a problem however.  Other students will have a difficult time identifying their classmates' work, and it will be difficult for teachers to correctly identify student participation.  This chat forum would work well for situation in which student identity is not important, or when lack of obvious authorship is desired.
Another factor to consider: if teachers have the option to use a centralized forum or an independent forum, they will likely choose the school-centralized forum.  Students are already familiar with logging into EDU 2.0, and adding another login credential could confuse them.  Teachers also like having student work centralized, and conveniently available for grading and future examination.

On the plus side, TodaysMeet would be ideal for teachers who do not have access to a centralized, fully incorporated online forum system.  It is clean, clear, and seems likely to provide space for interesting discussions.

On the JesseJubileeGeorge Rubric for Pedagogically Aimed Technology, TodaysMeet falls into the category of a Low/Separate Level of Integration in the classroom, and will lend itself well to a individualistic or workshop format of learning.