Eclectic Technology

In our world today we are surrounded by visuals. Yet we walk into many classrooms and see many written texts that often have few visuals. This post begins with a quote from John Medina, the author of Brain Rules (and a developmental molecular biologist). He states "We are incredible at remembering pictures. Hear a piece of information, and three days later you’ll remember 10% of it. Add a picture and you’ll remember 65%. Professionals everywhere need to know about the incredible inefficiency of text-based information and the incredible effects of images (http://www.brainrules.net/vision)."

There is also a video that was created by students explaining their frustration with the lack of visual learning that takes place in the classroom.

Additional sections include:

* Use Visuals, Images, Data Visualizations, Infographics and Videos to Teach Concepts

* Use and Teach Learners How to Make Concept Maps and Graphic Organizers

* Use and Teach Learners How to Do Sketchnotes

* Allow and Encourage Learners to Show What They Know Through Visual Imagery

* Teach Visual Literacy

Jackie Gerstein provides a thought provoking post with links to additional resources. Take the time to read and consider how you might increase the use of visuals in your classroom. And if you have not read John Medina's book you might want to check out his website.

We often hear of growth mindset and fixed mindset. Is there also a creative mindset? Jackie Gerstein suggests that there is a creative mindset in this post. Why? If a mindset is defined as "ideas and attitudes with which a person approaches a situation"  there is a list of "ideas and attitudes" that may be part of a creative mindset. The visual above provides Gerstein's list of some items she considers important for a creative mindset. The list is also below.

* Believes in one's own creativity

* Embraces curiosity

* Suspends judgement - silences the inner critic

* Tolerates ambiguity

* Persists even when confronted with skepticism and rejection

* Taps into childlike imagination; a child's sense of wonder

Each of these is described in more detail and links to additional resources are provided. There is also a short discussion conditions necessary to facilitate creative mindset in a classroom.

What do young people need to know? Jackie Gerstein provides a great visual as well as a list of 18 ideas, and each has a link for additional information. She also requests that you send her additional ideas.

After you review the list you might consider how many of these skills are taught in your school, or consider which should be taught in school.
Five of her ideas are below. Click through to the post for the rest.

* How to be a self-directed learner – finding and using resources (both face-to-face and online) to learn and improve personal interests

* How to evaluate websites and online tools for credibility

* How to work in mixed-age groups

* How to code

* How to set and achieve goals

Check out this revised assessment tool from Ross Parker. In the post he shares his experience with using this for a year and the awareness that the tool was not as functional as he had hoped. In brief, he has made four shifts.

1. Taking a tool designed for self assessment and realizing that the same time used throughout the year gets old quickly. Therefore, it is redesigned to "more general, useful for teachers and peers to use."

2. A shift from strands (high level learning outcomes), to attributes (which allows the tool to be used by students over many years as their knowledge and skills grow).

3. A move away from levels or grades to a focus on ways of learning.

4. Allowing students to determine levels rather than assigning them based on personal view.

Last year this tool was well received and this new version brings it up to a new level. Consider using this with students and perhaps have them keep a copy of it asking them to review it later on in the school year. You can download a pdf version of the tool from the website.

This post explores how students are often satisfied with work that we know does not meet our standards (or their potential). Although we provide clear expectations, detailed rubrics, model the work there are many times that the quality is not what we had hoped for. 

Can teaching design make a difference? Can we work with out students and over time move them so that they will not accept mediocrity as their best work? Starting at a young age can we instill a growth mindset so that students understand that effort is required to learn and to do your best? Can we move away from empty platitudes and provide feedback that is clearly stating what they did and also what is missing? 

How do you deal with these issues in your classes? What has worked for you when you have students who are happy with mediocrity? Share your thoughts.

In this post Jackie Gerstein states that ethical decision-making is a skill needed today. Technology is advancing at a speed that is often beyond our comprehension and our understanding of how this technology may impact our future may not yet be known. After looking at why it is important to integrate ethical decision-making into the education of young people she shares a resource that "can be used as a source for ethical dilemma discussions in middle school and high school classes."

Some of the ideas suggested include:

* The Right to Privacy versus the Right to Know

* Internet Access as a Human Right

* Neuro-enhancements

She also shares some recent court cases related to online behavior that students might be interested in analyzing.

Teaching ethical decision-making helps students use critical thinking skills, focuses on Bloom's higher order levels, and provides additional skills discussed in the post. As always she provides additional resources.

Today we have students taking more and more standardized tests. This post shares information on "standardized test scores (Math and English language arts) and cognitive ability (working memory, processing speed, and abstract reasoning)" from ~1400 students 8th grade students in Boston (schools include traditional, exam and charter). 

The question I would ask is why are we focused on standardized tests? Is this the primary way we should assess our students? Do standardized tests become critical thinkers, creative thinkers? This list could go on.

The information in this post may surprise you and there are links to the original paper and supplement.

This infographic looks at both technology and education over the last four decades. Are there connections between these two themes? Take a look and see what was going on in the 1980's, 1990's, 2000's and today. This infographic provides geat depth in these two areas, noting that the:

* 1980's was the Age of Processing, the beginning of the Digital Age and a time when tech was a peripheral tool.

* 1990's was Hardware 2.0, the World Wide Web came into being and a time when tech begins to supplement.

* 2000's was the move to connectivity, to an age of sharing and portable devices and technology supplements instruction.

* Today - Perhaps this is yet to be written but a few years in we see multifunctional devices, personalization and technology as an integrated tool.

What would your students think of this chart? What conversation might arise in faculty meeting or with sharing this with the PTO or other stakeholders in your community? It does provide food for thought.

In this post Jackie Gerstein provides a great list of books that you could use to teach children about the skills and attributes that they need to learn. She states " Children’s books, as they are written and presented as stories, have great potential to explain these often abstract concepts.  There is also evidence that the brain processes stories differently and more powerfully than facts and lectures."

The stories are divided into sections:

* Grit

* Resilience

* Hope & Optimism

* Vision

* Self-Regulation

* Empathy & Global Awareness

There is also a list of books suggested by Tony Wagner in the areas of Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, Collaboration and Curiosity and Imagination.

Although geared to children some are appropriate for older students.

What happens when you take a classic and edit it to meet the new standards? Here is one possibility. To view the entire poem click through to the post and ask yourself what would Clement Clarke Moore think of this revised version?

Happy holidays!

The views of education are diverse and this post presents 50 views. So what are they? Below are five of the fifty. You may find it necessary to head over to the post to learn just what the name means.

* From the Ground Up (think Sir Ken Robinson)

* Talking Education (think TedEd and YouTube)

* School in the Clouds

* Competency Based Education

* Disrupting Innovation

Click through to learn more about these five plus 45 more. Each entry provides a link for additional information.

Have you had people ask you why you choose to use infographics in your classroom? This presentation is by Mia MacMeekin, who has created many great infographics (some of which have been posted on this Sccop.it). The best way to access this is in PDF format. This file is quite large so here is a direct link to it: http://anethicalisland.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/rscon-presentation-22.pdf

Jackie Gerstein shares her thoughts on what beliefs a growth mindset facilitator will have. From my experience we seem to have a growing number of learners whom may struggle with growth mindset. As an educator you may find some suggestions that you could incorporate into your classroom.

Finding great educational videos takes time...so I am always excited when I find a list of suggested video. Jackie Gerstein shares her top 11. They range from just over three minutes to about seventeen minutes. Below is  a list of the videos.

* Malala Yousuf Nobel Prize Speech

* Carol Dweck: The Power of Believing You Can Improve

* Sir Ken Robinson: Can Creativity Be Taught

* President Obama on the Whitehouse Maker Faire

* Toxic Culture of Education: Joshua Katz

* The necessity of the student voice | Catherine Zhang

* Rethinking Learning in the Digital Age – Mitchel Resnick

* If I Knew Then: A Letter to Me on My First Day Teaching

In this post Jackie Gerstein states "to fully understand the purpose of school, the history of its evolution as an institution needs to be understood." After this is discussed she provides refers to an article that discusses "how to bring our schools out of the 20th century."

The next section shares quotes from a wide range of people on schooling. Three are below.

* Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.  Albert Einstein

* Knowledge that is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. Plato

* Education is one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.  Bertrand Russell

She then looks at the messages sent out by our current school system and asks if we are questioning "What is the purpose of school?"

In fact, there are 8 questions that are raised in this post. You can find them in the image above, or you may click through to the post.

Do you teach your students about growth mindset? Is this a topic of discussion with other staff in your school? Jackie Gerstein has shared three excellent resources in this post that focuses on growth mindset.

She has created an infographic (image above) that looks at fixed mindset and growth mindset, showing how a student may identify based on their mindset.

The next step was putting the infographic into ThingLink and creating links to over 15 resources. Here is the link: ThingLink version of the infographic.

There is also a slideshow that provides additional resources (although some may be repeated in the ThingLink). The slideshow is split into four sections:

* Mindsets

* Historical Background

* The Educator with a Growth Mindset

* Teaching the Growth Mindset to your Learners

Since this post is based on a workshop she provided it is a great resource to share with teachers at your school (or other teachers whom you know). Make sure to check out the resources for students. You may find yourself creating a poster to help your students learn more about growth mindset.

The world is changing at an ever growing pace and in todays world students need to learn "how to learn." How do we as teachers help our students learn "how to learn"? By modeling it in our daily work with our students we can instill the skills and help them understand that we too are in the process of learning. 

Jackie Gerstein provides a post that explores how our roles are changing and how the roles of our learners are chaning because of Education 2.0-3.0 (with a link to a post that describes this).  

What does "teaching the process of learning" mean? A few of her points are below:

• Modeling of learning processes needs to be intentional, strategic, and overt.
• The educator should be familiar with and able to demonstrate metacognitive processe.

This post shares 12 insights from a variety of innovators. What are some of their ideas? (Ideas below quoted from the post)

* Realize that Out of School time tends to be more inspiring and powerful ...

* Provide unique Experiences that surprise and allow children to see things from new perspectives...

* Refining the skill of Asking Questions is the fuel that ignites innovators...

The post includes some sharing of how innovators explored in their own unique ways as children. You will also find one short video of an innovator sharing their story as well as a link to eleven videos from the conference Innovators to Educators. This post may bring some fresh ideas to use with students of all ages.

Jackie Gerstein reviews the skills identified by Tony Wagner as well as six additional skills and attributes she believes learners need today.  She then looks at a recent Gallup Poll that looks at Americans expectations of schools today. Quoting from the post:

"While student success may depend on mastery of content in core subject areas such as math and reading, it also depends on more than knowledge of core content. Critical thinking, creativity, communication, and other soft skills, as well as student physical and social wellbeing, are also necessary for future success in higher education and in the workplace. Americans Say U.S. Schools Should Teach “Soft” Skills"

The post continues and explores how the other 21st century skills may be classified as social-emotional skills and how the growth of these skills may positively impact students in other areas. As always Gerstein has provided a post that pushes boundaries and provides a variety of resources.

I have posted a number of resources from Ross Parker and this one requires a bit of time to understand…and yes, I think it is worth the time. The directions he provides in the upper right hand corner describe how a student should use this visual, as a tool to “steer & assess your own learning.”

Our students need to learn how to self-reflect and this tool has the potential to engage students and assist them in reflecting on their work regarding topics studied in technology.

You may download this visual as a png, pdf or pages document on the website. Take some time to check it out and see what you think.