Create > Consume

I have a guiding philosophy when it comes to technology use with my own children, as well as use in schools and with students: create more than you consume. As summer break begins for many children in the United States, many adults are looking for activities to keep children productively occupied. If the average elementary and middle school-aged children are anything like mine, then undoubtedly they will want to spend countless hours watching television and/or playing video games. Of course we'd all like to see them outside playing and running around with neighborhood friends, or using old boxes or unused items to play make-believe or create some new game. But the reality is this just doesn't happen as much anymore and the technology of the day has encroached upon our children's playtime. So, to compete with this phenomenon, I submit this to you: let the children use their playtime on technology, but insist that most of the time is spent creating something with the technology, not just consuming it. We can channel the creative energies we had as kids making up games, playing house with dolls, or using the living room furniture to make a fort into encouraging our children to design video games, produce a short story on video, or create a photo collage of their summer vacation. Not only are these activies fun and entertaining for our children, but they also help them gain and hone valuable skills for producing content, working with technology tools, and using their creativity. 


I will share some ideas I've already begun to implement with my children. I have a son who is a big gamer. He loves everything video game! He'll play on the computer, the Xbox 360, Wii, DSI, whatever (and, yes, he does have all of these!). So, in order for him to earn playing time on these games, I require him to spend time designing his own games. This feat is not as daunting as it may sound to a non- techie! I use a website called Gamestar Mechanic. The site is well-scaffolded for teaching an introduction to game design and incorporates a sharing element as well. It teaches students the conceptual elements of game design, the mechanics of designing games, and allows them to play games along the way and share the ones they've created with their friends. The students work through a series of "quests" that are leveled video games and as they successfully complete each level they earn items that they can use to build their own games. As they navigate through the quests, students are ocassionally required to "fix the game," where they are learning how to create and edit a game and apply the elements of good game design learned in earlier quests. In the end, the students create their own game from scratch or a template and have the ability to share their game with others and to provide feedback to other designers. Incidentally, I've used this website as the primary tool in a game design class I led for middle schoolers at my school. It works really well! 


A second activity I've used is digital video production. My other sons loves television. If he could watch television everyday for the rest of his life, he would! So, naturally, I require him to make videos. The first one was a "day in the life" video. We spent the day visiting a museum and he took a Flip* video camera and an iPod Touch along with us and filmed various parts of the day. Once we got home, I showed him how to upload the footage and how to edit the footage using iMovie. Again, iMovie is an easy tool to learn and to use. Once the user gets the hang of trimming video clips, he or she can add sound effects, music, cool transitions, and text to the video to help tell their story. This activity is great for helping students learn how to organize their thoughts to tell a story. And the more they create videos, the more they will develop into better storytellers - when you use video to tell a story, you have to be very organized in the beginning of the project in order to capture all the footage you need to sufficiently convey your ideas. In the end of this activity, the student has a video of a memorable event, or a story to share with others. Digital video production is also a course I've taught and I see that video projects are being assigned by other teachers in other disciplines more and more often. 


The ideal is to align your child's or student's consumption interests with their creation projects. Once you've identified what they are most interested in when they use technology, find or create a project that will require them to make it, or some aspect of it, for themselves. There are tons of tools and help sites out there to get you going. Additionally, I'd love to be part of your process if you'd like! Feel free to comment on this blog or send me an email to share your ideas with me or other readers of this blog. If you are already doing this, please share what you've done, as well as what has worked and what hasn't. We all want to learn from you!


Thanks for reading!


Tech Tools Referenced:
Gamestar Mechanic  gamestarmechanic.com/parents/page1
iMovie  www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/
Flip Video Camera (RIP)
iPod Touch  www.apple.com/ipodtouch/


*Note: We took along the iPod Touch as a back up camera in case the Flip ran out of space. It turns out we needed it! He captured footage using both cameras and also learned how to import the footage onto the computer.

Tweeting with Teens

iconshock.com

Last week we held an assembly for all of the high school students about digital citizenship. I was very concerned about the presentation being too formal and stodgy so I wanted to find a way to make it more interactive. I began to consider the use of cell phones as a means for the students to communicate with the presentation, each other, and with me, the presenter. Because the presentation was very short and packed with a lot of content, I needed to provide the students with a method of asking questions and offering comments during the presentation. Two possibilities emerged: texting and tweeting. One morning in homeroom several weeks before the presentation I took an informal show-of-hands poll to determine if the students had Twitter accounts, and if they were actively tweeting via their cell phones. Enough of the students appeared to meet these requirements so I decided on tweeting.

I set up a hashtag (#PCSCyberliving) and used Twitterfall to aggregate and display the tweets during the presentation. I had a regular backchannel going! Technically, all worked well. I had a prepared Keynote presentation for the content and I periodically switched between the presentation and Twitterfall to field questions, highlight comments, and to publicly acknowledge the backchannel. I had a teacher serve as the "monitor" of the Twitter feed, so as I focused on presenting the material, she focused on making sure the Twitter feed was under control. She also posted links and resources that went along with the presentation. In the future, I would really like to have someone serve as a commentator in addition to moderator. That way anyone not attending the presentation but following the feed can also follow along with the crux of the presentation. All of the technology elements worked well and I found no issues using Twitter to make my presentation more interactive.

designdownloader.com

Socially, well that's another story! As expected the Twitter resolution was used for both good and mischief! (I was dealing with high school students after all!) Most students offered thoughtful and appropriate comments and questions, but there were at least two students that insisted on using the feed as an opportunity to play class clown. This is why the moderator was so important, as well as my announcement at the beginning of the presentation that I would be displaying the feed periodically to the audience. I hoped that these two factors would deter students from indulging in bad behavior. Overall it worked. The moderator had to send one or two direct messages to students that got out of hand and her intervention seemed to quell the behavior. I think that given the subject of the presentation - digital citizenship - the Twitter resolution was a perfect lesson by doing. There was even a student out sick that day who participated in the Twitter feed.


If you think about employing this technique I strongly recommend you do - whether it be for a big presentation or in a classroom. It is an excellent way to encourage and enable students to use technology in a more academic way, if they are not already. It also provides teachers an opportunity to see how this technique can be used in a classroom setting. And it gives students an opportunity to practice good behavior using technology while under the guidance of adults. I'd say it's a win-win-win solution!


Feel free to email me or comment below with questions or share your own experience!


Thanks for reading!


Tech Tools Referenced:
Twitterfall http://twitterfall.com/
Twitter http://twitter.com
Keynote http://www.apple.com/iwork/keynote/

The [Instructional Technology] Age-Old Question: How do we train our teachers?

Having been in the profession of technology in schools and curriculum for 7 years now, I have sort of developed an opinion about what does and does not work when it comes to how I get my teachers trained in the technologies we need to use. There are a variety of approaches my colleagues and I across the nation engage in regularly: one-to-many lecture style trainings, one-to-one individual meetings, small groups, faculty champions or department leaders, and even online asynchronous trainings!

One method that I strongly feel does not work is any iteration of the technology workshop. That would be the likes of 'Wired Wednesday', 'Tech Tuesday', or 'Monday Tech Madness'. Now, I am open to suggestions and open to continue to try this method if I can find cases where it has worked. This openness has led me to my latest version of the technology workshop: 'Lunch & Laptops'. I am trying one more time (at the strong urging of my head of school) to put in place this method of instructing teachers. I'm thinking of it as sort of my office hours when teachers know they can always find me available to answer questions or help with a skill. I am also holding one session per week after school (Though a clever name for this session has eluded me! Any suggestions?!). I only started this last week and this week is the end of the quarter, so, of course, attendance has been low (three sessions => three students). 

This brings me back to the question in the title: How do we train our teachers? I've attended several conferences and special interest group meetings and spoken to my professional network about the topic, and as anyone reading this in the profession knows, we don't yet have an answer! Especially in the schools where leadership has not made the training a requirement for the teachers or attached some sort of accountability. If you have discovered the recipe, please share with the rest of us! In the meantime, I will give my latest creation a solid try and hope that I can raise the bar for myself in my marketing and cajoling skills and get the chairs filled!