Is it okay to be technically illiterate?

Are you literate with the language in the image? Do you need to know what it says?

I sort of get the same feeling today about technology. It's acceptable to say "I don't really get computers"

If a teacher today is not technologically literate - and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more - it's equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read and write.

Quoted from Karl Fischís FischBowl Blog
http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2007/09/is-it-okay-to-be-technologically.html

Do we accept teachers not being able to read and write? It is not acceptable in society.

Is it acceptable to be technologically illiterate in todayís society?

A favourite story that I share from a previous principal relates to my work with a fantastic primary math teacher. This teacher was incredible teaching math. Students were engaged, exploring ideas, and learning beyond most other primary math classes. In sharing with said principal, I said, "I think it is OK for this teacher to not integrate technology into her lessons. She is already a fantastic teacher that is doing amazing work and students are learning."

His response was priceless. "Think of how much more her students could learn if she was able to incorporate technology as well."

That has continued to challenge me over the past 5 years. I look at situations with different glasses. I do ask the question as to what the value added parts of integrating technology really are. There are some activities that donít add value but these activities should be planned to scaffold the ones that will take the learning that much further.

While we donít need to be exceptional readers to teach students the basics of reading or the joy and love of reading, teachers do need to have the basics of Information and Media Literacy to meet the BC Ministry of Education Prescribed Learning Outcomes.

The Value of the term "Digital Native"

"I'm sorry, but I don't go for all this digital natives and immigrants stuff when it comes to this: I don't know anything about the internal combustion engine, but I know it's pretty dangerous to wander about on the road, so I've learnt to handle myself safely when I need to get from one side of the road to the other.

The phrase may have been useful to start with, but it's been over-used for a long time now. In any case, after immigrants have been in a country for a while, they become natives. We've had personal computers for 30 years, and I was using computers in my teaching back in 1975. How long does it take for someone to wake up to the fact that technology is part of life, not an add-on?
Quoted from Karl Fischís Blog on
http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2007/09/is-it-okay-to-be-technologically.html

I understand the push to have digital immigrants learn and speak as a digital native. I think the value of the terms remain in needing digital immigrants to be willing or want to learn to speak "digital."

I like the analogy of knowing how to behave safely even if you don't understand the internal workings. †As adults and especially as parents we need to know to behave safely ourselves and how to teach others to behave safely.

A personal pet peeve is watching parents of young children either drag or push in a stroller their children across streets while not at an intersection. The habits we teach from our modeling impact children.

I argue that while digital immigrants can learn the language they may always have differences between digital natives, but those differences (or accents) do not need to stop communication or learning.

Kevin

Gaming

I had the privilege of listening to Suzanne de Castell today. She has done a lot of work with gaming and learning. Currently working on several projects including one with York U.

She encouraged us that we need to learn to make curriculum but not jam the text and content into new boxes. We need to not just buy someone else's work. Years ago teachers created curriculum. With the powerful tools now available, educators can be creators of games and interactivity with students.

An interesting comment was that gaming should not be for motivation. It is a misuse of students, learning, games and motivation. Gaming is an interactive tool that people can learn. New technologies such as a GPS utilize the gaming display technology.

It is amazing that in our session with several hundred teachers. When asked how many play games, it looked like less than half. Suzanne raised the question about a culture gap between students and teachers.

Where do you fit? †Do we understand the games that children play and the influence on their lives?

I believe gaming has a place in education; however, the filter for that belief is how gaming impacts their learning. I am dead against drill and kill types of games. Problem Solving, Interactive, Collaborative, Community Building, Critical Thinking - These are the marks of good games for education.

Pushing Writing Literacy

Writing Literacy
Following the post on
http://weblogg-ed.com/2007/pushing-writing-literacy/

I realized that the ways I write today are very different from 10 years ago.
I write this blog, I maintained a weekly podcast for a year, create presentations and I still create newsletters as well.

The newest edition to my repetoire is posting to wikis. I have contributed to Wikipedia and maintain 3 other wikis on wikispaces.com.

Will Richardson is an inspiration to quote and follow up with.

"Makes me wonder, with all of the different ways in which I write, all of the different audiences I write for, all of the different ways I attempt to communicate and engage in conversations and connections around my ideas, it makes me wonder whether we'll ever see these many modes of writing as important enough to teach our kids."

I couldn't agree more. I do see some teachers valuing multiple modes of writing, but they are seen as leading edge or special. Shouldn't preparing our students to be literate be common practice?

Networking

Quoting Steve Dembo (Teach 42)
http://www.teach42.com/2007/10/18/building-out-the-choir/

[I] now believe that the most important thing you could teach a newbie would be how to build out their network. How to connect with other teachers and resources that will push their boundaries. And most importantly, how to support themselves when they stumble.
http://edtechlife.com/ Mark Wagner pitched a variation on this theme to http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2007/

NECC, and I hope they take him up on it. Regardless, I love the title he used. "Learning to network, networking to learn." Catchy, eh?

Falls right in line with that old phrase " Give a man to fish, he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime. Connect him to networks of hunters, and AllRecipes.com and he'll be able to eat a tasty fillet of tilapia with mushroom risotto and spring vegetables with lemongrass today. And tomorrow, maybe he'll start off with some smoked salmon and capers before moving on to."


The image above is from a network diagram that I created looking at how my network has changed in just the last 3 years. It is amazing how my life has changed with facebook, delicious, other online communities.
A recent story was shared with me about a student posting an essay frame to Wikipedia. Three days later the story was written. I asked a group of teachers how they would respond:
-Well, divide the mark by the number of contributors...
-No accept it as they didn't write it...
-Make sure that they quoted their sources

I look at it in a different way. Kudos to the student for being able to get the job done. This student knew how to work collaboratively, to draw on his network, and work in a timely fashion. Providing the essay was done well, they would have full marks in my books. I am not the creator of all information that I share. Why would I expect students to have to be the creator of all of their information?

Perhaps the assignment could even be tweaked to have the whole class work collaboratively to write either individual essays or create a content resource - such as a WIKI !.
Kevin

CUEBC Conference - Reaching one at a time

At the CUEBC conference hosted in Maple Ridge BC, I had the pleasure of having a conversation with Will relating to how to meet the needs of educators. It was a refreshing and hones conversation.

At one point, the question came up as to whether to spend purchase laptops for students or for teachers. The answer was to focus on the teachers. Thirty teachers that have a laptop to integrate into their personal and professional lives will change teaching far more than a class of students.

I found this fascinating and started thinking about it. We recently did a project with providing 10 laptops to 7 schools. We were looking at how that improved student learning and in particular writing. As positive as the results were, I now wonder how different it would have been to provide laptops to even 10 teachers in each of the schools (or 3 schools with 20 teachers) Instead of impacting 14 teachers practice and 350 students each year, our impact could have been 70 teachers and 1750 students.

As we drove deeper into conversation, I realized how much more valuable working with the teachers and building their capacity was. We can change the way we think and teach in the classroom that prepares students for what they can do at home. 1400 more students can take what they see modeled in the classroom and apply it at home.

It is fair to say that some schools do not have the same access at home for their students; however, most schools still have at least a computer lab and a classroom computer. (Not ideal but better than no access at all.)

Once the teaching has been empowered, there will be a better readiness for 1 to 1 laptop initiatives in the school. Currently our district would need to invest 5 million per year into just the hardware to impact 1 grade level. Instead, an investment of 200 000 would provide all of the teachers in a grade with a laptop. (Again not ideal, but with an impact of 5000 students)

A conversation with Will stretches your own understandings. The next thought that I had was that a laptop is not enough. To integrate effectively you also need a projector to share and demonstrate with students. That would involve a projector. Double the investment and we have a projector provided as well. I think for year one of the project that would be an amazing goal to have them integrating technology and impacting the learning of 5000 students in easily imaginable ways.

The next step that I can see is to provide SMART boards the following year. Maybe not all teachers will want them, but I would hazard after 1 year of being immersed with technology, most teachers would be ready for the next leap.

Is an investment of $3000 per teacher worth investment in student lives. (Assuming a life of 4 years on each of the 3 items, this boils down to $3000 / 4 years / 100 students or $7.50 per student.

As a parent, I would very happily pay $7.50 for my childrenís teacher to have access to tools that will prepare them not for yesterday but for thinking in the world they will be living in.

The Power of YouTube

I just read a very interesting article from the Washington Post Online.com http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/18/AR2007071802528.html?hpid=topnews


CNN and YouTube are sponsoring the next presidential debate. As part of the debate, they have requested questions submitted in 30 second video clips. They had more than 1479 submissions. Twenty-four were selected to be aired during the debate and to have the hopefuls respond to it. This is a very high profile option. Instead of letter writing as the communication method to participate in the debate, the ability to record and upload a 30 second video is the level of literacy required. (If you were living in the US, )

Are you literate enough to participate in this debate?

Are you literate enough to use youtube to educate yourself on what the canditates have said?

http://youtube.com/youchoose Are you literate enough to call candidates on their beliefs and statements with direct access to their statements on youtube? Being literate has shifted. Paper and Pencil have their place, but so do other communication technologies.

How information and media literate must teachers be?

"...teachers must learn what these technologies are and can do, and understand them, but without necessarily becoming proficient in their use." Marc Presnky 2007

Marc Prensky (2007) raises the important point in the sidebar. As teachers, we do not need to be proficient in all the emerging technologies. We are responsible to know about the technologies and how they can be used in teaching and learning.

His second point is, "But what all teachers should learn to do comfortably, though, are those things we can do without "looking stupid". This (we certainly hope!) is to evaluate their students' uses of the new technologies, and teach our students the important lessons about those technologies. Teachers can and should be able to understand and teach where and how new technologies can add value in learning."

Instead of trying to be experts in everything, we should focus on teaching and learning. The key is that we are looking at how the new technologies can add value to what we do already. I recently read that the power of technology is doubling each year. This means that there will continue to be an explosion of new technologies.

I do not expect teachers to know every new technology; however, I do expect teachers to become experts at finding the best tools for learning. This can be done in concert with students. We can make learning relevant by including students in the process. Students don't have to just receive what we tell them. We can empower students to be leaders in our classroom and school. Should we respond in fear and block or ban new technologies, or empower students with a statement such as, "If you can show me the educational value of this new technology then you or we can use it."

This creates an environment of relevance.

If we block and ban, we create an environment of irrelevance.

Teachers that fear and don't understand a technology demonstrate not understanding the importance of new technology to this generation. That sends a clear message that learning in that classroom is irrelevant. In the end, teachers do not need to be proficient at all things technology. They do need to have an understanding and acceptance that technology has the power to add value to learning experiences. That understanding should stretch into classroom teaching allowing students to learn with the powerful tools available to them. http://partners.becta.org.uk/page_documents/research/emerging_technologies07_chapter4.pdf

Data Literacy

When looking at literacy, the tide is changing to understand text as oral, visual, and written language forms that we interact and construct meaning from. (Adapted from the new English Language Arts 8 - 12 IRP)

Does this include being data literate? I believe so.

Last year I heard a student that had been using computers in school for 6 years and not used a spreadsheet. I find this just amazing. I use spreadsheets and other data tools daily. The spreadsheet is not the solution to all data learning, but it is a broad tool for data literacy. Understanding relationships between data, calculating, summarizing, organizing, searching, sorting, are all concepts teachable through spreadsheets.

An extension and even more powerful tool are databases. Many schools have access to online databases.
Here is an example:http://www.sdst.org/shs/library/catalogs.html

I realize there is too many things to learn everything; however, we are responsible to prepare to be self-directed learners. If we donít provide students a foundation of data literacy, how will they be able to be self-directed learners later. I can only imagine trying to learn what I know about spreadsheets and databases from scratch. It would turn me off and I would see a different solution.

An example for me recently is that I was learning InspireData a new product from Inspiration.com. †This software tool is a student friendly spreadsheet, database and survey tool. †Trying to learn this without background knowledge would have been difficult for me. †I was able to learn the software in short order and make it do what I wanted it to do. †
†
I was able to be self-directed because I have a firm foundation. †I would not have stuck with it to create the surveys I needed trying to learn all of it new.
†

Aggregator as textbook??

I can always count on Will Richardson to invoke thought. (btw, he is presenting at the CUEBC.CA conference October 19,2007 in Maple Ridge, BC)

This blog entry,http://weblogg-ed.com/2007/aggregator-as-textbook/ provides some thought about integrating RSS and aggregators.

I guess my answer to the question is solved by asking a few other questions.
1. What do I really want to learn - facts or ideas?
2. Will the information be valuable - to me, to students, in 1 day, 1 year, 10 years?

RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication. The Aggregator brings news and blog entries to one aggregated spot for me to view. I set the preferences as to how often it checks and the entries that are brought to me.

Using any RSS aggregator, we can have students choose information that is valuable to the class and to their learning. After a course, a textbook will sit on a shelf (or ...)

Learning how to learn by managing incoming content is †an essential skill for literate citizens of today.

I was using Safari and its bookmark bar to manage my RSS feeds. I did find it quite useful. I am now using Google Reader to manage them so that I can access my feeds from any computer. I would like to have time to read by feeds daily; however, I go to them when I have time or am looking for one of my interests.

The Value of Wikipedia???

Can Wikipedia be used for research?

Reading Will Richardsonís blog entry from August 16, 2007 on "Discussions on Wikipedia," I felt I just had to add my comments. †His conclusion to the post read, "More reason why I still think Wikipedia is one of the most important sites on the Web right now for educators to fully get their brains around."

I encourage you to read the article. I have had several discussions why Wikipedia is or is not acceptable for research. †My bias is that it is acceptable. I have read some of the evaluations of Wikipedia comparing it to other encyclopedias and they both have errors.

The value of Wikipedia multi-fold.
1. It has more current information than any print or CD based encyclopedia can possibly compete with.
2. It clearly states when articles are in refute or without references
3. It challenges the reader to evaluate the information and possibly improve it.
4. It encourages critical questioning of information. Read more of Will's blog post to see the discussion that articles create can be more important than the article.

While Wikipedia as a reference source may be questioned, its value as an educational tool should not be. Wikipedia and other user created content is a tool for information and media literate citizens.

A. Do you look to Wikipedia for answers?
B. Do you contribute to Wikipedia?
C. How can Wikipedia be included in your classroom?

I have used Wikipedia, I have contributed, and I have used both the article I submitted and another wiki that I have created. Being immersed in the wealth of information available, I believe that Wikipedia is a valuable reference tool and discussion tool. Any classroom doing research could find Wikipedia of value.

Introducing the wiki - Iamliterate.wikispaces.com

This summer has been an incredible time of learning for me. Most recently, I became a wikier (term I just made up - I think) Back in April, I made an entry in Wikipedia for Information and Media Literacy as a single term. The reason for this is explained on the site.

I had difficulty getting it to work at first so I gave up until we were discussing Wikis as part of TLITE. (A post baccaleaurate diploma in Teaching and Learning in an Info Tech Environment). I had tried by posting to Wikipedia so I went back and tried again. This time I was able to access and update the entry for Information and Media Literacy.

I was also encouraged to start my own wiki. I saw the ability to easily publish information and invite others to edit. †While First Class and HCK pages allow easy editing, sharing is not intuitive.

I started http://iamliterate.wikispaces.com with only 3 pages. I was presenting at SFU Surrey on Web2.0 and Internet searching. Within 5 days, I had 15 pages linked and filled with information. I was able to add valuable information as it was needed. Most impressively, I updated my wiki while the presenter before me was presenting. I was not off task, I added the information she was teaching the group.

Wikis have incredible power as a publishing tool. I have felt free to share my work, handouts, activities for many years; however, there also needs to be a paradigm shift to accept that on the fly publishing meets needs. In addition, others need to feel empowered to make those changes. (I had one typo that a teacher in the group fixed it during the presentation.) I celebrated this with the group as it is what I want.

I have moved myself into a new aspect of being literate with Wikis. Come join me by reading and contributing to my wiki @ http://iamliterate.wikispaces.com.

Google Literature Trips

I have seen a Google Lit Trip created by Jerome Burg once before and saw a new application of it this week. The premise of the Lit Trip is to use Google to placemark locations in a book that the class is reading. This is such an incredible way for students to engage in the book. †The new application was not just for trips in books, but as either preparation or review of a field trip.

Why would anyone bother to go through the work of creating a trip in Google? Well one advantage you have in the literature world is that many other passionate educators have already created them. You can just use them to engage your students.

What I saw this week at the Apple Distinguished Educator Summer Institute was creating a trip for a trip. I immediately saw the additional potential of having the students being a creator of a trip either for the field trip or the novel they are reading in literature circles.

Creating the Lit Trip would provide an engaging assessment tool that would easily demonstrate students critical thinking through finding main ideas or key events in a story and finding ways to represent them. Students could also share their learning with their peers further deepening their own understanding of what they are reading.

Another of example of literacy in action.

Jerome Burg is an incredible Apple Distinguished Educator and Google Certified Educator in the US who has taken on the Lit Trips project.

Check out his site for more great ideas and ways to create and use this powerful mashup. http://www.googlelittrips.com/

Are we preparing students with skills they need for their life?

The short answer is NO.

The question begs a simpler question, can we prepare students with the skills they will need for their life. That answer is even easier. No.

The difference I will qualify is that we cannot prepare students with skills; however, we can prepare them with habits of mind and skills they can adapt to the not yet invented technologies.

I want all of our students to graduate being information and media literate. †Our IML capacities are not a set of skills to check off on a list. These are areas of capacity for students to grow in. †As the technology grows, they will need to grow and adapt.

A key point for me was at a recent spotlight speech at NECC2007 by Will Richardson. I recall the statement that IBM has 20 000 blogs and 50 islands in Second Life. †How many of our students are trained to cope with blogs and Second Life? I would hazard less than 1%. †Of those that are capable with Second Life or Blogs, how many have the habit of mind to shift that skill set to another application?

Students need to be literate in today's society; however, we need to prepare them to be literate for tomorrow's society.

Can we do this? I believe the answer is a resounding Yes. We have to be willing to spend time teaching students to be literate in more than just "reading text." (I am not against reading; however, to roll the metaphor further, at some point learning to read scrolls was given less time than learning to turn pages in a book.....)

I can hear the concerns from my colleagues with these statements; however, I will echo, "Students need to be literate in today's society; however, we need to prepare them to be literate for tomorrow's society."

In conclusion
IML prepares students to be 21st Century literate. Jeff Wilhelm (2000) supports this in his article, ìLiteracy by Design: †Why is all This Technology so Important?î by stating, "Technology has everything to do with literacy. And being able to use the latest electronic technologies has everything to do with being literate." He presents J. David Bolter's argument "that if our students are not reading and composing with various electronic technologies, then they are illiterate. They are not just unprepared for the future; they are illiterate right now, in our current time and context." (Wilhelm, 2000, p. 4)