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Writing on the Reading 2.0

Write on reading

One of my favourite teaching strategies for active reading is the tried-and-true method Write on the Reading, from the Project for the Enhancement of Effective Learning (PEEL) an organisation of teachers who promote good learning behaviours through strategies targeting poor learning tendencies. In this case, annotating readings with notes – questions, points of contention, and so on – is a strategy that helps students to avoid superficial reading. I’ve embellished my writings-on-readings with colours to represent styles of thinking and organising principles, finding that students comprehend much more than with traditional reading and can readily apply their own opinions more effectively to the ideas in the text.

Recently, with my Year 11 Advanced English class, we’ve been exploring the version 2.0 of this strategy – a writing-on-reading of critical literature on Jane Austen in preparation for our comparative study of Emma and Clueless. I wanted my students to really appreciate the historical context in which Austen authored her novels and thereby have a much better understanding than they would if reading Emma ‘cold turkey.’

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Google Docs makes conversion of PDF files, Word documents and other document formats easy, and we’ve found the comments feature really interesting for discussing the text in the margins. Here’s the start of a conversation about anonymity and female authorship in the early C.19th.

 

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I love the way that these comments are recorded for future reference, and have found that discussing the comments can often be more insightful than a discussion of the original text. As an English teacher, I believe that what we bring to our analysis of texts is just as important as the texts themselves and I find myself learning so much from my own analyses and those of my kids.

I’ve also really enjoyed exploring colours and fonts as a way of representing different thinking styles and organising principles. As a starting point, I recommend teachers consider simple approaches, like:

Red = points of contention

Blue = big ideas

Black = further explanation/elaboration of ideas and/or key concepts

Green = other examples from outside the text

Of course, the most exciting feature of this technology is the extent to which it enables genuine collaboration. For this activity, I shared the text with my entire class and was amazed to see how effectively we were able to read the text, discuss, annotate and apply the information all in one lesson!

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Bridging Digital Divides – Our Biggest Tech Challenge?

(Flickr image courtesy of: KaCey97007)

It’s been a frenetic start to the school year as always, with precious little time to reflect and even less time to write. Nonetheless, working with such a diverse range of students and teachers to support their use of technology never leaves me without something to write about – so sometimes the biggest challenge is just letting go of perfectionism and airing my thoughts. It’s also heartening to read in so many of my favourite blogs that education bloggers the world over struggle with finding time to say what they need to say.

Taking control of what matters most

I had a really rewarding session earlier last week teaching some of the teacher leaders in my school about the value of RSS feeds accessed via the Google Reader accounts available to us through our school’s partnership with Google Apps for Education. What I enjoy most about teaching RSS feeds is the concept of intelligently controlling our access to information: by essentially selecting on the sources of frequently updated web-enabled content we want to access, we depart from the happen-stance nature of an over-reliance on traditional web search engines. I think for many this departure is a very necessary one and represents, for me, one of the main pillars in overcoming the digital divide.

The good news is that regardless of whether or not the teachers with whom I work actually adopt RSS as a regular-use technology (in reality, probably very few will and RSS generally remains somewhat of a niche technology), at least they will understand that the web is about much more than simply searching for information and such information being largely subject to a simple search string and Google’s algorithms rather than independent, critical thinking.

The same kind of control can be exercised in many other ways, including the people we follow on Twitter, the time we take to learn how to do an advanced search, the system of tagging we adopt to catalogue our research and the like. While Web 3.0 promises much in terms of intelligent semantic linking of concepts, I think the need for users to master many of the Web 2.0 tools that enable better organisation of one’s own learning and thought processes will still very much be there.

Exploring the ‘Digital Divide’

I’ve come to believe that any discussion on mastery of tools like RSS, Twitter and the like brings into question the true nature of what is commonly termed the ‘digital divide.’ Such a term is usually explained, at best, anecdotally, along the lines of Aunty Mavis doesn’t really know how to use Microsoft Word, whereas little Jane does. There is a digital divide between the two.

What are the problems with this kind of thinking? Over-simplification of concepts like this one risk misconceptions occurring where they can ill-afford to occur: in the classroom, where students have the opportunity to really delve into what it means – ethically, practically, economically and so on – to be a digital citizen in the twenty-first century. At the same time, too many of us are happy to latch onto anecdotes and analogies as a way of explaining away these concepts without properly engaging with them and thinking through the implications of our actions on the internet.

So, in the end, what exactly is the digital divide and how can we better understand it? Perhaps the best answer to this question is to think as broadly as possible and be aware of all the implications. This is a divide that is separated not only by age (as in the Aunty Mavis/Jane example), but also class, national boundaries, language, demographics, access to the internet, literacy (in the broadest sense of the term), parenting, lifestyle and anything else that separates two or more groups of people in society.

Inasmuch as these dividers sound esoteric or at least very theoretical, there are plenty of hard examples that illustrate just how big the divide is in many different contexts. In countries like India, for example, the killer combination of IT skills plus an international language has meant, for many, the difference between abject poverty and a livelihood. While examples in the west are not so extreme, there is now enough evidence to suggest that the digital divide is growing, and happening to be on the wrong side of it really limits one’s opportunities in life.

I like thinking in these terms, not because I feel as if I’m ever going to redress the divide in any large, meaningful way (there are plenty of others that already do a brilliant job at this). But I like to know that, at the end of the day, I do make some small difference in bridging things over. Hopefully I can start to challenge others to do the same.

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On Cloud-Computing 9…

For quite a while now, I’ve been keen to explore some of the ways that I could train teachers to move beyond the static online portal view of e-learning (the space where files are uploaded for students to later download). A long-time advocate of Web 2.0 for its emphasis on creativity, collaboration and lateral re-thinking of traditional media, I’ve tried to promote technologies that enable collaborative
writing, incorporate social networking and ‘remix’ information all in the name of learning that is fun.

At the same time, I’ve seen many a frustrated teacher give up on Web 2.0, having to juggle usernames, forgotten passwords and third-party email addresses – leaving aside the often steep learning curbs for what is, at the end of the day, just one more technology tool. This is why I’ve been interested in the idea of how enterprise cloud-computing technologies like Google Apps for education help to create scalable Web 2.0.

Re-thinking the Word Processor

At the staff PD day that we ran last week, I looked at how teachers can get started with Google Docs, canvassing some of the possibilities for using it in the classroom and providing the tangible example of the class set of topic notes. For many teachers struggling with the concept of collaborative writing, it’s a good idea to discuss the importance of structure when setting the parameters for collaboration
on a particular document. I use the example of topic notes on a novel and asked my students to think about the headings and sub-headings that might go into the document to organize ideas effectively as new stuff gets added.

Understandably, teachers and students get quite excited by this technology!

Tackling the Big Challenge – The Online Spreadsheet

I hate to admit it, I’m a recent convert when it comes spreadsheets. For most of my life, I’ve never really thought to organize information into cells, much preferring to think and write in sentences. Perhaps most people out there agree, which also might explain why the vast majority of teachers shy away from using spreadsheets in subjects other than Maths. Still – if we stop and think about it, spreadsheets can be used to organize, process and analyze data on practically anything – the trick is just thinking about situations in which we might actually want to generate some data.

Google Docs does a good job here precisely because it shifts the whole focus away from spreadsheets by letting users generate forms which can be emailed to users, filled out and automatically populate an automatically-generated spreadsheet. Could it get much easier?! Of course, if you do know a spreadsheet trick or two, you can always impress a few friends with some simple formulae.

It was exciting to see teachers exploring this through the vehicle of the unit evaluation, a feedback tool that many schools and teachers have moonlighted with over the years. I particularly liked the
observing the collective realization that beyond creating the form and sending the email, very little work is required by teachers who want an easy and effective set of feedback on their own teaching and on a unit they have taught recently.

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Google Apps: On Scalable Web 2.0

Colleagues often tell me that what makes me a credible and helpful technology mentor is the sheer number of hours I spend in the classroom. Although teachers can be a cynical lot, I tend to agree that when corporate technology experts step into schools to trial something new, they often miss the mark simply because they fail to understand what it is like teaching a six-period day. Teachers can and will baulk at new technology because it means extra work. The challenge is in convincing them that the work will pay off, both for them professionally and for their students’ learning. My relative success is in making sure of this payoff for myself before I suggest something to colleagues.

Web 2.0 is a classic case-in-point. There are incredible gains to be made when incorporating some – or a full range – of web-based tools, services and applications into the curriculum. As a teacher, I cope with this well. I find it easy to set up a class list of Wikispaces accounts, manage threaded discussions, share media and facilitate collaborative reading and writing.

The problem is that what one teacher does in one classroom is all-too-often difficult to replicate and scale up across other classes, year groups or whole schools. Keeping track of user names and passwords for Blogger pages or Gliffy accounts is time-consuming – even the most able technology-minded teacher tears hair out when students lose (or can’t/won’t remember) basic details. Other teachers who struggle with the technology may simply avoid it altogether or pay lip service.

My reflection on Web 2.0 is that it needs to be taken in slow, measurable and scalable steps. Scalability is the main reason why I’ve decided to go with Google Apps Education Edition – which gives administrative control to domain owners to create email and apps accounts for an entire education institution. This gives us a starting point for all students in the school to be able to log in and access some of the best Web 2.0 collaborative tools available. Most importantly, we create and control the accounts – which provides security and a consistent experience. When teachers are ready to try online collaboration, the accounts are ready and students know how to use them.

For anyone who doesn’t know about Google Apps Education Edition, you might find the following video of interest:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRYRbPCHTck]

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Moodle and Google – on Libre and Gratis

A couple of weeks ago I was asked by my executive to give a “State of the Union” address to teachers on the successes of my Moodle/Apps@CCC project – the integration of Moodle courseware with Google Apps Education Edition. I was asked particularly to focus on where we were at as a school engaging in e-learning and what some of the future possibilities and potential might be.

It’s no real secret that some of our teachers are doing a fine job of adopting this new technology in a relatively short amount of time and on their own steam. I run afternoon sessions and sessions during school time on everything ranging from the basics of setting up a course page to moving towards co-constructivist learning with a broad range of modes and learning opportunities. Session after session, I see dedicated teachers wanting to know more and do more with technology, to build an online learning community of over a thousand switched-on critical thinkers and learners.

At the same time, many teachers struggle with the concept of e-learning – perhaps understandably so. For them, it simply involves uploading a bunch of Word documents to an online repository somewhere and leaving it at that. Problem is, while it’s a decent first step, the jury’s out on whether that’s really going to make a real difference in the long term. For some, this is the only step – and teachers here need to be challenged to think outside the square.

Seizing my opportunity, I prepared a talk on the nature of open/closed, libre/gratis (check out the Wikipedia page on this) and free vs free. On the one hand, one can appreciate Moodle – a fully open-source, free (as in libre, or speech) and grass-roots initiative. On the other hand, it’s also possible to appreciate Google Apps Education Edition – a relatively closed service, but nonetheless powerful and free (as in gratis, or beer). While the distinction to some might be academic, I really argue that we should always recognise where the Web 2.0 tools we use stand in relation to the questions – some of them ethical, others organisational – posed by the open/closed and libre/gratis paradigms.

Perhaps I’m dealing with two issues here – after all, what’s possibility and potential in relation to open and closed, and what does free beer have to do with it?! In the end, the way I see it is this: we’ve managed to source and use two of the best pieces of scalable software for e-learning-based education, both of which don’t cost us a cent. The possibilities and potential are endless – but that doesn’t change the fact that we need to think critically about how we approach them. After all, who really needs another bunch of Word documents?

Here’s the keynote of the presentation (check it out at slideshare.net to see accompanying notes):

[slideshare id=3382612&doc=presentation-100309205836-phpapp01]

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Searching for a Web 2.0 Learning Framework

I just finished reading an inspiring article by my old Macquarie lecturer John Hedburg and two of his colleagues, Matt Bower and Andreas Kuswara. “Conceptualising Web 2.0 enabled learning designs” documents some of the seminal work being done by academics who take the time not only to research, but to see, first hand, Web 2.0 in action in the classroom.

The article suggests that critical use of Web 2.0 moves well away from the traditional transmissive model of teaching towards co-constructive learning, which takes constructivism as a basis and builds on it through collaboration, re-defined roles and asynchronous learning. Their argument which follows on from this is that co-constructivism places “responsibility for production on groups of learners so that they can benefit from both the peer-assisted elements of dialogic pedagogies as well as the productive component of constructionist pedagogies.”

Ultimately – and unfortunately – the academe remains ethereal and perceptually irrelevant for teachers who fail to take the time to connect research with practice. For the rest of us, however, the value of a rigerous, theoretical framework in which to analyse and evaluate the power and potential of Web 2.0 is another important steppingstone  on the journey.

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On Creativity and Control

Schools are dangerous places. Like any institution, the sausage-factory factor kicks in, and soon enough and we become compliant, organised and efficient teachers who “cater for all students” and “meet their learning needs.”

Some of us may adopt other approaches, with words to describe them like rhapsodic, capricious, innovative or improvisatory springing to mind. While not entirely a separate camp, such teachers often eschew the same “good teacher” benchmarks of the compliant camp. They may miss duties, neglect lesson plans or programs, routinely forget important details or perhaps just pay lip service to the dominant discourses floating around staff meetings and lunchrooms.

Some days I despair that promotion in schools seems much more about compliance and much less about creativity and innovation. After all, is it not the leader’s job to organise, delegate and control the innovation of others along nicely laid-out party lines? Really good teachers – creative teachers – are then easily pigeon-holed and rolled out when needed. But real power always seems to remain in the hands of those who would much rather control than create. The bitter irony is that our very promotion often serves to make us more controlling – whereby we impose our version of creativity on others – which is just another form of control, is it not?

Technology seems to be a fine case in point. How often does teaching the teacher how to use technology simply become a process of ‘do what I do?‘ How often do we really teach to empower? The real question behind using technology to “empower learners” is whether or not that process is genuine. If we really empower someone – a student, teacher, parent, colleague or whoever – then teach them to understand and appreciate that while it takes efficiency and organisation to work in a school, it takes creativity, innovation and passion to be a teacher.

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Get your 2009 NAPLAN Moodle Quiz Files HERE!

Postscript: for all my overseas readers, the NAPLAN tests are the national literacy and numeracy tests in Australia, completed each year by all students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9.

Shameful though this kind of spruke for my blog is, I like to hand out freebies to rope in the visits every now and then. Along with this post, you’ll find Moodle XML files of the 2009 NAPLAN Reading and Language tests. All you need to do is create appropriate Moodle quizzes, import these files as question categories, check the order of the questions and you’re pretty much good to go.

Note: the Reading test needs the accompanying booklet, which you’ll find in PDF form here on the DET website.

Special thanks must go to my colleague Janine Balite who wrote the Moodle version of the Reading test using GIFT format. Thanks also to Connected Learning teachers from Caroline Chisholm College for proofing the test before it went live.

Perhaps the last thank you should go to Moodle, for saving me and all my colleagues hours of marking, allowing us to get on with the business of being professionals focused on our students. Thanks Moodle!

[polldaddy poll=2779412]

NAPLAN Reading Test (XML)

NAPLAN Language Test (XML)

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Moodle and NAPLAN – Using Groups and Reports

2010 marks a major turning point in e-learning at Caroline Chisholm College. With the help of my IT Manager and a little support from open source communities, our humble systemic Catholic school is now at the forefront of e-learning as a successful Moodle website.

Moodle is a massive undertaking for any school, let alone a typical budget-conscious systemic catholic school. Part of my journey as a coordinator has been to find out some of the many ways in which an e-learning tool like Moodle enables teachers to work smarter.

The high point of this journey so far emerged today in Period 3, when my Connected Learning class – along with several others – completed the 2009 NAPLAN (national literacy test in Australia) test completely online, using Moodle’s GIFT format. What would have amounted to well over 15 hours of work setting the test manually, photocopying, marking and collating results was streamlined into a little under 3 hours. This of course is leaving aside the fact that now the online test can be easily duplicated, exported and repeated as necessary – all with no marking.

The clincher in this story comes in the time teachers now have to act as professionals. Why should I be sitting for hours manually marking a multiple choice test of which a machine is perfectly capable? Why not use that time to make intelligent, informed decisions as a tertiary-trained professional?

No less than a few seconds after the test closed, I now have access to rich data that can help me better serve the literacy needs of all my students. At a glance, I can see their average results.

Groups set up intelligently allow me to access not only the results for my class, but results for key ability groups (I have used previous test data to establish ability groups ranging from 1-4 with colour-codes).

An item analysis for Kenny-Red (my low language ability group) tells me that these students struggle forming sentences with more than one type of punctuation. In the above case, only 29% of Kenny-Red students were able to rewrite the sentence Go away! Can’t you see that she’s upset? with correct use of exclamation and question marks. As a group, this is now something I can effectively work on in future lessons (while I set different work for my top group, Kenny-Blue).

Of course, the big challenge is convincing many teachers that this is the smarter way to work. Odd though it seems, there are in fact some teachers who see all of this and still choose to manually set and mark the test. I guess old habbits die hard, eh?

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Back2skool 2010 Resolutions

Looking back at my posts for the last two years, I’ve realised that blogging can be a tricky business when approached with a tad too much perfectionism – as I am wont to do. So much happens in technology education, with so many points of learning and so many developments in such a short time that being perfectionistic about when and what to write means that bloggers like me simply miss the boat.

Missing the boat isn’t a problem, when the purpose of one’s blog is more reflective than predictive (as mine is) but trying to find the ‘golden moment’ to write quality reflections on web 2.0 in the classroom isn’t any easier than trying to predict the next big ‘tech’ moment of our time.

So for 2010 I’ve decided to write much more frequently, briefly and with less of an editorial ‘over-the-shoulder’ approach to writing. I’ve got a lot of ground to cover and only precious snippets of time in between classroom teaching, technology coordinating and university study.

Here’s to a good year of tech and education – and to blogging when and where the moment takes you!