Mobile learning benifits at-risk students

Via @MindShiftKQED: Mobile Learning Proves to Benefit At-Risk Students | http://t.co/5gkkz1o #MobileLeadless than a minute ago via Tweet Button Favorite Retweet ReplyLucy Gray
elemenous

This week, Lucy Gray tweeted a posting by KQED's Mind Shift about a program using mobile phones in Algebra classrooms.  Project K-Nect provided smart phones to at-risk youth at a school in North Carolina.  Students used the phones to solve math problems and collaborate with each other via blogs, instant messaging, and email.  They used photos and video to capture their problem solving strategies.  And the program seemed to work.  Most all students demonstrated proficiency by the end of the course.  In addition, compared to students not given the smart phones, Project K-Nect students were more likely to say math was easy, express interest in taking more math classes including AP classes, report being more engaged, and express interest in going to college.

The results presented here are fantastic.  Many students find math difficult and unengaging, and giving them smart phones to do it seemed to really address these problems, not to mention they became much more proficient.  Yay math!

My question about studies like this is how much of this is a novelty effect?  Presumably these students did not have smart phones before the study.  If the students were already proficient and prolific smart phone users (as many students are), would using smart phones to do algebra make algebra more engaging?  I guess my problem is - how sustainable of a model for engaging students is this.  If the effect is due to the novelty of the smart phones, then when all students have smart phones, this model will no longer work.  However, if the effect is due to the interaction with the other students, then I'm not sure that smart phones are necessary.  This sort of interaction could be fostered by working in groups on algebra during and after class.  So I guess I need some more information and some long-term thinking on this issue before I can get too excited. 

Bloom's Digital Taxonomy

Excellent reference from Andrew Churches Bloom's Digital Taxonomy http://bit.ly/nmHptaless than a minute ago via Visibli Favorite Retweet ReplyVicki Davis
coolcatteacher

This tweet from Vicki Davis led me to an extensive article by Andrew Churches updating Bloom's taxonomy for the 21st century, and to explicitly include Web 2.0 tools.

The first thing that I really liked was Churches's emphasis on collaboration.  One of his sections is titled "Collaboration is not a 21st century skill, it is a 21st century essential."  I think a lot of the classroom techniques we have been learning this summer emphasize collaboration in the classroom, but assessment is largely solo.  This sends the message to students that its okay to work together, but that at the end of the day you are being judged on your own.  However,  the ability to work in a group is an essential skill.  It is important to remember this for assessments and include collaboration and the ability to collaborate as part of assessment. 

The main reason I really liked this article is because Church went through the different levels of Bloom's taxonomy and linked the level with different digital tools.  This is probably totally unnecessary for teachers use to working with Bloom's taxonomy and with digital tools, but for a newbie like me it was very helpful.  It helped me to understand both Bloom's and digital tools better.  For example, knowledge can be demonstrated by collecting information from the internet.  Understanding can be demonstrated by creating a blog post.  Application can be demonstrated when students contribute to and edit a wiki page.  Analysis can be demonstrated when students collect data using google forms and analyze and present that data.  Evaluation can be demonstrated when students moderate a digital debate.  Creating can be demonstrated when students make a voicethread.  These are just a few examples - the nice thing about this article is that he gives a ton of examples and grading rubrics to evaluate whether student's are reaching the desired stage. 

One thing I really liked about reading this article - thanks to TIE558 and RLR503, I was actually familiar with many of the programs he mentioned, which would not have been the case a month ago.  This article is two years old, and I am curious how out-of-date it is already.

Student blogging

New! Using Blogs to Engage English Language Learners http://bit.ly/pWQIXj #ellchat #edchat #ntchat #edtechless than a minute ago via TweetDeck Favorite Retweet Replyedutopia
edutopia

This tweet linked to a blog post on Edutopia.  The blog post was one teacher's experience using blogs to encourage students to write.  Most of the students in Mr. Schwartz's 4th grade class are English language learners.  He identified five challenges to having students blog:  increasing parent engagement, internet safety, keeping students engaged, instilling 21st century skills, and building confidence.  His experience was extremely positive, where students who had been reluctant to write became enthusiastic daily bloggers.  An important part of the experience was that most all of the students were blogging, so they were responding to one another.  Responding to what other people had blogged and seeing how many people read their blog posts encouraged students to keep writting.  As you can see from the list of challenges, the blogging became about more than just writting, but tied into a lot of important issues. 

One thing that concerns me about using technology like this in the classroom is students who do not have access to computers and the internet at home.  However, Mr. Schwartz found that most of his students from disadvantaged backgrounds did have computers and internet at home.  Also, he incorporated the blogging into class time.

There are two great ways I see to incorporate student blogging into my science classes.  The first is to have students post their lab reports on their blogs.  The prompt would be for students to put the scientific language of their lab reports into every day language to share with the general public.  This is one of those high-on-Bloom's-taxonomy tasks that requires students to really understand the content.  The second is to have students write responses to current events in science.  Overall, I see blogging in the classroom as a way to make science more engaging and encouraging writting, and I'm excited to try it.

Infographics as Assessment

My blog post this week was inspired by this tweet: 

Infographics as Assessment http://t.co/3ybypW5 by @rmbyrne <--Can't believe I never paid more attention 2 this awesome blog! #edchat #sschatless than a minute ago via Twitter for iPad Favorite Retweet ReplySuzie Nestico
nesticos

(Holey moley - I "baked a blackbird pie" and it actually worked!) 

Which lead me to a blog, and then another blog, where I found a fun video all about infographics  (https://sites.google.com/a/kathyschrock.net/infographics/home).  The video was a brief tutorial on what is an infographic, lots of examples, and directions and tools for making one. 

An infographic is simply visual representation of information - a way to present complex information or data simply and clearly.  Some types of infographics include USA Today snaphsots, presenting statistical information, timelines, and describing a process (you see a lot of these in the Atlantic used to varying degrees of effectiveness).

The steps to creating an infographic are 1. select a layer based image editor (such as pixlr), 2. have students investigate types of visuals, 3. conduct research, 4. create a rough draft, 5. teach students about copyrights for the images they will be using (Creative Commons), 6. gather and create assets, 7. teach a little bit about effective use of color, font, and design, 8. teach about layout, and 9. teach an organizational model (LATCH - location, alphabet, time, category, or hierarchy).  Now that sounds like a lot of steps, and I think it could take a while to go through the first time.  But after that, students would be able to concentrate on the meat of the assignment instead of the design and procedural details.  Putting students into groups could also help smooth the process, especially if each group contained at least one student who is very tech savvy.  After the students are familiar with how to make an infographic, the procedure would be streamlined to something like: 1. keep it simple, 2. decide on a color scheme, 3. research some great stats and facts, 4. make sure the arguments hold, 5. make complex data easy to understand,  6. draw conclusions, 7. cite the sources used.

Beside the fact that they look pretty cool, what I liked best about the infographics is using them as an authentic assessment.  We see infographics all the time - in the newspaper, in magazines, on web pages.  So they really are authentic.  They just feel more authentic and useful than "make a poster."  But what I like most is how simple they are - students really have to pare all the information down to the essentials to create a great infographic, so they have to demonstrate that they really know what they are talking about.  Making them requires some pretty important literacy skills pertaining to searching for information, getting essential points out of a reading, and sharing information succinctly Another think I like is that they can be used for persuasion or for information, but either way for verbs pretty high up on Bloom's taxonomy.  Besides the time required to teach the process, a problem I see is it could be difficult to create a grading rubric that still leaves a lot of room for student-driven creativity.  Overall, I'm excited to try using these as performance assessment!

Testing creates better memory than constructivism?

LabOutLoud, a podcast and blog for science teachers, posted a tweet with the intriguing text "To really learn, quit studying and take the test".  This linked to the blog Blaseria with a picture of a graph showing student's recall of a science text after four different study methods.  This blog linked to an article in the New York Times based on an article in the journal Science.  So I read the article (Epub ahead of print in the week's Science), and this is what I think.

We know that each time you access a memory, you change it.  Drs Karpicke and Blunt at Purdue wanted to know whether retrieving memories also helps you learn them, and if it helps you learn any differently than other popular study methods. 

Undergraduates studied a science text under one of four conditions:  study-once, where they studied the text in a single study period; repeated study, where the studied the text in four consecutive study periods; elaborative concept mapping, where they learned how to make concept maps and created concept maps while reading the text; and retrieval practice, where they studied the text then practiced retrieval by recalling as much of the information as they could on a free recall test.  The latter three strategies were controlled so students spent the same amount of time with the text.  One week later, students returned and took a short answer test including verbatim and inference questions, which assess different depths of conceptual knowledge. 

Students who used retrieval practice performed significantly better on the test than did students who used the repeated study or concept mapping methods.  Single study students did the worst. 

They repeated the experiments with 120 new students, all of which studied two texts and used cognitive mapping on one and retrieval practice on the other, and half took the original short-answer test and half took a cognitive mapping test.  In all cases, students who studied using retrieval practice still outperformed other students. 


(figure from the New York Times)

So what does this all mean for us as teachers?  I think the important thing to note is the method of the retrieval practice group. They studied the text for 5 minutes, then sat down and did a free write for 10 minutes about the text but without the text in front of them.  This could help in a few ways.  One, they were practicing the skill they would have to use on the test, of recalling the material without seeing the text.  Second, they could identify gaps in their knowledge and focus on those parts during later sessions. 

The surprising part of the study is how much better the retrieval practice group did compared to the concept mapping group.  Cognitive mapping is a constructivist, progressive task that is very popular.  Retrieval practice is just taking more tests.  I certainly don't think we should give up constructivist learning tasks in favor of more tests based on this article.  However, I do think we could use the results of this study to make learning more effective.  The best way to do that would be to have the students read the text, then make their cognitive map without the text in front of them.  This would force them to retrieve the text will making connections.  Once they have a draft of the map, they can go back and reread the text and adjust their maps accordingly.  The important point is that students remember better when they have to think back and recall a text, not just work with it.  It will be interesting to see what new studies come out based on this one, and where they take us!

Starting my Personal Learning Network (PLN) - who I'm following on Twitter

To begin my PLN, I'm following these ten people on twitter:
Lucy Gray @elemenous
Linda Lutton @lindalutton
Steven Anderson @web20classroom
Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher
Suzie Nestico @nesticos
Will Richardson @willrich45
Wesley Fryer @wfryer
Sheryl NusstaumBeach @snbeach
Clif Mims @clifmims
Jeffrey Decker @jeffreyldecker

I'm sure I'll be learning a lot from them!

Introduction to TPACK