My/Your Digital Generation

Summer, we are at the pool, relaxing. My son Asaf (19) looks around the pool eyeing many of adults on their smartphones. Not only adults but many. And yes, it did include me.

He says, "everybody complains about my generation, the way we focus on all things digital. Your generation is worse."

"You adapted every new technology quickly and thoroughly. You are the ones that afforded the first iPhones, tablets, and every little thing that comes out. You are the real YouTube generation because you had a choice, and you chose this!"

I love it when my kids have insights like this. And yes for a long time I have felt this way as well. I hear many adults calling for less use of technology in schools and at home. They reject the role technology can play at school feeling that it is just games, fun and not serious enough. They are afraid that our children will not move, not be creative. I admit that as adults, we have the obligation to protect our children even from the things we are doing/ have done. But at the same time we must remember that personal example is very influential. And so for me two questions remain as we educate the next generation:

1. If we lead by example, then we lead by showing appropriate and balanced uses of devices not lack of use. We must first look at ourselves and our practices. Do they mirror what we want our kids to learn or are we around the pool checking our smartphones?

2. We must ask ourselves what we are protecting our children/ students from? The old data about screen time is out of sync with digital realities and in many ways we still don't know much about the impact of new practices. Some like the American Academy of Pediatrics publishes concerns and limitations. They take the defensive approach if we don't know, let's not do it. This method works well for medicine, not so much for everyday well-being. The two questions that must follow are: what will kids be doing with this time? And what will they be missing if they do not have digital lives? Will they be ready to be citizens of the 21st century?

3. We must ask ourselves if when making an argument about screentime at school we are in fact making a class based argument. It may be that we are saying: "My middle class, son of a professional, student is getting enough digital exoerience and guideline at home therefore he and all other students do not need to spend time on it in school.

My son Asaf looked at me and added: "Yes, it's your generation, but it is especially you." I smiled: "I am ok with that." Later that evening, he was using three screens: A Netflix movie on the TV, a video game on his laptop, and the BBC news on his phone.

I wonder what his kids will do.

Five ways to help students find the Sweet Read

Today is Read across America day. This morning I watched my son Oren (11) read right after he got up. He is rereading for the ??th time the Percy Jackson series. It made me think about a book or a series of books that becomes a second home to readers- a Sweet Read. It is about the power of returning to a favorite book where the charaters are like old friends that you have known for many years.

When I was Oren's age I had Asimov's Foundation series and later Lord of the Rings. For Erez (now 20) it was Harry Potter, Asaf (now 18) had David Edding's Belgariad. Even as adults I find that Sarah and I are returning to favorites and redefining what is our literary home.

This is an experiece I would like all students to have- a sweet read- that is yours. Here are a few completely unoriginal ideas to help students find the Sweet Read:

1. Read outloud to them. Reading outloud connects readers and listeners to the books in a way that helps new and struggling readers reimagine what the reading experience should be.
2. Provide choice. I learned the hard way that what you love and find a home in does not necessarily mean that others will as well. We all must figure it out for ourselves.
3. Do not judge. The Box Car Children can as much of a literary home as Boewolf. It is after all about comfort and joy.
4. Share you experiences. Share your passion for books, not so they can read the same books, but so they can feel the emotion and excitement in your voice.
5. Library often. (shouldn't library be a verb?)

Full disclosure: In the last five years or so my Sweet Reads are A Hundred Years of Solitude and Bitchfest.

iPads in Chengdu China

This spring I have sent Ji Guo to Chengdu to collaborate with the iPad classroom in a first grade.

His report seems to indicate that teachers are in the replacement and augmentation phases of technology integration. They very ably use iPad linked to projectors as agile white board applications for sharing content (through projection) and presenting.

At the same time we are seeing a few creation apps used to create videos that are then shared with peers. This is a huge development for all partners in the project. What we are having a harder time is having student discussions that include critical feedback. That said they are only first graders and they are busy creating video, writing, and sharing.

What is clearly emerging is that beyond the affordances of the specific technology, there is an overarching theme. Technology seems to create a non-trivial opportunity to transform instruction. This transformation is not just about technology integration (although it is also about that), it is about student centered, differentiated practices that focus on engagement, participation and creation. The question that still remains is what impact it will have on more traditional measures of achievement.

Gaming in Education- Observing Minecraft in the Classroom

In the last couple of weeks I have observed a few classrooms from Kindergarten to middle school using Minecraft EDU to support 21st century learning. To be completely honest I have not played Minecraft before this week, although I have watched my kids play it on the iPad and computer. I understood the theoretical affordances but for the first time I actually saw it in action in classrooms.

My first visit was to a fourth grade classroom facilitated by Jason Wilmot. As we walked into the classroom you could immediately sense the buzz of activity. As Matt Gordon shared later: "the first thing you get is engagement". All students were engaged moving around (the virtual world), asking for peer help, showing each other how to accomplish specific task. We (Jason, Ji and I) decided to start students with unstructured time seeing what patterns emerge. Jason is weaving in specific skills required by district and state standards making sure that students are receiving all the skills necessary.

I settled next to two students building houses one right next to each other. They were discovering functions and clearly helping each other produce the outline for their respective creations making sure that they each have enough space. This simultaneous communication off and on line is something we have observed across all grades. This is a fantastic illustration of the 21st century skills of Communication and Collaboration.

Moving to a different group I saw a student avatar in what seemed to be a vast underground cavern creating bales of wool and setting them on fire in large quantity. As I watched I could see no real reason for his actions. I casually asked: "I see that you are lighting a lot on fire". "Yes" he answered eagerly, "you see I am lost and can't find my way out. My friend is in the area", here he tapped the shoulder of his friend on the adjacent computer "he knows where he is. I hope that if the fire is strong enough he can see it and help me get out." I smiled. What I initially saw as a mindless activity, turned to be Critical Thinking and Problem Solving.

Two students were introduced to me as the "resident experts" since they have been playing at home for a few months. These two were mindlessly building, it seemed as if their position as experts was actually stopping them from exploring and innovating. I asked "What are building?"
"a house" they both answered almost in unison.
"can you make doors or windows in Minecraft?" I asked. One started showing me how you can make windows and seemed invigorated by the more structured task. Later I challenged him to create a second story with stairs leading up. He seemed somewhat disinterested but before I left he proudly showed me his new house with a roof garden and stairs that actually worked. His friend switched to creating a water area, a challenge to create a pool with a slide sent him on a creative bend as well.

On a visit to Matt Gordon's class in Horizon Middle School in Kearny we saw a real "Digital Making Space". His classroom hosted a variety of students working in Minecraft (set of tasks), creating video with iPads, editing work and probably a few other tasks that I failed to catch.

Both Matt's and Jason's spaces showed that the interaction of virtual world and a challenge led to Creativity and Innovation.

The biggest challenge that I observed across settings is the power of students to damage each others creation. While this problem can be managed with the tools embedded in Minecraft EDU, we would like to challenge students to create a civil society and foster democratic principles in which students set the norms and explore implication of personal and community boundaries. In this way we can address not just digital citizenship but citizenship in it's broadest sense.

Classroom in Conditional Tense

Last Tuesday we had our summer Tech EDGE conference. It was a great day with excellent presentations, great conversation and participation. We have been playing with formats for a closing section. This time we tried out an "Imagine" session. A forum to ask questions and generate ideas for collaboration and collegial support between university, district, schools, and teachers.

I am still not this session was successful and I think our follow-up next year will tell. I would like to respond more thoughtfully to a question posed during the session. Mary, one of our cooperating teachers asked what classrooms of the future look like. I responded at the time with- I don't really know and by the time I do it will change again.

Later when I had time to reflect I came to understand her question differently: What should/could our classrooms look like now? Now, that is a question I can address and wish I did then.

I first would like to point out that technology is just a small piece of what a great classroom space is and should be. There needs to be enough room for all kinds of real world activities. Virtual is great but it complements and not replaces painting, sculpting, outdoor spaces, a vegetable garden, animals, musical instruments and more. As far as technology I still think the device is a tablet and right now an iPad. The device should be individual (1:1) and students should be able to take it home. This way you can flip your classroom, communicate with parents, and assign digital homework without thinking whether our students have access at home. Classroom technology should  add a few desktop machines with large screen for applications and websites that are not currently optimized on tablets. For example Google Earth is great on mobile devices but some features appear only on computers. Finally the ability to project in the classroom.

The real clincher for me is actually in the availability of software/apps. Not everything teachers need is currently available but needs are going to emerge as we experiment and develop ideas. While districts like creating app packages I would argue that teachers need some flexibility in trying out and downloading apps with a great fit to their classroom and curriculum. I truly believe that our power s schools is through the diversity of experiences we provide to our students and then share with our colleagues.

This is very simple, and actually doable. To make it work though we need two things: room for students and teachers to experiment and ERR. And professional development that focuses on long-term collaboration.
The main obstacle is implementation like this requires trust- community to trust schools, administrators to trust teachers, and teachers to trust students. Can we?

Should We Use Digital Technology in Elementary Education?

Last week I happened to be talking about technology to a teacher when someone (not a k12 educator) intervened and said in complete confidence: "I do not know of any benefit of using technology in the classroom."

I will admit that at times I have my doubts about technology integration. There are technologies I find useless for most users (e.g. smartboards) and others I find incredibly powerful (iPads). What struck me, however, was the complete confidence- of someone who is not a classroom teacher.

I am pretty sure that when the piano was introduced, someone stood up and said that he does not see any benefit of using this new technology over older instruments. Probably stating that such technology brings disorganization and laziness to peoples way of thinking about music...

So here are my top eight reasons to integrate technology in the classroom:

1. This is what students will encounter in the world. Students who will not be exposed to technology in school will be at a great disadvantage especially if they grow up in families that cannot fill up this void- i.e. students at-risk.
2. Differetiation: The ability to tailor instruction to student needs.
3. To teach students to find and sort through information for quality and validity- as we shifted into the knowledge economy finding information is no longer the challenge. Instead it is the ability to filter relevant information.
4. Become careful consumers of media, services, and products.
5. Become global citizens communicating with people from different locations and cultures
6. Be able to answer questions about facts and basic knowledge quickly so we can move to problem solving and real world applications.
7. The ability to represent the world and learning through multiple media products.
8. Teaching students about digital social spaces.

The way I see it, technology is here part of our daily lives. Our role in universities is to explore its impact and design evidence based ways of using it in positive ways.

Making Connections through Art

A few days back I was invited to the Kamishibai presentations in the Arts and Literacy workshop class. Monique and Nancy led the class which ran for the fourth time in five years. The presentations were on the last day of the workshop and were as always fun, creative, and thoughtful. One of the groups presented a fractured Goldilocks allegory to their preservice program.

While it was funny and creative what struck most of all was their conclusion. They explained that the arts integration workshop helped them put all the rest of the information together. In that way art didn't just integrate different subject matter but instead it helped them connect theory and practice in a way that didn't just replicate what there was. It allowed them to imagine what might be possible if you imagine.

Monique then introduced me and asked me to say a few words. I naturally wanted to extend their thinking to the ways technology fits in all of this. The point I tried to focus on (on the fly) is that technology has changed the arts equation once again. Once technology gave access to art to all through reproduction, book, and poster making art possible in all homes, consuming art stopped being just for the rich. Now technology has enabled all of us to produce art for an audience.

Music, movies, poetry, and visual art can be created and shared through digital means. It is a revolution in creativity, in art and in consumption.