Technology Enhanced Learning: Truth or Fiction?

One of the prime goals of the Instructional Media course for which this blog was created was to help us all to think about whether a particular technology actually enhances learning. On the other side of that, there is always that possibility that it might detract. Then, there are other technologies that simply help the teacher to be more efficient, collect data, etc. This blog post is for the purpose of considering one program that has become almost pervasive in the schools in which I observe--Accelerated Reader.

Loggin on to AR

On one of my last days at the school, which running an errand, what to my delight should appear in the hallway, but a line of small humans walking in a semblance of a line, all with books in their hands--with my granddaughter in the middle.

"Where are you all headed?" I asked.

Aria was the spokesperson. "We are going to the computer lab to take an AR test!"

"Wonderful! Can I come along?" And with that, we were off.

Finding the Book Quiz

AR or Accelerated Reader is a "reading comprehension program that monitors, manages and tests elementary students."  The students read the book, and then take a short comprehension quiz on the computer. The company suggests they choose a book by looking at those available on the list. (I ran across a student in the library earlier who had read a book, but a quiz had not been generated for that book. She was discouraged, so it might be good to check first!)

We settled in at the computer lab and Aria signed in and searched for the book she had read. It was there! She began to answer the questions--after trying to con me into reading for her, :-) I felt the questions were just slightly above knowledge level, but certainly not higher-level thinking skills--which is one of the cons of the program.

Look at my Flower!

Aria quickly finished the quiz and was very excited to show me her "flower" that was almost complete. With that done, she signed out and was off to her classroom.

On the way back to my original errand, I passed a chart in the hall which tracked the number of AR books read by students in the various classrooms. The number of books varied widely.

In recent years, the emphasis in reading instruction has shifted to teaching skills. This has increased the reading instruction time, but has not increased the amount of time that children actually practice reading. Possibly AR is a way to keep that focus?

It is certainly helpful to the teacher to be able to have a computer program track the reading and basic comprehension for each student. Growing the flower was obviously motivating to this first grade child! Anytime we can get a child to read a book in this world full of technology is a plus! Is this technology of taking a quiz on every book enhancing learning? That is the question isn't it?

One interesting side note: I read a book aloud to the class and then they were told that they could take the AR test. They wanted to look at the book and it began to make its way around the room. If the goal is only to test recall then they should not look at the book, right? But what other skills are being developed by looking at the book? When you answer questions at the end of a chapter (for instance) do you look back? Do you learn additional things while you are looking back? It all goes back to "What is your objective?" How can you take a technology tool that was created for simple recall and raise the level of learning?????

Field Trips! Actual and Virtual

Pantages Theater

One of the highlights of my time at Spanaway Elementary School in Washington, was going on a field trip to Tacoma Pantages Theater for the performance of the play based on the book, The Stinky Cheese Man, by Jon Scieszka.

With limited budgets, field trips have gone by the wayside in many schools. This was the first field trip for many of the third grade children who participated. Many who live only thirty minutes from the theater had never been to downtown Tacoma.

In our attempt to focus on reading skills we have lost the important understanding that children cannot read what they do not understand due to lack of background experiences. Without this field trip, reading about attending a play would be meaningless to most of these children.

Stinky Cheese Man

As a team, the third grade teachers worked diligently to tie this experience to the standards! Before the play, the students read several fractured fairy tales and wrote several compare and contrast writings.  The also read the book, The Stinky Cheese Man. In addition, they were instructed about proper behavior at a theater! It was delightful to see that almost all made an effort to dress up to go to the theater! Their behavior was complimented by the staff! The play was excellent and included audience interaction from the entire theater of children. The Stinky Cheese Man who ran very fast but never got very far was certainly my favorite!

What They Liked!

Back in the classroom, the class was instructed to write what they liked best about the play and what they liked best about the book on a Post-it-Note and place it on the chart.

With these ideas in mind, they choose which they liked best, the play or the book, and completed a writing prompt in which they had to support their choice with three reasons. Enjoy some of the results below!

Teacher efficiency was aided by technology on this day! The students wrote on their iPads, AirDropped their papers to the teacher, checked them and then sent them to the printer while they drew their pictures. Before the end of the day, they were all displayed in the hallway!

Virtual field trips have been a way to give students virtual experiences when funding is not available, or the experience is unavailable locally. Discovery Education has a great searchable resource! Technology provides experiences through this venue that are unimaginable! Despite this, my experience with these children on this day and seeing the results in these artifacts were convincing proof for me that we should do everything we can to get children out of the classroom!

Want to help a class go on a field trip? Go to the education page at GoFundMe and search "field trip" and you can choose between the 1,304 options! Yes, teachers are trying to get students out of the classroom for field trips!

Fearless!

Photocredit: Gwyneth Jones--
http://www.thedaringlibrarian.com/

While volunteering at the elementary school, I had the opportunity to go with the class to the library where one of Teacher Librarians* was all set to teach the class how to access an app (Adobe Voice); to help the class log in and begin working on a project. That is just about where things began to go wrong.

First, one of the iPads wouldn't load the app. Reset and we were on our way. Then the realization hit us (the fearless librarian and I) that every student would have to set up an account. This was a surprise since most apps allow the teacher to hold the account and then add the students to that account.

In addition to all this confusion, whenever we tried to set up a different account, the iPad insisted on thinking for us and just sent us back to square one--because WE were obviously confused.

Have you ever been there?

There is a word that this type of experience can easily create: Technofear: The fear of using technological devices such as computers. Definition

While this generation has no fear of using technology, teaching with it can be more intimidating! Sitting at home and getting stuck trying to figure a computer glitch is one thing; watching a classroom full of students dissolve into chaos while you try to figure it out is quite another. Fortunately in this situation, there were two of us and while one "figured it out" the other moved on to another part of the project. Plan B!!!!

That is the key to it, you know. Always have a Plan B in the back of your head! As you write your plans, think: "How will I do this if the technology doesn't work?" It is just good teaching. Before technology, I often began to write on the white board and discovered that every marker had died. Plan B! These things happen all the time.

I loved the librarian's attitude! "You can blog about this is you want to. These things happen when you try to use technology." That is exactly right. If you don't step out and use technology--well then, nothing can go wrong with it. That is why so many teacher observation evaluations now have "use of technology" included. No one wants to have a lesson go south and get a bad evaluation because technology was voluntarily added!

Think about this while planning lessons! Be FEARLESS super teachers!

*Teacher Librarians roles in the schools are changing! "Our essential functions as Teacher - Librarians are to provide information and technology instruction, reading advocacy, and information management." Read More! 

Watch a video about Teacher Librarians 

How will Technology Change how We Teach Math?

As a math educator, this picture of a child's thinking displayed on an iPad is fascinating. From the perspective of technology, the student downloaded a template, drew a picture, wrote out the problem and typed the answer. This example was one of eight problems solved in this way during the lesson-a task that would have used copious amounts of paper!

In my mind, this was a great use of technology!


Recently, I ran across the Photomath app for Apple and Google Play (https://photomath.net/en/). Take a picture of the problem and click solve! The problem is solved--with all the steps. A math student's dream!

In thinking about these two examples, I wondered how technology will change how we teach math. Show your work! OK, no problem. Click, Solve, Copy. The real question is, "Can you do this on a test?" Maybe, maybe not.

I never believed students should not know the answers to the problems they solve. How many times have you solved a set of problems only to find out you made the same error in all of them and got all the answers wrong. It is hard to break the habit you formed as you did every problem incorrectly. If students have the answer, they can figure out why they missed the first problem before moving on. Sometimes solving problems works best when you start with the correct answer. So, theoretically, when apps started appearing that gave the answers, I did not have a problem with it--I don't think I have changed my feelings about that. But all the steps????

Knowing that students can access an answer to anything does mean that how we teach math must change; and it occurred to me that using this template is requiring the students in the class to THINK about math more than just find the answers. Finding the answer is far too easy now to make that the objective!

When all Students can AccessTechnology

One of the challenges to utilizing technology in the classroom is if the students must share technology. As mentioned in an earlier post, ensuring that all children have some type of tablet in their hands is a huge commitment, but one that is increasingly necessary. My last blog talk about efficiency benefits--this one was just plain fun practice.

A teacher can set up a Kahoot! game with any quiz material (or choose Public Kahoots and take advantage of the quizzes created by other teachers--there are hundreds)! Once the teacher has selected or created the quiz, the website provides a game pin. Each student logs in and when they choose their answers, the percentage of correct answers is displayed.


The questions are displayed on the screen and four choices are given for the answer. Students choose the correct answer by clicking on the correct shape/color on their tablet. When all students have answered, they correct answer and percent correct will display.




It is instant feedback for both the student and the teacher! The students enjoyed trying to beat me!

Check it out! Kahoot!




Question: In thinking about how you will plan to integrate technology to enhance learning, is this an effective tool?

Supporting Learning with Technology

Goodbye Flashcards!

This past week, I spent two days at Spanaway Elementary School in Spanaway, WA. My first goal was to get acquainted with my daughter Melinda McConnaughey's class of third graders, but it provided an excellent opportunity to see technology in action.

The Bethel School District plan for the integration of technology can be found at the following link, but I found this statement at the website informative:  "It is important to realize that technology as a particular skill is not the goal, but that the use of technology as a tool supporting learning is." http://act.bethelsd.org/

Supporting learning would be a great descriptor for what I saw in the classroom! My take-away was that good teaching is still good teaching--with or without technology, but technology can make the good teaching even more effective! Here are a few examples from the day.

Multiplication Chart

Going Paperless

The school district is working toward placing an iPad in every student's hands. This has been done in the three third grade classrooms. During my two days in the class students seldom were without an iPad or book in their hands. They practiced math fact fluency (above), filled in a Multiplication chart (right), create a character map after listening to a story, and downloaded a template for using the distributive property to solve a problem (Below). The use of one Ap accomplished almost everything! (ShowMe Interactive White Board)

Character Map

Problem Solving Template

Monitoring and Turning in Work

Probably, my favorite technology moment was when the students were taught to take a screen shot of their work and AirDrop it to the the teacher. The class across the hall has additional technology that allows the teacher to see what each student if doing on their iPad, but this was a great alternative. 

Take a Picture!

Students using their Heads and iPads

One part of the day that I found fascinating was the ways that students figured out to use the technology to help THEM be more efficient. Why go to your seat and copy something from the board when you can simply take a picture of it, download it into ShowMe and add to it by either typing or writing? Genius. My favorite moment was when a student took a picture of her 7's skip counting and realized it would help her on a math problem--so she pulled up the picture. The students around her said she was cheating. I asked, "Do you think you are cheating?" "No!" she said emphatically. "I did all the work myself, I am not copying it from anywhere so I am not cheating. It is all my own work." Yes! Technology is intended to support learning and she figured it out.

Exploring Classroom Technology and Media

Ready? Get set. Go!

The purpose for this Blog is to provide a platform for discussion during an upcoming Instructional Media class. Students in the class will be here, but if you happen by or are invited to share, Please feel welcome!

In each Blog post, I will be sharing classroom experiences from my time in an elementary school in Washington state, where I will be volunteering during the month of January 2016. I will also be asking questions to illicit responses from the students in my course. Please feel free to respond!

I will be asking students to stretch themselves, and I always like to set the example by stretching myself also! I have never tried a Blog for class discussion. I am looking forward to this experiment.

Let's get started!

Question #1: I confess to being a "Digital Immigrant!" (Look it up if not familiar) I am probably getting ready to teach a class full of "Digital Natives." How do you think your experiences in the classroom (k-12) compared to mine?