Finally! Scientific research from a reliable, respected source about the effect of technology on student achievement! I have been heavily engaged with educational technology for more than 6 years. For 4 years I taught fifth grade in a technology-infused classroom, and I’ve been a technology integration specialist for the past 2 years. I knew from the beginning that the use of technology had a positive impact on student learning, but most of the benefits I observed were non-measurable with a test: higher motivation, increased engagement, improved student focus, development of problem-solving skills, more collaborative learning, improved student behavior with fewer office referrals, growth in digital literacy, and increased student efficacy. While all of these effects are significant gains for 21st Century learners, the bottom line comes down to student achievement, and up until this time, I knew of no data-rich research that documented the impact of technology on student achievement.
Dr. Robert Marzano, one of our nation’s leading scholars in the field of educational research, has begun studying this issue and recently presented his findings in the keynote speech at CUE. Using 85 teachers across the nation who taught one class using an interactive whiteboard and another “control” class without the technology, he examined the effect of the use of an interactive whiteboard on student achievement. He discovered 4 variables that affected results: overall years of teaching experience, length of time in months of experience in using a whiteboard, percentage of time the whiteboard is used in the classroom, and teacher’s confidence level in ability to use the technology effectively. The research showed that optimal student achievement gains (the “sweet spot” according to Marzano) are possible with these conditions: a very experienced teacher who has at least 2 years of experience using an interactive whiteboard, uses it about 75% of the time, and is confident in his/her ability to effectively use the technology. According to Marzano, such a teacher may expect up to 30 percentile point gains in student achievement. Marzano admitted that all research is equivocal, and that ultimately the most significant factor in student achievement, with or without technology, is teacher quality.
His suggestion for effective use of technology was to focus on content, not the bells and whistles. He also gave a reminder of the importance of keeping track of which students are getting it and which are not. That point led Marzano into commentary about formative assessment and the use of technology for record-keeping. He asserted that assessment should be an instructional technique, not a labeling technique. It’s important to examine lots of data over time to get the best picture of a student’s progress. The most significant acievement gains came from tracking student progress over time using a rigorous rubric-based model. The implications are that teachers need professional development in both effective teaching and the effective use of technology to maximize growth in student achievement.
I first learned of Gcast last summer at the Upstate Technology Conference in a session led by Elizabeth Kohut. When you’re at a tech conference, you always learn more than you have time to explore, so although I was intrigued with the idea of creating a podcast with a cell phone, it was one of those new ideas that got put on the back burner.
This year I’ve seen a growing interest in podcasting by my teachers. Only several of them have iPods in their classrooms. Usually when a teacher has a podcast idea, they will schedule a time for me to come into the classroom with my iPod, and I help record and publish. As I was preparing for this month’s technology staff development grade level sessions, I was considering what new technology tools I might introduce to them. This is how GCast resurfaced for me. Every teacher has a cell phone, and GCast is so simple to use!
Sign up for a free GCast account and create your PIN.
Call the GCast number from your cell phone and enter your PIN.
When you are ready to record a podcast, call the same number and enter your PIN. You will be prompted to push # to begin recording and push # again when you have finished. Then you have options to listen to your recording, discard your recording, or publish your recording.
Within a few minutes, your recording shows up on your account page on the GCast website.
You then have the option to publish your podcast. GCast has it’s own little podcast player that can easily be embedded in a blog or web page by copying and pasting the code.
This is another fast, easy way to connect our students with the world, to give them an opportunity to have their voices heard, and to provide them with an authentic audience as they express their learning.
Last week I listened to a Discovery Education webinar with Tony Vincent, “I Didn’t Know You Could Do That with IPods.” One of the best things I learned was a great tool for converting YouTube videos into MP4, FLV, AVI, MPG, and other file formats. It was exciting to discover an easy way to be able to use YouTube content in the classroom. YouTube is blocked in my district, so I previously haven’t spent much time exploring and searching, but I have been amazed to see how much good educational content is out there! My math coach and I recently received an iTouch through a grant, and we’re working on finding and creating math content that would be useful to students. I’ve downloaded over 30 videos in a short amount of time. It’s so easy! All you have to do is type in the word kick in front of the word youtube in the video URL.
Example: http://kickyoutube.com/watch/?v=skX6RnnIkuM#VQsQj1Q_CMQ
Here are a couple of my favorite YouTube finds:
Multiplication Tables: Created initially in the computer lab at the juvenile detention center in Portland, Oregon, these catchy, rap-style videos will be very helpful for students needing help learning multiplication facts.
Learning Upgrade: This company offers online courses in reading and math, but they have loaded a few of their professionally done videos to YouTube.
My friend, John Geanangel, shared this original quote yesterday: “Give a child an answer – you have solved their immediate problem.
Teach a child to Google – you‘ve taught them to solve their own problems.”
I think this phrase beautifully sums up the necessary shift in pedagogy that needs to take place in our thinking, in our planning, and in our classrooms. When I was a child, the focus of education was simply memorizing math facts, memorizing sight words, or memorizing important dates in history. Now, there is simply too much information available to memorize it all.
IDC offered a report in 2007 on information growth, and now provides 2008 edition (.pdf): “In this companion to last year’s EMC-sponsored white paper, IDC again calibrates the size (bigger than first thought) and the growth (faster than expected) of the digital universe through 2011″. The main website also allows people to calculate their digital footprint.
The field of informatics (i.e. study of information) is not very developed. We are all impacted by information growth and development – in fact this is one of the areas that most impacts us – and yet we have at best a rudimentary understanding of the nature of information. Sure, we have people telling us information is exploding…that it’s overwhelming…and so on. But that’s a bit like saying the patient has a fever. I’d like to know more. I’m surprised at how little we actually understand of information itself, especially when considering the tremendous impact on our lives.
The study, The Diverse and Exploding Digital Universe, predicts that between 2006 and 2011, digital information will grow ten-fold in five years, from under 200 exabytes to 1800 exabytes. So what does this mean for educators? There’s already so much information available that I can’t take it all in, and neither can our students. Our focus as educators must strongly shift to teaching our students how to research, explore, and find the informational resources they need. We need a greater emphasis on conceptual learning and application of learning strategies.
All of the second graders in my school learned the definition of the word research this year, and they have continued to learn throughout the year through research projects. They understand that research is finding needed information and that sometimes they have to search again and again to find what they need. They have made connections to see that finding the location and time of the movie they want to see is research. One little girl came up to me in the hall one morning and proudly told me that she had done “research” at home last night to find out about her baby sister’s rash. She has begun her journey to become information literate.
Yes, John has it right…“Teach a child to Google – you‘ve taught them to solve their own problems.”
Twitter has been around since March 2006. I have to admit that when I first heard of it, I was skeptical. Twitter asks a single question, “What are you doing?” and gives you up to 140 characters to answer the question. It just seemed too mundane and a waste of time, so I didn’t sign up. There are only so many hours in a day, so you have to choose carefully how you’re going to invest your time. But a little over a year ago, a friend encouraged me to check it out, and I’m hooked! Evidently lots of other people are as well. TechCrunch reports:
In February, 4 million people in the U.S. visited the site, up from 2.6 million the month before, according to the latest data from comScore. That represents a 55 percent month-over-month growth rate, compared to 33 percent growth in each of the two months prior.These numbers are only for visitors to Twitter.com, and they do not capture usage on desktop or mobile clients. And the apps just keep on coming. For instance, Twitdom now counts 529 Twitter apps.
I confess that I’m still a fringe Twitterer. It’s blocked at school, so I can only access it at home in the evenings and weekends. I have a BeTwittered widget on my iGoogle page, so it’s easy to take a quick glance whenever I’m online. So, why do I recommend Twitter to my colleagues? How can Twitter help you grow professionally? I’m very selective about who I follow. Right now I only follow people who are educators. Most of the people I follow don’t waste time telling what they ate for breadfast or what they’re watching on TV. They most frequently share links to new blog posts they’ve written, links to new tech tools they’re exploring, or links to teacher or student collaborative projects. They also ask questions and quickly get needed answers for problem-solving.
Sometimes educators leading conference sessions will invite fellow Twitter users to join online. I’ve participated in several technology conference sessions in places like Pennsylvannia and Illinois by joining in a collaborative Google Doc, adding a placemark for my location on a Google Earth map, or chatting on a back channel during a live stream. In this way not only am I learning, but I am also supporting my Twitter colleagues as they are conducting their professional development sessions.
How can you find people to follow who will ge good contacts for your PLN? There are several wikis that collect lists of like minded people. Here are a few: Twitter4Teachers TwitterPacks Twitter Group: Teachers
Another way is to go to the Twitter pages of people you enjoy following and check out some of the people they follow.
If you’d like to learn more, visit Sue Waters’s PLN Yourself wiki. Another great resource is 100 Tips, Apps, and Resources for Teachers on Twitter. If you’d like to read about Twitter in the classroom, visit Anne Mirtschin’s blog. I don’t squander a lot of time with Twitter, but every time I check in, it’s always well worth it. I always find something new to learn and explore. It’s connected me with thinking educators around the globe who are commited to constantly learning and making efforts to bring change to the way we do education. It’s the best source in my PLN!
I recently introduced Photo Booth during staff development sessions for my grade level teams. We only have 3 MacBooks in the building, but I would love to see my teachers use them. They had a lot of fun playing with the special effects, and I now have in my possession some “leverage” pictures and videos if I’m ever in need! It was tempting to post a few here, but I’m resisting. Here’s a list I compiled of some ways Photo Booth could be used in the classroom:
Book talks
Reader’s Theater
Oral reading/student self-evaluation
Maintain a digital record of reading progress over the course of the year
Biography “living history” presentations
Weekly class news report
Demonstration of science experiment
Character education development: take photos of students expressing various emotions (Source: iLearn Technology)
Grammar dictionaries: when studying verbs, take pictures of students acting out verbs
Digital poetry portfolio
Social Studies “You Were there” newscasts
Point of view debate over historical events such as Trail of Tears or Hiroshima
World language conversations/skits
Stop motion animation (claymation)
Infomercial (nonfiction informational writing)
Commercial (persuasive writing)
Writing prompt: Something has just happened to you that has caused you to go through some drastic physical changes. Take five pictures of yourself using Photo Booth where you show the progression of your drastic changes, from the beginning stages to the end result. After you take the pictures write a narrative or a news article explaining what happened to you. Be creative! ( Source: Stepping Forward: Personal and Digital Learning in the 21st Century)
There are a variety of ways to create audio and video files that can be played on iPods or other media players. Here are a few ideas:
Creating podcast content with a Windows computer:
Record a podcast on an iPod and load it into iTunes.
Record a podcast on a laptop in Audacity and export as an MP3.
Create a PowerPoint and convert it with Authorstream.
Create a video using Windows Movie Maker and use a converter such as Jodix or Zamzar.
Use SMART Notebook recorder to record a Notebook lesson and convert the .wmv file to an Mp4.
Creating podcast content with a MacBook:
Create a Keynote Presentation, record narration, and export as an Mp4. (If you do this, add a blank slide at the beginning after you record, but before you export. It’s a quirk, but necessary to get the file to play correctly on the iPod. )
Create a recording in GarageBand and export to iTunes.
Over the past several months, I have become convinced that iPods have an important role to play in the classroom, both as a tool for learning and a tool for sharing learning. Two teachers in my school each have 3 iPods that they are using regularly with their classes. My math coach and I recently received a grant to get an iTouch that will be made available for check out by math teachers. We are in the process of creating some standards-based math content, and I’ve searched extensively for online content. Here’s a short video that is a summary of a presentation I shared with principals and technology integration specialists in my district.
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