Amplification of a Transportation Unit & a Survey

In a unit on Transportation, our Kindergarteners read a large picture book “On the Move!” by Donna Latham

Students got so interested into learning about different ways people around the globe got around. They were even ready to take a trip to Venice, Italy to ride in a Vaporetto.

Since our 5 & 6 year olds have gotten pretty good at using PicCollage on the iPads, their teacher Arlene Yegelwel, wanted to personalize another collaborative classroom eBook.

She took the time to find over 20 public domain images of transportation methods they had discussed in class on Wikimedia Commons and sent them in one email to each iPad.

Student’s workflow fluency looked like this:

• opened the PicCollage app
• chose one image of the different transportation methods
• decided how they could best place an image of themselves onto the picture
• asked a buddy to take an image of them acting out a particular position on the iPad
• edited the image by clipping the background
• resized the image to make it fit the ration of the transportation image
• rotated the image
• saved the image
• emailed the image to their teacher

Mrs. Yegelwel, downloaded the images from the e-mail and then  imported them into the BookCreator App. She sat with each students to document their comment for the image.

As a class, they also reviewed all the different parts of a book, such as title page, dedication page and credit page. We also had a short, age appropriate discussion about copyright and how we cannot just TAKE (steal) any images we find on the web. We talked to them about some photographers who release their images into public domain, which meant we could use them. So there was a special Thank You crafted to thank these photographers

We could have stopped here, but the global component (transportation AROUND THE WORLD) begged to amplify what had largely taken place in the classroom only.

We decided to involve students in crafting their own survey. Below you will find our collaborative efforts in formulating the title, description, questions and different checkboxes.

Please take a moment to fill out the form for them. We will continue to accept responses until next Friday (May 24, 2013) to then tabulate and interpret the results.

We also discussed how would we let people know about our survey? What if we stood in our school’s parking lot and shouted it out? How many people would hear us? Where would these people be geographically be from?

I showed them my Twitter account and demonstrated how I was going to give a “shout out” for our survey.

We then sat back and literally watched the first responses to our survey “fall into” the spread sheet.  Please imagine the wows, the oohs and the aahhs for each one, especially when the first ones from Europe started falling in. Mrs. Yegelwel pulled in the globe and showed location. We also explained why most of our responses seemed to come from the US and Canada. We quickly looked up what time it was in Australia and they “shockingly” realized that Australians were deep asleep while they were in school.

I am asking myself the following questions.

What are students learning BEYOND the reading of the original book in their classroom? How did we amplify skills and literacies, because we took “the extra step” of connecting the students to a global network? What transformative (not possible without the amplification) teaching & learning took place?

• Geography skills (We are looking up each location  on a globe. We are learning about states, countries, continents, urban, suburban, etc.)
• Math skills (We are using real authentic data. The results will be counted, sorted, organized and graphed)
• Thinking skills (Why are most people in the US using a car/van to get to work? Why do most people in Japan use scooters?)
• Global skills (They realize that we can talk TO the world, not just ABOUT the world)
• Network skills (What are networks? How does Twitter work?)

Stepping Up the Backchannel In the Classroom

Students need our guidance to use virtual platforms for ACADEMIC purposes. We can’t rely on their “so called” native status to know how and what to do. Just a few years ago, no one had heard of “backchanneling”, nowadays, it has become main stream (although most people might not associate the term “backchannel” and “backchanneling” with something they might be familiar with.

• when you watch one of your favorite TV shows and are asked to use a twitter hashtag to interact with other viewers or the actors/participants…. you are participating in a backchannel
• when you are listening to a live political speech and are updating your Facebook status,  “liking” of commenting on someone else’s status… you are in a backchannel
• when you are passing a note (in the same room) or texting a colleague or classmate during a meeting or lecture… YOU are in a backchannel

Definitions:

Wikipedia

Backchannel is the practice of using networked computers to maintain a real-time online conversation alongside the primary group activity or live spoken remarks. The term was coined in the field of Linguistics to describe listeners’ behaviours during verbal communication,

Think Eric Think

It’s a kind of parallel discussion, a collectively shaped comment on some ongoing conversation. An alternative channel, often with a different conversational modus.

Lee Lefever

It’s a little like passing notes in class- except via the Internet. Wireless Internet connections at conferences and lectures are allowing people to use laptops and other tools to communicate in real time during presentations. These communications occur in what is called the “backchannel”

The more ubiquitous mobile devices, among the general population and in our schools are becoming, the more we need to be exposing, preparing, supporting and teaching our students to be able to use them:

• for academic purposes
• collaboratively
• with integrity and as a good digital citizen
• focused (but at the same time multitasking)

“Backchanneling” academically is one of the skills that no one is born with. I have been thinking about, testing out and reflecting on backchanneling in the classroom for a few years now.

• Backchanneling with Elementary School Students
• Backchanneling-Movie Watching-Note Taking- Information Scribes
• Using a Chat Room in the Classroom

At last year’s edJEWcon conference, quiet by surprise, our Middle School students, who were invited to listen in to Heidi Hayes Jacob‘s keynote, created their own backchannel to document and discuss what they were hearing and understanding.Everyone was surprised and impressed, as Mike Fisher wrote in his ASCD post titled “Strategic and Capable“.

At this year’s conference, we asked attending students to participate in a backchannel again. Part of the process of backchanneling with students includes the debriefing and reflection by going over the saved backchannel log. We used the Notability app on the iPad to color code some of our observations and bring attention to skills practiced, chat-iquette, grammar, understanding, connections made, value added, quality content and depth.

What I learned:

• just because students backchanneled one year, did not mean they could transfer the skills nor step up the quality of contributions. (… we need to practice backchanneling more… not a one time event…give them a guide to support their growth in using a backchannel tool)
• some students didn’t understand WHY we asked them to backchannel. They could not articulate the purpose for the activity, nor pinpoint skills that were related to backchanneling. (… we need to do a better job at explaining to  our students the WHY of an activity, the skills we want to them to develop and the real world application)
• students shared with us, that they were not able to focus, in their opinion, they would have taken “better notes” by themselves without the distractions of the other students. (…we need to make it clearer for our students, that the value of a backchannel is the collaboration, the added perspective, the sum of different voices versus their thoughts and understanding in isolation)
• some students admitted that they were not happy with their keyboarding abilities. They could not type fast enough. Someone else posted “the exact same thing” they wanted to say. (…we need to encourage them to practice their typing/thumbing skills in their own free time)

David Kelly, on his blog,  underlines that

the value of the backchannel is in the sharing, not in the technology.  In much the same way that a person can not really appreciate the joy of riding a bicycle until they can do so without consciously focusing on balance and pedaling, getting the full value of a backchannel requires an understanding of what the backchannel is and how you use tools to participate in it.

I went back to the drawing board to create a framework, a guide to help teachers AND students understand the value, purpose, skills and steps of growth.

Purpose:

The purpose of using a Backchannel with students is multifold. From collaborative note taking, to curating information, capturing quotes, gathering and Linking resources, sharing notes and adding one’s own perspective to others.

Considerations:

Presence:

• Active
• Substantive
• Timely

Conversation:

• Respond to questions
• Initiate questions
• Make connections

Digital Citizenship:

• Leadership
• Respect
• Network

Evidence of Learning:

• Connections made
• Development of skills
• Quality of Content:
  • Relevance
  • Depth
  • Added Value

Skills:

• Language
  • Clarity
  • Spelling
  • Full sentences
  • In context
  • Grammar & Syntax
• Multitasking
  • Listening
  • Thinking
  • Writing
• Multimodal
  • Curating
  • Note-Taking
  • Conversation
• Recall
  • Remembering
  • Restate
  • Summarize
• Logistics
  • Typing
  • Backchannel Syntax/Format

What Kind of Backchanneler Are You?

Listener:

• I have a hard time multitasking and can only concentrate on listening to the conversation.

Parrot:

• I recall and reproduce exact words that I hear

Curator:

• I only restate relevant information and bring in selected resources

Contributor:

• I question content, respond to and initiate conversation. I add my own thoughts and perspective.

Download the Backchannel Guide as pdf file.

Further resources:

• Backchanneling in Education
• Langwitches Diigo Bookmarks; Backchanneling
• A Teachers’s Guide to Classroom Backchannels

Entrepreneurialism, Student Voices and Authentic Work

Our 4th and 5th grade students(9-10 year olds) have been working with Mike Fisher, co-author of Upgrading your Curriculum and author of children’s poems. The goal of their collaboration is to create an eBook of Mike’s poems with students’ illustrations. Once produced, students will work on marketing, advertising and disseminating the eBook. Over the course of the last few months, they:

• emailed
• skyped
• tweeted
• blogged
• worked on shared Google Docs

in order to:

• introduce themselves to each other
• hold a conversation about their ideas and upcoming work
• document their work
• disseminate their work
• give and receive feedback

Mike wrote about his experience up until now in detail on his blog post Contextual and Authentic

Then, we discovered something. Something big.

Because of the depth of instruction and the built in time to negotiate new roles for the students and the upgrade of seeing themselves as collaborators rather than passive learners, we struck oil! Silver! Gold! Students began to self identify interests that were related to their planned learning and lead us down paths of unplanned learning that enriched the designed project.

I have been using the experience to take a closer look at upgrading assessment in modern learning environments.

Learning is amplified by the amount of people who are collaborating, participating, communicating and creating. The learning is NOT about the technology tools, but what students can DO with them to learn in new ways. The learning is about an authentic tasks, that allows students to contribute in a individualized and personalized manner to make them realize that their work matters in the real world.

• Blog Writing
• Tweeting in the Classroom
• Taxonomy of a Skype Conversation

In my recent post of  Students Are Speed Geeking at edJEWcon, I highlighted the need  and an example of exposing and involving our students in authentic learning experiences. There was another opportunity for our students to participate and share their learning with conference attendees, when Mike Fisher and our students were able to meet in person for the first time, as he was traveling as a presenter to Jacksonville.

The session “Modern Learning”, facilitated by Mike himself and Stephanie Teitelbaum, their language Arts teacher, focused, not necessarily on the students as teachers of teachers (as did the SpeedGeeking), but on the collaboration journey between adults and students, the authentic learning that has unfolded and will continue to develop for the rest of the school year and into next year.

Session Description: Modern Learning

Come and see what students learn
When we change the roles and rules.
Come and see what students do
With modern learning tools.
See the process and the product,
The depth and the extension,
The whole collaborative way we worked,
And our new inventions.
Prepare to be amazed and awed
By our globally connected team.
Join us as we launch the next phase
Of our collaborative dream.

Six students were selected to be part of a panel to explain the different jobs they held during Skype calls and to talk about the process of developing the idea of the eBook.

Each student created a few slides in a collaborative Google Presentations to be able to visually share with the attendees the poem, their corresponding illustration and any artifact that showed their role in the collaboration process.

At the end of the session, attendees were treated to a sneak preview of the eBook.

All students were eloquent in sharing their learning, but one in particular surprised us with her statement of “It’s not one and done” when referring to the importance, care and quality of the work they are doing. She pointed out that the work is not done until it is done, which most likely will continue next school year.

Take a “read” at the tweets below coming from the audience during the session:

WE are on a path to experiencing authentic learning. I say WE on purpose, since teachers are experiencing this kind of learning alongside with our students. I don’t know about your experiences, but I don’t remember learning in this shape or form when I was going to school. I don’t remember authentic learning EVER coming up in my educational classes at the University.

Steve Hargadon, our closing keynote speaker at edJEWcon, was talking about the need for preparing our students for entrepreneurialism.

commonly used to describe an individual who organizes and operates a business

Better yet, think John Dewey (“Education is not a preparation for life; education is life itself.“) when we not only prepare students for entrepreneurialism, but letting them live and experience it in school.

Our students are excited and ready to be in business. In the Book Publishing business! Now that the content is created, they are working on writing their resumes in order to apply for different positions that will put them in charge of leading or being hired to work under the

• Publishing Department
  How do we prepare/format the eBook or a Hard Copy? What are the terms of self-publishing services (Lulu.com/iTunes/Amazon, etc.)
• Financial Department
  How much will it cost to produce and publish the book?How much is feasible to charge for the eBook/hard copy? What will be cut for the author? The School? What are some projections?
• Marketing Department
  How will the product be marketed? Disseminated? Who is a potential audience? Should we organize a local book tour to promote the book?
• Graphic Designers
  How will we produce flyers to be physically distributed to our local bookstore, among the school community?
• Writers
  How will we write press-releases to be placed on classroom blogs, the school website? How can we promote the book through strategically written Tweets? What are other venues/platforms to contribute in writing? Guest blogging?
• Multimedia Team
  How will we produce multimedia (book trailers, commercials, etc.) to help advertise the product?

If you have made it this far in reading the blog post. Ask yourself, HOW could you amplify these young entrepreneurs to LEARN through real life experiences?

• Would you be willing to consult with them, if you have any life experience in any of the departments mentioned above?
• Would you skype in for a few minutes to give them advice?
• Could you help the financial department in figuring out how much would you be willing to pay for their poetry book?
• Could you imagine a potential audience our marketing department could target?
• Are we forgetting a vital part of our business structure?
• Do you have any other thoughts or tips for us? (Please leave a comment)

By the way… anyone still think this is about technology or learning specific tools, platforms or apps (Google Docs, Skype, Twitter, Blogging, Comic Life, Pixie, iMovie, Skitch, etc.)