Final Narrative and Self-Assessed Rubric

 

    In order to understand the learning stretch I have made in recent years, and especially in this class, I must first describe my relationship with technology in the earliest parts of my life.  As a child growing up in the 1970's and 1980's, I was not exposed to the same technology that many of the younger students in the class were at an early age.  I grew up the oldest of three kids, and we were all very active.  My brother and I were involved in varying sports all year round, and my sister took dance classes all through her childhood.  When we were not doing those activities, we were always outside playing with friends.  We did not even have cable television in our home until I was 12 or 13 years old, and none of us watched much television.  We were either doing our work for school, or playing with other kids in the neighborhood most of the time.  Visiting our grandparents, aunts, and uncles also occupied a lot of our free time.  There was not much technology involved in either my education or my home life during my early life.  When I was around eight years old, my parents decided to reward us at Christmas with a video game system that we could only use for pre-determined amounts of 

time, and only when our school work was done.  Maybe on rainy weekend days we would be able to play with it as well.  This was the Atari 2600, and there were many simple games that could be played on it.  It does not even begin to compare with the length, complexity, and graphics of the video games and video game systems that exist today.  As a teenager I would upgrade this for an original Nintendo video game system.  Although we had this technology, my brother, sister, and I were never kids that spent a lot of time playing with it.  It was only something to do when there was nothing else to do at the time.  We did not have any sort of home computer at all, and would not have one until after I went away to college years later.

      Throughout most of my childhood, Scott Noon would have considered me as technologically preliterate.  I really had no experience with any technology beyond playing a few video games.  This did not change very much even into my high school years.  I chose to attend attend a private Catholic college prep school named Bishop Hendricken High School mostly because I had been recruited to play baseball there.  Throughout my four years there, the only experience I had with technology was a keyboarding class that I took.  This really helped me with my typing and word processing skills, but students really did no work with computers beyond learning this particular skill.  This also did not change much when I went away to college.  I attended Brandeis University, where I was also recruited to play baseball.  I graduated 

with a Bachelor's Degree in History in 1996.  Keep in mind that my graduation year is still two years before Google would even exist as a company.  Being a History major, I did not use technology for anything more than word processing papers for class.  Essentially, this was just using the skills I learned in my high school keyboarding class.  It was not until 1999, when I attended Rhode Island College for the RITE program to teach Social Studies in Rhode Island, that I received and email account through the school (which I never used), and actually started a personal email account with Yahoo.  I hardly ever even looked at that email either, as it took too long for a dial up modem and very early internet services  to access and actually see my email in a reasonable amount of time.  I only used my email account to sign up for things that required you to give an email address.  

    When I was hired for my teaching job in the Warwick Public School System, I spent my first three years in three different schools.  I have been lucky enough to spend the past fifteen years at Pilgrim High School as a Social Studies Teacher and Baseball Coach.  Baseball is mentioned quite a bit in the early part of this because, as you will soon read, playing and coaching baseball has taught me a great deal about how kids learn best.  If Mark Prensky were to label me, I would have been classified as a digital immigrant.  I would have agreed with him, even though I do not believe in this type of label being placed on people.  In terms of just myself though, I would agree.  I was very slow to adjust to burgeoning technology in the classroom, and was very uncomfortable using attempting to use it in my classes.  I had a fear that I did not know enough about it, that it would not work properly, or I would look like I do not know what I am doing (I didn't).  I was more comfortable trying new things and lesson types in classes when the final work products would be on paper, and my teaching was no tech or low tech.  This would begin to change as teachers in my building were beginning to get some training using technology like Smart Boards, and as our internet became faster and more useful.  Although I was dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty first century, I would begin to make some strides slowly integrating technology into my classroom.

    My slow progression with technology over a period of years began to speed up rapidly when students were issued Chromebooks four or five years ago.  I had to figure out ways to make these useful in the classroom.  I used them in fairly basic ways, but in 2020 the Covid-19 pandemic hit.  My timeline for learning how to have students use their technology for genuine learning experiences was suddenly accelerated rapidly.  I quickly had to learn how to use Google Classroom, and many of the apps that were capable of being used with it.  I became familiar with Edpuzzle, Newsela, Kahoot, and many others in a fairly rapid amount of time.  The pandemic was not the easiest of times to teach, but I realized I was capable of making technology work for me, and what I was trying to do with my students in the classroom.  When we finally returned from the pandemic to in-person learning, I continued to use technology, and was more open to learning about more apps that I could use with Google Classroom that could help keep my students engaged in their learning.

    The pandemic actually helped shift my views about kids and technology use.  I originally had similar views to Sherry Turkle, as expressed in her TED talk.  I came across as anti-technology, even though I really was not.  I just thought kids were too obsessed with their phones, distracted by them, and did not form the in-person relationships that were necessary for meaningful human relationship development.  Much like Turkle, I felt kids were missing out on important aspects of life, and it was also dangerous for them because the internet can lead them down "rabbit holes" that kids should not be going to.  Most of the technology use I saw from my students was on their phones, and it was usually unsupervised, and unrelated to anything having to do with school.  The view I had began to change during the pandemic and distance learning.  As I learned about more apps and ways for kids to use technology to demonstrate what they have learned, I began to appreciate technology as a way for my students to express their learning in different, and often more creative ways.  My views began to resemble those of Danah Boyd in It's Complicated.  I realized that it is a valid concern to worry about the technology use of kids like Turkle does, but most of these "digital natives" as coined by Mark Prensky, have do not have the necessary skills in the digital world to properly use the web for learning purposes.  Boyd believes that it necessary for students to have a guide to navigate the technology and use it in constructive ways.  This is the job of the teacher at school, and probably a parent or guardian at home.  I am beginning to see myself in this role for my students as I learn more about the technology I can use in my classroom.  I am learning that Sir Ken Robinson's three principle that guide human life into flourishing (diversity, curiosity, and creativity) are very compatible with technology use in the classroom.  As a social studies teacher, there are very valuable uses for technology to study different cultures, and creative ways for students to demonstrate understanding important concepts and gain an appreciation for our diverse world and history.  

    This brings me to my why?.  My why? is formulated from years of teaching and also both coaching and playing baseball.  I have learned that in both cases kids learn better when it is done together.  I believe that kids learn best when they work together to achieve a goal.  They use their individual and different strengths to contribute to learning and help each other in different ways.  Working together helps bring about individual feelings of achievement as well as communal.  Also, working together, even using technology, helps foster the social aspects of education that are so needed after such a long period of distance learning due to the pandemic.

    For my change project I was going to approach the first unit of the year teaching it in a different way using technology that we have learned about in this class.  The first unit we work on is Ancient India, and we study the first major cities of the Indus Valley Civilization named  Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa.  Normally I teach about these two cities using more traditional methods like reading, answering questions, looking at slides, and then taking a quiz or writing a short essay about what they have learned.  

    I want to have students work together to learn about these two cities.  In small groups students will research these two cities using guiding or essential questions to guide their search for information.  The essential questions will be open ended and designed so students look for aspects of these societies that make them considered advanced civilizations for the time in which they lived.  An example of material that could be used to guide the research of the students using essential questions about the civilization can be found here.  

     I would start by having a class discussion about what the different groups learned in their research about the two cities.  Directing the discussion towards what they discovered and how it fit into the essential questions would help clarify the purpose of these activities for some of the students.  Following the discussions, students would create a blog post discussing what they learned, and how it helps answer the essential questions.  They would be doing this in a creative way, and I would urge being as creative as they want in expressing what they have learned.  They will assume the role of a travel blogger who is reporting on why a civilization may be worth visiting or not.  Essentially they are time traveling travel bloggers who will visit many different civilizations throughout the year.  This will be an ongoing activity all year long.  Just like in our Curriculum 501 class, students will be expected to provide links and pictures in their blogs.  Students will also have to read and comment on classmates blogs as well.  At the conclusion of this we will come together as a group and discuss what they learned from each other, and I will introduce the next part of the project.

    Students would then get into their small groups of 2,3, or 4 (depending on class size and support need), and work on scripts to create a podcast using Soundtrap.  Students can do this in any format they would like, and I want them to be as creative as they would like to while still addressing the essential questions and what they have learned so far.  After script writing, recording, and editing, the class would listen to all of the podcasts that have been created, and we would once again have a class discussion about both what they have learned, and also about these activities themselves.  I want my students to learn about these civilizations, but I also want to know if they enjoyed these activities, felt they were worthwhile, if they enjoyed working together on activities such as these, and if they thought this was a good way for them to learn.        

    What will I be doing during all of the group activities taking place during the lesson?  I will be watching (probably in awe of their ability to figure out how to use the technology), monitoring, and guiding when necessary.  As Danah Boyd suggested, the students do need guidance to responsibly navigate the digital world to properly facilitate learning using technology.  I would also be helping students that need hints or suggestions to help them arrive where they need to be.  Redirecting students who may stray from the activity would also be a task that I am taking on at this time.  I have added the cartoon image of Caillou because my students often tell me I look like a grown up version of him.  I think of myself more as a Charlie Brown, but that is another story.

    My students would receive a grade for completion, participation, and working together for this first project.  I usually have an activity or two at the beginning of the year that are easy good grades in order for students to get motivated to do well at the beginning of the year.  I would use the information learned from how this project goes to generate rubrics for future use.  I do not want to give a grading criteria for these activities until I see a baseline product from any of my classes.  I like to find out the strengths and weaknesses of the students in classes to see our starting point for all future activities.  

    I really enjoyed doing this project, even in the compressed two week time period we had this class in.  The tools I learned in this class will definitely become a big part of my technological repertoire for lessons during the coming years.  I also have to say that I enjoyed the people in this class as well.  Everyone was extremely supportive and helpful.  I will leave you with a basic to do list of what I will be working on to prepare for the coming year using these tools.

To Do List

• Set up a class blog for each of my 5 classes so I have a homepage with links for the blogs of all of the kids in the class
• Add basic instructions for how students can set up their own blog on the homepage class blogs
• Play with Soundtrap over the summer to become more familiar with it
• Create a podcast using Soundtrap that talks students through how to set up a Sountrap account
• Create Google Slides for setting up a Soundtrap account as another resource for students
• Once a Google Classroom is set up for each of these classes I will post the podcast and the Google Slides on each period's Google Classroom
• Post the instructions for setting up a Blogger account on Google Classrooms for each class as well
• Have students set up these accounts during the first week of school

My self-assessed rubric can be found here.