Teach Like a Dandelion Not a Mammal

Dandelion (cc) http://www.flickr.com/photos/28481088@N00/434872938/

I was still thinking about Connectivism when I read “Tech Is Too Cheap to Meter: It’s Time to Manage for Abundance, Not Scarcity,” Chris Anderson’s article in Wired magazine.  The article is an excellent interpretation of how the increasing ubiquitousness of technology has changed our relationship to it.  The central metaphor here is how two very different organisms, dandelions and mammals, reproduce.

Dandelions reproduce by scattering as many seeds as possible, a tiny fraction of which will take root and grow.  Fish, and many other kinds of animals, reproduce this way too.  By contrast, mammals in general, and humans in particular, typically produce far fewer offspring and work much harder to ensure each one survives.  Technology has become so cheap that it, too, can be scattered everywhere.  This has the potential to change everything from business to education.

One example from Anderson’s article is the medium of video.  Broadcast television, the traditional way video is viewed, operates like a mammal.  Each television show is research, cast, scripted, piloted and refined before it airs because media companies need to be certain their shows will be watched millions of viewers in order to attract advertisers.  But YouTube, which is free, behaves like a dandelion.  Countless videos are posted, the best of which are viewed millions of times, while others may never be viewed at all.

Anderson inludes lots of other examples, but I really got to thinking about how to teach like a dandelion.  This brought me back to Connectivism.  One issue that I think Connectivism addresses nicely is that students can make connections to knowledge that are appropriate for their own individual learning style.  For example, listening to two people talking on a YouTube video may be very useful for auditory learners, while visual learners might prefer to see a chart outlining a topic or idea.

I often use a course management system (CMS) with my classes and post links to a variety of resources for my students.  For example, when teaching grammar, I often post copies of my presentation materials, notes I make in class, practice quizzes, YouTube videos, and other resources.  But what if I posted more?  And what if I encouraged my students to post more?  Maybe we could break out of the CMS by devising a common tag based on the course number, and we could all tag resources using a social bookmarking tool like Delicious.

Another important aspect of Connectivism is that the teacher should teach students how to evaluate resources.  In a dandelion-like world, where countless resources come floating at you on the wind, this will prove to be an essential skill.  The technology that will enable this shift in teaching already exists.  But will teachers and students, most of whom are mammals, be ready for it?

Smartboard Trials and Tribulations

Last quarter I received a Smartboard to use for the quarter on a trial basis via the TELR Smart SEED program at Ohio State. I’ve been really impressed with how smoothly the Smartboard works as an interface.  Compared to the $50 Wii-based version, the Smartboard requires much less calibration and feels more natural without the LED pen.  In short, it’s a really slick product.  However, the sheer size of the portable version has been a big barrier to me.

Unfortunately, as you can see / hear in the above video, the model I was given was a bit awkward to move and we were not able to find a good place to store it aside from leaving it in the classroom, which was not secure.  I did manage to find a couple of rooms that had permanently mounted Smartboards, which were fantastic, but I wasn’t actually able to regularly use the one I was given.

It would be great to have a Smartboard in every room, but this is a huge initial investment.  Before making this committment, we need to decide that this is a worthwhile investment.  To make this decision, we should give teachers experience with them.  I think this catch-22 can be solved by distributing the $50 Wiimote-based version to decide if it’s worth making the larger committment.

There are lots of articles out there that talk about how interactive whiteboards are transformative, but when you read through the examples of how the technology is used, many of the examples do not fully exploit the technology (i.e. writing can be done on a traditional whiteboard, movies can be projected on a traditional screen).

So, I’m going back to encouraging teachers to build and use $50 interactive whiteboard, but I’m also going to encourage them to use Smartboards, if they are available.  (Another alternative would be to combine the Smartboard software with the Wii-mote-based hardware, but the Smarttech requires a separate license to do this.)

I’m compiling uses for interactive whiteboards by tagging them with me Delicious account (see them at http://delicious.com/eslchill/iwb).  If you have ideas for innovative uses, please share them.  The technology can be transformational, but I’m not sure we’ve found the “killer app” yet.

Summer Inspiration: Connectivism

I came across this video a couple of months ago and haven’t stopped thinking about it or recommending it to people.  It makes a very compelling case for using Web 2.0 technologies to allow students to construct their own knowledge.  This would change the role of the teacher from keeper of knowledge to facillitator of learning.

In particular, I’ve been thinking about how these ideas could apply to my grammar classes.  I often teach advanced grammar to ESL students with a wide range of abilities (our students are placed into levels based on aggregate scores, not into each class).  In general, I present new material and then vary their homework activities based on their ability.  But what if there were a better way?

The materials I typically present in class could be put online (with my voiceover explanations, animations to illustrate key points, etc.) and students could watch the presentations at home.  The could then come to class prepared, ask whatever questions they had, and then we could do the “howework activities” in class.  Wouldn’t I, as a teacher, be more helpful to them while they were trying to use what they had learned?

My presentation could become a part of what they used to study a particular grammatical structure.  They could supplement this with other online resources they find (and are probably already using) and share them with the class via online courseware.  So, some students could learn from  stories that include highly contextualized examples of the structure while others could examine charts and tables if that was their preference.  It’s easy to see how this process would enable students to learn in ways that matched their learning styles.

Will it work?  I’ve tried elements of this approach and one of the biggest hurdles seems to be the reaction from students that the teacher isn’t “teaching.”  If we can get past this issue, we might really be able to run with it.

How Is Technology Changing Learning?

Recently, as part of my final project for EDU P&L 823 – The Functions of the Computer in the Classroom, I asked the question “How is technology changing learning?” using six different channels of communication: on this blog, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, via email and face-to-face.  The question was deliberately very open-ended and I received some very interesting responses.  But, perhaps more interestingly, were the differences between how people responded on each of these channels.

Obviously, the channels that reached people with whom I had close connections (email, face-to-face) received a lot of responses.  Other, more ephemeral, forms of communication where connections are not as strong, received far fewer.  In some ways, this was a bit humbling — I have a hundred followers on Twitter and even more on Facebook — but the response rate was very low.  Perhaps the people with whom I communicate via these channels simply weren’t interested in this question?

Although these new channels (Twitter, Facebook) are changing communication, clearly they do not completely replace the others.  And perhaps integrating them all is the most effective approach.  Watch my final presentation below.

Interface with the Future

I’ve been thinking about interfaces for a while. Interactive whiteboards (IWBs) probably got be thinking in this direction, and the recent announcement of the motion sensing Project Natal for the Xbox has finally pushed me to write about them.

Note the fine print: actual features and function may vary.

As computers have evolved, so have the interfaces we use to interact with them.  To give you an idea of my own personal timeline, I have no experience programming on punchcards, but I do remember the pre-GUI days.  The mouse has become ubiquitous, but what comes next?  Here are some possible answers:

Interactive Whiteboards: These are pretty heavily documented on this blog and elsewhere.  Here, the user can interact with the display, making the mouse and, to an extent, the keyboard unnecessary.

Slap widgets: Physical tools to be used with IWBs and the like, further blurring the line between the physical and the virtual.  (Watch the video!)

Siftables: An interesting miniaturization of an IWB-type interface with the added bonus that each mini screen can interact with the others.  If each Siftable had a letter or a word, how could they be used to teach English?

MIT’s Sixth Sense: This video went viral a few months ago, but keeps popping up.  Why can’t your computer interface with the physical world?  It soon may.

Wii & Natal: Nintendo has enjoyed blockbuster sales of it’s Wii gaming system which features motion-sensitive controllers.  Now, Microsoft has unveiled the same thing with Natal, but no controllers are needed.

Do it yourself interfaces: In addition to making your own IWB using a Wiimote, other examples include the Beatbearing, in which ball-bearings are used to sequence electronic drum beats, a modified Nintendo Powerglove, which upgrades late 1980s virtual reality technology, and a giant Katamari ball controller, which is a controller designed and built specifically for the game Katamari, in which players roll a ball through an environment which attracts more stuff (litter, park benches, people, their pets, etc.).  The makers of each of these interfaces have posted detailed plans and instructions online so that you can build and modify your own.

Move over visual learners, kinesthetic learners are about to have their day.  And why not?  Why should  simply watch something when we can interact with it in more natural ways?  The next generation of computer interfaces promises to expand our idea of how we relate to computers.

Random Choices from my Interactive Whiteboard

The slot-machine interface with big blue buttons makes randomly choosing students fun -- especially on an interactive whiteboard.

I finally had a chance to crack open one of Sanfields’ free flash resources for teachers (which I’ve blogged about before) and everything worked great.

I had been looking for a reason to incorporate Les Rouleaux and found it when we started a unit on Negotiation.

As you can see, Les Rouleaux is a slot-machine inspired interface which spins and stops randomly after a button is pushed.  The example on the Sanfields website randomly chooses a kind of weather, a kind of clothing, and an activity.  This can be used in any number of ways (practicing vocabulary, writing sentences, etc.).

The best part about this activity (and most others on Sanfields) is that they are editable.  In this case, you can exchange, edit, or create your own slot-machine reels.  (Each reel is a .jpg image with 15 images measuring 120 x 125 pixels.)  Complete instructions and the files you need to download are all on the website.

In my example, I created a reel with my students’ pictures, which I used for the first and third reels, and another that had the styles of negotiation we had been studying (win-win and hard / soft).  The two students who were selected by the slot-machine had to roleplay a negotiation in the style that was selected for them.

Because I don’t have 15 students in my class, I created “Students’ Choice” and “Teacher’s Choice” squares to fill in the remaining spaces.  Also, obviously, I have blurred my students faces in my example to protect their privacy.

My students really enjoyed incorporating this activity into our classroom.  Granted, it’s a bit indulgent.  I could have pulled names out of a hat and I could have clicked the buttons on my laptop instead of the interactive whiteboard, but students did enjoy this richer, more interactive experience.

How is technology changing learning?

I’m starting a short research project and looking for as many interesting responses to this question as possible:

How is technology changing learning?

It’s pretty general, and very open-ended, but that’s by design.  If you’ve perused much of my blog, you know that I’ve posted several of my own answers to this question.  But, this project isn’t about what I think; It’s about what you think.

Please leave comment(s) below.  And, if you know someone who might have an interesting answer, please invite him or her to comment as well.  Although you’ll be able to post your comments here until WordPress shuts its doors, I can only include them in my project if they’re posted by May 15, 2009.  Comments may be used for research, but don’t let that scare you off.  Once the project is complete, I’ll share some of the results here.

Thanks!

169 Interesting Ways to Use Technology

A wordle of this blog post.

Recently, I’ve come across two excellent presentations for using both of these technologies. Both were created by Tom Barrett, a teacher in Nottingham, England, that I follow on Twitter, another technology I recently blogged about. (You can follow Tom on Twitter, too, if you have a free Twitter account.)

I’ve blogged for a while about Interactive Whiteboards now, especially the $50 build-it-yourself version which is based on the Nintendo Wiimote.  I’ve also highlighted Wordle as an interesting way to visualize language.  I’m going to focus on the presentations on these two topics, but Tom also has presentations on Google Earth, Google Docs, Pocket Videos, and Twitter if you’re interested.

Thirty-Eight Interesting Ways to use your Interactive Whiteboard focuses on Smartboards, but includes lots of great ideas for most IWBs from basic shortcut functions to advanced techniques such as having students write on the board and then, instead of erasing, creating a presentation on Slideshare.net or a Google Presentation that can then be uploaded to the class blog for students to review.  Great idea!

Thirty Interesting Ways to use Wordle in the Classroom covers a wide range of ideas appropriate for many different subjects.  Some suggestions are pretty obvious, such as doing a simple lexical analysis of different texts: student created, children’s stories, literary works, etc.  Others are quite innovative, such as photocopying a wordle with white words on a black background onto a transparency and having students come to the overhead projector and color nouns one color, verbs another, and so on.  This presentation is sure to spark some great ideas.

All of these presentations are Google docs, so you’ll need to sign up for a free Google account to view them, if you don’t have one.  Tom has compiled these tips and ideas from the suggestions of several teachers and even offers information on contributing your tips at the end of each presentation.  His contact information is at the end of the presentations.  Get in touch with him  if you have something to contribute.

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, and Digital Fluency

Think I'm not native? I was weaned on an Apple IIe.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Marc Prensky’s Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants analogy.  Perhaps this is because I teach English, my native language, as a Second Language.  I help students to become more fluent in English every day, so I tend to see technological savy in terms of fluency.  And this analogy is a pretty good attempt to describe how different people react to new technology.

Prensky’s analogy is by no means complete.  It has been criticized as being ageist and xenophobic, which is fair, given the way he has described both groups.  (See a fuller rebuttal.)  But, in terms of fluency, perhaps technology has a critical period of acquisition as well.  After the critical period in language learning, it is extremely uncommon for a person to learn a second language to native-like fluency.  Is the same true for technology as well?

In some ways, technology, or at least tech-savvy, can similarly be viewed as a language or, perhaps, culture.  When someone is immersed in information technology from birth, that person has a different relationship with it than if he had become more familiar with it later in life.  For example, a student who works in my office recently found a credit card.  Her first reaction was to look for the owner on Facebook.  Although I use Facebook, I’m on Facebook, and I communicate via Facebook, my first reaction to finding a credit card would have been to either call the bank that issued the card or to turn it over to the campus Lost and Found Office.  Despite my familiarity with Facebook, I still use Facebook; I don’t Facebook.

Perhaps Digital Fluency, then, is a more subtle and satisfying analogy to describe a person’s incorporation of technology.  In my opinion, technological and linguistic fluency have nativeness in common; someone not born immersed in it will never use it in quite the same way as someone who was.  Of course, with both technology and language, there are exceptional cases and counter examples, but differences and accents remain.

Mashable Interactive Whiteboard Activites

Body parts.

I recently followed a tweet (a message on Twitter) from Dai Barnes to his Diigo bookmark list (Diigo is like Delicious, but you can annotate pages with highlighters, etc.) and found several interesting resources.  The most immediately useful was Sanfields Free Flash Resources for Teachers.

This site links to several popular classroom games including Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Wheel of Fortune, and Matching, all of which pull questions from an XML file, which means they can be customized for your words and phrases!  Instructional videos for doing this are linked from the website.

There are also some handy little gizmos like a clickable traffic light, which could be used to give non-verbal feedback to students, and a customizable wheel of fortune for making random choices, picking teams, questions, etc.

There are also a few games tailored specifically to the interactive whiteboard-equipped classroom.  One of these is a fridge magnet letters game which allows students to drag and drop letters of their choosing.  Another, which I think is even more ingenious, is called Rouleaux.  It works like a slot machine with three spinning reels (a two-reel version is also available) which randomly selects topics from a given category.  The results of each spin can be used to generate ideas for roleplaying, impromtu speeches, and many other activities.  Again, the best part is that the game is cutomizable; You can choose different combinations of reels (for example, the “body” reel at left) and even create your own.  How great!

I’m thrilled to have found activities that are so customizable.  Being able to adapt and change them makes these resources exponentially more valuable.