Change Teaching Since Mobile Learning Devices as Outgrowth of Web 2.0

I feel that mobile learning with Smartphones, tablets, etc. comes as a natural outgrowth  of Web 2.0 and therefore our pedagogy with mobile learning has to be Web 2.0 or more.

Most older computer programs were top-down where the computer delivered the specific content and the student did that content in a specified path; they simply plugged in the answers.  Web 2.0 tools are  about the students  creating and interacting.

People used  the older phones  exclusively for talking.  Mobile learning devices allow today’s youth to  interact with the world, to create media,  and to access information.  Today’s youth determine what they want to do  and then use their  mobile learning device for that purpose.

If educators want  students to benefit from mobile learning devices in the classroom, then these educators have to change their teaching from the top-down deliver  teaching method to student engaged-interacting-creating.

Some ways teachers need to change:

1. Since students can access factual knowledge from their mobile learning device, teachers have to move from fact-delivers to  in-depth understanding and connections guiders.

2. Since students can text many other people and access multiple websites, teachers have to help students to evaluate and synthesize many diverse opinions about a particular learning concept/ situation.

3. Since students can access much  discrete information, teachers need to help students to go beyond the discrete learning to  see the big picture, the big  concept or question.

4. Since students can easily create media on their mobile learning device, teachers will move from just student text reports to media reports to demonstrate the students’ higher level  learning.

5. Since students can use the real world tools on the mobile learning devices, teachers will engage students in real life problems that use the critical learning.  Math students can help design a new playground for an elementary school in their district.

6. Since students can easily contact others and can access the web through their MLD , teachers will turn to collaborative project-based   in which students jig-saw their individual knowledge to form a  bigger learning.

7. Since students can ask peers and others for information through their MLD, teachers will help students write better survey questions and help the students  analyze survey data.

8. Since students can access online calendars and learning  interactive environments like Edmodo on their Smartphones and tablets, teachers will empower students  to be more responsible for their own learning.

9. Since students daily use their MLD, teachers can learn  from the students about the many educational and real-world apps that help students to become better learners.

So how has your teaching changed due to using mobile learning devices?

I have 20 Spanish spontaneous speaking/fluency activities  available at Teacherspayteachers:  http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle.

My three formative assessment books:   http://is.gd/tbook   

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Pollinate Great Learning Ideas Through Social Media

As administrators walk around and see examples of higher level learning,
they can capture the learning through pictures or videos. They will make sure that the pictures or videos clearly show the specific learning goal and the higher level learning as opposed to some “cute”
picture of students.  For example, an administrator takes a picture of a student made Social Studies concept map that contrasts the causes of the American Revolution and the American Civil War.  The administrator  posts it to the school website,  the school facebook page, or a flickr school page. Likewise,  the administrators can tweet  “English 8 students works in groups of three to help each other have more evidence and details in  their essay paragraphs.”  In addition, the building leader can record students talking about what they learned during a certain unit and then post this as part of the school podcasts. Through using technology, the administrators shares these great learning ideas with their buildings teachers so that these classroom  teachers can learn about  and implement new strategies for improving student learning.  Furthermore, the administrators will find that teachers will soon be contacting them about the higher level learning taking place in their classrooms so that their students can be featured in the next social media blast.

Tuttle’s Formative Assessment books

Dropbox – Great online storage

I almost never endorse products in this blog.  Dropbox is an exception. This  service  provides  free online storage of your data- up to 2 gb initially.    You can access your Dropbox from anyplace there is the Internet- desktop, laptop, tablet, phone, etc.  For example, the other day I left my flashdrive with all my class PowerPoints at home.  However, I just logged into Dropbox  from the classroom computer and downloaded the files.  Another time I realized just before class that I wanted to do an activity which was not on my flashdrive; within a few seconds, I had logged into Dropbox from the class computer and downloaded that activity.   Likewise, since I have Drop box downloaded on my laptop and notebook, I can alway make sure that the most current version of any file is available. I do not have to worry about updating or moving files from one machine to another.  I always work from my Dropbox files so they synch up.  In addition, I can easily share a file or folders with others.  If you get others to join, you get additional memory; if you share files, you get more memory.  For example, if you install Dropbox from the link below, I receive additional storage and you receive additional storage.

If you want to try it out, here is  link  http://db.tt/vcoAauE

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students, is available through Eye on Education.

Also, my  book,  Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, is available through Eye on Education.

Web 2.0, Audience and Draft or Best? (Glogster example)

Educators state that Glogster is a great Web 2.0 tool since it makes the students’ work visible to the world.  I assume that the educators mean that the audience will be other students, teachers, and parents. Do students publish their drafts or   final products?  Usually the idea of audience implies that what a student offers to his/her audience is a final product just as musicians practice in private and then perform their best in a concert.   However, in looking at several random Glogster projects in Spanish, I discovered many basic  student errors.  Are educators having their students put their best work up on the web or just putting up rough drafts? Do we want the audience to see the many errors or do we want the audience to see the students’ best work?

The other reason to publish something is for the reaction of others to improve the work.  However, it seems that most Glogster posters are “final” posters. They do not get reviewed by others and then modified. The students simply do the e-poster.

If we believe in the power of audience as an essential element of Web 2.0, then we need to help our students give their best performances and not just their practice. Let’s improve the quality of our students’ work on the Web and therefore, help others to learn from our students.

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students, is available through Eye on Education.

Also, my  book,  Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, is available through Eye on Education.

Make classroom Web 2.0 use interactive, not static

I thought that Web 2.0 was all about interactivity- someone does something and others respond. However, I’ve noticed that numerous Web 2.0  programs are used primarily in a one way mode  (publish and run mode)

Students use Voki to record their ideas.  However, the recording  usually serve as  the end product.  The recording does not encourage others to respond or build on the recording.  Yes, others can listen to it but they usually do not do anything after listening to it.  For example, Modern Language teachers may have their students record what they did last weekend in the second language.  Once the recording is done, the “learning” is done.  No one will probably listen to it except for the teacher.  I propose a transformation  so that class use of Voki goes from being in a static mode to an interactive  Web 2.0 mode.  Modern Language teachers can have students make Voki recordings that are questions that other class members can answer. For example, students can ask questions in the imperfect tense of their classmates “When you were a child, what was your favorite milk?” and the classmates can answer, “Yes, when I was child, my favorite drink  was chocolate milk.”

Likewise, students produce multi-media Glogster eposters.  However, their eposters occur at the end of their learning. Usually, no one is expected to take their information and react to it or build on it. For example, Social Studies students prepare country reports.   I propose a transformation  so that the class use of Glogster  goes from being in a  static mode to an interactive mode.  Social Studies teachers can ask students to compare/contrast the various county reports to see what commonalities show up about the countries. For example, what do the country reports from South Africa have in common? How do they differ?

How do you have your students use Web 2.0 interactively?

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students, is available through Eye on Education.

Also, my  book,  Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, is available through Eye on Education.

Meaningful Web 2.0 Tools Listings, Please

In searching for a good free web 2.0 program for making stories, I’ve found some common disturbing trends.  Often people simply list the tool’s name without even explaining what that program does.  Unfortunately, most Web 2.0 names do not reveal what type of program it is.  For example, Animoto is a presentation tool.  Some people even present an alphabetical listing of tools which does not help to find specific types of programs.

At least listers should include the category of the tool.  If people do categorize web 2.0 tools, then they usually do not tell what makes each unique.  For example, I recently opened a page that had  a listing of  15+storyboard programs. I had no way to tell how each program worked until I opened each.  Even a description such as ” create a story through selecting various characters and selecting scenes and typing the text”  tells me that students cannot record their own voices.

I would prefer that the educators list the “best” program in each category  and tell why it is the best.  I really do not care to see a  random list of 15+ programs of the same category.  Bigger is not better to a person searching for a specific type of program. Bigger is not better to someone who wants to know what a program really does.

Many times I wonder if the tool  listers have even used the program.  Rarely do I read anything practical about the program such as “The avatar voice of ….produces the  clearest  modern language voices.”  Why do listers  include programs that they have only heard about but not used?

Please, listers of Web 2.0 tools  be practical to really help other educators.  Do not try to overwhelm us!

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students, is available through Eye on Education.

Also, my  book,  Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, is available through Eye on Education.

Web 2.0 Learning Only Works With Critical Learning

Web 2.o  allows students to have more access to information through the social interactions. Collecting information is not creating knowledge.  Some  of my writing students have a ton of information about a topic through Web 2.0 tools but they cannot put the information together in a coherent fashion. The problem is not access to information; the problem is thinking.  As we get more into Web 2.0, we need to get more into Critical Thinking.  Students need to be able to analyze, synthesis, and evaluate information (Bloom) . They need to be able to see information from various perspectives (Chaffee) and to think through various aspects of the issue  such as purpose and  consequences  (Noisch). If we want to “teach” how to use Web 2.o tools, then we need to teach Critical Thinking.  Instead of  Web 2.o courses/”new literacies” courses, we need “Critical Thinking with Web 2.0” courses. The thinking skills will be transferable as new tech tools quickly evolve.

Let’s focus on critical 21st century thinking skills so we can use Web 2.0 tools wisely!

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Students, is available through Eye-on-Education.

Outside Reviewers Assess Learning in Web 2.0

My sister-in-law lives in Australia and is working on her dissertation. She says that only “experts in the field”, not university professors, will be the final reviewers of her dissertation.

I wonder how often with all of Web 2.0 tools that we have  that outside experts evaluate the work of our students? Do our students only produce work for us or do they produce real world work? Do they apply their math to real life projects so that others can react to their work? Do they investigate science environmental issues and have  local scientists review their work? Do they write up proposals for changes in traffic patterns in their English classes and then have local traffic officials look over the plans? Do our art students create designs for local buildings and then have people judge which design best fits their building?

Do we use Web 2.0 for real world learning or for academic within-the-classroom learning? Do we challenge our students to do real world work?

Social or Learning Network

Web 2.0 apps are called social networking. They build on people to people exchanges.  However, I wonder what we evaluate in the Web 2.0 apps.  Do we measure how much students learn academically? Do we measure how much they share that truly helps another student to grow academically?  Social learning is a critical part of the learning process if we structure it as students coming together to learn from each other or learning together.  The social is more the medium than the purpose. How do you evaluate your  students Web 2.0 learning?

Wii, Web 2.0 Learning, and Improving Student Learning?

I got to spend about 2 hours with Wii sports -bowling,baseball, tennis and golf. I am not very coordinated; you could say I’m ambispastic. I bowl with either hand, both equally poorly. When I play virtual bowling, I do even worse. Being virtual does not make me better.

So how do we prepare our students to be better at learning in Web 2.0 environments? Just popping them into Twitter, Wiki, Blog,  Social bookmarking, etc. does not make them any better learners.  How do we as teachers prepare them for and create environments that are more than just social environments  but that are truly learning  environments?  How do we structure an environment that creates in-depth thinking? That promotes comprehensive thinking about a learning goal? That causes the students to make the connections among big ideas?

I do not need to hear more student chatter, I want to hear more ahas.

How do you structure your Web 2 environments to be be powerful learning environments?

Oprah’s OnlineBook Club and Your Use of Technology

I joined Oprah’s online book club not just for the great book but to see how she does a book club online. I was intrigued by whom she had skype in, call in, or email in. I’m sure that she received thousands of online requests. I think that one criteria was location – she selected a person from China and another from Germany to show the world wide nature of the show. Each speaker was easy to understand, no heavy accents, only native English speaking people. She would wait to bring the outsider in until when they were at a particular point in the discussion. Each person amplified the topic that was being discussed at that moment. Since this online book club was live, I am sure that her staff was screening calls, synthesizing what book point each person was making, and deciding where that book point fit into where the discussion was in the show. Then someone made decisions as to which people best expanded or probed deeper into the book and forwarded that information to Oprah. She then waited to introduce the person at the appropriate moment. Did it work? Definitely. Powerfully.

How do we as teachers bring in appropriate resources at the “right” time to amplify what we are teaching? Do we have these electronic resources ready to bring into the classroom? Do the resources show a wide range of thinking to allow our students to explore the topic in-depth?

Cherry Picking Metaphor For Technology Integration

One summer I worked picking cherries. I would move a tall ladder into a cherry tree and pick as many cherries as I could from that one location before I would get down and move the ladder to another section of that same tree.

What if I told you that I moved the ladder to one tree, picked one cherry, moved the ladder to another tree, picked one cherry, and continued tree by tree picking one cherry each time? You would think I was crazy! Yet isnt’ that what many technology integration teachers do? They work with one teacher in one building, go to another building and work with one teacher, go to another building and work with one teacher. When they are done, they have a few cherries in their basket.

What if they had a cherry picking mentality of working with a large group of teachers from the same building – perhaps, all 7th grade social studies teachers, perhaps all English teachers at the high school, or perhaps all elementary teacher in one building interested in using a wiki in their classroom? By working with a group, there can be group momentum and collaboration. The technology integration teacher can work with a larger group at once in the same building and help them to be successful in learning how to integrate the technology into the classroom. The classroom teachers can feel excited by the success of their students in improved learning through the onsite mentoring of the technology integration teacher.The technology integration teacher can collect many cherries at once; he or she can share with the building principal a big success instead of just working with one person. The technology integration teacher can collect large groups of cherries in each building; therefore, they have a huge basket of cherries in just a few months.

How do you collect technology integration cherries?

Online Writing Programs- Not Formative Feedback

I’ve begun to look at online writing assessment programs. The one thing that I have noticed is that the feedback is very general such as “May have organization in parts, but lacks organization in other parts”. How helpful is that feedback to a struggling writer? Does it tell him/her what specific parts are organized or what parts are not organized? Does it tell the student what to do to organize the part? Does it provide scaffolding to help the student organize the part? The bottom line is “How likely is it that the student will improve based on the feedback?”

So far the online writing program that I have seen do not give formative  feedback. I’m afraid the students using these online writing programs now  somewhat know  something about what they did without being given the tools to move forward in their writing.

Digital Classroom – Technology Rich or Technology Poor

In one room that I teach I have a desktop and an LCD. Not even a printer. It is very difficult to be a Web 2.0 class when there are not computers for students. It is hard to be a Web 1.0 when I just have the one computer. There is no Smartboard, no clickers, or nor other interactive technologies. I’m the only interactive technology. The Tech Director had to modify settings to allow me to use programs like YouTube. There are two log-ins. Sometimes technology is almost too difficult to use.

Yes, I do use technology in class but it takes effort to figure out how to do it interactively. Students answer questions in turn instead of individually answering questions like they would  do if they had their own computers.  Students cannot move at their own pace, they move in -lock step.  Students cannot take online quizzes to measure their progress.

Let’s get rid of digital divide! Let’s harness the  power for learning that technology brings to the classroom.

Converting Long URLS (website addresses) to short Ones Via Tinyurl

In my classroom, I have an LCD device but I cannot send out websites to the students. (Emailing website URLs is a chore.) They have to copy theURL  and then enter them. Whenever I give them a long URL they often make mistakes in copying it.  The solution is the tinyurl site which takes a long URL and converts it a very short URL. For example, http://www.authenticeducation.org/bigideas/article.lasso?artId=63&-session=Auth:8D95D4D40533c2028AMsFEF5FFBB

becomes http://tinyurl.com/35m6xn.

Converting to a tiny URL works great for twitter or written material.

Try it and you  be amazed at how it makes it easier for your students!

Teaching or Educating with Web 2.0 Tools

If teaching is to impart (or stuff in) knowledge & educating is to nourish (or pull out), which do we use technology for?

Any technology can be used for either. A wiki can be used to push stuff in such as a chapter summary or it can be used to have students think through the pros and cons of a real life situation.   Just because a technology is a Web 2.0 does not make it an educating technology.   Videoconferencing can deliver lectures (teaching) or have students share similarities and differences in local folktales (educating).  Social bookmarking does not necessarily educate, it can just provide lists of websites (teaching).

How do you use Web 2.0 Tools?

Free or Inexpensive Grading Books

I’m looking for a free or inexpensive online grading book since my institution does not have any class management system.

Engrade is a free online grade book (gradebook and notifies parents/students). Likewise, HotChalk is also free; it is a grade book and notifies parents/students.

There are a few inexpensive  grading book programs such as Class Builder $39.99 (grade book, quiz maker, and class web page) and Quia $49.00 (has grade book, quizzes, and learning activities like cloze activity).  Even if  I were to pay $49.00 a year, it is a cheap price to pay to have quizzes  graded, have grades calculated, and give students access to their grades.

What free or inexpensive grade book type program do you use?

Concept Maps – Yours or the Students’ Learning

Some high school teachers were sharing the success of using concept maps in their classes. These teachers had created their concept maps in Inspiration. They were proud that their students could complete the concept maps.

I wonder if they had their students create their own concept map from scratch. Do they allow students to select which type concept map they will use to display their learning? Do they allow their students the growth opportunity to decide what to include on the map? Do they allow students to work through the creation of the concept map as they learn information or concepts over time? Do they allow students to own their own learning instead of doing a “fill-in-the-blank” type of teacher given concept map?

What experiences have you had with your students creating their own concept maps?

Using iGoogle

I’ve tried using many browser pages as my home page/starting page for when my browser opens.  They have been disappointing in their inflexibility.  iGoogle is very flexible and has a multitude of gadgets that you can use.

You can click on the “Add stuff” on the upper right side of the screen.  I would suggest that instead of scrolling through all the possible  gadgets, you do a search for your favorite topic such as calendar, maps, clock, etc. – see the upper right side.  Once you find something you want, you click on Add it now. When you go back to iGoogle home, you’ll see it in the upper left. You can click on the top bar of any  gadget to move it around- drag and drop. I’ve added a to-do list, calendar, timer, gmail (to mention a few) so that I can use this as my portal.  If you try out a gadget and it does not help you to be more efficient or productive, you can click on the X to remove it.  You can even add a theme to the top of your page. There are so many gadgets available that you can truly use iGoogle as your starting page.

If find any great educational gadgets, share them.

Finding Information on the Web: Search Engine or Metasearch Engine

Google searches its own collection of information. However, other search engines are metasearch engines which mean that they search numerous search engines at the same time. You cover more territory with just a few clicks. Also since each search engine has its own strengthens and weaknesses, when you use a metasearch engine you find a variety of different sources.

Some metasearch engines:

http://www.ixquick.com

http://www. dogpile.com

http://www.mamma.com

http://www.metacrawler.com

http://www.polymeta.com

Try them and see if you find better, more diversified, results than with your present favorite search engine. Do you have another favorite metasearch engine?