Educators as Social Networked Learners

http://gretelpatch.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/periodic-table-of-connectivism/

This fall, I am getting the opportunity to design and teach a graduate course for Boise State University’s Education Technology Program entitled, Social Networked Learning.  The majority of students in the program are K-12 in-service teachers who are seeking ways to enhance their teaching with integrated and emerging technologies.  I am so excited about what students are producing for this course and in terms of meeting this goal that I wanted to share information about the course, a sampling of course activities, and example student work.

Course Description

This course explores collaborative and emergent pedagogies, tools, and theory related to the use of social networks in learning environments. Participants gain hands-on experience with a variety social networking tools, create their own personal learning networks, and have an opportunity to develop a MOOC-inspired course for their learners.

The ideas, content, and exercises presented in this course are driven by two basic tenets:

1. We are living, learning, and educating in an information-rich (Shirky), connected (Siemens), creative (Florida), participatory (Jenkins) culture.
2. This culture is seeing growth, development, and evolution of information and technology as never seen before in the history of  humankind.  As such, educators need to become learners along with being teachers.  Educators, in this age of teaching and learning, have a responsibility to connect with, learn from and with, and share resources and information with their students and other educators both locally and globally.

Drawing from these tenets and borrowing from Howard Rheingold’s syllabus on Social Media Literacies, I believe the course can be further described by the following:

Today’s personal, social, political, economic worlds are all affected by digital media and networked publics. Viral videos, free search engines, indelible and searchable digital footprints, laptops in lecture halls and smartphones at the dinner table, massive online university courses — it’s hard to find an aspect of daily life around the world that is not being transformed by the tweets, blogs, wikis, apps, movements, memes, likes and plusses, tags, text messages, and comments two billion Internet users and six billion mobile phone subscribers emit. New individual and collaborative skills are emerging. This course introduces students to both the literature about and direct experience about how to leverage social media for teaching and learning, skills and tools necessary for critical consumption of information, best practices of individual digital participation and collective participatory culture, the use of collaborative media, and the application of network know-how for professional development and networking teaching and learning.  (http://goo.gl/h5CIW)

Learning Goals 

1. Use a Personal Learning Network, and explain its value in educational settings.
2. Understand the value of web-based social networks within educational settings.
3. Identify learning theories and researched-based practices that support current approaches to effective use of social network technologies for learning.
4. Analyze strengths and weaknesses of various social networks and information management technologies for a variety of learning goals.
5. Contribute to professional-based social learning networks using a variety of media and communication mechanisms.
6. Identify factors with successful social networks, and create a social learning network-driven course for learners addressing these factors.

Course Modules

• The Theories Driving Social Networking: Communities of Practice, Connectivism, Personal Learning Networks
• Social Media for Professional Development & Reputation Management
• Building Your Personal Learning Network
• Social Networking As An Instructional Strategy
• Creating a MOOC-Inspired Online Community of Learners

Course Assignments

• Set Up Course Social Networking Areas and Sites
• Communities of Practice, Connectivism, Personal Learning Networks: Resource Identification
• Communities of Practice, Connectivism, Personal Learning Networks: Creative Understandings
• Social Media for Professional Development & Reputation Management
• Real Time and Live Professional Development
• Positive Digital Footprint and Reputation Management Plan
• Curation: Criteria for Quality Curation
• Curation: Curated Topic
• Building Your Personal Learning Network
• PLE Diagram
• Social Media Policies and Your Own Online Communities
• Synthesis and Application of Social Networking Tools and Ideas
• Creating a MOOC-Inspired Online Community of Learners
• Peer Review and Reflection

Module One: Communities of Practice, Connectivism, Personal Learning Networks

Assignment

During this module, you will be exploring communities of practice, connectivism, and personal learning networks. Understanding these concepts, philosophies, and ways of thinking provide a foundation for social networking.  It can help you use social networks strategically and with intention.  It helps inform your actions so you can use networks for engaged, participatory learning.

Create one or a combination of the following to demonstrate your understanding of these concepts:  a slide show or Glog of images, an audio cast of sounds, a video of sights, a series of handrawn and scanned pictures, a mindmap of images, a mathematical formula, a periodic chart of concepts, or another form of nonlinguistical symbols.  Note that it is not about words but about images and symbols.   Your product should contain the major elements discussed in this module: CoPs, Connectivism, and Personal Learning Networks.  Include a reference page of at least 10 (ten) CoP, Connectivism, and PLN resources you used to inform your work. Creating a “product” to represent your understanding of the concepts addresses (1) that we have become producers as well as consumers in this age of social networking and web 2.0; and (2) according to neuroscientist, John Medina, visuals are very powerful means for learning and understanding.

Student Examples

Deborah Lyman

Module Two: Social Media for Professional Development & Reputation Management

 Assignment

Educators really can’t afford to NOT be on Twitter.  Our educational landscape is changing very rapidly.  Our students are using this technology every day, and as educators we must continually be growing and finding new ways to learn and to reach our students.  Is Twitter perfect?  By no means.  But used correctly, Twitter can really become a catalyst in transforming your classroom, your school, and your teaching.  (http://www.texasprincipal.org/index.php/texas-principals-education-help-support-team/entry/twitter-a-necessity-for-educators-in-2012)

If you haven’t done so, set up a Twitter client (e.g. Tweetdeck).  Find at least five hashtags that reflect your interests and set up columns for them on your Twitter client.  Tweet out your chosen hashtags using #EdTechSN.  Post a screenshot on our class Facebook page of your Twitter client with the at least five hashtagged columns (not including #EdTechSN). Include a summary of what hashtags you follow; three new things, resources, ideas you learned by following them; and your thoughts about about using Twitter as a form of just-in-time professional development.

Student Examples

A few student reflections about setting up and using Twitter for Professional Development:

• Thoughts on Twitter for Just in Time PD
• Twitter Power

Module Three: Positive Digital Footprint and Reputation Management Plan

Assignment

Your task for this assignment is to develop a specific plan for you as a professional to establish a positive professional online presence while at the same time developing steps to insure that your reputation remains “safe” and positive.  Include at least 10 individual strategies.  Use references to support your ideas/strategies.  Post your ideas on a site that permits comments and feedback – you can create a video and upload on Youtube, a Voicethread, a Flickr slide series, a Facebook Page, a wikipage, or a Google doc (making sure you enable comments).

Student Examples

Module Four: Curation

Assignment

“Curation comes up when search stops working,” says author and NYU Professor Clay Shirky. But it’s more than a human-powered filter. “Curation comes up when people realize that it isn’t just about information seeking, it’s also about synchronizing a community.” Why Content Curation Is Here to Stay

Review the readings and resources about curation. Based on your readings, develop a checklist of at least 15 criteria that will serve as a tool for assessing the the quality and value of a curated topic related to your specialized content area and/or grade level.  This is a group assignment – to be completed with the group you formed in the last module.  Decide as a group which collaborative online tool you want to use to complete this list of criteria, e.g., Wiki, Google Doc, Primary Pad, etc. Reflect on the process of creating the checklist and working as a group in the comments section of their Facebook checklist post.

Using a tool specific for curation (e.g, Pinterest, Scoopit, Educlipper, Livebinders, Learnrist, MightyBell), curate a topic of your choice, applicable to your content areas and/or grade level.. This is an individual project. Include at least 25 resources. Use your group’s checklist to self-assess its value.  Post your results in the comments section where you posted your the link to your Curated Topic. Use your group’s checklist to assess the curated topics of your group members.  Please note what was especially noteworthy and also what needs further development/tweaking.

Student Example

Curating is hard work. To come up with this list of 25 acceptable resources involved a lot of filtering, sifting, and otherwise weeding out. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. That somebody is me – and lots of educational technology professionals like me who take pride in their work. We do the hard stuff so you don’t have to. The end result is a resource I feel is substantial, helpful, and contributes to the greater good of knowledge. Gretel P.

• Behind the scenes of NETS•S K-5 Curriculum Integration Curation: A Reflection

Module Five:  Your PLE Diagram and Reflection

Assignment

Create a PLE diagram of your online communities.  Represent at least 10 different online communities in your graphic and explictly show connections between the communities. You can be as creative as you’d like with this depiction.  You can hand draw and take an image, or use any type technology.  There are a number of mindmapping tools that can help you – http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2012/06/18-free-mind-mapping-tools-for-teachers.html  Post a link and screenshot of your PLE so you classmates could view it on Facebook and Tweet your diagram out using the #EdTechSN hastag.  Complete a reflection that addresses the following questions:  What did you learn about yourself when looking at your PLE? Visit your classmates’ PLE posts.  How does your PLE compare to other peers in class? Write a self-reflection and a comparative analysis that discusses similarities and diffierences between yours and your classmates’ diagrams.

Student Diagram Examples

Student Reflections: Completing the PLE Diagram

This experience has allowed me to look at the communities in a new light. Before, I simply used them for their entertainment value. An escape from work and learning. Little did I know that they would become the basis for my new way of learning. Each day I am amazed by what I find.  Andi

This class, or more importantly this assignment, has made me realize just how much I have not been truly using the Internet and all its tools and resources to its ability.  It is like when you bite into a candy thinking that there is yummy goodness in the middle only to find out that the middle is actually hollow and the candy just had a thick shell.  But it also has allowed me to immerse myself into resources, tools, and communities that I might never thought of using/joining and broadening my network for the better.  Christina

This idea of growing our network, of growing ourselves, aligns well with the connectivist framework I have been researching lately. Like George Siemens said, “The learning is the network” (2004). Gretel

I had a wonderful experience creating my PLN and it gave me a map to use when socializing and gaining information to help me with my teaching degree. It is now much easy to “see” where I should be going and “who” I should be networking with. I am excited to see where this will lead me and what the future holds. Debi

 I have learned that I have ideas that may be beneficial for other educators and students and often felt like I had no avenue through which to share them besides in direct communication with the students and teachers at the school/colleges where I teach. By creating this PLE diagram, I have been able to see how many avenues I do have to make more of a contribution to the educational community at large, going beyond the schools I am directly affiliated with. Jaime

Joining new professional networks to include on the diagrams stretched me outside of my comfort zone. Activities that instigate discomfort can be amongst the very best opportunities to learn. angi

PLE Diagram Blog Entries

• http://edtech.cominotti.net/llog/2012/10/29/263/
• http://benmooreedtech.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/543-personal-learning-environment-reflection/

Module 6: Social Networked Learning in Your Classroom

Assignment

Social media is fast becoming as ubiquitous as the air we breathe. Many schools and districts around the country have taken steps to create social media policies and guidelines for their students and staff. In my work with several districts to draft these documents, I have seen many approaches that work well, and some that don’t. That said, there is no silver bullet for administrators; every school, district, and state has a different set of circumstances. (How to Create Social Media Guidelines for Your School)

Either (1) develop social media policies for your learning environment, or (2) establish a plan to have your learning community develop social media policies for your school or organization.  Include steps to get input and ideas from students, parents, teachers, staff, community members.

Student Reflections About Creating a Social Media Policy

While many teachers still choose to keep their head in the sand, the fact is that Social Media is in our schools.  Moreover, that’s where it should be.  There is no doubt that dealing with social media in a school setting is tricky business.  Fears about students safety, cyber-bullying, reputation management, distraction in school and the like are real issues that should be addressed by school communities.  More and more, this is being handled by the development of a Social Media Policy for the school or school district.  This is an important part of creating a culture where students learn to use social media,, something they are already doing in the personal lives, in the space they spend so much of their time.  By taking the approach of creating a policy that cultivates an understanding of the proper use of social media, schools not only protect themselves and their students, they also help students learn to better use such technology.  Jon F.

I’m disappointed, though not surprised, to see how many districts and schools ban external social media sites completely. Sure, it may protect and cushion students, but it also creates a long-term problem of not helping students learn to navigate a world they are already using daily. Schools do students a huge disservice and only compound the problem by feeding school-life-home disconnect. Students will still use social media outside of school but are given virtually no practice to use it wisely and well – and certainly not for learning.  I drafted a social media policy for our school and will present it to the Technology Committee for preliminary review and hopefully adoption. I believe it’s important to have this in place in addition to an Acceptable Use Policy, because 1) it states our belief that social media has a valuable place in our school; 2) it educates students, parents, and teachers on appropriate online behavior within social media sites; and 3) it helps ensure that everyone is accountable and safe.  Gretel P.

Examples of Established Social Media Policies

• Development of a Social Media Policy
• A Plan to Develop a Social Media Policy
• Social Media & Acceptable Use Policy Plan
• Social Media Policy

Assignment

You are going to establish your own online social learning platform for your teaching environment.  You can use any platform. Edmodo is highly recommended, but NINGs, Mightbell, Facebook for Schools, Moodle, Wikis, and PB Works are options, too.  Please complete the following for this assignment:

1. Establish accounts.
2. Describe your learning audience.
3. Establish procedures for learners to join the platform.
4. Establish some general acceptable use guidelines for your social learning platform.
5. Describe some potential uses of this social learning network or online community for your content area and grade level.

Student Examples

• Outcast Genre Writers Group
• Welcome to Open Chemistry

The final project for the course is for the established groups to develop a MOOC inspired course using the theories, strategies, and tools developed throughout the courses.  This project will be discussed in a separate blog post.

Learning on the Edge

One of the first exercises I ask the pre-service and in-service teachers in my Psychology of Learning course to do is define learning.  This is not a look-up-in-the-dictionary type of activity.  They are asked to do so using their own thoughts, images, body movements, and chants/music.  It is a difficult exercise.

Actually, I find it quite baffling that educators don’t more often explore the question, “What is learning?”  Isn’t learning the ultimate goal, vision, mission of education?  If so, why is the implementation of learning, often known as curriculum, done so without a clear, clean, shared knowledge about what learning is?

I believe, as Grant Wiggins does:

Though we often lose sight of this basic fact, the point of learning is not just to know things but to be a different person – more mature, more wise, more self-disciplined, more effective, and more productive in the broadest sense. Knowledge is an indicator of educational success, not the aim.

• If curriculum is a tour through what is known, how is knowledge ever advanced?
• If a primary goal of education is high-level performance in the world going forward, how can marching through old knowledge out of context optimally prepare us to perform?

Everything you know about curriculum may be wrong. Really.

Recently, I attended Unplug’d, a type of think tank to explore education reform.  Its unofficial subtitle was learning on the edge as it occurred at a retreat center called Northern Edge Algonquin.  My thoughts and discussions at this gathering sparked ideas about the characteristics of learning on the edge. I believe that some of these include:

• The Map is Not the Territory
• There is Recognition, Acknowledgment, and Embracing of Unknowns
• It Requires Jumping Into the Deep End
• It is a Messy Experience Shared by Everyone in the Learning Community

The Map is Not the Territory

Jorge Luis Borges is said to have remarked that the only accurate representation of reality would be reality itself; by extension, the only accurate map of the Earth would be the exact shape and size of the Earth itself. Since we cannot construct such a map, we accept a certain level of inaccuracy from our maps.  As Borges implied, we must expect some inaccuracies of this kind. But even beyond this simple separation of reality and representation, our society functions in relative naïveté about the accuracy of maps. (http://www.strangehorizons.com/2002/20020610/medieval_maps.shtml)

A similar illusion has evolved in education.  There is a belief that the curriculum maps, lesson plans, and teaching scripts are the territory, that all there needs to be known can be taught with these “maps”.

Learning on the edge recognizes that just like geographic maps, curriculum and lesson plans are inaccurate and incomplete maps of what can be learned and known.  Learning on the edge may be guided by curricular maps but there is an expectation of digressions, exploration of alternatives, and at times, throwing out the map altogether.  Learning on the edge comes with an awareness that the map may or may not be an accurate representation of reality.  It recognizes that each educator’s and student’s journey is unique, personalized, and self-determined.  Another illusion of institutionalized education is that a student’s learning can be determined.  Even with standardized curriculum, each students takes from it what s/he needs and desires.

What follows are the visual notes that Giulia Forsthye drew to depict the discussion our Unplug’d group had about the Map is Not the Territory.

Image by Giulia Forsthye.  Its inspiration came from http://gforsythe.ca/filtering-for-bags-of-gold/

There is Recognition, Acknowledgment, and Embracing of Unknowns

Terra incognita or terra ignota (Latin “unknown land,”) is a term used in cartography for regions that have not been mapped or documented. The term was reintroduced in the fifteenth century from the rediscovery of Ptolemy’s work during the Age of Discovery. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_incognita

Terra incognitia also means a new or unexplored field of knowledge. Learning on the edge has a built-in assumption that there are unknowns beyond the edge, there are things yet to be discovered by all members of the learning community, students and teachers alike.  It becomes a journey of explorations, of new insights and discoveries, of seeing things never seen before.

It Requires Jumping Into the Deep End

Learning on the edge is not about dipping toes in the water or wading in slowly from the shallows.  It requires a full commitment to jump in and get fully immersed.  The shock, at first, may take breath away, (Jumping in cold waters always does). This is especially true for those educators and learners who are used to journeying along the roads most traveled, who function and live by the tried and tested curriculum, lesson plans, and instructional and learning strategies.  But educators and students, who seek to learn on the edge, understand that there is only so much you can learn in one place, that terminal objectives and class outcomes are just that terminal. (Terminal: Of, at, relating to, or forming a limit, boundary, extremity, or end. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/terminal).

There’s only so much you can learn in one place
The more that I wait, the more time that I waste
Are you ready to jump
Get ready to jump
Don’t ever look back
Yes, I’m ready to jump
Just take my hand
get ready to jump

(Yep, Madonna’s Jump)

The act of jumping is a kinesthetic experience.  Similarly, learning on the edge and often in the deep end becomes a full body experience. Learning experiences are heard, seen, felt.  Changes in thinking, doing, knowing, being occur due to these experiences.

It is a Messy Experience Shared by Everyone in the Learning Community

Learning on the edge is a messy affair.  Thoughts and ideas get muddied.  Frustrations occur as there are few correct answers.  More questions and puzzlements arise.  Old paradigms are shaken up.

It is a shared experience of all members of the learning community – all students and all educators.  All members struggle, all are changed due to the experience.

Good learning is not a matter of finding a happy medium where both parties are transformed as little as possible. Rather, both parties must be maximally transformed—in a sense deformed. There is violence in learning. We cannot learn something without eating it, yet we cannot really learn it either without being chewed up.”
— Peter Elbow, Embracing Contraries, Oxford University Press, 1986.

I want my students to learn, I want to be a facilitator of learning.  I do not have the goal of transmitting facts and knowledge so my students, at best, acquire a surface understanding. So maybe what I describe is not learning on the edge but learning as it should be. It is not easy to facilitate in traditional institutions but it is possible . . . and the rewards of seeing and hearing student testimonies of their significant learning are priceless.

UDL and The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture

In response to all of the attention given to the flipped classroom, I proposed The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture and The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture for Higher Education in which the viewing of videos (often discussed on the primary focus of the flipped classroom) becomes a part of a larger cycle of learning based on an experiential cycle of learning.

Universal Design for Learning has also been in the news lately as a new report Universal Design for Learning (UDL): Initiatives on the Move was released by the National Center on UDL, May, 2012. This post describes the principles of Universal Design for Learning and how they naturally occur when a full cycle of learning, including ideas related to the flipped classroom, are used within the instructional process.

Universal Design for Learning

The UDL framework:

• includes three principles calling for educators to provide multiple means of engagement, multiple means of presenting instructional content, and multiple means of action and expression when designing and delivering instruction
• is based on the latest learning sciences, including cognitive neuroscience, human developmental science, and education research
• helps educators to use digital technology and innovative methods to teach whole classes while personalizing each student’s instruction
• provides a blueprint for creating flexible instructional goals, methods, materials and assessments that work for everyone—rather than the one-size-fits-all approaches found in typical instructional environments http://www.udlcenter.org/advocacy/state/report

Source: http://www.cast.org/udl/

More about UDL can be found at:

• CAST: Center for Applied Special Technology
• National Center on Universal Design for Learning
• UDL Learning Tools
• UDL Toolkit

Some of the key findings of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL): Initiatives on the Move study:

Both state and local district leaders:

• reported a high degree of familiarity with the UDL principles. All state leaders reported having good, very good, or excellent familiarity with the UDL principles, while more than half of the local leaders reported being extremely or moderately familiar with the UDL principles.
• linked UDL with other education initiatives that embrace universal approaches occurring in general education environments, e.g. response to intervention (RTI), positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS), and differentiated instruction.
• perceived a connection between technology and UDL.

State leaders reported:

• strong connection between UDL and standards-based education initiatives, e.g. the Common Core State Standards and statewide assessments.
• UDL was addressed as part of their state technology plans or in the context of 21st century learning.
• critical to UDL advocacy:two factors are critical to UDL advocacy: (1) state leadership need to embrace UDL and (2) UDL must be understood as a general education initiative that moves beyond special education.

UDL, the Flipped Classroom, and Experiential Learning

As I stated in my introduction, I proposed an experiential flipped classroom learning model in response to all of the attention being given to the flipped classroom.  I think it is a great opportunity to change the predominant didactic model of education that is especially prevalent in upper elementary through graduate school education.This model has experiential learning at the core of the learning process with the content videos supporting the learning rather than being the core or primary instructional piece.

Simply put, experiential learning is learning from experience. Experiential learning can be a highly effective educational method^. It engages the learner at a more personal level by addressing the needs and wants of the individual. For experiential learning to be truly effective, it should employ the whole learning wheel, from goal setting, to experimenting and observing, to reviewing, and finally action planning. This complete process allows one to learn new skills, new attitudes or even entirely new ways of thinking. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiential_learning)

UDL is a strategy, a process that provides opportunities for all students, not just those with special needs (but I believe all learners have special needs), to be successful learners.  This is the same goal for the flipped classroom model designed as an experiential learning cycle.

UDL and The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture

What follows is how an experiential flipped classroom learning model, that includes elements of the flipped classroom, fits the principles of UDL.  Explanations are provided about how the principles of UDL are naturally and seamlessly addressed in this model.

Experiential Engagement

The primary UDL principle addressed during this phase is Provide Multiple Means for Engagement.  The goal of this phase, in line with the tenets of experiential learning, is to hook or motivate the student by engaging him or her on a personal level.

By introducing learners to the lesson topic and content through sensory-rich, highly-engaging, hands-on, and authentic learning activities, the following key guidelines of this principle are addressed:

• Provide tasks that allow for active participation, exploration and experimentation
• Design activities so that learning outcomes are authentic, communicate to real audiences, and reflect a purpose that is clear to the participants
• Invite personal response, evaluation and self-reflection to content and activities
• Include activities that foster the use of imagination to solve novel and relevant problems, or make sense of complex ideas in creative ways
• Create cooperative learning groups with clear goals, roles, and responsibilities – many of these activities require cooperative learning. (http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/udlguidelines/principle3)

Concept Development: The What

The primary UDL principle addressed in this phase is Provide Multiple Means of Representation.  This is the phase where videos, as proposed by the flipped classroom, are utilized to assist students in learning the theoretical concepts related to the content being covered.  As previously noted, though, the videos are used to support, introduce, and reinforce the theoretical content as opposed as being at its core.  Videos should not be the only source of concept formation.  To support learning, a multimedia learning environment needs to provide multiple, flexible methods of presentation. Ways of addressing this principle include presenting material in a variety of formats (http://www.cited.org/index.aspx?page_id=147).  Interactive websites and ebooks, simulations, and content-rich websites can also service this purpose. The learner should be offered a menu of resources to study and learn about the topic.

The following guidelines of Provide Multiple Means of Representation are addressed if learning is approached in this manner:

• Present key concepts in one form of symbolic representation (e.g., an expository text or a math equation) with an alternative form  (e.g., an illustration, dance/movement, diagram, table, model, video, comic strip, storyboard, photograph, animation, physical or virtual manipulative)
• Provide visual diagrams, charts, notations of music or sound to support auditory content and information.
• Provide descriptions (text or spoken) for all images, graphics, video, or animations
• Provide interactive models that guide exploration and new understandings
• Provide multiple entry points to a lesson and optional pathways through content (e.g., exploring big ideas through dramatic works, arts and literature, film and media)

Meaning Making:  The So What

The primary UDL principle addressed during this phase is Provide Multiple Means of Action and Expression.  Learners, during this phase, construct their own meanings and understanding of the experiences, content, and topics covered in the previous phases.  They do so via blogs, vodcasts, podcasts, Voicethread, Edmodo, wikis, and other web 2.0 tools that allows for personal reflection and expression. A digital environment supports student learning when it provides multiple, flexible methods for student action, expression, and apprenticeship (http://www.cited.org/index.aspx?page_id=147).  As with content presentation, several options should be offered to the students.

The following guidelines related to Provide Multiple Means of Action and Expression are addressed when learners making meaning of the content:

• Use social media and interactive web tools (e.g., discussion forums, chats, web design, annotation tools, storyboards, comic strips, animation presentations)
• Compose in multiple media such as text, speech, drawing, illustration, comics, storyboards, design, film, music, visual art, sculpture, or video
• Use web applications (e.g., wikis, animation, presentation)
• Use story webs, outlining tools, or concept mapping tools

Also addressed are guidelines from Provide Multiple Means for Engagement:

• Provide learners with as much discretion and autonomy as possible by providing choices
• Vary activities and sources of information so that they can be personalized and contextualized to learners’ lives
• Design activities so that learning outcomes are authentic, communicate to real audiences, and reflect a purpose that is clear to the participants
• Invite personal response, evaluation and self-reflection to content and activities
• Provide feedback that is substantive and informative rather than comparative or competitive

The Multiple Means of Representation are also reinforced during the meaning making phase as learners are asked to . . .

• Incorporate explicit opportunities for review and practice

Demonstration and Application: The Now What

During this phase, learners demonstrate what they learned during the previous phases and how this learning will transfer to other areas of their lives.  The primary UDL principle addressed during this phase is Provide Multiple Means of Action and Expression

• Compose in multiple media such as text, speech, drawing, illustration, design, film, music, dance/movement, visual art, sculpture or video

Also addressed are guidelines from Provide Multiple Means for Engagement:

• Provide learners with as much discretion and autonomy as possible by providing choices
• Allow learners to participate in the design of classroom activities and academic tasks
• Vary activities and sources of information so that they can be personalized and contextualized to learners’ lives
• Design activities so that learning outcomes are authentic, communicate to real audiences, and reflect a purpose that is clear to the participants
• Provide tasks that allow for active participation, exploration and experimentation
• Include activities that foster the use of imagination to solve novel and relevant problems, or make sense of complex ideas in creative ways
• Vary the degrees of freedom for acceptable performance

The Multiple Means of Representation are also reinforced during this demonstration and application phase as learners . . .

• Provide explicit, supported opportunities to generalize learning to new situations
• Offer opportunities over time to revisit key ideas and linkages between ideas

UDL Photo Images from http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/whatisudl

Is There a Digital Divide or an Intellectual-Pedagogical One?

This post includes a number of wonderings . . .

For the past few days, there has been some controversy over a TED talk that included some commentary about classism. See the Time article Was Nick Hanauer’s TED Talk on Income Inequality Too Rich for Rich People? for a synopsis.  The basic premise was that the talk was censored from public viewing due to it being offensive to the wealthy folks that pay to attend the TED conference.

I really love watching TED talks but this controversy got me thinking about intellectual elitism.  I cannot nor will ever be able to afford to go to a TED conference but I can watch them online.  I often ask, in group settings, if folks heard of TED.  Groups that contain higher education faculty and teachers, who are engaged in social networks, do know of TED talks.  My college students and friends, many who are of lower SES levels, have not.

I wonder what would happen if I were to ask this question of the larger population. I believe the results would show that more higher income folks would know about the TED talks than lower income folks.

I have the privilege of using my laptop, iPhone, and iPad to learn about anything I want throughout the day.  These devices along with skills I gained about how to learn have provided me with opportunities to access information I desire. I am wondering if folks from lower income brackets can say the same.

The use of technology use by our society has sparked discussion about the digital divide.

Such numbers may seem proof that America is, indeed, online. But they mask an emerging division, one that has worrisome implications for our economy and society. Increasingly, we are a country in which only the urban and suburban well-off have truly high-speed Internet access, while the rest — the poor and the working class — either cannot afford access or use restricted wireless access as their only connection to the Internet. As our jobs, entertainment, politics and even health care move online, millions are at risk of being left behind.

• But I wonder if the digital divide is really an intellectual or pedagogical one.
• I wonder that if a comparison was done of higher and lower income schools, what would be the ratio of 1:1 (one mobile device per student during school time) initiatives?
• I wonder, for those lower income schools, how many students have computer devices at home that match those they are using in school.
• Even considering the new Ted-Ed Lessons Worth Sharing, I wonder which schools are using the lessons.
• I wonder if technology integration strategies are similar for higher income schools in comparison to lower income skills.

Are we sugarcoating a larger sociological issue of classism in our school systems? Thirty years ago, Jean Anyon wrote Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work

It’s no surprise that schools in wealthy communities are better than those in poor communities, or that they better prepare their students for desirable jobs. It may be shocking, however, to learn how vast the differences in schools are – not so much in resources as in teaching methods and philosophies of education.

I fear that the digital divide is really an intellectual and pedagogical one and that it is being perpetuated in our educational system by the use or lack thereof of the technologies that are influencing and driving our society-at-large.

Image Attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vaxzine/2278300537/

Beginning the School Year: It’s About Connections Not Content

Most classes, starting with about middle school, begin the school year with reviewing the content to be covered, expectations regarding grades, and other academic information provided by the teacher or instructor.  The human or social element is often disregarded.

What is interesting is that most learners enter the classroom wondering who is in the course.  They want to know about the teacher and the people in the class not what material is to be covered. What this says to me as an educator is that it all begins with a social connection – between the educator and the learners, and between the learners themselves.

Because of this belief, I begin all classes focusing on having the students make connections between themselves and me.  I want students to learn about one another in a personal way.  I want to learn about my students so my instructional strategies can be more personalized and tailored to their needs and interests.  Beginning class with a focus on connections rather than content gives learners the following messages:

• You are the focus of the class not me.
• You are important as a learner in this class.
• You will be expected to engage in the learning activities during class time.  You will be an active learner.
• You will be expected to do collaborative learning during the class time.
• I, as the class facilitator, will be just that – a facilitator.  I will introduce the learning activities, but you will be responsible for the actual learning.
• I will get to know you as a learner and try to help you find learning activities that are of interest to you.

Based on age/grade level, I have begun my classes in a variety of ways.  What follows is a sample of activities I have used to begin the school year or college course.

Team Contract

Class members meet in small groups to develop guidelines for making the classroom a safe place to learn and to take risks.  The groups then create a visual project that represents their guidelines.

Team Building Games

There are tons of team building games that can be used in the classroom.  Some of my favorite sources of these include:

• Wilderdom
• Teampedia

The activity in the pictures is called Puzzling Moves Tangrams - a favorite of students of all age students.

All About Me Activities

Some example activities I have done:

About Me Posters

These are store bought posters.  They provide a great way to get to know students.  After they are completed, I ask students to share them with the rest of the class and allow time for questions of each presentation.

For the older students, I had them randomly select another class member and they used the Biography posters to create a biography for the selected student.  These were posted on one of the classroom walls drawing immediate attention of classroom visitors.

I Am Poems

Students created I AM Poems using magnetic poetry.

Personalized Wallet

Students began by creating an origami wallet. They then drew self portraits and included identifying information.

Roomination

When I taught 6th grade, I did not spend the week prior to the school year decorating the classroom for the students.  I just piled the furniture and wall decorations in the middle of the room.  In small groups, students developed blueprints for the classroom.  Teams presented their designs to the rest of the class and their favorite design was voted upon.  Students arranged the room according to the winning design.

Building Cubbies

After the Roomination exercise, students built and painted their own cubbies.  I provided the wood pieces and specifications, but the students built them needing to assist one another to do so.  They individualized their cubbies through painting them as they desired.

Nurturing a Learner’s Sense of Wonder

I started my work in education as an outdoor educator. I took elementary-aged kids on environmental education adventures and at-risk youth on extended wilderness trips.  When taking the at-risk students on backpacking trips in Maine, some of my favorite moments came when we came over a knoll to an outlook that appeared to have a view of the whole state of Maine.  Due to numerous trips to this location, I knew what was coming after our long day hiking through the dense woods.   The kids did not.  I would rush ahead so I could see their faces as they approached this magnificent view.  It never failed. I watched their faces turn from the look related to the strenuous climb to that of pure joy and amazement at the view.  These “too-cool” teens’ lit-up faces and cries of “wow’ reminded me of the same reactions I saw in the younger kids as they explored the nature world during our hikes.

A sense of wonder is characterized by full engagement, flow, being present in the moment, and a high “wow” factor.  Rachel Carson stated in A Sense of Wonder:

A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.

I am proposing, then, that a primary role of the educator – of all ages – is to tap into, nurture, nourish, and celebrate each learner’s sense of wonder.

Our job as educators is to create space in our classrooms and our day for this wonder. We need to let them know that their questions are not only valued an important but have a place in our classrooms and school (Building a Culture of Wonder: Inquiry in Primary Education).

Specific Examples of Bringing a Sense of Wonder Into the Classroom

What follows are a few activities to learn about students’ areas of wonder.  Included are both hands-on and technology-enhanced learning activities.

Four Quad Poster

Learners are asked to paint a piece of plywood, cut about 12″ x 12″, that addresses the following.

This activity has been used with Kindergarten through Master’s degree students. Painting was chosen as the medium to activate a different frame of mind (part of the brain) for answering these questions – possibly tapping into thoughts, areas, creative parts of themselves that they may not with more common medium.  After completion, their quad plaques were hug in the classroom.  Each student explained his/her creation and fielded questions by other students.

1st Grader, Jeff, Wonders About Sunsets

5th Grader, Marc, Wonders About Girls (of course)

A huge benefit of this activity is that it provided me, the educator, with a huge amount of assessment information.  I got to learn about the passions of my students and very quickly got to know each one as a unique individual.

Five Word Memoirs: What Do You Wonder About

The 3rd through 5th grade students were given the following directions:

First, they created artistic versions of what they wondered about:

Then, they converted these into technology-based expressions:

With PicLits

. . . and with Imagechef

WonderPoints: Using Mobile Devices to Activate a Sense of Wonder

Bernie Dodge, of Webquest fame, is exploring ways to incorporate mobile learning into the classroom.  He is developing WonderPoints as a way to use mobile devices to explore personal points of wonder.  WonderPoints, involves studying a small area outside the classroom from multiple points of view. As they note things they wonder about, they take pictures, record sounds and capture the beginnings of a question that is then geotagged.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.   Albert Einstein

Additional Readings

I did an extensive search of the internet to find additional references and resources for creating a sense of wonder and a culture of curiosity in the classroom.  Sadly, I found only a few:

• Edutopia’s A Sense of Wonder: Creating and Maintaining Interest in Education
• @Saskateach’s Building a Culture of Wonder: Inquiry in Primary Education
• Related: Tinkering School

Kids Are Learning . . . Just Not in Ways We Want Them To.

Kids are learning . . . just not in the ways expected of them through formal education.  Young people have always engaged in informal learning based on their interests and passions.  Kids have found and initiated these opportunities in the past through school clubs, reading, local community centers, and neighborhood kids’ ballgames and performances.  These informal learning opportunities have taken an astronomical metaphorical leap due to social networking and ease of access of interest-based information via online means.  I am that not sure if those involved in the institutionalized education of young people are unaware or choose to ignore that young people are often learning more outside of the school than within that learning environment.

Major researchers such as Mimi Ito, Constance Steinkuehler, Danah Boyd, and Henry Jenkins have been documenting these trends.  Here is what they’ve discovered:

Mimi Ito on Interest-Based Learning

Networked media offers an unprecedented opportunity to support learning that is highly personalized and learner-centered, driven by passionate interest and social engagement. But very few learners and educators are taking advantage of this opportunity. And the reason for this is that too often we separate the worlds of young people and adults, play and education. We hold onto the old boundaries between schooling, peer-culture, and home life, between what looks and feels like learning and education that we grew up with, and what looks and feels like socializing, hanging out, and playing. Even if those boundaries were never that real to begin with, in today’s networked world, they are even more untenable. My argument is that we need to engage with kids’ peer cultures and recreational lives outside of school if we want to tap into the power that today’s networked media offers for learners (http://www.itofisher.com/mito/publications/peerbased_learn_2.html)

Full Reference: Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/report

Constance Steinkuehler on Creating Powerful Learning Environments Through Games

Collective information literacy emerges in which the communal rather than individual participation is the defining feature of online play spaces such asmassively multiplayer online games. In In online social contexts such as World of Warcraft, information literacy is contingent on the presence and availability of other people. Peers are often the first line of inquiry because, simply put, storing information across one’s social network and then querying that network when a need arises is far more efficient and adaptive than storing copious amounts of information in one’s own head. In such spaces, the fact that the Internet is a communication device and not merely a collection of semi-static information resources becomes difficult to ignore.

Martin, C. & Steinkuehler, C. (2010). Collective information literacy in massively multiplayer online games. To appear in eLearning and Digital Media, 7(4), 355-365.

Constance Steinkuehler’s Publication Page: http://website.education.wisc.edu/steinkuehler/blog/?page_id=222

danah boyd on Teenagers who are Living and Learning with Social Media

We all know that youth are searching for information in totally new ways so I’m going to skip over that. But they are also sharing differently. Sharing of information is very different in a world of bits where it’s easy to make a duplicate and still retain what you originally had. Pointers have value and sharing information can create memes. Needless to say, youth are leveraging social media to share with their friends and peers. Now, most of what they share might be pure gossip, but teens also share links, references, ideas, and original content.

Written Transcript:http://www.danah.org/papers/talks/PennState2009.html

Henry Jenkins on Learning in a Participatory Culture

Outside their classrooms, today’s children learn by searching and gathering clusters of information as they move seamlessly between their physical and virtual spaces. Knowledge is acquired through multiple new tools and processes as kids accrue information that is visual, aural, musical, interactive, abstract, and concrete and then remix it into their own storehouse of knowledge. (http://www.henryjenkins.org/2009/05/what_is_learning_in_a_particip_1.html)

Henry Jenkins’ Blog: http://henryjenkins.org/index.html

Progressive educators have always asked, “How can we provide students with the opportunities and skills to learn how to learn?”  Now, given the tools and access, the role of educators should be primarily to assist students is leveraging the numerous online resources so that they become their own self-motivated, passionate, and self-directed learners.

Imagine That: A School of Possibilities

One of my favorite Bloggers, Maria Popova aka Brainpickers, shared a project called Museum of Possibilities  http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/02/03/the-museum-of-possibilities/

To prevent this disconnect when inaugurating its Quartier des Spectacles, the city of Montréal came up with an exceptionally inspired solution: The Museum of Possibilities — a wonderful daylong pop-up installation inviting visitors to share their dreams and visions for the future of the space by jotting down their ideas on pieces of paper and attaching them to colorful balloons.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kelseysnook/5049569491/sizes/z/in/set-72157624459314436/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kelseysnook/4777855005/sizes/z/in/set-72157624459314436/

Others could then vote on the ideas with stickers, collectively choosing the best visions for their shared space.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kelseysnook/4778484200/sizes/z/in/set-72157624459314436/

I immediately thought, “Wow, what a great idea for visioning the future of an individual school or school district.”  Ever since I heard about how the Chucagh School District revamped their educational system, I have been intrigued by the idea of having the local communities develop their own educational systems and curriculum in a way that meets their community and student needs.

Chugach School District in south central Alaska transformed their district from a failure to a success by engaging the community, asking fundamental questions, and using real data to understand where resources needed to go. In 1994, the district was failing by almost all measures: staff turnover exceeded 50%; students scored lowest in the state of Alaska on California Achievement Tests; business leaders complained that graduates lacked basic skills; and only one student in 26 years had gone on to college.  Through a series of town hall meetings, the district determined that the traditional industrial model of education to prepare students for college was not relevant to their community. The school board and district leaders proposed radical changes to suit the remote community’s needs.  In 2001, the district was the smallest organization ever to receive the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards for performance excellence in education.
http://www.cosn.org/Initiatives/3DDataDrivenDecisionMaking/3DCaseStudies/3DCaseStudyChugachSchoolDistrict/tabid/5701/Default.aspx

An event such as The Museum of Possibilities or in this case, The School of Possibilities, could kick off a visioning of a new school (newly formed or older one serious about school reform) – one driven by all stakeholders –> school personnel, students, parents, local business, and other interested community members. This event would work only if the school “officials” were willing to seriously consider all ideas, to begin or re-organize the school basically from scratch driven by the ideas generated at this and follow-up events.

Some of the key steps for this event would include:

• An invitation or call out for anyone and everyone interested in developing the school environment, curriculum, and instructional practices is sent out via all types of social media outlets.
• It is planned as a celebration of learning with the planners locating an outdoor venue to set up the balloons, and arrange for some live music, possibly dance, and some food.
• During the event, everyone, all ages, are encouraged to jot down and post their ideas on the balloons, and vote for their favorites.  Those who have difficulty reading and writing for any reason are be given assistance.
• The results are published via paper and online sources, and widely disseminated with a further request for feedback.

Guidelines would need to include:

• Understand and embrace crowdsourcing as a viable or even required method for visioning the future of the school.
• Enter with and accept the ideas of others with an open mind, attitude, and heart.
• Let go of expectations what the outcomes might be.
• Be willing to entertain and implement any popular ideas.

What are the underlying messages that such an event would give?

• Visioning the future of the school is a celebration – something that should be embraced and enjoyed.
• The power for the school and its curriculum is under local control.
• All stakeholders and interested people’ are important.
• It really does take a community to educate a child and that the community is invited and encouraged to do so.

This would only be a start  – but what a great way to jump start authentic and engaging educational change for that school community.

Flow – A Measure of Student Engagement

When I first heard about Czikszentmihalyi’s “Flow” concept and research, I became quite intrigued with this research.  Its face validity immediately resonated with me.  I always cherished those times in my own life when I was so fully engaged that I had no other thoughts than the task at hand, with joy coming purely from the engagement.  I never had a name for it but Czikszentmihalyi did and conducted research on it.

The characteristics of “Flow” according to Czikszentmihalyi are:

1. Completely involved, focused, concentrating – with this either due to innate curiosity or as the result of training
2. Sense of ecstasy – of being outside everyday reality
3. Great inner clarity – knowing what needs to be done and how well it is going
4. Knowing the activity is doable – that the skills are adequate, and neither anxious or bored
5. Sense of serenity
6. Timeliness – thoroughly focused on present, don’t notice time passing
7. Intrinsic motivation – whatever produces “flow” becomes its own reward

(http://austega.com/gifted/16-gifted/articles/24-flow-and-mihaly-csikszentmihalyi.html)

Here is a TED talk from Czikszentmihalyi:

Using Flow As a Measure of Student Engagement

The Canadian Education Association’s (CEA) released a report What did you do in school today? – a three-year research and development initiative designed to assess, and mobilize new ideas for enhancing the learning experiences of students. Intellectual challenge was measured by Csikszentmilhalyi’s theory of flow. (Source for the following http://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada/article/sorting-students-learning)

A new measure – instructional challenge – developed from Csikszentmilhalyi’s theory of flow, offers insights into students’ experiences of learning. First year results revealed generally low levels of student engagement. While almost 70 percent of the 32,322 students reported positive experiences of social and institutional engagement, only 37 percent felt intellectually engaged in learning.  Less than half (between 42 and 47 percent) of middle and secondary students experience flow in their math and language arts classes.

In the past it was often assumed that disengaged students were easy to identify: they were the young people at the back of the class, the ones making their way to shop or special classes, or those lingering down the street well after the bell had rung. Data from What did you do in school today? suggest that disengagement is not – and may never have been – limited to small groups of students or as visible as we once thought. Over half of the students in our sample (n=32,300) – many of whom go to class each day, complete their work on time, and can demonstrate that they are meeting expected learning outcomes – are experiencing low levels of intellectual engagement.

According to the report, the implications for educating youth include:

Students differ in their aspirations, interests, and aptitudes. But it is worth considering how distinct pathways, trajectories, or streams that too often limit opportunities for students could become permeable spaces for learning. What if the curriculum anchors their learning, but ceases to anchor the students themselves because its aim is the development of important competencies through diverse learning experiences that value and extend young peoples’ knowledge, interests, and capacities across all curriculum domains?

In the context of the still emerging 21^st century learning agenda, the concept of intellectual engagement provides a way into considering the kinds of learning experiences young people require to develop important competencies for learning and life.  If we aspire to create learning environments where all students are engaged in using and developing 21^st century competencies, however, a much deeper approach may be required; one that provides for inclusive and sustained work with ideas and practices that disrupt prevailing assumptions about teaching, learning, and educational outcomes. (emphasis added).

Questions for Thought”

• Is Flow a valid measure of students’ intellectual engagement?
• Should educators focus on creating a flow state for the students in their classrooms?
• If so, what are some general strategies for creating flow within an educational setting?

5th-6th Grade Civil Rights Project: Technology-Based Activating Event

The learning expedition for the 5^th and 6^th grade this year is civil rights.  The teachers in the three classes started this expedition by having the students study literature and view media (Little Rock Nine) related to civil rights.  During these initial activating events, students identified vocabulary related to civil rights.  The teachers requested that their students create covers for their binders during their technology class.  They asked for Word Clouds of their vocabulary words and a related quote to be included within this cover.

Content Standards Addressed (Idaho)

Technology:

• Demonstrate increasingly sophisticated operation of technology components.
• Locate information from electronic resources.
• Use formatting capabilities of technology for communicating and illustrating.
• Publish and present information using technology tools.

Language Arts:

• Use words and concepts necessary for comprehending math, science, social studies, literature and other Grade 6 content area text.
• Read grade-level-appropriate text.
• Apply context to identify the meaning of unfamiliar words and identify the intended meaning of words with multiple meanings.

Process

A Google Presentation was set up with sharing permission set for anyone to edit (plans to change to view only once their pages are complete). This permitted all the students in the class to work within the document without the need of an email to log in.  This would not only result in student binder covers, but also in an embeddable presentation of all student work for that class.   A template was developed that included a block for the Word Cloud image and text box for the quote.  The individual student names were included on the slides so the student could find and work on his or her individual slide.

Students came to their technology class with lists of their civil rights words.  Two types of Word Clouds were introduced to the students:  ABCya Word Cloud and Tagxedo.  I introduced Tagxedo during the first group but didn’t realize that Tagxedo needed Microsoft Silverlight to operate.  Due to the block on the system, any additional software needs to be downloaded by the network administrator.  ABCya Word Cloud became the back up tool.  But the third group (another day), got the opportunity to test out Tagxedo.  The students loved producing the word cloud into a shape of their choice.

 

To find a relevant quote, the students were directed to go to Thinkexist: more than 300,000 quotations by over 20,000 Authors. When students located their quotes, these were copy and pasted into their slide.

 

So with this few hour exercise, the students learned how to

• engage in language arts content standards through a technology interface
• convey their vocabulary words in a visual format
• creatively play with words
• download an image
• insert an image
• search for and locate a relevant quote
• copy and paste the quote from a website into a Google doc
• work collaboratively on an online document