Teaching the Digital Natives

I have to start with a quick rant. When I was a child, if we went out to dinner I was required to, among many other things, sit at the table the entire meal, keep my elbows off of the table, draw only on the paper that my mom would bring for me (but mom, the white tablecloth is perfect for it!) and stay attentive and enjoy the time with family and friends. These days, I go out with my friends and half of the table spends most of the meal tweeting their food (which I typically steal some of while they are hashtagging it #delicious #2fresh #FoodasArt). Meanwhile, the young parents at the tables next to me feel like the only way that they can entertain their little monsters (not a Gaga reference) is to give them their phones, pads, etc or let them tear around the restaurant. Withholding my beliefs on those parenting tactics, I'll just say that these kids are missing valuable opportunities to establish memories and relationships with friends and family to play Jewel Runner for the 232nd time.

I bring this up, because these are the children that will populate the classrooms that I hope to stand in front of some day soon. What must I do to ensnare their focus? I think this is, in a way, what we have been trying to answer throughout our time spent in Teaching with Technology. I think there is an unexpressed understanding that technology must be involved in the classroom for kids to glean the most from the lessons and teachers. How should we do that though? Do we try and teach all of our lessons with technology? Do we let students bring their own technology into the classroom and hope that they "respect" us enough to stay off of Twitter and Snapchat? Do we find a way to engage them through technology outside of the classroom so that they connect the home to the classroom? Which technologies do we bring into the classroom? Prezi? Vocaroo? Cel.ly? Youtube?

 Or perhaps it is a combination of some of all of the above? It's such a tough conundrum because we all come into this profession with some expectations of what will work best for us and for our students. Then when we are in training learning how to become a teacher, we are given even more information about what is best and what should work. Yet, what matters more than anything else is understanding your students, the context of the classroom, and what will be best for the most students at that moment. And this shifts from space to space and year to year. The same questions and quandaries are applicable to technology as well. Every year there are new technologies, new problems and new solutions to be understood and implemented. So how do we manage all of these problems to properly engage a collection of students who have the attention span of a goldfish (which is a saying I've never understood, are we to assume because of their confinements that they are easily distracted? Perhaps because their reflection is all around them? Thoughts of a goldfish: "Hey who is that?" "Wait who are you?" "Man why won't anyone talk to me?"). I'm not sure I really have the answer to that question, but equally doubtful that anyone has an answer that works in every context. What I do have, is a willingness to try and a great (developing) background knowledge in technology and education which will serve me well. Hopefully that will persist and I won't ever become a grumpy old jaded teacher saying...

 The phrase digital native is a curious one. To me, it suggests that these kids are born into, and have no choice but to grow up with the fingers on the keys and their eyes on a screen. I wonder how true this is though. Right now, as elementary and middle schools exist, most students aren't imbued with technology in the classroom. The trajectory of schooling though is such that, pretty soon, we might create that environment. If we do, will we be fulfilling the "digital native" label for even more students, making that label even more appropriate and honest? Would that ultimately be a good thing? Based on my experiences and opinion of technology I would hazard saying yes...but then I think back my restaurant experiences and I'm not so convinced. How about you?

Cell Phones in the Classroom

Imagine a kindergartner with a smartphone. To me, and I would imagine many others, it's too baffling to even take seriously. What would they do with it? Who would they call? Are we to assume Billy down the street has a cell phone as well? Imagine that conversation.

Jimmy: "Hey Billy, which caterpillar is your favorite? I had an ice cream sandwich today."

Billy: "Girls are gross. I picked the weirdest thing out of my nose earlier. What did you say?"

Jimmy: "I said that I like bugs and I think...."(drops phone in sandbox and decides to bury it).


Even though this is pretty far off topic, as far as my blog post is concerned, it does have some relevancy. Liz Kolb, a professor at U of M, came in and spoke to our class about using cell phones in the classroom. During her presentation, she posted a graphic about what percentages of children have phones at various ages and there were actually kindergartners with smartphones. Anyway, just an interesting aside.

To the actual topic though, Liz brought up some very interesting points arguing for students to have their own phones and/or technology in a classroom. Among them were access to the internet for questions, an alternative way to participate in class (through a polling website or via text), and increased participation. She gave some examples of how various teachers were using cell phones in the classroom in subjects such as history, math and even English. After listening to her give her talk, I'm not sure how I really feel about the subject anymore. Before her talk, I would have scoffed at the idea of letting students use their phones frequently in the classroom. I may have entertained them being able to access them once in the middle of class, but certainly not have them out on their desks all day. I remember how I was in high school after I got my cell phone, and I was one of the better students in my grade.

After her presentation though, I can see some of the benefits that might surface from this availability. In my classroom, there are a number of students who are very bright but very shy. As a result, they rarely speak up in class and contribute to conversations which is quite sad because they have so many insightful comments on their homework assignments. If they were able to send in their thoughts electronically though and remain anonymous, I'm sure some of them would contribute a bit more. Additionally, I think that the idea of being able to quiz students online or even have them submit things via text or voice recording is really appealing as a teacher. It would be much easier to access these assignments, there would be no concern over losing papers or assignments and I feel as though students would enjoy this more than writing out all of their answers all of the time.

Despite these benefits, I'm not sold to the point that I would implement it overwhelmingly right away. In many classrooms still today, there are marked differences in the quality and cost of students' phones. It is very possible that a student would feel very self conscious having to pull their phone out if they felt that it wasn't as nice as some of their classmates. To that point, some students might not even have cell phones yet and they would be put on the spot for something that they can't (and shouldn't) control. The urges to use them for reasons other than academia are incredibly strong, and I can say that as a perpetrator of such restrictions. The school could make an effort to restrict the internet but as long a student has a data plan, these restrictions are meaningless. Despite the study that she showed us yesterday, I don't believe that texting has any effect on increasing the reading level and literacy of a student. I think that students who have access to phones and to large texting plans also likely have access to greater resources such as books and tablets which are far more likely to improve a students reading level and reading scores than text (Rite? Itz cray 2 thnk that talk lke this wld improve a students reading skillz. lol. Neway I'll ttyl, gtg start studying). Regardless, I certainly appreciate Liz taking the time to come in and speak to our class. I think that there certainly are great ways to involve cell phones outside of the class (polling students, having them turn in quick synopses via text, etc) but I'm not sure I would let them into my class with any sort of frequency yet. I mean, there are still ceiling tiles in a lot of classes, what if someone hid another person's phone in the ceiling?

And then this happened in your room?

That. Was an overreaction.

Tech(nology) Spec(trum)

My parents love to tell stories about writing papers on typewriters when they were in college and younger. Anytime my sister or I complained about our relic computer, my parents (as many do) started to remind us that, "we didn't even have computers to type our papers when we were younger." I used to roll my eyes and return to whatever I was doing. Now that I am back in a school environment though, and putting myself back in that culture, I'm starting to understand where they are coming from.

Reflecting on the tech in our placement assignment, it is surprising to see and hear how much things have changed since I was in high school. Even at Community, where there isn't a major emphasis on technology in the classroom, there are laptop carts for teachers to check out, a state of the art computer lab for the students, and encouragement from the administration to incorporate tech more. What was even more shocking than my experience though, was listening to the other students share their schools and classrooms. On one hand, you have Andrew's classroom in John Glenn where they don't even have wireless in the building and on the other you have Saline High School (Griffin and Laura) where they let students carry their phones with them at all times and even provide them with chargers for their phones in the classroom. I wonder what the effect of this access vs. absence of technology has on the students? Will students from Saline be more prepared to deal with the technology they are likely to encounter in their professions or will the students from John Glenn be better suited moving forward because they don't have the distractions of technology while they are in the classroom? Community seems to lie in the middle of these two extremes. There is technology, but it isn't all over the place nor is it the center of attention. I guess what I found most interesting from this assignment is the difference in how technology is used throughout high schools and classrooms and the difference that it might have on the students that attend these classes. Even within Community, there is a marked difference in how much the teachers utilize the technology that they have at their disposal. And what sorts of experience are students bringing to the classroom? Laptops are fantastic to have for the students, but if you have to spend two weeks teaching the students the basics of the technology, is it worth it?

These themes are not new to this class. On the contrary, we have been having conversations about these topics throughout the program. What is new though, is that now we are seeing it play out in actual classrooms and getting a better sense of what the effects are on students as opposed to just speculating and discussing in our classes. It will be interesting to see how these technologies become more or less involved during the rest of the year. And because I've included an Office reference in nearly all of my posts, here you go because...