Taxonomy Domine

When I went for breakfast at the ISTE conference one day last June, I picked up more than just muffins and coffee. ISTE's best-kept secret was finally out: the 2016 Standards for Students in handy poster format. I tweeted them out.

— Steve Weatherell (@steveweatherell) June 27, 2016

So was it worth the wait? After 9 years, ISTE has given the Standards a big shake-up. Firstly, the bar has been set higher, and no longer do we merely "use technology to learn". No, we are promoting "Transformative learning with technology".



And it's true! The new Standards are very far-reaching, including whole new skills and abilities which we expect good teaching to bring to our students. For example, there is a new category: Computational Thinking. Of course, it could all just be wishful thinking. Just saying something is transformative, does not make it so. But as I plot my path through CoETaIL Course 1, I feel that the new Standards (a taxonomy, if you will) are very timely.

[caption id="attachment_26" align="alignleft" width="213"] Bloom's Taxonomy updated 1990[/caption]

 

This week I became re-acquainted, once again, with the work of Dr Benjamin Bloom who pops up whenever I am studying education.

The most interesting aspect of the 1990 revision of Bloom's taxonomy is how Synthesis is promoted and re-branded. It becomes Creating. Whereas 'synthesis' suggests a use of raw materials to make a new product, 'creation' implies an extra ingredient - something which wasn't there before. Perhaps the difference is only semantic, but the decision to put Creating at the top of the ladder is significant.

Few people in 1990 could have foreseen how, within a couple of decades, it would be commonplace to be able to create artifacts: films; sound recordings; multimedia objects using one and the same portable machine. But Bloom's revised taxonomy anticipated the changes in education which ubiquitous digital technology makes possible.

 

[caption id="attachment_28" align="alignright" width="160"] 3 steps to heaven[/caption]

I read about another hierarchical taxonomy in Living and Learning with New Media. According to this analysis, kids, on their own and without the help of adults, hang out with technology, then mess around and finally geek out. It's a hopeful vision, but the reality about the geek stage which is "intense, autonomous, and interest-driven" (p. 28), is that:

"these kinds of youths are a small minority among those we encountered" (p. 28)

That is not a startling revelation to many of us who work with 21st century youth. Although some of my students are much more skillful and dexterous than me in their daily use of their devices, in other ways they are limited in what they do. They have acquired certain habits such as efficiently consuming and generating social media, but they do not necessarily learn new skills unless they offer immediate rewards (why would they?). This innate conservatism is invisible to many of my colleagues who regard their students as masters of the new devices, but it is important for the teachers to realise that it is so.

For otherwise, what would we need teachers for? Thankfully, search engines have taken over some of the bottom-rung Bloom skills. And there are web-services which allow anyone to cobble together a basic explanatory video. This leaves us with our hands a little freer to give the students new challenges.

[caption id="attachment_29" align="alignleft" width="174"] Image credit: ladder[/caption]

Sure, student, you can bash out a quick presentation, but:

• Do you know how to find and evaluate the most reliable sources?


• Can you use visual information to engage your audience rather than riddle them with bullets?


• Will you present it in a way that your audience understands the ethical or social implications?

Google won't do that for you, but your teacher can.

Last week, in my Theory of Knowledge class, I had a clear idea of what I wanted the students to understand at the end of the lesson and I designed an activity to achieve it. I don't think I did a good job. In attempting to dictate the students' learning, I did not trust in their ability to construct it. We used the devices but as consumers when we could have been creating.

So next time we will climb the ladder.

Me, technology and delayed gratification

[caption id="attachment_23" align="alignleft" width="149"] Image: flippedclassroom.com[/caption]

This week, I considered the idea of Perspectives with my Grade 11 Theory of Knowledge students.

How do our identity and our experiences affect what and how we know things?

The students and I each prepared an online slideshow illustrating the different perspectives we believe we have. I enjoyed the process of thinking about the aspects of me which affect how I see the world. Here are the slides I shared with the students:


I have never been happier in a job than I am now as an educational technology coach. I see myself as an educator, primarily, but one who has learned a lot about the ways in which new developments in technology can enhance the learning experiences of school students. But it was not always that way...

[caption id="attachment_20" align="alignright" width="332"] Matt and Steve. Halos optional[/caption]

My closest colleague last year was a Millennial. We were doing the same work, but in at least one way our backgrounds could not be more different. Matt has spent his first three decades surrounded by computer technology and used the Internet from an early age. By the time I turned thirty, I was yet to own my first computer. In fact I was heard to observe in 1990 that "there is nothing computers can do that people haven't been doing for centuries".

But opportunity, apparently, makes the geek. In 1995 in Thailand, when the international school I joined gave each teacher a Windows desktop, I gradually discovered that every aspect of my work could be enhanced by judicious use of computers (I also learned that Duke Nukem is an endless sink of time). That's not to say computers solve every problem, rather they add a new dimension of possibilities. A year later, a colleague showed me the Internet (of which we had by then heard, even in rural Thailand) and I surfed to the brand new site I'd just read about in the newspaper: davidbowie.com (and for just one example of the surreal power of the technology, step in this time machine).

[caption id="attachment_21" align="alignleft" width="299"] We all have our own perspectives. Image MC Escher[/caption]

My journey in international education has continued, accompanied every step of the way by the amazing power of arguably humankind's greatest invention. I feel fortunate to have seen this happen in my lifetime and to have been able to use it to create and communicate with students and teachers around the world. Like many relationships, mine with technology is coloured by its history; my perspective as a user of technology is mediated by my past interactions with it.

I was prompted to think about my travels with technology when reading Jeff Utecht's reflections in Reach. Jeff describes how following blogs led him to start his own:

"With one simple click of the button, I had created my little piece of the web that would allow me to communicate and collaborate with others who were all passionate about the same thing: learning." (p. II)

In my own way, exposure to educational technology has shown me ways in which traditional education can be enhanced and then transformed by technology. This has made me passionate to share with my colleagues what I have learned. It is never easy, because we are all to some extent trapped in the ingrained perspectives of our own schooling and a lack of insight into what the future holds. I am not one of those people who will tell you 'a revolution is taking place' because I believe we have yet to shed our shackles. The fight is worth it, however.

The IB's Theory of Knowledge is almost unique as a course expressed entirely in questions rather than declarative statements of what students 'should' do. ToK encourages critical thinking and "an appreciation of the diversity and richness of cultural perspectives" according to the IBO website. As a course with an innovative approach, I feel it is the ideal place for me to employ new media to enhance and enrich the experience of learning. And the way I do that will be unavoidably influenced by the way I have grown up with technology.

I look forward greatly to sharing the experience with the CoETaIL community.

 

Collaboration, real collaboration, is hard to do!

Happy collaborators

Collaboration is a word with an unusual history. From the original 'collaborateurs' in the Napoleonic wars who were smugglers assisting the Monarchists; via 'traitorous cooperation with the enemy' (OED) in Vichy France; to our present concept commonly used in education to describe the desirable cooperation between peers. Viewed neutrally, it simply means 'working together' and what's not to like about that?

Ah yes, collaboration! We're a cooperative species, right? Well, like many things in life, real collaboration is easy to say and difficult to do for real. I mean really hard. Like many schools, ours uses that particular C-word a lot. And it's a worthy goal. Most times, when I have listened to the ideas of others and worked them into my plans, the result has been something I wouldn't have achieved on my own. But it can be painful. You mean my idea (which I'm completely in love with) isn't going to work (in your opinion)? I thought we were sorted (with my idea central) - we're going to have to do some more work and throw some stuff away (my stuff)?

Two decades ago, at a young international school, I came up with a fail-safe plan to solve a discipline problem we were experiencing. I wrote a hierarchy of infractions and consequences which only required consistent application by all staff and our problem would be solved. I spent hours working out my idea and presented it to the colleagues. The meeting was very messy. They said it wouldn't work. I suspected resentment and fought back, but I got no support and the discussion evolved into a dismantling of my scheme and the acceptance of a less draconian proposal. It hurt. But it didn't take long for me to be grateful that I was saved from disaster because people cared enough to make me give up my proposal at the cost of a bruised ego.

Fine words butter no parsnips, as they say in England

Collaboration demands denial from both sides. And it requires us to spend time when we feel we could knock out a good solution quicker on our own. I have spent too much time in lovey-dovey meetings agreeing to cooperate. But I have come to realise that talk is the easy part and the warmth we all feel when we agree to collaborate (before we actually do) is a false friend. The hard work is still in the future and everyone is going to have to give up something they cherish. The reward, if we can get through the humbling, is a better solution than either side would have achieved on its own. And that is really worth giving up something for.

Collaborators image: actri.fr

Parsnip image: healtheatingfood.com

The long road to 1 to 1 (stage 5)

Back in 2012 I wrote a post called ICTF? WTF? in which I wondered what I could make of the job of ICT Facilitator. I had never seen anyone do the job, and it's such a new idea in an environment which we have yet to properly comprehend. Not that everyone agrees with me about that; sometimes I have posed that question and have been advised to look no further than the job description (but who wrote it? how long ago? etc).

I have loved doing this job for the last four years and have learned a lot about what works in terms of helping teachers improve their use of technology. But I have also begun to feel that my reactive style is suffering from diminishing returns. I have aimed at the 'willing'; either putting ideas to colleagues, or responding to their requests for help. I have had some success with teachers who took up one of my proposals and ran with them, in particular with colleagues who have begun to develop their own online spaces: wikis, websites and blogs. As time has passed, there have been fewer takers. A variety of factors has brought this about, both within and outside my control.

So I am changing my focus. While I shall continue to help individuals and promote nice ideas to them, I am proposing to spend more time working with curriculum teams starting with the planning stage of their units. I don't know how this will look. We are developing a process in which I hear the teachers talk about their upcoming module and areas they think might be amenable to development. Then I'll come up with some ideas and we'll go back and forth until we all agree. In this way, I hope, the technology projects will be embedded in the fabric of the curriculum. This will certainly benefit the students whose exposure to ed tech will be more uniform (if this works out the way I hope). I am being supported by the administration, and that recognition is very important when we get into difficult discussion.

It may sound easy, but it will require concessions on both sides. We will be collaborating, but that's where the hard work begins. At which point, I feel another post coming on...

Hello CoETaIL!

[caption id="attachment_8" align="alignleft" width="300"] Image credit: thethinkingstick.com[/caption]

Is it only me or does no-one care much about the capital letters in CoETaIL? Having learned the rhythm of the keystrokes, I am reluctant to let that skill go to waste.

So I am joining Online7. At our school, we have a previous group who are coming to the end of their CoETaIL journey. Their enthusiasm has helped to inspire a new cohort. I really like the way we overlap in time; #7 will start in September while the others conclude in December. I am hoping for a synergy like the relationship between Grades 11 and 12. We may consider organising their graduation party.

[caption id="attachment_7" align="alignright" width="300"] Image credit: Yeowatzup on Flickr[/caption]

And that word 'cohort'? Literally, it is a division of a Roman legion which is appropriate since we are all marching in the same direction with a common purpose (though less imperial). I like the suggestion in the term that we are there for each other as well as for our own advancement.

So, yes, bring it on. The course looks interesting; in particular, I like the fact that it practises what it preaches, unlike those lectures on innovative teaching styles beloved of PD presenters who are immune to irony. And we will be able to plot our own course and tailor our projects to our own learning needs which is, again, consistent with the education we would like our own students to undergo.

This is CoETaIL!

The Long Road to 1 to 1 (step 4)

So you go 1 to 1. You give the teachers a laptop; you tell the students they have to bring one too. And that's it. Well, you bring in a LMS but you don't mandate it's use. You make Google Drive available, but again, you send contradictory messages about it (maybe OneDrive would be a better fit). You bring in a couple of tech-focused gurus for workshops. Light the blue touchpaper and stand well back! And...

Picture credit: pixabay

Well, no, nothing like that.

And that's probably for the best. Most people are not revolutionaries, they do not want to live through interesting times. But, on the other hand, if you ask your teachers to make a change (and potentially a big one), you don't want everything to be as it was, or what was the point?

Beforehand, I had encouraged people to think of it as a soft launch, or maybe not even a launch at all, but more like a milestone on the long road to 1 to 1: neither at the beginning nor the end of the journey. There was a couple of reasons for this. Many staff were fearful of the change, so it might settle their nerves to know that there would not be an expectation immediately to be functioning at a high level of technical expertise. Secondly, we were badly prepared: LMS, online storage, PD, the infrastructure are all sort-of present, but practically, each is insufficient in one way or another. Let's not point fingers (I'm sure I am implicated too), rather I am interested in how a school can up its game and become a good learning environment once the physical fact of 1 to 1 is established.

Our teaching staff are experienced educators and many have been at this place for a long time. They knew what they were doing before 1 to 1 came along. They have not been asked to do anything very different. Furthermore, there is an existing content-rich curriculum many elements of which have been in place for a long time and are not showing any moves towards retirement. So putting a layer of mobile devices on top will not, in itself, change anything. Not many of the teachers has worked elsewhere in a 1 to 1 environment, so there is not a lot of pressure from that direction, and those who have worked in 1 to 1 tend to operate in their own little isolated pockets (generally, when they try to inject some new ideas into the system this is not well-received; hence the pockets).

It's the job of the Facilitator to make a difference - and that's me and my colleague.

No-one will change the way they do things unless they see a reason to do it. So what could motivate our teachers to make the effort and go through a process of change? The problem, in my view, is that they do not know what the goal looks like. The world of educational technology is full of high-flown notions:

"Teachers use their knowledge of subject matter, teaching and learning, and technology to facilitate experiences that advance student learning, creativity, and innovation in both face-to-face and virtual environments. 

a. Promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness."

 (ISTE Standards for Teachers, 2008)

Hard to disagree, but what does that mean in practice? So I started looking for something which described more concretely than the ISTE Standards what it is we think we are doing? And I can't find it! At the other end of the spectrum are accounts of what people are doing in their individual classrooms. Great, but also not what I'm looking for. Nor do we need any more lists of '10 tools you can't possibly live without'. No, what I am working towards is a way to give some teachers who have never seen one a big and detailed picture of what a 1 to 1 classroom can be.

And if you can't even do that, then you really have done nothing more than just put some computers into some rooms.

4 seasons in one day

On Friday, I presented here so it wasn't an everyday conference experience: psyching up for my session; presenting; coming down from the adrenalin and not being able to focus on what's in front of me for the obsessive need to read how my talk was affecting Twitter (no big hype, but much more attention than my daily grind generates).

So on Saturday, I resolved to leave my computer in my bag during sessions and just to be there (although I am a vehement advocate of the myth of multitasking, I am as distracted by proximate screens as anyone else). As a result, I absorbed the message and the feel of the talks rather than the details, but I since I spend the rest of my life deluged by website and app tips (and there will be more again tomorrow), it is good to use the conference as a time to reflect and to absorb the philosophy of the presentations. As a result, I hope that the bigger picture will emerge.

And it has happened. Saturday was one of those days where each session seemed to continue a dialogue I had had in the previous one. The thread which ties them all together comes from my own head, I suppose, but it is as if the speakers choreographed a dance to a solution I have been seeking.

Here's my issue. I have realised recently that if I, the ICT Facilitator, do not expose my students to digital citizenship, no one else will, at least not in the tech-sympathetic way I want to see it happen. I teach a course called ICT in Action with each Grade 7 student once every four days which is intended to give the kids "skills, content and attitudes" that will help them in their other subjects especially when we go one-to-one with laptops in the classroom next year.

But I do not like the way I teach parts of this course. In particular, the digital citizenship lessons follow some published plans that I found on the Net and are dull, dull, dull. I am teaching from the front and trying to get the students doing identical tasks at the same time. Although I have moved away from that model elsewhere in my Physics, ToK and parts of the ICTIA course, it's still happening here. I feel I know what I want the students to come away with and I am refusing to let go. And as a result, I'm sure, they are not learning and we are not creating good digital citizens (which was the idea, obviously).

So back to the conference:

First up, Kim Cofino, whom I last saw presenting back in 2009 in Hong Kong with the same result: not so much the tips (of which there were many good ones, make no mistake), but pure inspiration which works for me as a spur to action. "Learn with technology the way we live with technology" she said, with Snapchat as a current example. That made me think: she is right, of course, and I should be getting out of my comfort zone and risking more. Taking risks is what I had suggested, in my session the previous day, everyone should do. If I am not even making it happen in my own course, however, I need to make a change and take a jump in the dark. My school is deeply suspicious of the use of social networks. But it's clearly bonkers to teach about responsible use of social media in the abstract when the examples are literally a click away.

At the next session, Cate Jarvis gave an excellent overview of the tools we can use for teaching digital literacy. It reminded me of some which I have lapsed from using and now resolve to revive. Most memorably, though, Cate admitted that she hasn't found a satisfactory way to bring across to students the skills of authenticating information. That's how I feel too, and thanks to Cate for being brave enough to say it in front of a group of strangers. This realisation linked in my mind with Kim's session and made me think again that I must work harder to develop a new course.

Tricia Friedman, did a great session on blogs, reminding us that it is about the writing, reflection and interaction and not the tool. She demonstrated it wonderfully by making us create instant blogs (called fblogs by Tricia) on big sheets of paper, a great activity which I look forward to applying to students and teachers when the occasion arises. This made me realise that blogging is one of the activities I am not developing enough with my classes. Three sessions and three takeaways.

And so to Antoine Giusti who presented about collaborative tools and, in particular, the moment when he gave the students more freedom to develop their own understandings in his science lessons. Antoine still provides materials and activities, and monitors closely their progress, but the students exercise a high degree of independence in how their groups tackles the tasks (though some may take the lead in an activity, all must contribute and demonstrate their understanding). Can I adapt this approach for teaching Digital Citizenship? I think I can!

The last session of my day, with Sandra Lipkind, was the one I had been looking forward to: Filmmaking 101 for teachers. Basically 60 minutes of golden tips for someone like me, starting from a position of ignorance, who wants to teach students to create films as well as making my own films better. There were so many good ideas and terminology: everyone will be impressed when I start talking about 'master shots', dollies and Foley. In fact, I have a project right now, making a movie with a group of students, so the great advice couldn't have been more timely.

So that's a sequence of arbitrary choices based on a general interest, which turned out to lead me down a road of realisation of how I have been diluting the innovation in the teaching I do in the hurly-burly of the working week. Who knows if I shall find the space to develop, but the intention (and more importantly, the inspiration) are there at least.