Removing barriers to MEANINGFUL technology use!
You Can't Teach Advanced Use of Technology
In today's world, educators tend to take more than their fair share of abuse from the general public, from lawmakers, and even from parents and students. So, when I get a chance to boast of the talents and dedication of the wonderful teachers that I have an opportunity to work with, I take it.
One thing I have always known about my colleagues in education is that we are among the most resourceful and creative professionals that anyone can imagine. As a profession, we are tasked to do an incredibly important job, often without the budget or resources to do that job with ease (I'm talking about the budget of an individual classroom teacher here). Yet, we almost always find a way to get the job done within the budget we are given. This is just one way we demonstrate how creative and resourceful we are (even though it most often goes unnoticed).
Those two skills, resourcefulness and creativity, are essential tools in all aspects of a teacher's world, including the meaningful incorporation of technology.
Last week I started my first session in a three week session on "Advanced Google Use in the Classroom." The name happened naturally and probably without enough consideration. We have a Beginner's Guide to Using Google course, and we needed to offer the next level of that. The Advanced Google Use course was born.
However, advanced use is an absolute misnomer. I have really thought about this, and I just can't come up with a clear definition or an outline of what Advanced Google Apps use actually is. I can come up with examples of how Google Apps can be used in a more complex way, or for more interesting outcomes, but I just cannot put my finger on what I would teach in a course titled "Advanced Google Use in the Classroom" that would be all that much different than what we are teaching in the beginner's level course.
That is likely a sign of the perfect design of the tool set. Google Apps (like other well designed platforms) is easy to use. The skills learned and used in one tool are often closely related to skills you would use in another tool. That quality is probably at the heart of my argument. Once I've taught somebody the concept of sharing (which is truly a beginner level skill in the world of Google Apps), it applies everywhere. Once I've taught them about the auto-generated URLs of all documents in Drive, that skill wraps neatly into every other tool. The same is true of image manipulation, text editing, and even embedding (perhaps a "slightly" more advanced skill, but even that I question).
However, there is significant difference between the way a "beginning" Google Apps user interacts with the Google tools, and the way a more "advanced" Google user utilizes the tools.
If the skills needed to function both as a beginner and an advanced user are nearly the same (and yes, I get that somebody who knows how to script in Spreadsheets has a far more advanced skill than we would teach beginners...that's about the best example I can come up with of a truly advanced skill), the delineation between these two uses has to exist within something the user brings to the experience.
Pinpointing what that special something is might not be as hard as it seems. There seem to be two key elements that a more advanced user has that a beginning user does not.
1. Platform-wide Thinking Related to Product Design
When a user begins to understand how the platform is built, how the tools are inter-related, and how the tools can interact to create a desired "effect," the user can begin to manipulate the tools in a way that they weren't initially intended or that the beginner may not be able to see as possible.
2. Creativity
Once the platform tools are understood, the user can begin to imagine what could be possible, running mental "experiments" on the way tools will perform together before actually developing the final product. In this way, the use is creatively considering what problem needs to be solved or what need must be met, and then developing a way to resolve that issue or meet that need with the
tool set in front of them.
To be honest, this seems to be the advantage that our young people (our "digital natives") have over adults (the "digital immigrants"). They tend to see the inter-relatedness of these products because they have not experienced a world where design wasn't a consideration in the end user experience. They have an expectation that the tools work together, and as a result, they do not have to put much emphasis on first understanding the platform.
With that said, it seems apparent to me that our emphasis needs to be on teaching our "beginners" not only how the products we teach them to use work, but how they are designed to work together. It also seems to me that if we find products that are not designed to work together, we consider if they are a product that is truly necessary in our environment, and if not necessary, we consider removing the product. As Technology Coaches/Coordinators/Integrators, our systems level knowledge of how tools work together mandates us to help remove the hurdle of poorly designed technology from educational environments for the betterment of all!
Once we help our newest users begin to build an understanding of how tools and platforms work together, I know that we will not have to teach "Advanced Tech Use" courses to teachers. They will begin to apply skills that most teachers have learned, developed, and honed innately -- their resourcefulness and creativity. That's the moment I am most excited to see in the teachers that I work with, because that is the moment when all of the frustration and stress about using technology clears and a moment of realization and clarity takes its place. That's the moment they become "advanced" technology users because its the point where the journey stops being about the technology and re-focuses on teaching and learning!
Taking basic skills and turning them into masterful performances is driven by creativity and resourcefulness.
Who Cares About the Device??
Sometimes I think I am too connected...
I am a part of several list serves (yes those are still used), Twitter, Google+, etc. The one thing that annoys me more than anything is when I have to read things like the following:
1. Device X is so much better than device Y.
2. I would never purchase Device X for
students.
3. Device Y is terrible because it lacks this
feature.
You get the idea...I call it Device Wars
In a 1:1 environment there are 2 critical things:
1. An engaging teacher with rigorous lessons.
2. A device. Any device. Who really cares?
Tech Directors, Tech Coaches, teachers arguing over which device is "better"........iPad, Chromebook, LearnPad...who cares?
Certainly, each device has its positives and negatives. Battery life, selection of Apps, and life of device cost are all factors to take into consideration.
Students need access to information. Students need the ability to create.
Teachers need to adapt and be ready to prepare students for an information rich world. Devices open up a whole new type of teaching and learning.
So, teachers/leaders, stop arguing about which device is better, and focus on improving learning and teaching. The kids are waiting.
Need an Assistant for Grading? Try Flubaroo!
I know that many teachers have uncovered the power of Google Docs and are using the tools in your classroom (or intend to in fall). However, the one certainty about Google tools is that there is always something new to learn.
Now before you freak out and say I'm getting too geeky for you, let me entice you just a bit. If you are interested in assessing your students' knowledge using an online/electronic format (that DOES work on iPads), Google has a tool for that. If you wish to take it one step further and get almost immediate feedback on that assessment (so you can actually plan next steps for your classroom using real time data), there is an easy to use tool for that. It's kind of like having the perfect Teaching Assistant there and available to grade student quizzes for you, and provide a detailed breakdown for each student that will help you to determine what the students truly know.
The first part really is quite easy. It's called Google Forms. This is a powerful tool that has gotten even more powerful in the past few months with a recent update. Google Forms allows you to collect information, to survey people, to assess student knowledge in an easy to build, easy to distribute electronic form. Many teachers have found this tool and swear by it. You may wish to learn to use it for simple tasks, like collecting student information in the first few days of school, collecting parent information so you can have an email list that is actually up-to-date, etc. With just a few simple uses, you'll see the power and find more educationally relevant uses for Google Forms. We have a resource on our Instructional Technology Resources site that will help you to get started with Google Forms: https://sites.google.com/a/waukesha.k12.wi.us/google-apps-in-education/forms
However, the second part, the part that is REALLY enticing, is having something that actually grades your assessments for you in almost no time at all. That is where some of you may get freaked out initially. It really isn't difficult, and you don't need a scripting degree to understand how to use it. However, the terminology does sound scary. I promise -- it really isn't.
As you may already know, the responses that are collected in a Google Form are placed into a spreadsheet. That's how they stay organized and can easily be sorted. However, within Google Spreadsheets is the power to run powerful formulas and scripts. Left to our own devices, most of us would never be able to do this -- we don't have the knowledge. However, some really nice, really teacher-friendly people with scripting knowledge have come to our rescue. They've pre-made scripts that we can simply click on and use without having to understand the coding behind them.
That's where Flubaroo comes in. It is a grading script that teachers can use to quickly assess student mastery of concepts gathered through the use of Google Forms.
I'll start with a video to help you see the general concept behind Flubaroo.
So, you are excited now, but thinking, "There is NO WAY I could that." Guess again. I told you, this is super easy. Flubaroo provides a great series of instructions to help you get started. After doing it a few times, you likely won't need the instructions any more.
To get to the step-by-step instructions, just follow this link: http://www.flubaroo.com/flubaroo-user-guide.
In a few short steps, you'll have your own TA just waiting to help you streamline the process of assessing student learning. Then you can get back to the business of planning meaningful instruction based upon the data you have in front of you.
Remember, you don't need to have students to learn to use this tool. Now would be a great time to quiz your family and friends. Send them a Google Form to find out what they know about you, and then use the Flubaroo script to grade their responses. It may help you to quickly determine who you really want to spend time with this summer!