Lessons Learned

Dave Navis will be joining us for this week’s SOS podcast where we will discuss the essential question of “When not to use technology?”. Dave has a nice post up on the topic so I will only mention a couple points.

The most difficult aspect of my job as an instructional technologist is when I need to work with teachers using technology that doesn’t support student learning and/or doesn’t teach the correct skills in using the various tools. Working as an instructional technologist means one must be a leader and a champion for student learning no matter how uncomfortable the situation might be. When teachers use and model technology ineffectively or have their students spend valuable time working on projects that don’t help their learning, they sadly can do a great deal of damage in that moment and in the future use of the technology.

What makes these situations so difficult is that the teachers are trying something new and often get excited about the creativity that goes with using technology. They are doing as we ask them in trying new ways to support learning by using technology. One needs to read these situations carefully to decide in some cases to simply remain silent but to be ready the next time the teacher wants to try something new. At other times the planned project might involve days of student technology work that could be used so much more effectively if the instructional technologist and/or library media specialist can get in and collaborate early in the planning process.

I think we often devalue the teaching of technology skills and the importance of using good design and communication principles. Teaching technology skills is no different than teaching reading, writing, math, art, etc. skills. However, with technology, users sometimes think just being about to put a project together is all there is to it.

A good example is that many teachers would say they know how to use PowerPoint and Paint so they can see themselves teaching it. And as instructional technologists, we want the technology to integrate and diffuse to the point that teachers model its use and teach it themselves. Yet, the dilemma arises when an untrained teacher doesn’t teach the needed basic design principles or worse, models poor design skills. The following, for example, are some basic skills that must be taught with everyday tools as PowerPoint and Paint:

• the value of using white space
• minimal use of but large enough and projector friendly fonts
• large single student created images
• when images used from the Web that they are cited
• no clip art
• no animation
• no sound effects
• simple, non-distracting backgrounds the same for each slide
• colors that are natural and compliment each other

How many adult presentations of PowerPoint have you seen that do the exact opposite of this list? Plenty. We cringe seeing the technology get in the way of the presenter’s lesson.

So are we ready to speak up when teachers go as far as to model the opposite of what we want our students to learn regarding design and communication skills? This is what teachers of technology sometimes face. In many cases they do so without the support of their administrators who don’t know know themselves the discreet skills that are needed for 21st century project creation and communication. Instructional technologists and library media specialists are peers with their fellow teachers thus making it even more difficult to offer ideas and propose instructional changes during the instruction. This is really the role of the administrator as instructional leader for the school to step forward and support the proper use of technology.

We can all read, write, do math, sing a song and paint something but in most cases, we know that it takes training and set of skills to teach these disciplines. I believe we are more comfortable in our schools stepping forward in speaking up to teachers making mistakes in teaching writing, reading, art, etc.  I think we value those skills much more than we do technology and information literacy skills and in many cases our teachers and administrators just don’t know how important those skills are for our 21st century learners.

This means that our leadership efforts must also include the ongoing teaching and promoting of the value of using proper technology, design and communication skills by teachers, administrators and students. Besides the usual efforts for technology integration through professional development and ongoing work with teachers and teams, we must celebrate successful uses of technology via our school Web site, our blogs, newsletters and any other available venue that models the proper use of technology.

How connected are your students, teachers and parents to the mission statement and student learning outcomes of your school? We often spend a great deal of time working in committees developing these guiding documents but fail in our efforts to communicate and embed them into our school cultures. Sometimes the sharing is little more than placing copies of our mission statements and learning outcomes on classroom walls. This really doesn’t slice it in our media rich world. Our students’ brains want a much richer media format that can start discussions, develop ownership and build understanding.

Much like our efforts to integrate technology and various literacy skills into the curriculum, we need to think about ways to combine technology and learning to deliver our respective schools’ mission statements and student learning outcomes into the classrooms and out into the larger school community. One idea is to pull together a team of students to go through the video production process to create videos that paint the picture of the mission statement from a student perspective. This real world, project-focused effort can be done at each school division involving the usual steps that go into videography production.

Multiple intelligences come into play as student teams apply their language arts skills to storyboard, write the scripts and contact the “talent” for each of the scenes. Roles for actors, camera people, director, music creation and video editors are also assigned.

Once the videos are produced, they need to be shared in as many possible venues as possible. Play them on your closed circuit TV system along with your normal student news shows. Post the videos to your school Web site and make sure you have links on your prospective parent and employee pages as well. Also, think about getting your school leaders to add the videos to their blogs. Ask them to post about their plans and actions to move the school community towards making the mission and student learning outcomes a focus in how decisions are made.

Strong connections are made with the viewers due to the social and visual nature of our brains. Students want to see the work of their video producing classmates and we know they really connect to images over text any day. They also will see the mission statement as more meaningful when explained by fellow classmates and teachers. You probably will find more success with your elementary students interviewing adults to explain the various segments of your school’s mission statement and/or student learning outcomes. As you move up in divisions, the students can take on more independence interviewing each other as well as adults or work to create scenes that depict their own interpretations of what the mission and learning outcomes look like.

To get you started with an example, here is a link to one of a five part video series created by Mrs. Brings’ Third grade class to promote the Hong Kong International School’s mission statement. It is a streaming WMV file so hopefully your media player can handle it.

Service & Global Understanding

Note: This story was originally posted at U Tech Tips.