When I was first introduced to tag clouds, I thought they were interesting, excellent for pulling themes from longer works (trying putting text from an entire chapter of a novel into a tag cloud generator...it is so interesting to see the results), great for analyzing redundancy of word use in original works, and it has some other unique niche uses.
One benefit I'm finding, though, as I publish and share more work digitally, is that the tag/word cloud generators give me a great idea of what I'm thinking (and writing) about.
I recently used a word/tag cloud generator called Tagxedo to evaluate the themes of this blog, Getting Tech Into Ed, and I combined that with my tweets for @brianyearling. I think the results are so telling of what has been on my mind over the past few years. It also made me think about how something like a digital portfolio and blog that a student produces for academic purposes could be turned into a wonderful reflection tool when it comes to a freshman or sophomore conference to determine next life steps. Perhaps the use of a tag/word cloud generator could pull some beginning themes out of what they've studied and written about that could influence the conversation and give them some ideas upon which to reflect. The same is true of an end-of-year conference with a teacher, a student-led conference, or just a reflection on a whole class blog.
The tool I used that produced the results below is www.tagxedo.com .
In our district we are in the very earliest stages of a three year rollout of a personalized learning movement that includes providing an iPad for each student (K-12). That's about 13,500 iPads across our district, including staff members.
At the launch, I was pretty sure this would be an uphill battle the whole way. For years I have been reading about schools d to convince their community members, parents, and even staff that putting 1:1 devices in the classroom was the right move. All of that reading and research convinced me that the general public was gainst the idea of giving kids access to devices, and that schools interested in launching something of this magnitude would really need to educate the public to get them to see the benefits.
What I find to be the most interesting about our launch thus far has been the support of the program from the general public. Without question, there are concerns. Without doubt, we have folks who do not agree with this decision. That will always be the case, no matter what we engage in or what decision we make. I can certainly accept that. However, we are hearing many people who seem to think it is a good idea -- that it is logical and makes sense to provide these opportunities and this access to students.
The bigger surprise has been the ease with which people who have questions or doubts are pacified. I don't mean to say that they simply lack the conviction to stick with their arguments, nor do I want to imply that we are doing a miraculous job of "selling" the program. More simply stated, the idea is becoming less foreign to them. In a way, even with their doubts, they seem to understand that it is an unavoidable reality of the times in which we live. They seem to get that if we do not give students an opportunity to use these devices productively in a "safe to fail" environment today, we cannot expect them to use these devices productively in environments that are far less safe and forgiving. For many of those who raise concerns, it isn't that they are dead set against the idea. It seems as if they just want to hear that we, too, have some of the same concerns, or that we have thought through it and have determined ways to deal with that issue (or are willing to think about it and develop a way to tackle it).
It is pretty apparent that the onward march of technology in our society as a whole is to credit. The majority of our parents, guardians, and community members have been so significantly impacted by the adoption of technology (both positively and negatively) that it seems they truly realize that education is not immune from this same adoption.
What I hope, though, is that people believe that putting these tools in the hands of students in an educational setting will begin to steer them in a direciton of meaningful, productive use of these tools in positive, interesting, and innovative ways. My gut feeling on that, though, is that we don't have the faith of the community yet in that regard. Give educators a few years. I know they will prove to the community at large that providing access to the tools was not only inevitable, but also invaluable! That is where the work of educating our students, staff, and community comes into play, and that is a challenge worthy of taking on.
In many history classes throughout the country the Industrial Revolution is a topic that is discussed by students. The Industrial Revolution was a time period of extreme change in technology and how ordinary people lived in American and throughout world.
While teaching the Industrial Revolution I always found it helpful to discuss the revolution that we are all currently living through today, the Information Revolution. The Information Revolution, much like the Industrial, also concerns the rapid development of technologies (computer chip and processor). But what is unique is that computers, and the internet, has allowed for the rapid processing and distribution of information. Also, the Information Revolution has also allowed for a rapid decline in the price of information, as well as the tools that can capture that information.
Whew....that was a mouthful (can you tell I was a history teacher), but here is the better question...how has the Information Revolution changed education and how can technology aid in that process?
I'll share an analogy....imagine that someone that was born in 1890 were alive today. Imagine all of the pieces of technology that would blow them away. They would not be able to comprehend. It makes me think of the scene in Captain America. The scene where Steve Rogers, Captain America, escapes his hidden of circa 1943, and then he escapes and he is suddenly in Times Square after being found and thawed. What would Teddy Roosevelt think if he saw a person walking down the street with a smartphone coupled with a blue tooth earpiece. The concept of what a cellphone would be and what that cellphone would be able to do would be unimaginable for Mr. Rough Rider. Technology has changed and our historic hero's would have a hard time understanding tech innovation.
But what if that same person walked into a school or a classroom? Would they know how to behave? Would they feel comfortable? I would guess that for some classrooms that answer would be...yes. Sit in rows...be quiet...the teacher is the expert. Check this out.
Gone are the days of kids in rows listening silently to the teacher.
Gone are the days in which the teacher is only a content expert.
Gone are the days where we can sit silently and quietly while we wait for initiatives to pass.
Gone are the days in which we allow our students to fall behind, leaving us without the skills and knowledge they need to succeed.
Many teachers already know these concepts, but there is a divide in philosophy, pedagogy, and practice. Accountability is at an all time high in public education, and while that may make some feel uneasy, it will hopefully lead to better results for our students.
Education today is about supporting and guiding students in the acquisition of life skills. Yes, they need content...no arguing that, but they need to be able to read, write, and have the critical thinking skills to survive in today's ever changing society. The model of the teacher always in front of the room does not work in today's rapidly changing world. Like other parts of our society we must innovate and change the way we think about education.
Teachers should be leaders in their professional field. Innovators, creators, and willing to push our students not to know the most content, but to apply the best skill and content.
But wait a minute technology guy...you haven't even mentioned technology yet.
Technology is partial to me. I am a gadget geek... particularly Apple products It has just always interested me, and let's me honest, Apple has taken a lot of my money!
Technology is not a silver bullet...it is not a cure all...it will not solve all of the problems of education, but it is a crucial part of the world that teacher and students live in today. It is our duty to provide leadership in our classrooms that will transform learning for our students. Technology is a key piece of the equation. Teachers, high quality lessons, and appropriate infusion of technology into our classes and curriculum can provide our students with the education they deserve.
Insert the iPad. The iPad is a transformational piece of technology. It allows for creation, collaboration, and consumption of educational materials It is a piece of technology that can redefine what your students are able to do within your classrooms. iPads give your students technology access to allow for my project/inquiry/challenge based education. Does it have limitations? Sure, most technology does...but remember, the most important part of our students education is not an iPad...its teachers!
The iPad is a creation and consumption device. It will open the doors of learning to the world for your students in a way that has never happened before. But, it may require you to "think different". Especially about some traditional ways of teaching.
In the lightspeed paced world of educational technology, I appreciate the need for finding fresh ideas, presenting unique content, and reviewing new tools. I work to maintain two blogs, keep a Twitter and Google+ feed that is somewhat relevant, and stay on top of my game as I talk with teachers each day. It's a challenge anybody who is actively publishing for and working with an audience deals with daily.
What I worry about is the bubble of separation that clearly exists between those of us who love, live, and breathe technology's role in education, and those practitioners we work with daily who don't share our passion and commitment to keeping pace with new ed tech tools. If our goal as Tech Coaches is the pursuit of improving the educational experience of our students, not just finding the latest and greatest web tools and funky apps, then we need to confront the gap between where we live in our passion for educational technology, and where the rest of the world lives, and then determine the best way to meet our staff where they are and to provide them with the information and tools that they need to be successful.
One of the first places to start, then, is the promotion of new tools and services. We've all read the blogs, heard the podcasts, and seen the tweets that offer a cursory look at some "amazing" new tool that the promoter has yet to really test, use, or meaningfully evaluate. I wish this was just a once in a while occurrence. Sadly, it isn't. In the excitement of newness and possibility, there is no shortage of people recommending services and apps that they have yet to put through the paces. It is apparent in their commentary, their shallow number of practical examples, and their failure to present th cons of that tool. I have yet to find a tool that does everything that it is asked to do -- it's just the reality that these tools cannot be everything to everybody. Yet, in these reviews, the "downside" of the tool is rarely reported.
While this race to promote new tools isn't that big of a deal on the surface, it points to some larger issues.
The first is that the promotion of these tools without meaningful testing and evaluation is just poor practice. Many tech coaches have advocated for meaningful planning and testing before using any tool with students in the classroom. Perhaps we have to swallow a bit of our own medicine and withhold recommendation of any tool until we have put it through the paces ourselves.
The second point is that we have more important work to focus on than just announcing the newest tools. The meaningful work of coaching is in finding innovative and powerful uses of these tools in the classroom with real students. This is not to say that these stories aren't making their way to publicaion -- they are. It is simply to say that examples of practical uses of tools are the blog posts and tweets that will most meaningfully inform practice. I think of one of my favorite software applications -- Microsoft's Photo Story. With one incredibly easy to use application, I saw more powerful, significant demonstrations of learning come from a wider mix of secondary and elementary classrooms than almost any other software application I can think of. That was Photo Story's #Eduwin, long before Twitter came to existence. That's an example of the important work Tech Coaches must focus on -- finding the innovative, inspiring, unique uses of the core tools we have available to us.
The third point is that one of our primary roles is to help focus those colleagues who are less interested in the latest and greatest tools -- to provide them with a tool set that is agile, adaptable, dependable, and easy to utilize. Most Technology Coaches already have a base toolset that we recommend and default to whenever we work with staff. It is apparent that one of our core responsibilitiesis to keep an eye on the horizon, always searching for new and better tools. What we need to guard against, though, is prematurely recommending tools to others that haven't found their way into our toolset on some level. We need to provide the BEST tools to our students and staff, not just the newest. In doing so, we may beset serve our colleagues by being the barrier between what's new and what works. That's a careful line of distinction that we can both define and influence. However, there is a professional responsibility in helping to define that line. That's where we have to be just a bit more careful in too quickly recommending or promoting the latest and greatest.
Remember that our target audience is our staff, most of which could care less whether Google or Apple introduced some new feature or app in the last hour. Many of them are already swimming in the bombardment of new tools, terms, passwords, and techniques. Many are overwhelmed by the changing face of professional evaluation, accountability, teaching techniques, the introduction of the Common Core standards, and all of the other changes taking place in education today. While educators are certainly professional enough to handle the pace of change in educational technology, with both our passion and knowledge of what to look for in these tools, it is our professional responsibility as Tech Coaches to assist our colleagues in sorting through the latest and greatest tools to find and promote only those tools that will make the educational experiences of our students the best that they can be. That's why we need to slow our roll and stop recommending things just because it made the company's new blog post, and instead put those new tools through some appropriate testing b
efore publishing them to our larger audience.
This seems to be the real work -- the meaningful work -- of being a Tech Coach.
This is an older commercial but it is still pretty awesome...
It's a phrase that has become a part of our cultural lexicon. Apple and its many iOS products has moved us as a society from talking about software...to talking about "apps". App this and app that it has even crossed over to other platforms that provide an App Store.
As you can imagine, there are a lot of articles about 1:1 iPads, education, and school rollout. I was reading this particular article--http://ipadeducators.ning.com/profiles/blogs/10-steps which details the authors 10 steps to a 1:1 iPad initiative. While they were all good points, number 6 just jumped out to me as I was reading...Overcoming "There's and App for that Syndrome".
Go to the App Store and you are sure to find apps to satisfy every little curiosity that you have...apps for kids, apps for teachers, apps for Grandma and Grandpa. You get the idea...so it should be really easy to find apps for all classes right? I mean its an iPad, lets make sure our students have as many apps a possible...
But do apps lead to better learning? Are apps the key to a 1:1 iPad initiative?
The simple answer is kinda yes but really no...
Yes, Apps can allow students to do amazing things. Note taking, book writing, photo editing, the list goes on and on. You can find apps for the Common Core, you can find apps to make a comic book, and you can find apps that can help you edit videos right on the iPad. Amazing, amazing, stuff can be done on an iPad with really cool apps.
BUT.....No, the Apps do not lead to better learning. Look deeper, its not really the Apps but the awesome teachers that put kids in the situation to learn. The iPad is another tool that teachers can use to improve school learning, but it dosent take great apps to do that........it takes a teacher that puts kids in a great environment to learn.
Learning on an iPad is not app dependent. Sure, there are some very good cross curricular apps that can work in Kindergarten as well as for High School Juniors. Apps like iMovie, Explain Everything, and Notability are versatile apps that can do wonderful things...but they need creative innovative teachers putting students in a position to be creative innovative learners.
Learners should not be bogged down in content specific apps. While some of those are nice to have, and can be a nice resource, the real advantage to an iPad is the creative apps that allow students to demonstrate their learning. Content heavy apps do not allow students to show, demonstrate, or create the outstanding things that our kids can do...
So yes, there is an app for that, but even better, there is a teacher for that.
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 5:20PM 
