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Teaching for Understanding: Thinking vs. Testing

Time is a constraint that is common to all teachers (Ritchhart et al.,2011). I do not think that a teacher has to give up thinking time to prepare for testing, because you can prepare for standardized tests while also putting thinking ahead of rote memory exercises. Everyone makes the test the bad guy, but the test is just a representation of the standards which are based on Bloom’s Taxonomy and include both conceptual and metacognitive knowledge. I would argue that the curriculum and standards are at least adequate in most circumstances and the testing process itself, though inconvenient, seems to be improving through the collaboration of Edtech platforms and state education agencies. With the limitations to thinking that multiple choice tests create, the redesigned STAAR test that will begin field testing in the spring of 2022 will contain “new question types that reflect classroom test questions and allow students more ways to show their understanding” (Texas Education Agency, 2022). This willingness for TEA to grow and respond to the current assessment strategies in a typical Texas classroom stands in stark contrast to the punitive nature of the consequences for the losers of the high-stakes testing game. David Hursh states in his book High-stakes Testing and the Decline of Teaching and Learning: The Real Crisis in Education:

“I am not against using standardized exams as one of multiple measures. But, I am against high-stakes standardized tests that are used to punish students, teachers, schools, and school districts and used to misrepresent public schools as failures beyond redemption”        

What students and teachers need is a low-stakes environment that encourages thinking and deep understanding. That can be achieved through annual standardized testing, but less pressure to perform would enable teachers to focus on mastery of thinking skills rather than rapid progression through content. Changining question types and adjusting the presentation of standardized tests can help make them a more reliable measure of performance, but if performance is the basis for loss of funding or labeling a school unsatisfactory then the same “test taking strategy” instruction will overtake thinking strategy instruction. “Ultimately it’s what learners are asked to do with that content that makes it a rich opportunity for learning” (Ritchhart et al.,2011). To get the focus off of the end result of standardized assessment and onto the learning environment and thinking processes is the key to testing and thinking occupying the same space in teaching for understanding. 

Resources

Hursh, D. W. (2008). High-stakes Testing and the Decline of Teaching and Learning: The Real Crisis in Education. United States: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

 Ritchhart, R., Church, M., & Morrison, K. (2011). Making thinking visible. Jossey Bass Wiley.

 Texas Education Agency. (2022, January 27). Staar redesign. Texas Education Agency. Retrieved February 1, 2022, from https://tea.texas.gov/student-assessment/assessment-initiatives/hb-3906/staar-redesign 

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Designing Meaningful Play: A Lesson from Texas High School Football

Like many generations of young men who grew up in Texas I experienced a state of play through high school football that was so immersive it was hard to realize the experience was in fact a game. The context of the game from the multi-million dollar stadium, to the uniforms, and film sessions gave the whole experience a greater sense of importance, but larger context aside on the micro level the individual game play has clear and obvious meaning. Your actions as an individual have discernible outcomes. Missing a block results in a loss of yards which is visually communicated to you by down markers and verbally communicated to you by a rather unpleasant coach and the spectators. These outcomes are also integrated into the larger context of the game as that missed block and lost yardage could result in poor field position and different play calling. These outcomes made incremental improvement measurable through statistics which keep players engaged even when facing negative outcomes like losing.

Certain types of play tend to be more meaningful to some people than others. The competitive nature of football or as Roger Caillois, the French sociologist, categorizes it,  Agon aids in fully immersing oneself in the state of play while participating in the game. These competitive rivalries pervade our culture and become part of how we identify ourselves. This is evident in the way we connect with complete strangers through a shared love of a school or team.       

I would suggest that the implications for education that we can gather from analyzing high school football in Texas are immense. Context is very important when initially engaging students. The context of Texas high school football is big and grand. It is important to establish a culture where your core values are celebrated and students and staff are recognized and invested in.WE can also learn a lesson from high school football about progression. Just like the down and distance markers on a football field denote forward progress, it can be very beneficial for students to have the same transparent progress markers. Some schools or districts tackle this through standards-based gradingwhile the educational technology industry continues to make visualizing learning through mind maps and flowcharts even more accessible.   

We invest in sports and extracurricular activities to sharpen life skills like teamwork, critical thinking, performance, and perseverance because we know it builds character and sparks interests, but we need to find the right way to give the education going on in schools the proper context for students to immerse themselves in the experience.      

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Design Experiment 4

For this installment I will be using PBWorks (formerly PBWiki) for the first time.I will primarily be looking at the EDUHub, their education facing product; however, organizations in the advertising and marketing industries as well as law firms can make use of the products hosted by PBWorks. Outside of education the tools offered are utilized for partner/client collaboration, new business development, project management, the development of social intranets, and knowledge management. PBWork’s non-educational products include Agency Hub, Legal Hub, and Project Hub which are geared towards marketing, law, and project management respectively. Additionally, PBWorks provides course organization and delivery options to use PBWorks like a cms/classroom webpage, or users can share out a workspace as a collaboration board much like an online whiteboard. 

PBWork’s original and still primary function is to act as a wiki which is essentially a webpage that allows users to collaborate and edit the page in order to share information and sources. The impermanent nature of the page affords itself a conversational tone which encourages users to add related resources and ideas as they learn and research more about the given topic. The ease at which resources are tagged and shared also tends to make wikis an easy repository for sources and planning documents during research.

In my direct line of work as an instructional coach, the first content I think affords itself to the use of wikis is the professional learning involved with learning theory and teaching strategies. Take for example the jigsaw method teaching strategy. There are numerous ways to conduct a lesson using this strategy, and most teachers have some personal variation on how they sequence the splitting up of groups, sharing of expertise, and creating a final product. Having a tag that can be easily searchable allows educators to find examples that they connect with, and then I always find that teachers want to make an idea their own, and a wiki is perfect for adjusting or adding to a shared activity in this way. Using this as a tool for professional learning, I would want teachers to spend part of the session searching through the wikis for lessons or activities that they connect with, discussing their findings with others in-person, and then finally creating their own artifact that they share on the wiki. The cool thing about this type of lesson involving a wiki is the final product could be varied if the teacher is more focussed on the theory and research behind the strategy than creating a lesson they could contribute to that section of the wiki giving a lot of freedom for student choice.    

The use of wikis in the manner I described in the paragraph above is supported by the constructivist learning theory because my activity’s participants would be using their prior knowledge combined with the information contained in the wiki to form their own understanding and in consequence their own version of the wiki (Almala, 2006). Seeing the multitude of examples on the wiki and then using that information to either improve it or create something new would be an example of distribution of cognition which would also lead to a deeper understanding through shared knowledge of the teaching strategy. This understanding and ability to process the knowledge gained would not be as great without the opportunity to collaborate in this manner (Begoña & Carmen, 2011).

Participating in a wiki-centered activity like the one I’ve described helps my learners develop research skills they need outside of a professional learning setting. I’m always interested to see the different ways educators search for content. Some go straight to Google, others use the content included in an LMS or CMS. The biggest advantage of using a wiki within a lesson for my learners is realizing that these knowledge suppositories actually exist. Many of them, as well as myself, grew up in a world where wiki-anything  did not jive with academics. Understanding new strategies for how information is connected, shared, and justified will only help these educators understand how to better serve their own students who no longer live in the anti-wiki past. 

References  

Almala, A.H. (2006). Applying the principles of Constructivism to a Quality E-learning Environment. Distance Learning, 3(1), 33-40.

Begoña, M-F. & Carmen, P-S. (2011). Knowledge construction and knowledge sharing: A wiki-based approach. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 28, 622-627.

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Design Experiment 3

This week I have been exploring the world of the flipped classroom, and the biggest headache for teachers across content and grade-level when introducing the flipped classroom model is building enough content to allow students to explore a unit independently, so that when they come back to the classroom students and teachers can focus on more complex applications of the concepts learned at home. Rather than spending hours with Screecastify teachers have tons of resources to deliver initial content to students effectively while freeing up time for teachers to focus on engaging classroom activities. As an Instructional Technology Specialist at a large Texas High School, I hear teachers from all subject areas saying that there just isn’t as much content out there for what I teach. So rather than focussing on one content area, I will break down the best pre-made, ready-to-go content libraries across all four core subjects and even some electives. 

   Khan Academy is one of the foremost pioneers in independent learning modules. This site sets up their modules into courses that are divided into units. Each unit has videos, articles, and other assorted resources for students to review. Students then take mastery quizzes at the end of each unit to prove that they mastered the content in the unit. Khan Academy’s resources can be accessed through a link without logging in, so teachers can use the resources without having to assign or track progress through Khan Academy if they do not wish to. For my high school teachers all four core areas have some amount of content available to them. Khan Academy offers specific math courses in Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, Trigonometry, Pre/Calculus, Statistics, and three AP math subjects. For Science Khan offers Biology/ AP Bio, Chemistry, Physics, Environmental Science, and Astronomy. History/Social Studies is listed under the title of Arts and Humanities and includes AP/US History, World History, US Government, Art History. I also have my Senior Economics teachers who are listed in their own category, but Khan has both Macro and Micro broken down into their own courses with an AP course included. The problem with Khan Academy is that it does not have much content for high school level language arts, and My World Geography teachers were not explicitly included in the Khan Academy courses. There is a 9th grade ELA course currently, but it focuses primarily on reading comprehension and vocabulary skills. I suspect this is due to the difficulty in assessing writing through artificial intelligence though with Grammarly improving in that realm we may see a change in this sooner rather than later. Khan Academy also offers SAT practice, Computer Science Courses, and AP/On-level Art History. The primary affordance of Khan Academy is for students to work through modules independently, but the ease of outside access to the instructional materials housed in each unit makes it just as effective as a traditional online database for teachers. 

Nearpod has been working their tails off building a library of content and partnering with outside learning applications. 

Their large library of videos, interactive activities, and pre-made, customizable  presentations integrate the likes of Desmos, Phet Labs, Newsela, Quill, Flocabulary, BBC World News, National Geographic, PBS, and our old friends Khan Academy just to name a few. This is where my ELA teachers get their content fix after the let down from Khan Academy. The content in the Nearpod library is made to easily drop into their main product which is their interactive presentation platform, so the resources cannot be linked to outside of nearpod, however; a free subscription to nearpod enables users to utilize some content from the library. Posting the content is then just a matter of posting the presentation with the content and even assessment included. This is not a bad adjustment in the flipped classroom setting since teachers are often searching for ways to encourage students to complete at-home assignments. Content is available for English 1-4, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, US History, World History, and World Geography. Even though the draw activity (pictured below)  is conducive to writing out math problems, the math content included in the Nearpod library is limited to elementary-level math with the exception of the Desmos integration. This is great for focussing on graphing and system functions, but it is not applicable across the math department. Nearpod really shines as a database of content with a premium subscription to afford teachers the breadth of the integrated third party applications. 

DeltaMath solves the challenge of creating new, differentiated problems for students in math classes. This web-based program generates practice problems for students to answer and organizes these problems by common core standards. These standards correspond with high school courses which can be assigned by teachers to students through the application. Mathematical concepts are explained through text examples rather than videos, and students/teachers must log in to Delta Math to access the content. High School courses available in DeltaMath include Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, Pre-Calculus, Calculus, and Computer Science. While this platform may be lacking in the explanation of skills, the time saved by teachers not having to create new practice problems can free up time to focus on teacher exemplar videos and application activities.    

As teachers wrestle with the time consuming task of differentiating and individualizing, I hope that they will take a moment to explore the cognitive difference a flipped classroom approach affords them in this demanding profession. The programs I have mentioned as well as many others offer time back to educators bogged down by content creation and discovery to focus on feedback, data, assessment and adjustment. If educators use the resources they have available to them efficiently, the switch to a flipped classroom becomes less daunting and more exhilarating.  

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Design Experiment 2

This week I will be taking a look at Edmodo, a free course management system that I will compare to the existing learning management system that I use regularly in my own district, Google Classroom. The first thing that sticks out to me about Edmodo is the home landing page uses a social media profile page layout to encourage teachers to connect with other teachers and find resources. Users are able to add hashtags to tag resources/posts. Users can then browse other user’s posts based on those hashtags. Google classroom does not enable sharing across the platform in this manner. Most collaboration on Google Classroom is kept within users’ domains and limited to Drive/document sharing or email/chat communication. 

One grip I’ve always had with Google Classroom is the way I find myself juggling posts to ensure that the most prevalent post is at the top of the classroom page. Google classroom tends to treat all posts as equals, and teachers know that is certainly not the case. In Edmodo, you are able to post an agenda that stays visible on the top of the page for a desired length of time (1 day, 1 week, or custom). This feature affords itself to the execution of full units that are student-paced. With Google Classroom teachers need to push the agenda post back to the top of the page after each time they post new material. 

In addition, Edmodo has an interesting jump start activity feature which is a Kahoot-like game activity that can be done individually or as a whole class. In the activity studio users can add different question types such as multiple choice, true/false, matching, insert resources, short answer, fill in the blank, math specific, and error correction. This activity boasts more response options than Google Forms and it includes different game themes (space, deserted island, etc.). Google Classroom would require a third party app to do the same thing, but full integration would still not be present in Google Classroom. With this activity type in mind I would also like to point out that assignments and quizzes are the same as on Google Classroom or Google Forms with autograde available for selected response questions.

 I was unhappy with how Edmodo made me attach a word document. With the ubiquity of Google Docs, I’m concerned that Edmodo does not easily integrate with Google Drive. Users can log in to connect a Google account, but mine wouldn’t allow me to connect the application since I’m on a school device with this application being blocked by our network. While this seems to be only a minor setback, as a user you can tell that Edmodo has a preference for Microsoft. 

The integration of communication, collaboration, and progress monitoring/feedback makes Edmodo a good tool for educators in  distance setting who need to group students by ability levels, and manage asynchronous learning activities. Google Classroom may integrate all of its apps more seamlessly and have more capabilities, but I have seen student disengagement in the distance setting because they have to try and navigate all of these different applications in an environment that is not self-contained. Edmodo does a much better job at bringing all of the elements together in one place. While I do find that the all-inclusive nature of Edmodo is why we as a district have been searching for a new LMS (to replace Google Classroom) for years, I don’t know that these procedural, usability factors are enough to outway the infrastructural changes necessary to replace a free program that is already available on the devices we purchased. At this point, Edmodo only has a clear advantage on the teacher’s end because it is easier to share and present lessons with more options in creation. While it may be easier for teachers to create, schools will only shell out additional funding for something that significantly improves STUDENT outcomes, and in that category between Google Classroom and Edmodo, it’s a wash.

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Design Experiment 1

Recently my district has begun the long overdue process of simplifying our email and communication systems by getting rid of our outlook accounts and going solely to Google. This decision makes a tremendous amount of sense because our students currently use Google Classroom as our primary LMS and Gmail as their primary means of communication with teachers, administrators, and all other district personnel. So when I got the assignment to focu on Google apps, I was already in the process of revamping my beginning of the year training that hits the high notes of all things Google… or at least as much as I can get to in a two-hour session before teachers start to foam at the mouth and go all dead-eyed. The two particularly interesting apps that I’m focussing on here come from necessity and a need for aesthetically pleasing, user-friendly content curation.

Google Calendar 

Out of necessity, I dove into Google Calendar to highlight the differences in the user experience from Outlook, but as I used the application I came to see the true utility of the application. Not only does Google Calendar keep users’ important dates, but users can also create time slots and share a link for other users to book appointments. Used in cooperation with Gmail, Google calendar will now use it’s machine learning algorithm to pull important dates from user’s Gmail accounts to add to their Google Calendars. Documents, files, and Google Meet links can be attached to  Calendar events to enable easier collaboration. The access to all Google apps within Google Calendar affords itself to an open environment for collaboration.  

As I continued with Google Calendar a group of students and teachers that are often overlooked came to mind: Structured Learning. Whatever you call it life skills, structured learning, self-contained learning, many Special Education students who have support goals regarding time management or self-sufficiency could benefit from Google Calendar’s notification features and how visibly it integrates within the rest of the G Suite. Those skills are also necessary for students in CTE and apprentice programs. Those courses often have scheduling and time management centered learning objectives.   

The use of Google Calendar fits into the student-centered instructional model by focusing on the cognitive process of time management and scheduling. Having students plan and document activities through Google Calendar helps students break down larger group projects into smaller steps and internalize learning within the scope of larger concepts. You can also help students give purpose to each group meeting by having check-points (ie. topic decision made by the end of the first meeting, each member shares 3 sources and compile bibliography by end of second meeting, etc.) or specific topics. Those same appointment slots can also be used on the teacher’s end to facilitate small groups or one on one instruction for students who are less willing to ask for help within the larger context of the group. Teachers can then also get a better feel for how comfortable students feel with material based on the number of appointment slots that are taken for tutoring or small group help.       

Google Arts and Culture

As I continued down the Google rabbit hole I encountered a delightful resource that curates interesting aspects of art and culture called Google Arts and Culture.  Basically, this app takes Google Street View, Google Maps, Google Expeditions, and throws some games on top to create a delightfully relevant page of intriguing cultural artifacts. Following the well-known blueprint of a social media stream users scroll through articles and videos of famous art, architecture, tour museums, browse articles, and view picture galleries. The most interesting additional sections of Google Arts and Culture are The Cultural 5 (content from five different aspects of culture;travel, natural history, art, history, science), 5 from 5 (five of something from 5 different parts of the world to highlight the differences), and the interactive games which focus on art and architecture. This application affords itself to student choice and exploration. The organization of the page encourages students to identify areas of interest and dive deeper once they identify an area of interest.    

One feature Google Arts and Culture has is a video series called Zoom into Masterpieces where a famous person will talk in detail about a piece of art and the video will zoom into details of the painting while the famous narrator is talking about it. While this seems to pretty obviously hit the standards present in a fine arts classroom, I also see the possible applications in an ELA classroom. The narrator discusses the metaphorical meaning behind the artwork often describing the way the forms are drawn and what that technique is meant to symbolize. As an ELA teacher I often found figurative language difficult to explain other than just giving examples, so for students who have difficulty grasping these concepts the example of metaphor in this medium can help our visual/spatial learners.   

Additionally, most courses for languages other than english require some study of the cultures associated with the language of study. Having students seek out expeditions of important places or tours of museums from places where the language of study is spoken can be far more impactful than lecturing or reading/showing videos about a country because it mimics the experience of exploring. Part of the fun of learning a language is coming across new words and colloquialisms as you journey through the land, and Google Arts and Culture definitely nails the aspect of intrigue behind cultural exploration. Again working within the framework of student centered learning activities, Google Arts and Culture looks to make learning relevant by rooting it in personal experience. The tours and street views mimic a personal experience better than video or book because it is personalized by the student because he/she can manipulate the environment.

The biggest advantage to the Google apps I’ve been working with over the past few weeks is the interconnected ease of use between applications. Because of Google’s broad reach they are able to bring multiple technologies together to benefit teachers and learners alike. Luckily for us Google has kept their focus on exploration and helping users find answers. In this way Google apps are a great tool to spark interest in learning in young students and continue that interest to create those proverbial life-long learners we all long for.

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Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0 Tools

After delving into the world of web 2.0 tools, some advantages to using these tools within a learning environment or specific activities have become quite apparent. First, collaboration is a core concept in web 2.0 tools. Study after study shows the effectiveness of collaboration in student achievement and the advantages in the area of student engagement are obvious to teachers who implement collaborative activities. When I think about the type of classroom I want to be in, whether it be in the role of teacher or learner, I want it to have an element of community that makes collaboration essential. Web 2.0 tools are also malleable and can be used to fit the scale and scope of different classes and lessons. As an instructional technology specialist, I have many disciplines and contexts that I assist with, so having a tool that is flexible is very appealing. I’d rather know fewer tools very well than hundreds tenuously.      

Web 2.0 tools are also very good at creating a context for active learning. Active learning affords the possibility for student independence. Differentiation and extension are also possible with these types of tools. With active learning and the structure of these tools, students develop via inquiry based activities which afford a context for exploration. A feeling of openness and choice gives students intrinsic motivation to participate in active learning activities.   

With this in mind, in the future, I would seek out and focus on tools that afford a balance of clarity in operation, but flexibility in application. For example, a tool like Padlet.com only has a few options for actions that users can take, but there is a huge variety of media and organization that makes the tool usable in many contexts. I am still looking for a tool that could take users entirely through  the process of brainstorming to publishing a final product. Many will work well for collaboration and gathering of content, but fall short when users try to use content in a finished or polished context. I tried this with Miro.com and they tend to nickle and dime the user for file quality. It is just frustrating.   

Now, web 2.0 tools are not all sunshine and roses. They take a lot of preparation for students to use them to their full capacity. Sometimes these tools have so much information that students can freeze up. It can be hard for students who have not had this much freedom within their learning environment to get started when they don’t have explicit instructions or direct guidance. It can take a little extra time to get them started and feeling comfortable with their new independence. Also, as a high school teacher my mind always goes to discipline. Asking students to collaborate and contribute will inevitably lead to inappropriate posts that will require moderation and draw the instructor’s attention away from the learning activity. Preparing for this ahead of time and having a plan to deal with discipline issues can help minimize those distractions.  

When I think of the web 2.0 tools of the future, the main thing I want to avoid are completely free applications. The advertising strategies and data sharing practices compromise the integrity of the information presented and add an extra level of distraction that isn’t present in a subscription model. As I mentioned before, I’d rather have one or two quality tools that I am very knowledgeable of, even if I have to pay for them, than a whole host of free, ad-filled pop-up factories.  

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My Vanity Search: Part 2

Ok, so I have been working in the web 2.0 world for 6 weeks now doing everything I can to expand my digital footprint, and it kind of ticked me off to search Lowell Gabbert and the first result on Google was an obituary for William Lowell Gabbert. What the _ ? All that work for nothing. ;) My lacrosse website is still up at the top of the results, so mcla.us must do some serious SEO work. 

As far as additions to my digital presence go, my YouTube channel has finally made an appearance due to the materials I created for my Web 2.0 tools class. Most of the videos I kept unlisted, but a few from the beginning when I didn’t know the difference are still public. Also, my newly created Twitter page came in at number four on my top search results. 

The biggest surprise of my initial Lowell Gabbert search was a pinterest page. If you follow the link, you see that there isn’t anything posted to it, and to be honest, I had no idea I even created one. I think this was associated with my old Google Plus account. That’s kind of scary to think you can be creating accounts and widening your digital presence without even knowing.   

After feedback from my professor and classmates, I did take the advice to expand my search parameters to see what results would be included by adding my middle name Lowell Gaines Gabbert to my search. Instantcheckmate.com showed a wealth of personal information including current and previous addresses, close relatives, and an old phone number. Thankfully, there wasn’t much else turning up with that search term. Adding my place of employment to my name did not add any results to my search. 

As an educator, my expanding footprint has implications for the way students, parents, and current/potential employers view my educational philosophy and how they judge my capability to be an effective teacher. Whether we like it or not, school is not taught in a vacuum. I would like to believe that I can say whatever I want on the web and still be able to teach my students effectively, but perception shapes how much someone will let you in, how much they trust you. Whether it be the pictures I post on Facebook or the videos I create and make public on YouTube, I must carefully curate my content to make sure that I am presenting the right brand. I also think of my digital presence within the edtech industry. Blogs, social media, and video channels are analogous to  industry publications in other disciplines, so it is important to develop a brand that shows awareness of current trends to gain credibility amongst peers and colleagues. 

As for my students, privacy settings become more and more important. I effectively doubled my web presence in 6 weeks, and students now have a lifetime of web interaction that dwarfs my fifteen years of part-time involvement. I think about my son when I think about this topic. At the age of 1, he already has more pictures of himself online than I do. His vanity search will be a retelling of his entire life. This lack of privacy can influence his ability to make first impressions, to change opinions, and to make friends. I hope my students as well as my son can take control of their information and reign in the free window into their personal lives to show the world the side of themselves that they consciously present.   

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Web 2.0 Tools & Personal Professional Development

As the curated list of web 2.0 tools from vastly more experienced Education Technologists begins to come to an end for me, I have started to think of ways to keep up with the current pace of the education technology sector. Within my role as an Instructional Technology Specialist I find myself focussing on the tools that are currently available and endorsed by my district and campus; however, I find more and more that solutions to common classroom problems are already in existence and all it takes is someone with a little time and ambition to seek those solutions out. At this moment in my career this drive to find solutions makes my own professional development with web tools an interconnected piece of the work I do on a daily basis, but this reactionary model is not sustainable due to the number of faculty that do not reach out for assistance and either wallow in broken systems or completely disregard campus and district technology initiatives. For me to be truly effective in my role, I need to be seeking out solutions and offering those solutions whether solicited or not.  

While I do not want to solely be reactionary to colleagues requests, I do want to utilize their experience in a proactive way. Many teachers I talk to on a daily basis have a new tool they have discovered or a different way of using a familiar tool that addresses a certain need. Proactively seeking out teachers’ suggestions can help focus my exploration into certain web tools. I have come to realize that there is no chance of me knowing every tool, app, or extension that exists, especially if I am not in the classroom, on the front-lines, every day. I must continually prod at the faculty to draw out the creativity and innovation that is already at work to see how I can help spread and build upon it. 

While my own learning community is a great resource for finding innovations easily, the hard work still must be done to see what other learning communities and experts in EdTech have to add to the conversation. I am lucky enough to live in Austin, Texas which is a technology hub. Yearly, I attend SXSW, and Texas Computer Educators Associations’ conferences to gather intelligence to use in the coming year. While the knowledge gleaned from sessions, workshops, and walking the conference room floors at the conferences is cutting-edge and invaluable, I get just as much out of the regular newsletters and additional webinars that are offered throughout the year to attendees. I have made a commitment to not only attend these professional development conferences each year, but to also review and analyze the articles and newsletters these associations put out to evaluate the usefulness of the publication from month to month. Many times an update to Google Classroom announced on the TCEA newsletter has sparked investigation into tools that this update could now utilize.  

Along with these annual conferences and their associated publications, I set a personal goal to pursue certifications offered for web tools, by the companies themselves. My mother is a nurse, and growing up we always used to laugh at the long list of letters after her name (ie. PNP, LVN, CNP, etc.). The list was quite extensive, but it showed to everyone she worked with her commitment to the field and her breadth of knowledge. I see these tool certifications the same way. Last year I finished my courses to become a Vocabulary.com Certified Educator, and this year I am looking at completing my edpuzzle.com coach certification. Eventually, I would like to become a Google Certified Educator and eventually work my way up to be a certified innovator. My favorite part about these certifications is the authentic learning and application to my day-to-day work. The University of Texas also offers courses in blended learning and education technology that I have found helpful in the past and plan to pursue in the future.    

Now, I know I use the words I and me a lot to describe my professional development goals, and that is because these are a personal priority to me; however, instructional technologists (or whatever funky title you’re given) tend to be on an island, the lone “tech expert” on campus persevering as many faculty members throw up their hands when things get too difficult or Google decides to have a nation-wide outage on a test day. That is why finding a supportive learning community dedicated to pushing each other and holding each other accountable is of utmost importance. I am lucky enough to have another Instructional Technology Specialist on my campus, and that allows us to work as a team. Having someone to discuss teachers’ needs and instructional practice with to find the most appropriate application of web tools (and sometimes not applying web tools) is critical. The whole point of using Web 2.0 tools is to collaborate and grow our collective knowledge together. This can’t be done on an island. As a human, I experience setbacks, disappointments, and frustrations that take the focus off of my goals. Without the challenge and support from strong teammates, professional development can lose its luster. We lose our drive. We lose our passion. As the classroom changes, we all need to feel supported to experiment, make mistakes, and feel as vulnerable as we ask our students to be.               

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Social Bookmarking using Diigo

This week's adventure in social bookmarking brought me to Diigo.com. With this site users are able to store and share links, pictures, pdfs, and notes. When posting a resource to Diigo, users can tag the resource or share it to a group. Posts are easily searchable and popular tags are listed on the user’s homepage. Users are also able to create an outline page of selected resources and share those resources via a web link.  

The first step I took with social bookmarking using Diigo was cleaning up my bookmarks bar. I have folders of spreadsheets and articles that make a rather complicated drop-down tree. Remembering what folder each resource is housed in often wastes more time that the original intent of bookmarking was intended to lessen. I started with a very general tag of #classroomresources, but as your library grows you realize the need for more specificity in your tagging. I then progressed to areas that are hot topics of conversation such as #engagement, #proximity, and #readingonline. I found it much easier remembering a tag than figuring out what folder this resource was nested under.  

Once I felt comfortable using Diigo myself, I introduced it to my colleague as a way for us to share resources between the two of us. This is where tags had to start being standardized. For instance, i used the tag readingonline and she post to onlinereading. Between us we had to come to an agreement about what tags we were going to use, because it became very obvious that we would lose resources as we built out our library. The two of us had been using Google Classroom to disseminate information and resources to faculty members, but we found the searchable interface to be easier to operate. Granted, you can use control+F for searching Google Classroom, but not all of our faculty is aware of this feature. 

I created a campus group to utilize Diigo at an organizational level with some positive results. As with any technology some faculty members latched on to the collaborative nature of the platform sharing related articles on topics that were created in the group, but the surprising use that we didn’t foresee was using Diigo for a running library of unblocked YouTube resources. Like most districts we have a content filter called GoGuardian. In the past when we approved a site for use and it was unblocked in the filter, we added it to a spreadsheet. This sheet got pretty huge over the years and it became more difficult to go back and update the spreadsheet with more specific searchable items (ie. course, topic, etc.). Simply adding the #unblocked to a Youtube video that was shared with our campus group started an easy way to update these resources and allowed teachers to pull from resources their colleagues had already found. Then, teachers were able to go and add their own tags where they could add the course, unit, or grade level they were using the resource in (ie. algebra1, thegildedage, 12thgrade). 

I think the big advantage of social bookmarking is the collaboration that you get users to participate in, because it makes the resources easier to find if users participate in adding tags and specificity. As someone who is pushing a lot of content out to masses of teachers, I know that I can never truly check every box and get each post in exactly the right spot for each content level to have perfect access to it, but having faculty in on the process starts to build a culture of sharing. We expect teachers to take a step back and not do all of the thinking for their students, so social bookmarking on a platform like Diigo can help model the crowd sourcing of ideas that teachers should be nurturing in the classroom.      

[edtechlg]

Hyperdocs Let Students Teach Themselves

On the surface, hyperdocs look like an online worksheet that is typical in classrooms especially in hybrid and 1:1 settings, and that is because by literal definition a hyperdoc is a document with links to other resources and activities. However, as is my experience with most web tools, the way in which you plan and implement hyperdocs dictates whether the lesson is a differentiated, engaging learning experience or just another worksheet. 

What is Essential to a Hyperdoc?

Most teachers are familiar with the typical lesson pattern: engage, explore, explain, apply, share, reflect, extend. Because hyperdocs are usually meant to be done independently, a hyperdoc lesson missing one of the aforementioned elements can feel empty and leave students missing important pieces of content. The nice thing about the hyperdoc format is that it is a product that is very close to the initial planning stage most teachers do individually or within a PLC. What I mean by close to planning is that other than aesthetically a hyperdoc is essentially the same document as a lesson plan or unit outline. You explicitly list the parts of the lesson, list out instructions, house all of the resources that will be used, and then link to the assignments and web tools that you will use.  

As I mentioned before hyperdocs are meant to be done asynchronously, so students can work at their own pace, but that does not mean that hyperdocs contain students thinking to their own brains. Collaboration is a key element in a hyperdocs lesson. Usually students are asked to share what they learned in the exploring section of the lesson. This common practice of students teaching each other is reminiscent of the popular jigsaw method. The web tool I have seen used to facilitate collaboration in this way with the most frequency through my exploration of hyperdocs is Padlet. I have to admit as I looked to design a hyperdocs lesson, I also went with Padlet because it is a very simple tool that allows for the posting of various types of media on a particular topic. Students can share, comment, and like each others’ contributions.  

Traditional lessons would feature a direct teaching method when introducing a new topic where new vocabulary and background information are covered largely through lecture. A hyperdocs lesson replaces this with an independent student exploration followed up by teacher explanation. This simple adjustment from teachers providing knowledge to students finding knowledge immediately ups the academic rigor and encourages students to evaluate the resources to determine what information is essential or even intriguing. Most students will find something interesting within a lesson if specific knowledge is not dictated to them.

Application

While a hyperdoc lesson fits nicely into any content area or lesson type, I feel it works especially well for a novel study. Maybe that is because I am an ex-English teacher, or maybe because the workflow of a novel study mirrors that of a hyperdoc: students start out exploring and reading independently, then discuss collaboratively, the teacher clarifies (either as a whole group or individually), and then students reflect individually. Here’s an example of a particularly well done hyperdoc for To Kill a Mockingbird. The hyperdoc helps students and teachers slow down and make sure that they are hitting each part of the 7-part lesson I mentioned before. This ensures reflection time, etc. since it is so typical to get thrown off course while in the midst of a novel study because the teacher or her students get so engrossed in discussion or even the literature itself. 

Aside from keeping students and teachers on track, the hyperdoc also puts the responsibility of continuation on the student rather than the teacher. By providing the hyperdoc ahead of time, which usually encompases the whole unit of study, students do not spend much time “waiting around” for the teacher to start the next lesson. When students see from the beginning that there is an endpoint, they know that there is, in fact, a “point” to what they are learning. Teachers will end up putting more work in the front-end of the lesson which will then leave the work to be done by students during the lesson. This leads us to the golden rule of hyperdocs: students should teach themselves and teachers should enable students to teach themselves. 

[edtechlg]

YouTube & The Twitter Adventure

This week’s adventure took me into familiar territory, Youtube.com. I’ve always used videos from YouTube to enhance my classroom lessons, create extension activities, add supplementary resources to make lessons accessible to different types of learners, and even learn how to do things myself outside of the classroom. It is amazing to me how little the platform has changed over time, but still is one of the most widely used across all demographics. While I had always looked to YouTube videos for easily accessible information, I had never considered that both my students and educators were using it as anyone would a typical search engine. Even though I use YouTube as a go-to for information in both my personal AND professional life,  I have never really seen it as a research tool, and I would bet that most of my colleagues in education have a similar view of the platform. So this week I used YouTube to do a little research on a topic that is still fairly foreign to me… Twitter. 

I stated before my distaste for Twitter, but I’m willing to admit some of the malice I am experiencing still may be due to my lack of knowledge on the platform. So, I used YouTube to research how to use Twitter more effectively. Maybe that will help remedy the problem. I went down the proverbial rabbit hole of Twitter Basics videos which led me to all different types of strategies for posting times and days. Then, I came across Syd Lance who had some content posted about using Twitter analytics to increase your followers. I totally understand the irony of a guy with just over 700 followers on YouTube giving advice about social media marketing, but he had some pretty interesting suggestions for manicuring your online presence. I won’t give away all of his suggestions, but he did mention the necessity of using an outside platform like Hootsuite to manage posting times. This seems to be the biggest theme I’ve recognized throughout Twitter is catching users at the right time. The most valuable lesson I learned from this portion of my YouTube research was to meet your audience where they are, and this is completely transferable to the classroom. The whole reason we are bringing tools like Twitter and YouTube into the classroom is to engage students. As social media turns engagement into a science, teachers need to understand these strategies to push back with engaging content of their own on platforms that students use for leisure to blend content with non-academic media. This makes it easier for students to engage with the content and enables students to interact with it for reasons other than purely academic where the stakes are not as high and students are more willing to take risks. 

As an Instructional Technology Specialist, all of this talk about engaging students with Twitter took my thoughts back to engaging teachers through the use of Twitter. Admittedly, Twitter is not as widely used among some (shall we say) more experienced educational circles, but a good chunk of teachers do engage with the platform to score ideas from EdTech or curriculum experts. Younger teachers are more likely to use Twitter to search for articles and resources related to instruction, but older teachers like myself are still stuck to Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram. This variety of use necessitates some sort of multi-platform publishing program like the aforementioned Hootsuite. As I began to discuss with my colleagues when teachers engaged with social media, most reported lunch time as a ubiquitous catch up period for social media scrolling. If I want to catch more teachers at a time when they are looking for resources and information about lessons, activities, etc. during the week after 7 would also be a perfect time to post for those social media brain breaks that are all too common during grading/planning sessions. I would also be able to catch that Pre-Monday panic by posting Sunday afternoon when most teachers are planning for the week ahead. After seeing how much I can learn about Twitter from using YouTube, I had some ideas about using YouTube in the classroom for things other than supplemental or engaging videos. 

   When opening a unit on research or even just a new concept, rather than curating the content that students will interact with when introducing a concept, a teacher can use YouTube by having students search for a research topic or concept. Students mostly encounter general information that is very comparable to a typical lecture during a hearty round of YouTube searching. Since most YouTube content is secondary information, students can compare similarities and differences from the videos they watched while exploring the topic. Then, students should determine which information they learned is most important to the topic or concept being introduced. Most likely the information that is shared and repeated in the most YouTube content will be the most important information pertaining to the given concept. 

Any good content creator will list the references they used to create their content. Students can take this YouTube exploration one step further by finding the referenced sources provided in the YouTube videos to try and get closer to the source materials. Teachers can help students identify important figures and thinkers related to the research topic or concept that is being taught by identifying and tracing the reference sources to their originators. 

One major issue to consider when trying to use YouTube in the classroom is that it is so popular with teachers, students, parents, and everyone else that it is typically highly restricted within school networks. Make sure potential research terms or typical tags are added to your campus/district’s allowed list, and do this ahead of time. There’s nothing that derails student engagement with a topic faster than legitimate searching being blocked because an algorithm can’t differentiate academic searching from off-task searching.   

All in all this experiment with YouTube has just reminded me of how much appreciation I have for the platform. For something that has so much use for academics I don’t immediately associate it with being academic. Much like Wikipedia has grown out of its unreliable source moniker through crowd-sourced editing, and platform fact-checking, YouTube has formed a compendium of resources that has garnered credibility from the community. If this tool is so ubiquitous that we all go there for every day how- to’s, then using YouTube is a life skill. We should be encouraging our students to use this tool to prepare them for life, because you can always find a video about how to do it on YouTube. 

[edtechlg]

Twitter: Applications in Education

To be completely transparent, I’m not a fan of Twitter. The layout seems cluttered and messy, and I do believe that the short form writing associated with the platform is killing students’ ability to build complex sentences. BUT I will also acknowledge my bias. I am in my early 30’s, and I’m a Facebook kid through and through. I created my FB account when I went to college because back then you had to have a college email to be able to join. Oh, those were the days :). Ever since, I’ve largely been a one social media platform kind of guy. However, I am not naïve enough to think that there is no value in this uber popular platform, so I put on my EdTech pants and gave Twitter a spin. For research, of course. 

   The first thing I noticed is that my feed was completely empty. It took me a few clicks to realize that you had to search for things and then follow them to start seeing information associated with those topics. I started professionally with a class hashtag #etec527. I made my obligatory posts related to web 2.0 tools and then expanded to #edtech, #blendedlearning, #gamesbasedlearning. Then, I started to follow edtech companies and programs that I’m familiar with ie. @nearpod, @Flipgrid, and @GetKahoot. I stayed in the edtech realm for a good 12 hours before the people that I replied to and followed connected with me in other areas of mutual interest. I soon branched out from edtech to gadgets and tech and then progressed to sports and entertainment. Before I knew it, I had become a full fledged Twitter user looking at my Twitter feed more often than my Facebook feed. I like to think this is partially due to a dedication to my research.

To take my research a step further I began to use Flipboard in conjunction with my Twitter and Facebook profiles. Flipboard is a news curation app that allows users to post stories directly to their linked social media pages. I found a better news feed format in this application which allows users to block ads while reading (huge plus) and compile saved content into magazines that can be shared through a link. My mind immediately ran wild with the possibility of collecting articles on the topics of pedagogy or instructional technology and sharing the collection with our faculty in an easy-to-read format. I could also see students collecting initial sources for research papers or projects here while they are ironing out a thesis. This companion app is a great addition, but I came here for Twitter, so I’m gonna talk about Twitter. 

Most of us in the EdTech field have experienced conferences that use Twitter as a back-channel conversation where attendees share their experiences, questions/answers, and discoveries. This application of Twitter leads me to this question: what other events/activities/institutions could benefit from a convenient back-channel forum to share, debate, pose questions, and gather resources? From a campus level, I can see administrators, counselors, and instructional coaches using Twitter to pose questions and concerns in order to receive feedback from faculty. Too often teachers aren’t consulted when decisions are made, but a campus Twitter account managed by a tech-savvy administrator or Instructional Technologist could gather feedback from faculty more efficiently than through email, or Google Forms. This avenue of application can also add a layer of engagement to those oh so enjoyable campus professional development days when used to prompt discussion with faculty. If school leadership were bold enough, they could even expand this idea to school-wide student use. If responsiveness to student needs is a priority for your campus, then Twitter would be a great way to gather opinions and ideas from students for ways to motivate, engage, and structure student routines. 

Teachers are asked more and more to expand their online presence, be more accessible, give better feedback, and it better be immediate and up to date. Embedding Twitter within an LMS or class website allows for teachers to more easily post progress, answer questions, and disseminate information. Updating web pages does need to happen from time to time. Outdated information in either an LMS course or website can cause teachers to lose credibility, but the process can be time-consuming and cumbersome. Embedding Twitter into this pre-existing structure gives teachers freedom to update their students, parents, and administrators without the need to reorganize their digital classroom. Utilizing Twitter in this context can also help teachers gather media shared by students, administrators, parents, ect. to enrich their own digital classroom content. In my own classrooms, I have often implored students to take videos and pictures of field trips, experiments, and events and share them with me. Twitter is the ideal platform to facilitate this sharing. A grass-roots network of contributors from the learning community can help create an authentic tone to a digital environment.

As the sun sets on my experiment with Twitter, I’d like to share my conclusion about the platform as it applies to the edtech discipline, and it’s larger implications for instruction. From my experience at the secondary level of public education, participation and engagement are the hardest qualities to elicit from students and teachers. Countless times emails aren’t read, surveys aren’t taken mainly due to the perceived lack of time. What Twitter does is make interaction with the platform easy, and as we continue to accelerate toward a future of overworked and under motivated learning communities sometimes easier is just better.  Twitter gives users a way to grab that random “AHA! Moment” and share it within a given community. More of that happening at a campus and classroom level is more likely to have a positive effect on student achievement and teachers’ instructional practice. And hey, character limits prevent rants, so who doesn’t want that at the end of a faculty meeting.

[edtechlg]

Vanity Search for My Digital Footprint

With this post I wanted to take a look at my digital footprint, so I did a little Google search. Here is who I am according to Google. Top search results are listed first. 

Every time I search my name throughout the years the one thing that always pops up first and foremost is me on a college lacrosse website. I played ONE SEMESTER of lacrosse at Texas State University, and now I am forever immortalized on that roster. My name and home town are listed on the Men’s College Lacrosse Associations website even though the MCLA was founded in 2006(my Freshman year in college) and the website didn’t exist when I was playing at Texas State. 

As an Instructional Technology Specialist at Del Valle High School, my job necessitates that I am easy to access for teachers, students, staff, and parents to help with technology-related issues. For this reason, my work contact information is listed on our school’s website. We branded the instructional technology department as Techknow, so it’s a little catchier.  

The Techknow department was in full swing long before I became a part of it. I was an English teacher prior, and I made a concerted effort to utilize technology as much as possible. In fact, the last two to three years that I was in the classroom I prided myself in using zero paper. Everything I did was digital. The next item to show up on my digital footprint was the poetry publication from my English 2 class. We used Issuu to make class magazines.

Next on the list is my Youtube channel that only has one video: the proposal project that I completed for my ETEC 579 course. I envision myself using this to publish more educational content, so I’m trying to be picky about what I put here. Right now that just means nothing but school work. 

An addition to the list of things I forgot I had an account for: Pinterest & Twitter. Both of these things came from a professional development I attended back in 2015 where they encouraged you to create these accounts and start experimenting with them. I clearly never did. 

Sadly, toward the end of the search results are the actual things that I would want to pop up first. Like most people living in Austin, through most of my college years and well after I was in a band (well a couple of different bands). Way down on the 3rd page of results, under results that don’t have anything to do with me, is the link to my band’s apple music page. You can still buy our album Southern Fried Funk if it gets your booty movin. Finally, we have our band’s reverbnation page. This is like a facebook/craigslist for musicians. You can house all of your information here and give the link to prospective venues, promoters, etc. This is what I would expect to see first because I paid money for it to be up front when we were playing a lot, but as you can see when you stop paying for it these things get hidden.  

I suppose my digital footprint was about what I expected (with a few surprises). What surprised me the most was where my data could end up, like in the case of the MCLA, even if I didn’t have any direct affiliation with that website or association. This also makes me appreciate the art of search engine optimization and curating a web presence. I have never been someone to worry very much about what my digital footprint looks like, but I can see the narratives that begin to form when your digital image is not carefully manicured.   

[edtechlg]

Creativity Tools

Creativity tools are used to facilitate student creation. They can come in many forms, but the key element is that students are given freedom within the tools to construct a product utilizing the knowledge gained from the unit of study. I tried out three of these creativity tools at different points on the educational spectrum. I then designed a few lessons with a selected tool. My reflections follow: 

Google My Maps

With Google My Maps students are able to create, edit, and share maps with an abundant amount of customization options. The interface is a little hard to learn at first, and it can get confusing working between map layers. With that said, the amount of interactivity in My Maps is incredible. Students can create guided tours and link information in a way that makes the map a way for students to connect the abstract with concrete places. As a teacher you can use the tool to create resources, but it is much stronger having students construct that visual representation. 

Canva

Canva is an all-encompassing design creation platform which includes templates, artwork, and tools to create a unique and professional looking product. I have personally used it to create flyers, posters, headers for websites, logos, and even to spruce up slideshow presentations. Using it as a teaching tool is a double edged sword, because students can create beautiful final products, and apply the knowledge of that platform to a professional context by creating resumes and portfolios. The drawback is that the sheer volume of options and capabilities can overwhelm students and cause them to focus on the minutiae of design rather than content that was the focus of the activity.          

Flipgrid

This platform allows for teachers to post topics that students then respond to by creating a video that they can customize with stickers, filters, text, etc. I like how this tool reflects social media and allows students to communicate in a medium that many of them are already familiar with, but I find that students can be reluctant to post videos of themselves in an academic setting. Social media tends to show an edited side of ourselves to the world. A side that we want to show the world, but that side rarely merges with our school self. There is a psychological dissonance some students tend to have with using this familiar format for an academic purpose that can be hard to overcome. 

Affordances of Flipgrid

Flipgrid affords itself to quick, on the fly video, usually made with a smartphone. The spontaneous nature of social media sites like Facebook and Instagram butts heads with the reflective thought process we as teachers want from our students. Teachers tend to prepare before they record a video, but on this platform, students tend to reflect using a stream of consciousness. However, the ease at which users can re record posts does allow for revisions , and for students to work through an idea completely. The sticky notes students can utilize and embedded text further the message of preparation before execution. Flipgrid affords itself to creativity in video creation within an authentic environment that students already use and feel comfortable with.     

                     Examples of Instructional Strategies using Flipgrid

Team Workouts Activity

As the head tennis coach at Del Valle High School, I used Flipgrid to continue team workouts during the COVID-19 shutdown. Athletes were asked to set health, fitness, and sport-specific goals. Then, each week athletes would post videos that showed proof of workouts and reflections over progress. We rotated, each week a new student created a workout or challenge that the rest of the team had to complete. At the end of the unit, athletes created a video showing their achievements. This use of technology redefines the activity from a simple team workout we do together (or in the case of COVID on your own) to a community of accountability away from the team. With the use of Flipgrid, we are able to help form habits rather than enforce compliance in-person.  

Content

 The student is expected to create and participate in activities that improve health, fitness, and tennis specific-skills.  

The student is expected to analyze and evaluate personal fitness status in terms of cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, and body composition. 

Pedagogy

According to John Hattie’s research in visible learning Cooperative learning has an effect size of .55 (.40 is the average effect size). Discussion, reflection, and feedback from peers in this activity provides the support system students need to continue health and fitness related goals. Not only does it help work through ideas and bring different perspectives through group activity, but students start to associate health and fitness with groups. According to the American College of Sports Medicine, people who are physically active in groups are far more likely to stick with that program over time.

Technology

The ease and convenience of use of Flipgrid affords itself to an activity like this. Students are far more likely to have a phone on them while working out rather than a notebook and pen. The video medium also affords itself to physical activity, pushing the creator to use their body for illustration of ideas rather than elaborate explanation.      

Expert Video Series Activity

This activity is intended as an introductory lesson for the expository essay 9th grade students are expected to write both in class and on the English 1 STAAR test. Students will pick a topic or process to become an expert on. It must be school appropriate, obviously (sometimes that's the hardest part). Then, they will create a video that is under 10 minutes explaining that topic or processes. Students will view each other's videos and record responses with feedback.

Content

Students will compose an informational video of no longer than 10 minutes on a topic of their choice.   

Students will record feedback on other students' videos and then revise and edit their own video based off of feedback from other students. 

Pedagogy

This activity requires writing, through the scripting process of the video, and reading for the creation of the video. Students also tend to pick up on writing mistakes when they read their work out loud. Rarely do they read their work out loud if they are completing a purely writing assignment. Along with the obvious collaborative aspects of the peer revising process, feedback has a high effect size according to John Hattie (.73). Students are able to easily give feedback, and that verbal feedback isn’t hindered as much by a mismatch in student reading and writing levels.  

Technology

When completing a timed writing assignment, (which essentially is what the STAAR style essay is) it is important for students to be concise and include only the most important information on their topic. The time limiting constraints that teachers can place on student posts affords itself to brevity. Students have to be well prepared in order to get in everything that they want to include. The ease of creation, as I mentioned before, also allows for a unique response style that doesn’t take away from the learning objective like some programs ten to do.     

Creativity tools are important to distinguish from other tools like games, practice, or productivity tools because they require that students visit the higher level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Asking students to use what they’ve learned to create a product requires them to evaluate what is important and relevant. It also requires them to think about what that information means to them. It is that authentic connection that we as educators can make for them, but using a creativity tool allows students the space to create those connections themselves. Even a tool like My Maps (which I don’t personally use often) can be very powerful in aiding students to connect abstract concepts to concrete visuals. Investing students in the process of creating invites them to examine a concept and construct meaning.

[edtechlg]

Folio Thinking & Eportfolios

“Folio Thinking” and ePortfolios

A portfolio is a collection of artifacts that assists a person in telling their story of learning, growth, and accomplishment. Originally used by artisans and designers to show potential patrons what they can do. Educators have morphed the portfolio creating exercise into a process that shows students what they can do. Education has historically used a flurry of instruments to assess student progress and achievement; each one attempting to enumerate a very precise aspect of learning. 

Let’s compare traditional assessments to folios...

Tests and quizzes assess the accumulation of knowledge. In its most popular form, multiple choice, the test endevours to set up a situation and ask the student to make a decision. However, the situation isn’t always authentic and the decision isn’t always made using the skill the test desired. In contrast, a portfolio or eportfolio affords itself transparency. The viewer or evaluator knows the skill is achieved because of the evidence present, and the creator knows they have achieved mastery of the skill because they: 1. Know the standard expected of them to master the skill, 2. Evaluate their work against the expected standard, 3. Demonstrate their work meets the expected standard. 

Worksheets and homework are intended as practice, and what it is they assess tends to vary from educator to educator. Are we assessing the ability to learn a skill immediately? Are we assessing effort? There are many areas where repetition and practice are needed to master a skill, but the point to the repetition is the end point, not the practice. I practice my scales so that I can play a song on the guitar, not so that I can keep playing scales. Sadly, we also see many of these assignments fit in what I like to call the search and record category of assignments. These assignments assess your ability to find information in one source and write that information in another spot so you can turn that into your instructor. Proving that you can find information and write it down. A portfolio/eportfolio takes each of these well-intentioned activities and redefines their meaning. Rather than just practice students can log, reflect, and analyze their progress involving practice activities. The living record of research and resources accompanied with student reflection also takes the simple recording of learned information to a place where knowledge is sustained and added to rather than crammed for an assessment and then forgotten afterward.         

Essays, research papers, and student presentations come the closest to assessing verbs higher on the Bloom’s compendium. There is reflection through the revision process. Students are asked to wrestle with an idea or topic, evaluate opinions and sources, and justify assertions. That’s some high-level thinking, but still this assessment is limited by time. The paper or presentation is submitted and the learning stops. The course continues. The student continues, but that piece goes on a thumb drive somewhere to die. When you live that folio life, your work gets resurrected. You grow and learn, and that can be reflected in your work. The academic rigor of a long form assessment like the ones mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph are intensified 10 fold by the meta analysis one does with portfolio reflection. Determining the achievement of learning standards offers a new level of understanding that isn’t afforded by the modern essay writing process. 

If I had my way...

As a student pursuing a graduate degree in Educational Technology Leadership, I do not find it very relevant or meaningful to answer comprehension questions about educational technology that professors have identified as important, so they can evaluate how well I memorized information. What is important to me are the skills, research, and resources I aquire over the duration of my degree program. It is much more helpful for me to have a useful product that I created, and to be able to leverage that product to improve my professional outcomes whether that is within an institution or during a job search.    

I would much prefer to be assessed by articulating what I know through a collection of artifacts that shows evidence of learning. As an Instructional Technology Specialist, most of my time is spent trying to educate teachers about the research behind instructional practices. Keeping record of my learning in an easily accessible, digital format allows me to share the work that I do at the graduate level with the teachers I work with at the secondary level. 

Portfolio vs. Eportfolio

Physical portfolios hold a nostalgic property that connects the creator to the artifacts inside. The image of preparation, organization, and presentation coalesce into magic when a crisp portfolio accompanies a potential hire into the interview room. While a digital copy is easy to update and oftentimes much easier to access, the medium can still tend to look less polished if not done right. Through reflection an eportfolio can still give its creator a feeling of whimsy when browsing through old word documents, but where the eportfolio distinguishes itself is through the ability to easily add never-ending amounts of research and resources that would turn a physical portfolio into a file cabinet. Repurposing the eportfolio enhances the likelihood that the creator will continue to use it. Used as a resume, once you get the job, the eportfolio becomes a resource, and then maybe even an instructional tool. 

Eportfolio Test Drives

In my quest to find the right tool to create my eportfolio, I experimented with three different eportfolio options. The following is my reflection and evaluation of these three tools.  

Foliospaces is an eportfolio hosting site that takes a social media approach to the collecting of learning artifacts. It has a very Facebook/Linkedin feel to it. It is set up to make sure that you create a profile with complete contact and biographic information, and then easily facilitates social-media-like sharing and networking. There are some design options available, but this was definitely the most rigid of all of the formats. I would love this for a job search, because it would ensure that I have complete and polished information. The uniform nature of the profile also takes the aesthetic critique away. There are a lot of very portfolio-specific features such as being able to create multiple portfolios and customize access to the different portfolios. This site is free and acts as a warehouse for storing all of your professional artifacts, but it does lean heavily on the career development side of eportfolios which suggests that it doesn’t afford itself to the classroom or personal study.  

Format is a premium site that hosts eportfolios. The creator can easily add content using templates or custom designs. The page builder feature allows users to decide what information is included in the portfolio and lends itself to be used with multiple audiences. Blogs and social media integrate easily which allow for a “lifewide” reach and application. The program itself guides and gives examples, but doesn’t have required information, so in this sense it is much more like a traditional website builder but with added scaffolding to help the user create a complete eportfolio.       

Google Sites can be used to create an eportfolio in a very broad sense. Sites has many applications which allow for products to morph and change the audience and purpose. Google sites affords itself to the connection of artifacts. The click-n-drag interface mixed with the storage capacity of the Drive helps the user collect and edit in a way that feels creative and open, but in reality is constrained to the essential of page building.   

For my personal use Google Sites makes the most sense. I already use G-Suite extensively. I want some element of design freedom. Also, I want to be able to use this portfolio as a resource for my current job, a resume for potential employment, and to track projects and research. The fluidity of Google Sites allows me to construct something that is useful in more than one context

Now, if I were using eportfolios with my students (who are professional teachers at a high school in Texas) I might be more inclined to use Foliospaces rather than Google Sites, because it would prompt my students to include certain information which would be helpful to inexperienced folio thinkers. There is also a built in community on the site and by adding friends users could initiate conversation and reflection about instructional practices and other relevant topics.  

Examples of Eportfolios

PD Day Portfolio: As an Instructional Technology Specialist at a high school, I am in charge of organizing and planning professional development sessions. The content standard I would look to achieve for these sessions is that teachers evaluate, plan, and improve instructional activities that maximize student performance. At the beginning of the day, I would have all of my teachers create a goal for their own learning. Teachers would create a Google Site with evidence of their learning and takeaways or analysis for improvement to pre-existing lessons. As the constructivist theory suggests, I would want teachers to connect what they are already doing in class or what they would like to do with the learning going on during professional development. The simple nature of design lends itself to this sort of quick portfolio building, and the fact that it’s a published web page makes the product more likely to be revisited by the creator. This is what you want with teachers. You want them to refer back to artifacts from a professional development, not throwing them in a file cabinet. This type of technology integration redefines the task assigned and takes it from simply taking in new information and resources to creating authentic learning tools and creating actionable steps for implementing these tools. 

Video Lesson Eportfolio: Like most educators in 2020, I create tons of video content. This content goes into a folder and gets emailed out when teachers or students are in need of the information, but this content deserves to be published and available. A learning objective I am targeting with my faculty is to incorporate media rich resources into their lessons. Creating my own eportfolio of video lessons would allow for easy access and organization of my content. Having teachers build their own eportfolio of video content using Google Sites would also promote sharing and collaboration. This type of technology integration would be a substitution for the use of storage like Google Drive. Ease of use and organization would enhance how much these resources are used. The effectiveness of sharing of ideas and content through peer discussion and brainstorming on student growth is supported by research done by John Hattie. The gathering of these resources and presenting of them in an accessible manner supports refinement in teaching practice rather than reinvention every year or recycling of old content.

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Blogs

A Blog is a regularly updated page that explores ideas around a topic, discipline, subject/subject matter, or interest and is written to create or contribute to a conversation around that idea. 

How I Arrived @ My Definition During the process of creating this blog, I experimented with four different site builder/blog hosting sites: Wix, WordPress, Blogger.com, and Tumblr. Each of these sites allow users to create and edit pages with posts that include picture, video, text, links, and audio. Users are given a unique address that they can share, and other users are able to comment, share, and like the page. Now blogs differ from glogs (which primarily use graphics & visitors interact with the digital poster), vlogs (which use video to express ideas or experiences), discussion boards (which typically pose a question or problem for users to respond to) and web pages (which are primarily used to display information or ac as a landing platform for users to find resources) because blogs are usually focused on the creator’s exploration of an idea or topic. The modality of exploration is primarily written, but the creator can, and often does, use audio, video, and outside sources to supplement their exploration.  

The blog platform affords itself to sharing. Whether the creator is sharing recipes or photos of a trip to Italy, blogs allow people to show others what they think and what they care about. The conversational nature of a blog also affords itself to response. Users can like a blog post or comment about a similar experience. The whole point of us telling stories or sharing ideas is to make connections over shared experiences. In this sense, a blog is creating a digital community where we can share ideas and work out problems. Users are able to gather outside feedback that they may be unaware of based on their limited personal experiences. The threading of that conversation helps users follow an idea through the collaborative brainstorming process, and hopefully come to a new understanding based on the input received from other contributors.  

Other technology such as word processors, websites, and even notebooks allow users to record ideas and explore their own thinking along with others; however, these types of technology synchronous engagement. Google docs is trying to bridge that gap with collaboration features, but those features are not as visible within the program. The beauty of blogging is its ability to create conversation in an asynchronous setting. As new information or ideas are found the conversation continues without having to go back and revise the original post. The other types of technology lend themselves to a feeling of finality, but blogs act as a living record of an expanding thought. Even if the information added to a thread existed at the time of the original blog post, it’s addition doesn’t necessarily negate the original idea, but instead enhances it. In this sense, a blog isn’t about being right or wrong but playing with and exploring an idea.  

Examples of Blog Implementation

As an instructional technology specialist, I have recently focused my approach to include Jim Knight’s Impact Cycle for instructional coaching, so both of the examples that follow are ways that I could integrate blogs into this process.  

1. Blended Learning Instructional Strategies Blog: This blog will be utilized during professional development sessions, and it  contains research and discussions that focus on instructional practice in a blended learning setting. The blog would substitute for the traditional slideshow presentation that poses open-ended questions or a polling type program (ie. kahoot or nearpod) that you see so often in educational settings. Teachers would be directed to respond to a particular thread and asked to think of a way to tweak or apply an instructional practice and post successes and failures from strategies they have implemented. The thread supplies a scaffolding bringing educators up to speed on the conversation by reading the post and subsequent replies. This scaffolding takes the integration of technology to the level of augmentation, because it allows for asynchronous collaboration in a more authentic environment.       

Content

Learning Objectives

Teachers use high-yield instructional strategies to create lessons that maximize their effect size on student learning.

Teachers evaluate their own instruction and identify successes and challenges. 

Bloom’s Levels = Create, Evaluate 

Pedagogy

This approach stresses collaboration and interaction based on the research and meta-data collected by John Hattie referred to as visible learning. This research attributes student growth, measured by effect size, to a number of factors including instructional strategies. Consistently, collaborative activities score a higher than average effect size, and are therefore a more efficient way of teaching, especially when dealing with adults. 

Technology

The ease of reply for the audience and frequency of updates by the creator gives a blog a certain pace. A blog affords itself to quick responses that have an off-the-cuff nature to them. Related sources of text, video, or audio can simply be dropped in the thread and give the topic a fresh dynamic. This keeps the conversation fresh and enables the audience to create relevance.          

2. Impact Cycle PLC Blog (Redefinition): I currently work at Del Valle High School, in Del Valle, Texas and our content areas work within professional learning communities (PLCs). I work with these groups to improve instruction and technology integration. I have begun to implement a coaching cycle based on the Impact Cycle by Jim Knight. This cycle involves making goals, collecting data, implementing an instructional strategy, and then evaluating the strategy’s effectiveness (this is just a broad generalization for my purposes, the steps are far more detailed and nuanced). The blog assignment is used as a collaborative project that documents the different steps of the process. Myself and the PLC members are contributors to the blog, and as we progress, we post recordings of lessons, data, revised goals, successes and failures, etc. The blog is also used to guide the conversations we have when I meet with the PLC. As far as SAMR goes, this type of technology integration redefines the activity of meeting and working through a set of questions for each step in the coaching cycle. Instead, teachers have a space to use as a workbench to collect and refer to. The blog acts as a touchstone when so often goals and progress get lost in the immediacy of grading papers and standardized testing.   

Content

Teachers use data to evaluate their own instruction and identify successes and challenges.

Teachers create lessons and implement instructional strategies that maximize student achievement and address the challenges they identified.

Pedagogy

Jim Knight’s Impact Cycle for instructional coaching stresses questioning, self-reflection, and ownership of creative ideas. This last part, ownership of ideas, refers to the likelihood of a teacher to try a practice if they feel like it was their idea. A blog is a very unassuming way to present strategies and ask teachers to make it their own; personalize it, rather than forcing teachers to implement a strategy with the implication that they are doing something wrong.

 Technology

The asynchronous nature of blog posting and response affords itself to the busy nature of a teacher’s schedule. The coaching cycle drives a hard line between taking time to ask the right questions and respecting the time of professional educators who deserve to get the most out of their PLC time. The blog format allows teachers to prepare for and participate in discussion of pedagogy when they are able to. Growth needs to be able to happen whenever they need it to, and the blog format allows teachers that possibility even if they had an ARD or any number of responsibilities pop up during our planned meeting.  

Obstacles 

A blog’s rapid response nature does mean that ideally you will get a large number of responses, and of those responses, many will express similar ideas. A source can be overwhelming if it presents too much information. Students can become disengaged when a resource contains multiple redundancies. However, I would argue that the benefits of engaging in a conversation and the ease of which contributors can mix mediums outweighs any detriment concerning over-saturation.