I'm Old....And So Are You

Okay, first things first, I'm not that old. Definitely not as old as that guy in the picture; however, over the course of the summer I've come to realize that, to my students, I may as well have grown up in the stone age.

Beloit College has become famous for their annual mindset list. For those of you unfamiliar, each year since 1998 two professors work together to show the mindset of incoming freshman. Specifically, what they remember and what they never lived without. (Last year's freshman have always know the Packers to celebrate with the Lambeau Leap)

That's a bit of context, but not enough. I've spent my entire career at the elementary level, an age that has even less experience. This year's 6th grade class was born in 2002 which means that for them Sept. 11 is a historical event, not something engrained in their psyche. The US has always been at war and, as far as their memory is concerned, Aaron Rogers has always been the Packers' quarterback. More importantly though, they have always had computers (at the very least) in their school, cell phones have always been ubiquitous, and the Internet has always been entwined into, well, everything.

My friends and I would fight over...this.

Contrast that with me, the not-so-old teacher. The first time I remember touching a computer was in 5th grade. My school had four, Apple IIe computers (two with green screens and two with orange) and once a week the table would be wheeled into our classroom where we would be allowed play a game. Remember, though, what these games were like. You took the 5 1/2" floppy disc, inserted it into the drive, waited, and then watched the pixelated orange guy hobble across the screen before reading some text explaining what the orange guy sees. It was really more like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.

I didn't have a home computer until my freshman year of high school (50mhz, 2MB ram, 256MB hard drive and a sound card!) and didn't have Internet access in my house until my senior year. Even worse, I continued to suffer through a dial up connection through grad school. Here's an infographic that further highlights the childhood differences between us (teachers) and them (students).

I assume that there are at least a few people out reading this who had a similar experience growing up; but, so what? Everyone knows that we grew up with a completely different set of "toys" than our students. We've all heard about "Digital Natives" and "Digital Immigrants," but it's beyond that now. It's not a question of whether or not we know how to use the technology, it's a question of do we understand the power, the scope, and the potential of the technology we are using.

It was Jeff Utecht's Ted Talk titled "Community Trumps Content" that inspired this posting. In his talk, he relates a student's utter bafflement when told that Jeff used a computer without an Internet connection when he was younger. Her response: "What did you do?"

Think back to your pre-Internet computer. Personally, I played Mine Sweeper-a lot. Then I played Sim City (the old one) and finally entered the wonderful world of Myst. Even after I had the Internet, I can't say I did much on it. Dial-up was too painful.

Today though, what does one do on the computer without an Internet connection? In my case, not much. Outside of photoshop and the occasional time I need to use Office instead of Drive, everything I do is on the Internet, with the very large exception of housing my digital photos. Yes, I have them automatically backed up to Google+ and I share them with Google+, but I don't trust Google to protect my pictures (Can You Live Without Google?). This is one thing that makes me "old." I still see the Internet as an "other." I love it. I use it. I would have a hard time adapting to life without the Internet. But, it is still an "other."

Students today don't have that distinction. They've grown up with the Internet at their finger tips without fail. Students have their entire lives stored on the cloud, trusting that Facebook will never disappear or delete their photos. In other words, students see the Internet as an extension of themselves. With Google, they can obtain an answer to any question. Through their social networks, they are in constant contact with their friends.

The Internet has already changed everything, but now those changes are changing. Just look at the change in how we share documents with Google Drive versus what we did just a couple of years ago. Have we adapted? Maybe, but the key is "adapted." Here we go back to the Native vs. Immigrant argument. Only instead of looking at just the digital life, look at the online, social life.

How do educators repsond to these differences? Too often, we ask students to put the phones away, and pay attention. This is a problem. Remember, the Internet is now an extension of self with the phone as the access point. Plenty of adults are incapable of being separated from their phone. How much harder for students? And the question is, "Why?" Why must students put the phones away and pay attention? Yes, students need to learn, but the answer is not taking away their phone. The answer is teaching in a way that allows students to use their phones, use the Internet, and yes, use their social networks to help them learn.

The buzz now is all about professional learning communities for teachers and connecting with, and learning from, other professionals through Twitter, Google+, etc. Why can't students do the same thing? We must face the fact that students don't need to memorize when the battle of Antietam took place, the presidents' names in order, or the periodic table. Their phone has those answers. Let them use their phones to get the information and then guide them into using that information to learn something important.

As teachers we need to embrace the fact that students ar well connected and can learn from each

other. We need to recognize that basic fact recall is A) not necessary any more and B) not going to help them navigate our world. We need to focus on what is important. We need to focus on the skills needed to help them to synthesize, evaluate, and construct new understanding from the facts they find on the Internet.

Kids already know how to find answers. We need to teach them how to find the right  facts and how to use those facts to answer meaningful questions. There is a great blog post titled "If they can Google it, why do they need you?" where the author offers suggestions to take teachers to this end. His advice,

Ask better questions.

Sure . . . you’ll want to provide opportunities to help them think historically and understand how to go about answering the question. Provide scaffolding and support with tools, websites, and resources. Maybe even a bit of direct instruction.

And then . . . step out of the way. Let them struggle. Don’t give them the answer. Cause they’ll ask. The system has trained them to expect us to give them the answer. Hang in there and let ‘em dangle a bit.

He goes on to offer a list of “un-Googleable” questions. Things like:

• Was dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima the humane or inhumane thing to do?
• What is the best form of government?
• Were African Americans really free following the US Civil War?

The goal of every educator is to engage the student. Today's educators just need to reevaluate how that is done. In 2010, the NY Times reported the average child, age 8-18, spends 7.5 hours a day in front of an electronic device, why would we, as teachers, think it is a good idea to outlaw those digital devices? Clearly, the Internet isn't going away. Instead of forcing students to learn in the same classrooms we did, we must use their tools to teach. This isn't easy. It is a paradigm shift for us. But we can do it. To help you get started, here is a "Blooms Digital Technology Wheel and Knowledge Dimension."

Get on the Internet. Engage your PLC. Find the tools, the methods, and the strategies and make your classroom one that students want to be in. 

Public Domain Pictures

http://artclasswithlmj.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/fair-use-map.jpg

There have been a lot of posts and tweets flying around lately about public domain images. I've put them all here in one, easy to find place.

Clip Art
OpenClipart

Images
Pixabay
Every Stock Photo
Morgue File
Flickr Commons
Animal Photos
Wikimedia Commons
Pics4Learning

Art
Getty
National Gallery of Art

Search Engines- Below are instructions on how to find fair use images using the three major search engines. Even though you've restricted the search, it is still a good idea to go directly to the web page and read through the details of the license before using the image.

• Google Image Search After searching for your image, click on the gear in the upper right corner and select "Advanced Search." At the bottom of the new menu, you'll see an option to search by usage rights. 
• Yahoo Image Search After searching for your image, click on the double arrow on the upper left corner of the screen. At the bottom of the new menu, make sure that "Labeled for Reuse" is shown.
• Bing Image Search After searching for your image, click on "License" and select public domain.

Thank you to Make Use Of and +Richard Byrne originally shared a number of these options. 

Students as Critical Thinkers in the Flipped Classroom

I recently read a blog post by +Alice Chen titled, "Don't Just Flip the Videos, Flip the Learning," in it she discusses that having children watch videos at home and then answer questions is just an extension of the teacher centered classroom. She writes:

This is a teacher-centered classroom, where the questions are driven by the teacher.  This is not new pedagogy.  It's simply moving the geographical location of the lesson from the classroom to the home with the help of technology.

Instead of the teacher providing the questions as accompaniment to the video, teach your students how to ask critical thinking questions that will drive the learning into their own hands.  Assign the video, but also embed it on a platform that will allow students to actively discuss the material they watched with each other.  

There are several free web tools that will help you to use YouTube to accomplish the goal of turning your students into critical thinkers while flipping your classroom.

VideoNot.es Allows students to take notes while watching a YouTube video. These notes are synced with the video so that when a student reviews the notes they will automatically be taken to the correct