Creating Buy-in

With all that teachers have to do on a daily basis from lesson planning to managing an ever more active classroom, technology integration can easily fall to an insignificate slot on our list of priorities. I could list a number of legitimate reasons that I have heard from many teachers about why they are not using technology. It is up to the Technology Specialist in a school building to find a way for teachers to really buy-in to the benefits and model the use of technology.

Teachers have to see technology used on a daily basis in and around the school and by the administration. Every professional development should include a technology component, even if the topic is not technology based. Reluctant teachers need to see other teachers be successful with technology. Teacher should be encouraged to share best practices in small settings like grade level or course team meetings. Teachers need individual and group planning time around technology integration. They need to know that they will have the support that they need if things go wrong, as they occasionally do. Lastly, the technology has to fit and be easy. If something is too difficult to coordinate, or use, that is all the more reason for a teacher to choose not to use it. Enough class time is wasted on management issues, we don't need technology to provide another black hole where into time disappears.

My Best Professional Development Experience

My best PD experience would have to be the very first one that I participated in. I had just been hired, mid-year at a school, and didn't know anything about professional development or workshops. The principal sent around a sign-up sheet for teachers who wanted to go on a trip to Mackinaw City, MI for a week long professional development on Writer's Workshop. I, of course, jumped at the chance. I had spent a little time in Michigan, but had never been that far north.
During the week, not only did we learn about facilitating Writer's Workshop from Smokey Daniels himself, but we actually participated in Writer's Workshop. We got an opportunity to see various people model what a teacher would do, and we had the opportunity to feel what a student would feel. It was a very powerful experience for me, and one that I cherish to this day. I did continue to use Writer's Workshop as one of the foundational components of my language arts class up until my leaving the classroom. And if by chance I ever found my way back into a classroom, Writer's Workshop would follow me there.

Are Games Just for Play?

I can attest to the fact that children and teens spend more time playing games than they spend doing homework. I have four children of my own to prove my point. Those games range from simulations of real world families to multi-player combat to simple puzzles. Like my own children, young people have a myriad of choices of gaming platforms: arcade, computers, gaming systems, handhelds, and even cellphones.
Many people feel that these games are a waste of time, and that children couldn't be learning anything from games. I beg to differ. There are educational benefits to gaming that may not occur as quickly in other ways simply because of the motivation that gaming proliferates. If offered the opportunity to do a puzzle on the computer, or complete the same puzzle in a book, I am sure that at least 8 out of 10 children would choose to do it on the computer. Handheld games require a mastery of fine motor skills while gaming mats and boards and many games played on the Wii system develop gross motor skills and body coordination. Simulation games allow children to try out activities that may otherwise be out of reach for them. They have the opportunity to play dress-up, visit a far away place, create and maintain a family, build a city, or start a business. These are all opportunities that could increase background knowledge, foster creativity, and enhance educational opportunities, depending on how they are used. Because children do remember the characters, scenes and situations involved in games, there is definitely a reason to integrate educational material into games.
The biggest obstacle in using gaming as an educational tool is that as children get older, the options get slimmer. There are hundreds of educational games for toddlers and primary children, but there are fewer for middle school children, and even less for teenagers. The gaming industry needs to do a better job of creating games that can be of educational benefit to teens instead of all the blood and gore.

Questioning is Essential

In teaching and learning, there are generally two types of questions: open questions and closed questions. Closed questions test factual knowledge and contain a limited range of correct responses. These are the types of questions students see on standardized tests; multiple choice, true/false and many short answer questions. Open questions build upon factual knowledge, have a varying range of answers and promote higher-order thinking. Students see these less often on standardized tests, and are more likely to have difficulty when they do see them in the form of an extended response question. In the promotion of higher order thinking skills in the classroom, open-ended questions called essential questions can be used to guide students to think more deeply about the subject matter they encounter. Investigation of essential questions increases the rigor of assignments and motivates students to be creative and flexible in their thinking.

Essential questions are overarching questions that may reoccur throughout learning. Essential questions:
*Are open-ended and resist a simple or single right answer
*Are deliberately thought-provoking, counter-intuitive, and/or controversial
*Require students to draw upon content knowledge and personal experience
*Can be revisited throughout the unit to engage students in evolving dialogue and debate
*Lead to other essential questions posed by students

Essential questions give students the opportunity to all have the right answer even when theirs is different from everyone else.

Examples of Essential Questions
The following questions could be examined during a unit focused on the judicial system and the death penalty for Middle/High School.
Illinois Learning Standards focused on English Language Arts (1C.2, 1C.3, 1C.7, 1C.10, 1C.13, 3B, 3C, 5A), Social Sciences (16A.3c, 18B.3, 18C.3), and National Educational Technology Standards (3 Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information; 4 Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources.)
1. Are we equal?
2. Is all life valuable?
3. How do we decide what’s right or wrong?
4. Is it ever okay to kill?
5. What makes life worth living?
6. What does it mean to be free?
7. Is it ever okay to break the rules?
8. How do we decide what we believe?
9. How do we decide the truth?
10. Could we all be right?
11. Is what is fair for one, fair for all?
12. Is there life after death?

Additional Essential Questions for varying topics

1. What does it take to change the world? (English Language Arts 4B, 5A, 5B, 5C, Science 13B.3,
2. What is a true friend? (Social Emotional 2A.3, 2B.3, 2C.3)
3. How precise must we be? (Science 11A.3, Math 6C, 6D, 7B, 8A)
4. To what extent is DNA destiny? (English Language Arts 5A, 5B, 5C , Science 12A.3b)
5. Must heroes be flawless? (English Language Arts 4B, 5A, 5B, 5C, Social Emotional 1B.3a)
6. How does perspective alter truth? (English Language Arts 2A, 2B, 4A, Science 11A.3)
7. Why has nature inspired so many artists? (English Language Arts 5A, 5B, Visual Arts 26A.3e, 27B.3)
8. In the face of adversity, what causes some to prevail while others fail? (Social Emotional 1A.3, 1B.3, 1C.3b)
9. What does it mean to be healthy? (English Language Arts 5A, 5B, 5C, Physical Development/Health 20A, 20B, 22A, 22B, 22C, Social Emotional 1A.3, 2D.3)

Assessing Projects through Bloom and Time

In "Assessing Web 2.0 Projects Through Bloom and Time"http://eduwithtechn.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/assessing-web-2-0-projects-through-bloom-and-time/, the premise is that using a sort of rubric scale, students are graded on their use of higher order thinking skills in the production of an artifact and the time it took them to produce the work. Higher level thinking skills are given a higher ranking than lower level skills. That number is then multiplied by the number of days the student took to produce the artifact. I agree with the hierarchy used in evaluating the thinking skills, but the numbers assigned to days does not make sense. For example, if a student only used comprehension level thinking over a period of 6 days, they would receive a score of (2x6) 12 which is more than a student would receive if they used evaluation level thinking over a period of 2 days, which would equate to a score of (5.5x2) 11. It seems that the number of days should be accounted in reverse order. 1 day = 10pts, 2 days= 9 points, 3 days= 8pts, etc. That way, the first student would receive a (2X5) 10 and the second student would receive a (5.5x9) 49.5. I think this formula would be more fair in valuing both time and thinking.

The most Awful PD

I have participated in hundreds of hours of professional development, and I have to say that the majority has been high-quality and an asset to my professional work. If I had to identify one that was the most awful, I would say that it was a training that I attended during the summer, eight hours a day for three days. I would say what made the PD bad was that it was not interactive enough for us to be in such a small space for so long, and the chairs were extremely uncomfortable.
What the presenters could have done to make the experience better would have been to have breakout sessions that required the use of different rooms so that the participants were given the opportunity to move around and stretch their legs. They should also take into consideration the furniture when planning a professional development especially one where the participants would be required to sit for long periods.

Separate or Integrated

The notion of separate or integrated has been debated in education for as long as the classroom has existed. Should girls be educated with boys? Should Blacks go to school with Whites? Should we group students homogeneously or heterogeneously? Should subjects be taught separately or as a part of an integrated unit? With the emergence of technology, we now have a new question. Should technology be taught separately or should it be integrated with other subject areas? I believe that there is a place for both. In order to effectively integrate technology into subject area coursework, the basics of the software must be first taught in isolation. For instance, a teacher should not require an English class to use PowerPoint to present the research for their novel study unless they have first taught the students how to use the software to create a presentation. Teaching the technology in isolation allows for the seamless integration of the technology as a part of the curriculum. Furthermore, the goals of a course should always be taken into consideration when deciding on instructional activities. If the use of technology does not fit with the instructional goals, or technology does not enhance the lesson, it should not be used.