Just Make a Movie About It (Not really)

There seems to be an exorbitant amount of excitement about the abundance of new presentation formats, apps, and websites that are being made readily available for educators to use in the classroom. Not a week goes by without news of a new, simple, free, online resource in which students and teachers can create movies, photo stories, interactive whiteboard presentations, digital puppet shows, or online posters.

While these digital presentation tools offer a variety of benefits, including increased student engagement, differentiated lesson planning options, multiple forms of assessment, authentic peer-to-peer collaboration and the opportunity for students to access material in a way that better suits particular learning styles, I am not convinced that those outcomes are being realized.

One issue is that many teachers do not have the time, experience or expertise to know how to make quality films or other digital media presentations, outside of the tried and true PowerPoint or Prezi. Consequently, asking teachers to begin implementing digital media into their curriculum as a presentation tool and encouraging students to use the same formats as a way to demonstrate learning would be akin to asking a film director or editor to adapt his or her film into a polished novel, and to do so in a week and a half's time without the help of a professional editor. It is a recipe for confusion, frustration, and some pretty painful presentations.

A second issue is that often times teachers seem to be unclear as to the purpose of assigning a multimedia presentation other than they have been encouraged to begin using technology in their practice because it is highly engaging for students. Their approach lacks purpose and therefore fosters an ineffective learning environment and misguided student products.

Creating media within an educational setting is much like consuming media in an educational setting. When showing a film to a class, teachers can either simply show the film, or guide students through the film with a series of well planned activities and a clearly communicated, purposeful set of desired learning outcomes. In the former scenario, students may or may not gain any knowledge, benefit or insight from the experience, while in the latter situation students enter the experience with a clearly defined purpose and are thus much more likely to benefit from the subject matter as it relates to the curriculum to which it is linked.

Having students create digital media requires a similar approach. Too often, teachers use digital media as simply a substitution for a traditional assessment. The thought is "instead of having my students write an essay, I will have them make a film about the topic". Students are not guided through the process in a way that allows them to identify and reflect upon the material they are working with or the learning process in which they are engaged. They are often being asked to simply use a digital format to summarize or prove that they accessed and understood specific information.

In this instance, teachers are allotting a much greater amount of class time, energy, and effort into a project that will produce an equivalent or possibly lower level of leaning than what traditionally occurs with a writing task.

Making an effective film or multimedia presentation takes time, planning, organization, collaboration, and a clear direction. All skills that our students need. With that understanding, if teachers are looking to incorporate complex technology driven projects into their curriculum, they need to allow themselves and their students the necessary time to benefit from all the facets that can be learned from such ambitious endeavors.

Additionally, if the future of academic and professional communication is going to be technology driven, then teachers need to create the expectation of well-planned, quality digital products and provide students with the time and skills necessary to be successful within that framework. Likewise, administrators and school districts need to provide teachers with the technology, training, and time to effectively make the transition to technology driven assessment.

A more deliberate approach to digital presentations will certainly extend the learning curve and the amount of time it takes to fully integrate technology into most teachers' practice, but it is essential to student success that while educators learn to adapt to technology, they also learn to adapt their expectations and standards of acceptable student work.

Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @mrtessier33

Redefining Cheating as "Accessing Knowledge"

A comment on one of my previous posts brought up the notion of cheating in a technology based classroom, which is not a topic I have seen widely discussed in edtech circles, yet certainly needs to be explored. Since the whole edtech concept is still in its infancy, my attempts to personally address that topic have led to a few concrete answers awash in a seemingly unending list of questions.

One fairly simple aspect of cheating, as far as classroom policy is concerned, is plagiarism. Technology does not change its definition, and while technology makes it easier for students to commit, it also makes it simpler for teachers to detect through Google phrase searches or fee based plagiarism detection services such as turnitin.com.

The lines become blurred; however, when considering other forms of what traditionally have been considered cheating. Considering that education is experiencing a paradigm shift regarding planning, instructional strategies, curricular focus, and overall philosophical approaches, it would seem appropriate to seriously reconsider, and possibly redefine the idea of cheating.

Our students now live in a world where virtually every piece of information is literally at their fingertips. Whereas in the past an English teacher might provide students with a list of vocabulary words with the assessment being a quiz at the end of the week, the teacher would expect students to memorize the list and answer the quiz items from memory, without the help of any reference materials. With that being the case, finding the definition by using a smartphone or tablet to access a dictionary website would be considered a form of cheating.

Realistically speaking, that memorization situation would be incredibly unlikely in the modern world for which we are supposed to be preparing our students. A more likely situation would be that students are consuming information (be it written, oral, or through a multimedia format), and they encounter a word that they do not understand. They would then immediately acquire the answer by accessing information on the internet.

Subsequently, if they find the information and can assign relevance to it within their daily lives, then they will remember it for potential future use. If the word seems wholly irrelevant outside of their life's context, then they will dispose of it until they encounter it again in a situation with more personal meaning. This method of processing information is much more consistent with what happens in the life of a professional.

I envision similar situations in other subject areas as well. In a history class, inspiring students with a passion for history and an understanding of how today's world is inextricably linked to the past can ultimately fuel a desire within students to seek that information on their own, which far surpasses rote memorization of facts and figures that are forgotten as quickly as they were learned. In this type of authentic learning environment, students are developing a much deeper understanding of events, creating personal and cultural relevance, and being coached on how to be a learner, instead of simply being scrutinized for possible cheating as they regurgitate seemingly meaningless information.

Similarly, math and science teachers have a significantly greater ability to connect concepts and ideas to the real world through technological means such as computer modelling, virtual field trips, Skype in the classroom, as well as a growing variety of STEM initiatives, grants and collaborative opportunities. Consequently, students accessing online information is done to gain knowledge and understanding in an applicable context as opposed to accessing information for cheating on an isolated assessment.

Essentially, what needs to be instilled in today's youth is the desire to find answers when faced with a challenge. When encountering an idea or concept that is confusing or unknown, the students that have the intrinsic motivation to seek the answers and see the solution through are the ones that will be more likely to experience success in the future. It would be a great disservice to our students (and ironically hypocritical) to prevent them from accessing information that they willingly seek.

From an educator's standpoint, teachers need to embrace the idea that continues to pop up in edtech discussions, that teachers are no longer the experts. While that concept makes many teachers anxious, it can and should be seen as an exciting opportunity. Since we are no longer the "gatekeepers of knowledge", we can shift much of our energy into getting our students excited about learning. In doing so, we can return to an ideal that originally guided many of us into the profession.

Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @mrtessier33

Getting Education Stakeholders on the Same Page

After just returning from a conference organized by the California League of High School on technology and the common core I am a bit conflicted with excitement and motivation from newly learned ideas and applications, mixed with confusion and frustration by the seemingly contradictory messages many educators are receiving.

As you may or may not know, the new common core standards are linked explicitly to technology in relation to how students access and present information. In doing so, the upcoming standards repeatedly task students with analyzing and evaluating information “presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally” in order to “evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric.”

While these are excellent and absolutely essential skills in today’s world, many teachers are being sabotaged by non-classroom policymakers ranging from school administration, to local superintendents, and school boards. Fortunately, I am not one of those teachers but I read about their struggles daily and this past week spoke with many frustrated peers.

As it is, teachers are undergoing a monumental shift as we:

• struggle to learn, understand, and internalize an entirely new set of standards
• adapt years of proven strategies and unit plans to meet those standards
• understand pedagogical shifts in educational mainstays, such as Bloom’s taxonomy, as they are reinterpreted for a technology driven world
• learn and practice a wide-variety of technology based presentation methods so we can  teach students to “Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express  information and enhance understanding of presentations”
• develop meaningful ways to assess media-based presentations, so we can provide timely and meaningful feedback to our students
• attempt to understand the ever evolving social media landscape so we can prepare our students’ to be responsible digital citizens leading a safe and productive digital life.

           

Essentially, in addition to teaching our subject matter, we are now also being asked to teach technology, media literacy, and online awareness. Let’s also not forget that the common core standards are requiring teachers of non-English disciplines to teach reading and writing as well as their subject matter and the skills outlined above.

Couple this with the fact that often times outdated and overly-cautious district and school policies are forcing many teachers to teach without technology, and it is easy to understand why many teachers are experiencing feelings of futility and animosity.

According to a 2011 study by the National Center for Education, 78% of teachers in the U.S. are 30 years of age or older. Understanding that most current teachers entered the profession before the invention of the Smartphone, and some before the internet, it is not surprising that there is a great deal of uncertainty, skepticism, and sometimes mild resentment within educators’ circles as they are expected to do a job that did not exist when they began their careers, and are not being provided with the time or the tools to realistically adapt, even if they are excited to do so.

This is not by any means meant to be a rant about the difficulties of being a modern day teacher or to justify the actions and attitudes of recalcitrant educators. Instead, I hope it serves to: help parents understand some of the modern day struggles teachers are currently encountering, assist administrators in understanding the level of support and advocacy teachers might need within their districts, and allow teachers to accept the overwhelming demands being placed on us so all stakeholders can start working together on implementing the educational reforms we all know are necessary.