Tag: technology

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Autonomy & Cell Phones In Class

My scope of experience with kids and phones doesn’t extend past 5th graders. There’s only one real incident I can even recall where a student kept visiting her backpack to check out her phone, which was resolved without much fuss.

But the question of whether teachers should make sweeping bans of devices from their classrooms is highly relevant to teachers everywhere because it speaks to our efforts toward fostering greater student ownership and autonomy over their learning.  At the same time, we do know that app-makers design apps to be as enticing as possible, to which kids are even more likely to fall prey to distraction and time-wasting.

In fact, an educator in this KQED MindShift article compared it to candy: “Don’t give kids unlimited access to “Halloween candy and Christmas cookies while they are still learning to eat a balanced diet.””

For whatever reason, this reminded me of a couple of plates that my dietitian mother-in-law gave to my kids:

I’ve liked these just because it’s easier to pour applesauce and yogurt into the portions. But to my surprise, they’ve also caused my kids started initiating conversations about food groups, portions, and intake balance. We also noticed together the absence of candy and treats as a food group, and have discussed the importance of moderation there, too.

The MindShift article also quoted educators who emphasize the importance of making cell phone use and distraction a direct conversation. Surely, just as there is value in letting kids in on the big picture of dietary balance, there is value in letting kids in on the big picture of balanced cell phone use.

Of course, that does not equate to an automatic green-light on all devices at all times. In fact, having an open conversation is a great way to invite student input on troubleshooting. Questions/discussion points you might ask might include:

  • How can devices enhance our learning?
  • How might devices enhance feedback within our classroom? With learners across the globe?
  • How might devices cause a distraction for ourselves? How might they distract our peers?
  • What does balanced device use look like?
  • What are the possible dangers of unbalanced device use?
  • What strategies or guidelines might minimize distraction while maximizing learning in our classroom?

However we choose to manage the issue, inviting our students to take a more proactive role can help not only mitigate the management issues but empower our students for more longterm ownership over their own device use.

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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The Power of One Young Digital Citizen–Again

I started off my daily Twitter review yesterday with a post from @Sue_Crowley with several intriguing comments:

and


I decided to check it out. It appears that source of all the hubbub centers on phenomenal new customer service rep managing the Southern Rail UK Twitter account. His name’s Eddie, and he’s a 15 year old receiving some work experience. 

Not only did he do a fabulous job fielding ordinary customer service questions, but he interacted with customers in a way that definitely caught Twitter’s attention. And young as he is, several interested parties already appear to be trying to poach him for their organizations:

This is definitely one young digital citizen that has his 4 C’s down: communication (fielding hundreds of comments), critical thinking (figuring out helpful responses), creativity (engaging with people in a fun way that got the attention of thousands), and collaboration (working with Neil).

Ultimately, this thread brought me back to reflecting on digital citizenship and literacy yet again. While we know that the jobs of the future will little-resemble the jobs of today, we still often treat the very devices and platforms that will carry our students toward that future — as nuisances. Banning phones, blocking Youtube, insisting on a single way of note-taking.

But here, we have an example of what happens when our students are given authentic opportunities to engage with those devices and platforms and audiences instead.

The fact is, digital citizenship empowers students to amplify their voices for good. Shunning it for fear of the distraction, cyberbullying, etc. perpetuates the very mentality that encourages abuse of these resources: namely, that they are not part of the “real world” and are therefore relegated only for entertainment purposes.

So next time you encounter a blanket ban of a digital resource that seems to favor adult convenience over student ownership, here are a few questions you might ask:

  • How might teaching digital citizenship help students treat the resource with more responsibility?
  • What are alternative courses of action to remove the nuisance factor?
  • How often do you personally treat this resource as an opportunity to create, share, and connect, vs. simple entertainment?
  • How often do you share with your students the ways that you use this resource to create, share, share, and connect?
  • How can you re-envision my students using this resource in a powerful, meaningful way (both now and throughout their lives)? How can you help your students see themselves using the resource in that way?
  • Will this ban help or hinder students in their development of the 4 C’s of 21st century learning?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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“I thought if I took away the iPads & phones, they’d grow up to be normal people.”

With kids asleep and husband out of town, I thought I’d settle down for some stereotypically comforting chocolate and HGTV. And it was. Until the person getting a newly renovated boat said something I’ve heard in many different forms over and over:

“I thought if I took away the iPads & phones, they’d grow up to be normal people.”

Normal people?

There seems to be a long history of the older generations criticizing and fearing the youth for their abnormal interests.

Like when the Scientific American railed on the insidious game of chess in July 1859:

via Wikimedia commons/Public Domain

“A pernicious excitement to learn and play chess has spread all over the country, and numerous clubs for practicing this game have been formed in cities and villages…chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements, while it affords no benefit whatever to the body. Chess has acquired a high reputation as being a means to discipline the mind, but persons engaged in sedentary occupations should never practice this cheerless game; they require out-door exercises–not this sort of mental gladiatorship.”

Or when an earl complained in an 1843 speech in the House of Commons:

via Wikipedia/Public Domain

“…a fearful multitude of untutored savages… [boys] with dogs at their heels and other evidence of dissolute habits…[girls who] drive coal-carts, ride astride upon horses, drink, swear, fight, smoke, whistle, and care for nobody…the morals of children are tenfold worse than formerly.

Not to mention society’s habit in general to believe:

“that “the good ‘ol days” are behind us and the current good-for-nothing generation and their new-fangled gadgets and culture are steering us straight into the moral abyss. “There has probably never been a generation since the Paleolithic that did not deplore the fecklessness of the next and worship a golden memory of the past,” notes Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist.” (Why Do We Always Sell the Next Generation Short?“)

Excessive screen time, of course, is a legitimate concern. But if we truly believe the adage that the youth are our future, we must temper our tendency to demonize the new and unknown and instead provide encouragement for the possibilities it provides.

We should take care not to allow our fear of change to limit our children’s capacity to influence the future. That includes leading them to believe that if their childhoods look different from ours, they won’t lead “normal” lives.

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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3 Tips to Help Students Rise Above the Echo Chamber

I recently had the opportunity to volunteer again as an exhibition mentor at my old IB PYP school. And, as usual, the children were brilliant, brimming with ideas and enthusiasm for taking the lead on their unit of inquiry.

But over the last few years, I’ve started to notice a puzzling trend: no matter how much research and exploring the kids do, and no matter how many counter-articles I suggest, the basic opinion they start with is often the opinion they end with (plus some charts and figures to support it). Why?

How do we help kids make the shift from searching out facts that support their existing opinions (something the internet is all-too-willing to give us all), to instead searching out the truth, even when the truth is surprising?

Here are 3 thoughts I’ve had since the end of this year’s exhibition (that hopefully I can better employ in mentoring next year!!). I would love to hear your suggestions, as well!

1. Model research that responds to the unexpected.

My first thought was on how we model research to our students. Most teachers extensively model how to find answers to their questions. But I wonder how often we show them what it looks like when we encounter an article or chart that assert alternative possibilities? Do we think aloud as we digest this new information, or do we discard it in our search for the information that backs us up? If the latter, I think we’re missing an important opportunity to teach students to be open to new ideas.

2.  Employ visible thinking protocols — especially “I used to think…Now I think…“

This is a kind of mental scaffolding exercise to help students break down their thinking and how it is evolving. Reflecting not just what our opinions are, but on why we have them is crucial for healthy metacognition for us all!

3. Play the “Devil’s Advocate.”

I have had a tendency as my students’ mentor to help them find articles to help them find out more about their topic — which generally involves research on their existing opinions. But I have come to realize that what they need more from me as a mentor is just the opposite — to share resources that directly contradict their claims, encouraging deeper digging and questioning.

Videos like these from Futurism come to mind, especially since they start with phrases like “Despite what you might have heard…”

https://futurism.com/videos/genetically-modified-food-is-a-great-advancement/

https://futurism.com/three-major-reasons-automation-wont-leave-you-unemployed/

In this information age, it’s easy for all of us to get stuck in our own echo chambers of opinion. It’s crucial we help our students learn to rise above it now.

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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When We Love Spreadsheets Too Much: Matching the Tech to the Need

Three years ago, I was hit with bed rest right before the start of our school’s IB PYP Exhibition (a student-led unit in which students exhibit their abilities to direct their own learning on a topic of their choice).

Though disappointed to miss out, I was pleased to discover that I could still mentor groups via Skype, which I’ve continued to do each year since.

However, we still had some hurdles to overcome with our unique mentor “meeting” setup. How to organize our ideas? How to keep track of when we’d meet next? How to exchange links to helpful resources?

I turned, as always, to Google apps, whipping up the collaborative little beauty below to send to the students via the teacher. With more than a little extra time on my hands (remember the whole bed-rest thing?), I found fancy fonts, froze the top rows, and everything.

It was a spreadsheet to be proud of, and I was excited to see it in action!

Only… it didn’t quite perform to my expectations.

For one thing, the kids didn’t have access to 1:1 tech, so they usually only saw the document through their teacher.

For another, they were frankly too busy to be bothered with updating yet another form! Exhibition is one fast-moving, action-packed unit!

Ultimately, the kids didn’t get a lot of the resources they needed in a timely manner, and our communications often felt encumbered.

So, as this year’s exhibition kicks off, we’re keeping it as functional as possible. As we Skype (something I continue as the school is too far from where I live), I type notes in a basic Google Doc just to keep track of the different groups’ ideas. Afterward, I’m emailing the teacher easy-to-print feedback or even pasted-out articles to get resources in those kids’ hands asap!

In the end, it’s possible that this problem might be unique to my quirky infatuation with creating neat and color-coded spreadsheets. However, the general principle applies universally. When we keep our sights on what’s best for the kids, we are less likely to get caught up in bells, whistles, and all-around helpful-in-theory-but-not-in-practice methods and resources. Here’s to a better year of exhibition mentoring!

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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3 Reasons 1st Grade Isn’t Too Early to Teach Digital Citizenship #TeacherMom

For a kid whose internet use is still limited almost exclusively to Netflix, I’ve been surprised just how enthralled my first grader has been by White Ribbon Internet Safety Week. I’m sure that this has more than a little to do with all the prizes her school is raffling off for participation, but still.

She came home eager to chat about all the Internet safety “power boosts.” What surprised me even more than her enthusiasm was her ability to make important connections, even without the context of full internet use.

So today’s #TeacherMom post is a follow-up on my post entitled, “3 Reasons High School’s Too Late to Teach Digital Citizenship.”

#1: It helps them build intuition and confidence.

In the course of our conversation, my daughter and I watched a Youtube video about cyberbullying that featured some boys taking a picture of a classmate, adding unkind captions, and then circulating it through the school. When we finished, my daughter told me about how an older student asked to take a selfie with her at Halloween, and she wondered if that had been cyberbullying.

In that moment, the protective mama-bear side of me just wanted to blurt, “Never let anyone take your picture without permission [because cyberbullying]!” But instead, we discussed that moment in the video when the boys sneakily snapped that girl’s photo and walked away laughing. I asked her how that moment felt, and how it compared to how she felt when the student asked to take a picture with her in their Halloween costumes.

She concluded that the older student had not intended any harm in her situation, and was able to begin to learn about identifying and trusting her own gut feelings. And since I know I won’t be there in most of her future moments of uncertainty, I’m grateful that she is learning such discernment now.

(I also loved that she made a great connection here with a phrase from her teacher: “Hurtful or helpful?”)

#2: It helps them learn to be true to themselves.

Given that my daughter doesn’t yet have much of an online presence, it was a bit confusing for her when we discussed the “power boosts” that involved friends doing or saying silly things online. But we were able to start the discussion about how some people think that their internet lives are different than their “real” lives, and so they do and say things online that they would never say in-person. I loved that we are already building the foundation that we should “ALWAYS be the same in person as you are online” (LivBits, an inspiring young digital citizen I recently wrote about). As a result, she doesn’t even have time yet to develop the notion that her online self will differ from her in-person self.

#3: It gives the opportunity to model our own digital lives. 

Because the White Ribbon week focuses on safety for young kids, one of the power boosts says, “I will use tech to connect with my REAL-LIFE friends. People online are not always who they say they are.” In this context, we discussed how there are people who try to “make friends” online and get kids to meet with them to cause harm. However, I also got to tell my daughter about how now, as an adult, I get to connect with and learn from teachers all over the world that I haven’t met. But we also returned again to safety measures that I take now as well.

When my daughter wants to play outside with friends in our neighborhood, we talk both about the safety and the possibilities. I am grateful for the opportunity to lay the same foundation for her digital life.

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto