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The Battle Over Cell Phones

Should We Ban Mobile Phones in Classrooms?Image by In Veritas Lux via Flickr

This summer, spending more time at home with my teenage daughter, I had to confront my ambivalence about how we use cell phones in our society. On the one hand, I've been intrigued by the possibility of liberating the cell phone in the classroom, which would entail a fundamental shift in how many of us teach students -- a switch from a teacher-centered classroom to a project-based learning (PBL) environment. Here are some possibilities others are exploring:
But as much as I want to embrace this innovative, perhaps inevitable way of student learning, I am troubled by how cell phone use "causes" us to interact with others. I put the word, "causes" in quotes because I clearly feel that we have a choice: we don't have to respond to every bleep and blip emitted by this device, but it seems to me that the school-age culture doesn't share my view.

An example is how many teens equate texting with "talking"; i.e., that the message which has just appeared on the handheld screen is just as important as the conversation in front of them, or, just as important as the person in front of them with whom they may or may not be conversing. The New York Times published a tongue-in-cheek guide for parents and children called "Cellphone Etiquette for Kids", which did list some important implications of this explosion of technology. It advises kids to:
Look them [people around you] in the eyes. The technical term for it is “interpersonal communication” — and it’s such a big deal that the educational psychologist Howard Gardner counts it as a multiple intelligence. You don’t develop these skills if you’re glued to a screen.
I frequently text friends and family but I draw lines when I am in the presence of others. But maybe I'm being too old-fashioned and "counter-cultural": if this is the way things are headed, shouldn't we simply embrace this phenomenon of divided attention and 24/7 connection to one's social network?
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How to integrate technology successfully ?

Models of Professional DevelopmentImage by superkimbo in BKK via Flickr
Mixing things up at NECC, I decided to attend the presentation of two research papers regarding technology integration. Although the schools described below differ significantly from New Trier (eg., mandating attendance), I still wonder what lessons our institution can take from these successful programs?

Evaluating a K-12 Technology Integration program: IMPACTing Students and Teachers
The IMPACT model includes tech integration, professional development, and "differentiated support" for teachers.

  • Professional development had to be exciting, dynamic, "differentiated", and not structured as a "sit-n-get". It also needed to be up front, meaning that it would be provided during the summer. This North Carolina school district trained 215 during the summer.
  • Vanguard Team: a reliance on teacher-leaders who could help out during the regular school year
  • "Naysayers" buy-in: these teachers, often respected but reluctant to use technology, were given advance training so that they could legitimize the program for their respective departments.
  • Strong Leadership: all administrators attended a 3-day workshop on how to lead people in a movement for change
  • Clear expectations: the technology in the classroom WILL be used, even if it was for 5 minutes a day in order to build confidence.
  • A conversation between teachers and administrators regarding what student engagement looks like?

The Effectiveness of Technology Integration Professional Development: A Meta-Analysis

Lawless and Pelligrino (2007) reviewed the literature on how effective technology staff development has been, and this paper focused on doing a meta-analysis of these studies. Unfortunately, the number of studies studied ended up at 10 total. And the presenter had little to share in terms of a definitive conclusion. A bit of a waste of time, though I learned what "effect size" means for statisticians.





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The World Digital Library

While attending NECC, it's easy to be overwhelmed by all of the vendors trying to sell you their latest wares. Last night, I wandered aimlessly through the din of this corporate carnival.

That's what so refreshing about the World Digital Library (WDL), relatively new site, sponsored by both the Library of Congress and UNESCO, and various private contributors. The WDL is a collection of primary sources, curated by professional scholars and translated into six languages (Arabic, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese), which might be perfect for the cultural units of foreign language teachers. You can browse these items by place, time, topic, type of item (books, journals, manuscripts, maps, motion pictures, photos, sounds), or hosting institution.

Though currently there are no prepackaged teacher resources as you might see at the Library of Congress, the website curators instead want to establish a social network for educators to create and share lesson plans across the globe. Lastly, all of the resources are freely downloadable in high resolution formats to allow for closer analysis.

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Time and Persistence

Picture of {{w|Malcolm Gladwell}}. Full set fr...Image via Wikipedia

Malcolm Gladwell, author of such books as The Tipping Point, Blink, and, most recently, Outliers, gave the keynote speech at the opening of NECC (National Education Computing Conference). I always enjoy these speakers because they don't tout the latest tools we all hear so much about already.

Instead, Gladwell, like others before him, focused on what makes learners successful, and his examples tend to be unexpected (eg., Fleetwood Mac, Mozart, and various chessmasters), and his solutions, counter-intuitive. Gladwell simply emphasizes the importance of 2 factors: time and persistence. According to his research, it takes approximately 10 years of working 4 hours a day in order to master cognitively complex skills.

Perhaps Gladwell's ideas could be critiqued on the basis of the "hindsight bias". After all, what of all the people who put their time in, without giving up, and never became successful? And what defines success in his examples? Wealth? Fame? High test scores? Regardless, his explanation of the math score differences between Asian and Western students seems to be compelling in terms of how these young people attribute their respective outcomes (Asian > Western).

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Bring back the MixTape!

Recently, it seems that quite a few teachers want to have their students use popular music for class assignments. In the past, students would create a "mixtape" on an analog cassette (back in the day) or, more recently, they would burn a CD of songs, which would leave the teacher with a stack of media that might never be used again. What a waste.

More recently, the challenge that teachers and tech staff encounter is that either students want to take tracks from their iPods or CDs and put them on the Web. Obviously, this is fraught with all kinds of technological and copyright-related issues. Well, here's a possible solution, as described in depth by Wired magazine.

MixTape.me is a website that acts like an online version of iTunes, without the need to purchase anything. Students (and teachers) can search for many popular songs and then create their own playlist(s) to share with others. Below is an example, which I was able to create and embed in this blog in under 5 minutes. Think then of the possibilities: students could create a custom playlist and then add their own comments, as well as pictures to the "jukebox". HINT: just double-click on a song title to play the music!



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