Is it really MOBILE learning?

Mobile learning or mlearning is the hot topic.  An interesting question is “Is it mobile learning or just wireless learning (not fixed to wired device)?”

Do students do their mobile learning from their usual desk/chair?  If they stay in one spot, it is truly “mobile” learning or is it just wireless learning?

Students do mobile learning when they

1) Interact with other classmates.  If they regroup and work within their new group, they  are mobile. For example,  on one day, they work in small groups to brainstorm ideas,  each student independently develops one of the ideas on his/her own and, then,  the regroup to put together their ideas.   Their learning does not happen in just one fixed  location, their desk.

2) Use data from various parts of  the classroom. They may have QR stations where they do various aspects of the learning goal.  An art teacher  may have QR codes  in each corner of the room that help students compare/ contrast four styles of painting for the same theme of family.  Modern Language students may be asked to look at a poster, painting, or picture, pretend to be in the picture, have a conversation, and record that conversation.

3) Capture data from other parts of the room.  Science students may use their mobile device to take pictures of their growing plant over many weeks, of how far the sun’s light go inside the classroom over several months. Math  students can take pictures of  real math problems with the prices of actual  food such as a gallon of milk for $3.99

3)  Interview other people in the school for information and views.  The wandering students can take their mobile device, record the conversation, take a movie of something, or  take pictures.  ??????

4) Use data or capture specific  information from other parts of the school or community.  Social Studies students can take pictures of local history places, events or objects, interview community members for their memories, put together a wiki page for that place, and create QR codes to show how that place played a critical role  in the development of the place.  They put an actual QR code in front of the historical place.

5) Access in-depth information on a topic from other students and people.  Music students may create online surveys of what type music people listen to and how often. They can ask the survey takers to explain their choice of music and, then the students analyze the data.

6) Interact with people from other parts of the state, country, and world.  Students can use relatives and friends to find people other locations. For example, a student from Rochester NY may interact with a student from Quito, Ecuador regarding  celebrations to find similarities and differences.

7) See multiple views.  Since  each student in a small group can each access information (music, pictures, movies, text), students can see different views of the bigger picture and then create a synthesized view. In an English class, a group might focus on the human condition of romantic  love. One student finds a work of art, one finds a poem, one finds a song, and one finds a movie; they collaborate on showing different types of romantic love.

8)  Collaborate with   students and others  as part of their homework

9) Develop individual learning projects based on interest as well as group collaborative projects.  In Science students can explore a certain aspect of pollution (noise, chemical, in the air, etc) that interests them. They can develop their own hypothesis (school halls have more noise than an airport) and then gather data to prove it.

Mobile learning implies mobility of  physical place, mobility of expanding thinking, and mobility of interacting with others inside and outside the classroom, and mobility of individual work.

My Spanish spontaneous speaking activities (20+) includes Modified Speed Dating (Students ask  a question from a card), Structured Speaking (Students substitute in or select words to communicate),  Role Playing (Students talk as people in pictures or drawing) and Speaking Mats (Can talk using a wide variety of nouns, verbs and adjectives to express their ideas),  Spontaneous Speaking (based on visuals or topics),  and Grammar speaking games. Available for a nominal fee at Teacherspayteachers:  http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle

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

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Use any Web 2.0 tool at any Level of Bloom’s Taxonomy, Don’t be Limited by Listings

I have been teaching for many years.  In fact, one of my earliest presentations was on “Using Print Shop at All Levels of Bloom” (the original Print Shop).  Therefore, whenever I see the listings that supposedly say what Web 2.0 tools works at what level of Bloom’s taxonomy, I become very confused. A few of the many such listings are http://www.usi.edu/distance/bloom%20pyramid.jpg, http://tsheko.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/visualblooms1.jpg?w=500&h=359, http://www.bcps.org/offices/lis/Reference/images/web_2_Bloom.jpg, and http://edtech2.boisestate.edu/candacemcenespy/Images/vectormap.gif There is only a very slight overlap among the listing, each usually puts the same Web 2.0 tools at different thinking levels.

Let’s look at Google docs which a few sites place at the lowest level of Bloom, Remember/Knowledge. Google docs can be used to help students recall information. However, it can just as easily be used to paraphrase the information (from the original Shakespeare to modern day texting messages), to apply/use information (How does Pareto’s 20/80 rule apply to this story? ), to analyzing/contrasting (How are these two poems the same? Different?), to evaluating (Which literature that we have read this year best expresses man’s inhumanity to man? Why?), and synthesize/creating (Write a short story in which you mock some modern day thinking or organization.)

Teachers determine how any Web 2.0 tool is used. They determine at what Bloom’s level they will use the Web 2.0 tool. If they want their students to be bigger thinkers, they will use the higher levels of Bloom. If the teachers want their students to remain in small thinking, they will use the lower levels.

The choice of what level to use any Web 2.0 is up to the teacher. At what level do you use each Web 2.0 tools? Do you consciously build up Bloom’s taxonomy with each different technology you use during a unit?

Tuttle’s formative assessment books:   http://is.gd/tbook

Using Modern Language (FL) Apps Even When …

I have written a blog about identifying and categorizing Spanish apps. As I’ve been thinking about the present state of modern language /foreign language apps, I’ve realized that the inadequacies of these language apps present great learning opportunities for our students.

Students can look at and do a vocabulary or phrase modern language app /foreign language app such as Learn Spanish ((Droid) or Hola (Droid)

Then

– Students can analyze what important vocabulary is missing from the topic and make a supplementary list. For example, the housing category may have tableware but not bed or chair.

– If the app only presents individual words, the students can create a meaningful target language sentence or question for each word. For example, for the word “lake”, the students may ask “What is your favorite lake?”

– Students can analyze what important phrases or questions are missing and can create those lists. They may see look at a “time”category but they find that the question “When?” is missing. They make up a question using that question word.

– They can analyze what important topics are missing from the app. Perhaps the app has housing and animals but does not have occupations and city places.

– They can see how many meaningful sentences they can create from the present vocabulary list.

– They can answer any questions given in the app. For example, they can answer “How much does this cost?” with the price of a shirt.

– They can rearrange the questions or statements to create a logical conversation about the topic.

– They can think of a typical language task for a topic such as having a dirty spoon on the restaurant table and use the existing sentences and add others to be able to get a clean spoon.

In this way, students go from consumers to producers. They analyze what they are doing to see what is missing. They think about critical vocabulary, phrases, and topics instead of simply doing a drill program. They do not just repeat but they answer or comment on. They build on. The students become language users!

How do your students deal with modern language apps that do not do everything  well?

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.

Assessing Web 2.0 Projects Through Bloom And Time

I offer the following mini-assessment of any Web 2.0 project as a way to refocus our attention on student learning rather than the Web 2.0 tool.

Take the highest level of Bloom achieved during the project

1- Knowledge                                  2. Comprehension

3 – Application                               4. Analysis

5.5 Synthesis                                   5.5 Evaluation

and multiple it by the number of days in the project.

So, if Susan produces a Social Studies podcast that simply restates (Comprehension) information about George Washington after five days, her score is 2 (Comprehension) x 5 (days) or 10.

If Pablo produces a Social Studies podcast in which he goes through the problem solving steps that George Washington went through and evaluates his final solution (5.5) in two days, his score would be Evaluation (5.5) x 2 = 11

Based on this analysis, a two day project of higher level thinking rates a higher score than a longer project. Let’s focus on student learning!

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

Formative Assessment and Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment by Harry Grover Tuttle

My book. Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment will be available from Eye-on-Education in the Fall.

Woeful Book Wiki Turned to Wow Book Wiki

As I prepare for my NECC presentation on assessing Web 2.0 tools, I have visited many schools’ wikis, websites, etc.

I’m feeling more and more discouraged.  I’ve noticed that most wikis are simply an online collection of student work. For example, all students in a class may do a book report and these book reports are posted to the class wiki.  The students post their book report and the project is done when the last book report is posted. There has been no interaction among students or other adults.  They have only worked in one learning style, linguistics.  Likewise, the students have paraphrased  (summarized) their book; they have not analyzed it.

Let’s look at another version of a book wiki.  The teacher asks all students to select a book that has friendship as a theme. They read their book and post an explanation of  how the book demonstrates friendship (analysis level of thinking). They create a drawing or a concept map that shows the specific  friendship in their book and post that to the wiki.  Then the students select at least three other book reviews to read. After they read each review, they comment on how their own book’s theme of friendship  is similar or different to this student’s review. They come up with an example of that book’s friendship from their lives and post it. Then the class has a discussion on various types of friendship.

Let’s change wikis from just a collection place to an interactive high-level thinking learning place.

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

Not a life Threatening event for Doing Homework

This semester I’m trying a new strategy which  is to reduce the pressure to be “perfect” on assignments.  Recently, I told students to do their best at this given stage but that doing the essay was not a life threatening event.  I then added that once they hand the essay in, I’ll give them feedback and then they can make those changes. Furthermore, I told them that what I wanted to see is improvement through the semester so their beginning papers would be baby steps in doing the essay.  I could see many faces changed from pure panic to less stress.  Some students even leaned back instead of being so far forward I thought they were going to fall. My hope is that if  they can feel less stress, they will work more from thinking than from fear.  I’ll let you know if this less stress and more thinking strategy pays off.

Do you build in stress or take out stress in your students’ work?

Integrating Thinking Through Reading

As teachers we can incorporate many critical thinking through reading activities into our classroom. We can have students:

Annotate the text

Explain the context of the reading

Outline or Summarize

Predict

Ask questions about the text

Compare/ contrast to other readings

Connect to other readings or other things containing the ideas found in the text

Encouraging Student Errors

I believe that we have to encourage students’ to make errors since only when they make errors do they reveal their in depth thinking.  If students get a correct answer, we do not know if they remembered it from class, copied it from their textbook  or if they truly understood the concept. When they answer incorrectly, we can see their thinking- their misconceptions, their faulty logic,  and their lack of comprehension of the learning goal.  Once we see their errors and  diagnose the errors, then we can provide formative feedback to help them.  The feedback will be differentiated based on their unique answers.

Right answers do not reveal students deep thinking while errors do.

How do you engage your students in in depth projects where they can show their thinking and their errors?

Quiz- Book’s answers or students’ in-depth thinking

I recently gave a quiz on a textbook chapter; they had done six exercises applying the ideas in the chapter. The ten item quiz had application and evaluation questions; I had taken the questions from the book’s test bank.

As each student came up with the quiz, I corrected it. Next I asked the students to reread the question and tell me their thinking for their answer. However, about 3/4 of the “wrong” answers were not “wrong” if you explored the students’ thinking. In one question, the book had the correct answer as the four steps in the negative message, a student reasoned that it was more important to think about your negative message first and then plan your four steps around it. I agreed with him. In another question, a student said that a certain positive word in one of the answers might go against the negative bad news so she selected another answer. Good thinking.

I was overwhelmed by how thoughtful they were in their thinking. They were “right”!

Simulation Possibilities For Education

Someone I know is responsible for a weapons simulation that mimics the real life experience of shooting fire arms. The simulation gun fires virtual bullets; the simulation gun weighs the same as the real weapon and even has the exact kickback that the real weapon has. The shooters can find out if they are proficient in their weapon. Weapons people can practice their shooting regardless of the weather. They do not waste millions of dollars of ammunition.

How do we put our students in simulations that allow them to experience a real-life situation with all of its complex variables? How do have our students take on tasks that enable them to combine many skills to solve a problem? Or do we present them with simple stripped down problems that are not real-world? We can find a real simulation like those in Social Studies or we can begin to create ones based on real-life problems in our community, state, nation or world.

How do you engage students in powerful simulations that promote higher level thinking of many skills?