Claymation Published 2006-09-05

I was catching upon my backlog of Rocketboom posts and found one that was real inspiring for those digital storytellers out there. The Aug. 25 episode visited Children's Museum of Art in New York where kids are being taught the art of claymation. The vlog should inspire some documentary maker to take a longer look at what the Museum is doing in digital storytelling. Certainly the technical craft of claymation is fascinating, but wouldn't it be great if the kids were also being taught about story - the softer side of the art.

tagged: edtech rocketboom storytelling edtech rocketboom storytelling

Rules, Rules, Rules Published 2006-09-01

A friend and past colleague of mine runs a very structured classroom. I can give you a pretty good idea of what is going on in his class based on the time and day of the week. Students report liking his style because they now exactly what to expect. His class rules are very clear and as a beginning teacher, I admired him for his ability create such a structured environment. Kids need structure!

Yes, structure and rules are a sound foundation to teaching the basics. But what if we want more? What if we want our kids to be innovative, critical thinkers. What if we want them to be independent learners? I argue that for a student to be innovative, the teacher needs to be innovative. He must provide a learning environment that supports risk taking and views failure as a learning experience. An structured environment promotes students giving the "correct" answer and leaves little room for thinking outside the box.

When establishing the rules for your class, consider the environment you will be creating and is this environment consistent with your teaching objectives?

tagged: edtech education rules edtech education rules

Technology Wagging the Dog? Published 9/01/2006 08:32:00 AM

I have been attending conferences on education technology for many years (anyone remember the Hypercard-like application Linkway?).  The most prevalent type of session offered is one that focuses on how to use a particular piece of software and/or hardware.  Little if any time is spent on how the technology affects learning. Even at a recent session by Sara Anderson (who I greatly respect) on digital storytelling, questions focused on how to create the stories and where to get copyright-safe media.  Little time was spent on the underlying educational concepts fostered by digital storytelling or how one might incorporate this wonderful teaching tool into the curriculum.

The trend to focus on the technology is not limited to conferences.  I have attended many meetings lately with “technology experts” at several highly respected schools.  In each meeting, the conversation was limited to software and hardware.  Any attempt to move the discussion toward a strategic vision with a focus on learning was met with glassy eyes at best and most often a dismissive “we will talk about that later”. 

WAKE UP!  The important stuff is the learning.  Start with educational goals and then discuss the technologies that will advance these goals.  Why make blogs, wikis, and or general websites available to teachers if there is no discussion (or training) on how they can be used to benefit the learning process?

The source for bringing this topic up was a discussion on "integrating technology". Worth reading:
Diane Quirk – “The Ways We Talk About Technology”
Dave Warlick – "Foundations" and "What About Integrating?"

tagged: edtech education technology edtech education technology

Can Games be Used to Teach? Published 2006-08-23

Did you get a chance to offer your thoughts on the question "Can games be used to teach?" from ISTE earlier this month? I was on vacation so I did not get a chance to read the point/counterpoint style article until yesterday. My take on the issue is the safe "it depends" type of answer. I have great respect for David Thornburg. But I think he has it wrong in this case. He admits that there are some games (e.g. simulations) that he thinks can be used in teaching. On this I agree.

He takes issue on the quiz show style games which he feels may contribute to short-term memorization but does not contribute to real knowledge gain. I have seen many games that contribute to the educational process when incorporated into the curriculum by a savvy teacher. Games are not dissimilar to workbooks associated with texts. There are some that are bad and the good ones are only as effective as the teacher assigning work in them.

I am tired of discussions about the pros and cons of education technology that ignore the teacher factor. Good technology will not make a bad teacher good, but good technology will aid in making a good teacher better. (And a good teacher will not use bad technology.)

A side note: as I write this, I looked over at my wife who is on her computer. My wife who hates computer games is playing an online word game. She admits that this type of game is a challenge and it does expose her to new vocab.

What I did on Summer Vacation Published 8/23/2006 09:17:00 AM

I have just returned from a wonderful family vacation which included many firsts. We spent the time with friends in Park City, UT, one of my favorite places. While it was not the first time my wife and I vacationed in Park City, it was my daughter's first "road trip". We were very apprehensive of the usual 10 1/2 hour drive from California to Park City. Between my wife and I, we have probably made the trip a hundred times. But this time we were traveling with a 19 month ball of energy.

Lesson #1 - Adaptability

Being the tech wizard of the family, I downloaded to my laptop around 15 hours of television shows from the new child's network, Noggin, using Tivo. My wife, being the book wiz, found several new picture and activity books form our little girl. Packed with many snacks and our arsenal of entertainment, we left Pasadena at 5:30am. To our amazement, the trip went extremely well. We stopped twice to let our girl run, once at a fast food chain's play area and once at a local elementary school's playground. In the end, we did use the recorded TV shows (my daughter loves Pinky Dinky Doo) and the activity books, but certainly not as much as we thought. The trick was novelty. Guess what? A 19 month old does not have a very long attention span! :-) By switching from singing songs, peek-a-boo, the intro to "Jack's Big Music Show", and sticker books we had a relatively nice trip.

I offer this not as a guide to taking a road trip with a 19 month'er, nor to announce that kids have short attention spans. The true lesson is in adaptability. I have been thinking about how we had to read the situation during this trip and adapt to our child's needs. This is the same skill that successful teachers use in the classroom. I am amazed at teachers who can deliver the exact same lesson to three different sections of the same course. While the content may be the same, shouldn't the delivery, discussion, and activity differ depending on the students? It is easy to offer the same lecture over and over, but the real skill (and where the real teaching occurs) is with the teacher who adapts the lesson to the students, the day, and even the hour.

Lesson #2 - Bullies

While in Park City, I took my 19 month daughter to a playground, one with an elaborate "jungle gym", you know, one of those with lots of catwalks, bridges, tunnels and slides. A local summer camp (read day care) uses the same playground which was a real bonus for my little girl who loves playing with (or at least around) other kids. I watched as my daughter chased after other kids who were oblivious to this much younger outsider. However, one little girl (who we will call Bully) took interest in my child. Bully, with her blank expression on her face, decided that she would stand in front of my girl and prevent her from moving forward. On the bridge, Bully would move right and the left in reaction to her target's attempts to get by. In the tunnel, she would move forward and then aft preventing my girl from escaping. Unlike my wife who would have came to our daughter's rescue, I just watched - with amazement! My little girl never got upset, never cried, never frustrated. She reacted to Bully's actions by laughing in her face which totally flustered the little girl.

I am not sure what the lesson is except that humor has a way of thwarting the nefarious ways of others. I was so proud of my little girl who I would never have thought would be teaching me a lesson on patience. BTW - Bully got her just reward when, as she tried to block my girl from sliding down the slide, Bully slipped and fell down the slide in what appear to be a very uncomfortable way.