SAMR Meets Microsoft

I found this recent post on the msdn blog ( posted by Pip Cleaves) really interesting as it matches up the familiar SAMR model with the next generation of Microsoft products that are now being targeted at the education market. As someone who has been cynical and critical of Microsoft past offerings I find these new products e.g. Office Mix, very exciting and definitely believe they have place in every teachers ed tech toolkit.

The SAMR Model of technology integration is used by many teachers across the globe to ensure their use of technology leads to better learning outcomes for students. After reading lists of learning activities and apps sorted into this continuum using other platforms, we thought it might be nice to create a list of how Microsoft apps, services and software might fit into this popular model. Check out the ideas below and print out our handy infographic to inspire some ideas in your classroom this year.

For this model we have mapped each of the SAMR Levels to possible learning activities using our favourite Microsoft Tools for Learning:

S – Substitution

Doing the same thing, but using technology. Ask yourself if anything is better as a result of the use of technology?

• OneNote – Notetaking, planning, drafting, writing tasks and digital textbook
• Office Mix – Audio record a presentation and hand in via USB
• Office Sway – Create a presentations, write notes for a topic
• OneDrive – Take notes using browser apps, make summaries, create posters using PowerPoint
• Win 8 Apps – Human Anatomy 3, Periodic Table, TedED, Wikipedia, Research Apps

A – Augmentation

Doing things better through technology. Ask yourself if the task is improves as a result of the use of technology.

• OneNote – Create a Choose Your Own Adventure Story, Sync OneNote across devices
• Office Mix – Create and share an Office Mix as a presentations, Use Office Mix to create screencasts
• Office Sway – Create and share a Sway as a Project Presentation for feedback from teacher or peers
• OneDrive – Use Excel Surveys for data collection and analysis, group note taking and summaries through OneDrive browser apps
• Win 8 Apps – Kids Storybuilder, Wolfram Alfa Apps, Flashcard Apps

M – Modification

Doing things differently because of technology. Is learning better because of the technology?

• OneNote – Audio feedback in OneNote, Portfolio creation, Inking in OneNote, using Class OneNote Creator Tool
• Office Mix – Creation of Tutorials, Creating videos to explain thinking, adding Office Mix to a portfolio
• Office Sway – Multimodal presentation with hyperlinks, record audio overSway using Office Mix screencast
• Win 8 Apps – iXplain, Explain Everything, Drawboard PDF, Socrative, TouchReTouch, Arcsoft Showbiz, Zoe Trope

R – Redefinition

Inconceivable without technology. Doing things in new ways as a result of the technology. How is this activity uniquely possible as a result of the technology?

• OneNote – Audio Feedback in Portfolios, Collaborative Note taking and writing, OneNote + Lync for Global project work, Class OneNote Creator for assessment and feedback
• Office Mix – Create an interactive presentation to tap into analytics to map students understanding, create an interactive presentation with a quiz for peers
• Office Sway – Multimodal presentation created with a variety of ‘app smashed’ products, creation of a multimedia presentation, share with global peers through social media
• OneDrive – Global project organisation and actualisation, Collaborative feedback and editing, shared folder as resource library
• Win 8 Apps – Nearpod, Fluid Math, CreateBook, Coaches Eye

The 6 Types of Technology Integrators

This is an interesting visual that has been making rounds online.The Pencil Metaphor outlines 6 types of how people react to technology. Which type are you?

“1. The Hangers-On
Hangers-on know all the right lingo, attend all the right seminars, but just don’t do anything.

2. The Erasers
These people endeavour to undo much, if not all, of the work done by the leaders.

3. The Ferrules
These people hang on tightly to what they know. They keep a strong grip on their traditional practices, and feel that there is not a place for technology in their classroom.

4. The Wood
These people would (get it?) technology if someone would just get them the gear, set it up, train them, and keep it running. All they need is help from some sharp person, and they would be doing it too.

5. The Sharp Ones
These are the people that see what the early adopters have done, willingly grab the best of it, learn from the mistakes of others, and do great stuff with their students.

6. The Leaders
These people are the first to take on the technology, the early adopters would usually document and enthusiastically share what they have tried, warts and all.”

The origin of this visual is debatable.  a few sources where this work has been previously featured. include:

• ICTeD Services
• Teachers.org.au
• Steve Wheeler
• NCS Tech

The Distraction Myth of Learning with Technology

The following article was originally posted on the BYOT Network on the 18th Jan 2015. In the post Dr Tim Clarke the author confronts head on the myth that technology in classrooms distracts students and is disruptive ( in the bad sense). Tim  identifies what he sees as the real problems and offers strategies to overcome these problems. From my personal experiences encountering and dealing with the distraction myth I believe that Tim is pretty spot on in his analysis.

Ray 

In facilitating the integration of technology tools within classrooms, I’ve heard teachers complain that devices can be distracting. This was also one of the fears that Lisa Nielsen (@innovativeEdu) addressed in a recent blog post – Confronting Fears – #BYOD for Students. The idea that technology itself is a distraction to students is a myth. It is perpetuated by educators who believe that banning technology will keep students more focused on the learning happening within the classroom. Technology, however, does have the potential to be a distraction for several reasons:

• Students have developed their own norms for how technology should be used, and responsible use isn’t nurtured within classrooms.
• The use of technology is often teacher-directed when it is utilized so students have few choices about the process or product.
• There is an assumption that compliance with direct instruction means that students are engaged and focused.
• Technology use is sometimes perceived as an extra add-on to traditional instruction instead of integral to the learning process.
• Teacher lectures, direct instruction, and independent work with worksheets are regularly used as a means of behavior management to keep students quiet and pacified, and technology use encourages interaction.

Here are some strategies for addressing the issues listed above.

1. Teachers and students should collaboratively develop expectations and guidelines for the responsible use of technology tools. These procedures should be posted and continually communicated and practiced. Remember that students will sometimes make mistakes with technology, and they should be consistently redirected, as necessary, with how to use technology responsibly.
2. Students generally know how to use to technology, or they are generally able to quickly adapt to its use. However, they don’t usually know how to learn with technology. This is something that teachers can facilitate by utilizing the expertise of the students in the classroom to help each other. Teachers can also make assignments more open-ended so that students have opportunities to make choices in both process and product.
3. Students can be distracted by many things within a classroom, even where technology tools are underutilized or banned. Many students have learned to play the “game” of school. They can look at a teacher and pretend to be focused and learning even though there thoughts are elsewhere. Teachers can create opportunities for collaboration, communication, and critical thinking in learning activities. In dynamic, active classrooms, there is a greater opportunity for effective technology use to support digital age skills.
4. Technology by itself isn’t always engaging. Teachers have to utilize a variety of instructional strategies and digital content to engage student learning. With the effective integration of technology tools, teachers are able to personalize learning, flip the classroom, provide differentiated learning, and work with small groups and individuals – knowing that the students can utilize technology to access learning resources.
5. Teachers have to model the desire to learn by learning alongside students knew ways to utilize technology and discover new facets of a topic. With technology tools, students are readily able to access information, so there is no need for a teacher or a textbook to be the sole source of content. This can be intimidating for teachers who often perceive that their role is to disseminate everything they know about a subject.

By developing a positive learning community within a classroom, a teacher can take the initial steps necessary to begin integrating technology tools and resources. With consistent perseverance and practice, soon these teachers can find new ways to transform learning experiences while dispelling the myth of distraction while learning with technology.

Are Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) Enabling A New Pedagogy?

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been with us since 1998 when the first MOOC – Connectivism and Connective Knowledge (also known as CCK08) – was offered. CCK08, led by George Siemens of Athabasca University, and Stephen Downes of the National Research Council, included 25 tuition-paying students in Extended Education at the University of Manitoba, as well as over 2,200 online students from the general public who paid nothing.

By 2012, MOOCs were hot news. In 2011 and 2012, for-profit organizations, such as Udacity, edX, and Coursera, worked with universities, colleges, and other partners to launch numerous MOOCs that registered hundreds of thousands of students, and caught the imagination of many more.

Thomas Friedman, writing in the New York Times a year later, suggested:

“I can see a day soon where you’ll create your own college degree by taking the best online courses from the best professors from around the world — some computing from Stanford, some entrepreneurship from Wharton, some ethics from Brandeis, some literature from Edinburgh — paying only the nominal fee for the certificates of completion. It will change teaching, learning and the pathway to employment. There is a new world unfolding and everyone will have to adapt.”

MOOCs were the new “magic bullet” that would transform access to, and costs of, higher education and, maybe, show the way in which lifelong learning – always part of the educational dream – could become a reality.

However, there are few signs, in North America at least, of MOOCs having the transformative power that Friedman imagined.

Question : Are MOOCs Influencing the Ways Faculty Think about Online Learning?

Some of the ways MOOCs are broadening the way faculty think about online courses include:

• MOOCs are making extensive use of short video pieces – 5-10 minutes – linked to challenging questions or web exploration. This is a different approach from text-intensive learning and, while it may demand more time for the faculty and involve more costs for the institutions, it also benefits students.  Short, precise presentations of content, followed by examples or applications, are found to provide effective learning.
• MOOCs are encouraging the use of Open Educational Resources. MOOCs often incorporate Open Educational Resources (OER) and their inclusion has drawn attention to their potential for teaching and learning. Organizations such as the OER Commons and the OERu are benefiting from the development of MOOCs which are increasing awareness and use of OER in online courses, assignments and practice modules for blended and face-to-face students and laboratory settings.
• MOOCs are making extensive use of peer discussion and engagement. What has surprised many is just how engaged students can become when the online course design focuses on encouraging and supporting participation. Some faculty who designed and offered MOOCS (and the students who took them) set up small groups for interchange throughout the courses. In some cases, students set these up without any frameworks from the instructors, but simply because they recognize the value of the contacts and exchange. These peer connections are being made among those taking the same course, those using this knowledge in their trade/profession and in the wider communities of practice interested in the subject matter of the course.
• MOOCs separated those who offer content from those who provide support. In some cases, those who prepared the content for the MOOC are not those who then provide the support. Instead, this may be undertaken by other instructors or staff from the providing institution, from an institution accepting the MOOC for credit, or by a private organization offering support services at a cost. This separation of roles can be essential to supporting the vast number of students who may register for a MOOC. This shift presents an opportunity to improve not only the support students receive, but also the quality of the MOOC itself.
• MOOCs opened up the question of peer assessment. Many MOOCs use peer assessment as the basis for evaluating student progress in a course. There are issues here – reliability of assessment (several studies have shown between 35-45% of student submissions were graded 10% higher than the staff grade), quality of feedback and so on. There are developments, such as a credibility index for peer assessment created by a professor at PennState University. This method relies on each student reviewing a ‘known-quantity’ assignment that is standard across all reviewers. Each reviewer’s score is then compared to how the instructor graded this assignment. The experience with MOOCs is part of the consideration and evaluation of peer assessment for online learning.

Question : Are MOOCs Having an Impact on Courses NotTaught Online?

The bulk of instruction worldwide is in classrooms and, increasingly, blended settings. MOOCs are starting to have an impact on how teaching and learning takes place there as well:

• MOOCs are contributing to the move towards blended learning. Blended learning is becoming more common for instruction in many disciplines, featuring course delivery divided between online and face-to-face settings. MOOCs offer content and models that can be integrated into the online portions and demonstrate the potential effectiveness of online delivery of content. MOOCs encourage hesitant instructors to take the next step and start assigning more online preparatory work and activities so classrooms can be used for more engaged learning.
• MOOCs are encouraging the more widespread use of OER in online, blended and classroom-based learning environments. Whether they are videos, text material, simulations or games, OER are becoming widely used in the classrooms. In Canada, there is an inter-provincial initiative headed by Rory McGreal at Athabasca University, who holds the UNESCO/Commonwealth of Learning Chair in OER, to develop not just OER textbooks but also OER wrap-around materials, such as quizzes and visuals, so instructors and students can get the same kinds of supports available from publishers for free.

Question: Are MOOCs Contributing to the Improvement of the Quality of Online Learning?

In general, it depends…

• A critical factor is whether or not the MOOC was created by a team involving content experts, graphic designers, instructional designers, production managers and knowledge management experts. For example, the University of Alberta has such a team and its MOOCs are designed from a quality assurance perspective. When these MOOCs are compared with others, which do not have access to this expertise, the variation in quality can be evident. The history of distance education demonstrates that quality improves with access to different kinds of expertise – it is the result of a team effort.
• Quality is improving for MOOCs. As more people enroll in MOOCs, and more are offered, those designing them learn more about how to integrate quality assurance and quality design, development and deployment. Quality is improving over time.
• However, it remains the case that many MOOCs are poorly designed, have insufficient quality control and are not well managed at the point of delivery. This is clear from a variety of evaluation studies, such as the one by Walker and Loch.

Question : Are MOOCs Transforming Teaching and Learning in Post-secondary Education?

• MOOCs are part of a movement to unbundle education. This unbundling can include separating credit recognition from instruction, and who teaches from where a person earns a credential. MOOCs are one part of this process. Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR), transfer credit, badges, competency-based assessment and OER are other components. As unbundling spreads, teaching and learning are transformed. However, it takes time.
• Unbundling is making some strong progress in the developing world. In the new development goals now being looked at by UNESCO, NGOs, (non-governmental organizations) and IGOs (intergovernmental organizations), ALL levels of education are targeted for increased access, success, and quality. Unbundling teaching, learning and assessment is a means of achieving this.
• China and India will likely lead in using MOOCs to transform teaching and learning in their post-secondary education sectors:
  • Development highlights in China include:
    • Tsinghua University has a team of 30 people now working on MOOC platform development and another team working on course content. They also use MOOCs from edX and Coursera in English to supplement existing programs.
    • Shanghai Jiaotong University was the first university in China to sign an agreement with Coursera, and has since put six courses on this global platform. A total of 30 courses are scheduled to be released by the end of 2014. A course called “Traditional Chinese Medicine and Medication Culture” attracted some 20,000 students from more than 38 countries in May 2014. The courses are in Chinese with English sub-titles.
    • Shanghai Jiaotong University also developed the largest and most comprehensive Chinese MOOC platform in the world. All courses on it are open and free. SJTU students register and choose courses they are interested in and earn credits.
    • Links with FutureLearn – Chinese Premier Li Keqiang signed a series of China-UK memoranda of cooperation, one of which is the Massive Open Online Course project, collaboratively launched by FutureLearn in the UK and Fudan University in China.
    • China’s Own MOOC Platform – Chinese MOOC platform CnMooc.com was co-launched by top Chinese universities, including Peking University, Tsinghua University, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and many others in 2013.
  • Development highlights in India include:
    • India has 15 open universities, which serve over 11 million students annually.
    • India has huge participation on existing MOOC platforms. Of the 1.9 million learners on edX, 15% come from India; of Coursera’s 6.7 million learners, 19% are from India – between these two that is over 1.5 million students.
    • edX has partners in India – Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay partnered with edX in 2014 to offer computing science MOOCs exclusively in India. Some 35,000 students took these for credit in 2014.
    • Many platforms – Other platforms, in addition to Coursera, edX and Udacity, used in India include FutureLearn (UK), MyOpenCourses (India), ALISON (Advance Learning Interactive Systems ONline) (Ireland).

We need to continue monitoring MOOCs and their impact on pedagogy

The influence of MOOCs is spreading, impacting all aspects of pedagogy, including:

• Design and delivery of courses;
• Student support;
• Engagement and interaction;
• Assessment and accreditation;
• Use of open educational resources; and
• Integration of blended learning and technology use in the classroom.

Ultimately, student learning outcomes are the critical measure of success for MOOCs, as for all of post-secondary education.

This article was originally  published by contactnorth.ca

The Transformational Power of Educational Technology

Office Mix

I love Office Mix. With Mix (and Microsoft’s other recent new product Sway) we see Microsoft at last giving us new presentation tools appropriate for the 21st century and for 21st century learners. The post below originally appeared on blogs.msdn.com.  It gives us a video from Tim Richardson (Microsoft’s Marketing Lead for Office Mix) introducing Mix + a nice explanation of Office Mix is a great addition to our presentation toolkit.

Office Mix in the Classroom – an introductory video from Tim Richardson

blogs.msdn.comDecember 9 05:45 AM

“Technology is allowing the transformation of education.”

If you were to compare today’s classrooms with those of only 10 years ago, the difference is remarkable. The devices and technology being used are becoming more advanced, the teachers better trained, and as a result many students are finding it easier to become engaged. The actual key dates, verb declensions and mathematical formulae being taught won’t be affected by technological advances – after all, whether you look it up on a shiny new Surface Pro 3 or in a dusty old textbook from a century ago, the Battle of Hastings still took place in 1066, and a² + b² is still equal to c². But how they are taught is definitely something that will move with the times.

With this in mind, if we look at Tim Richardson’s statement that technology is allowing the transformation of education again, we realise that education isn’t exclusively about the transfer of knowledge from a teacher to a classroom full of students, but an experience by which children are inspired to experience and act upon knowledge in order to best prepare them for the rigours of life. The ways in which teachers are able to personalise and shape that experience, and the manner in which students are able to interact with each other and their teachers are without question being aided by technology, and this is one of the main things we think of when we say educational transformation.

One of the recent additions to technological capabilities available to teachers – and students – that is bringing to life a teaching method that can often be a little dry for some students, is Office Mix.

PowerPoint has been a mainstay of classrooms, lecture theatres and boardrooms for decades. It’s a fantastic way to present information to an audience, with a myriad of ways to personalise and convey messages. With education however, we’ve already acknowledged that the process needs to be far more interactive that broadcast, and with minds becoming sharper and more technologically attuned from increasingly earlier ages, there needs to be something more engaging about presentations.

The Office Mix add-in for PowerPoint is a new way to tell your story with voice, video, inking, screen recording and interactive magic. Record your voice and video while you present and write on your slides, engage viewers with quizzes, polls, videos and apps, and in order to measure the efficacy of your presentations, analytics are automatically provided for every slide and user. For Office Mix in education, teachers can bring their lessons to life with their voice, videos, assessments and interactive apps.

Tim Richardson is Microsoft’s Marketing Lead for Office Mix, and he sat down to go through some of the background about why Office Mix exists, what we hope teachers can accomplish with it, and how it can be used:

There are plenty of Office Mix tutorials available at OfficeMix.com, where you can also find examples of other people’s Mixes, and get Office Mix for yourself.

Who am I

I have have worked in UK further education for the past 28 years. I started my career as a lecturer in retail management and marketing. I have held Head of School and Head of Department positions before moving full-time into the field of educational technologies in 2006.

Collaborating with Office 365: OneDrive

This is a straightforward explanation on how to use Office 365 to create and share documents.

As more and more educational spaces get access to Office 365, we are all looking for guidelines and easy ideas for use in our classrooms. Over the next couple of weeks we will highlight the top tips for getting your Office 365 world humming along with ease.

In this blog post you will learn to create, upload, sync and share Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint documents with either students or your peers.

In OneDrive (part of Office 365) you can easily create documents that you might use for:

• Collaborative writing and note taking
• Peer and Teacher led feedback
• Working with teams and committees
• Working in your faculty

OneDrive is the document storage area of Office 365. A place to keep your documents to tap into wherever you are, and a place to create collaborative workflows for your classroom and workspace. You’ll find OneDrive by clicking on the OneDrive option in the top right hand side of your Office 365 environment.

Create

Click on OneDrive, then New and choose from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Excel Survey or a New folder.

Once you have created your document, change the name by clicking on the ‘Document 1’ heading in the top black strip bar of your browser and typing in the file name you need.

You can now edit in the browser.

The interface you will see is just like the Microsoft Office Word you are used to using, minus a few technical bits and pieces.

Share

Just say you want a group of students to work together on this document, you want to keep an eye on student work for feedback or you want to plan with another teacher(s), then you will want to share the document with them.

Click on ‘file’ in the top left, then ‘share.’ Now choose if you want to share the document with someone via email or via a weblink.

Which do I use? Good question. You might use the weblink when the document is hyperlinked in another document you are creating, for sharing with people outside your Office 365 platform, or for linking from a website. Sharing the document via email might be appropriate when working with a small group of people, or specific circle of peers.

Once you have decided the method of sharing, if using the email option add the names of people you are sharing with. By typing in their names, the system should find the people and add a line under that name once found. Add a simple message for your email if you like.

Next choose the editing rights of collaborators. What’s the difference? Another good question. Read Only / Comments open – hyperlinks will open and they can comment on the document inline with text. This is great for feedback when you do not want formatting or text changed.  Full Edit – anyone with this link or email will be able to edit and work together anywhere on the document.  This is great when working on a document together. When opening a document up for collaborative editing, it is good to regard the document as ‘everyone’s document’ and understand that the words on the document are not owned by anyone, and thus changes will be made. This is quite different to ‘Tracking Changes’ in a regular offline work document. It’s a wonderful way to work.

Once you have chosen edit rights, now tick or untick the ‘require sign in’ box. For younger learners and those new to ICT, unticking the box is a great way to get them into the document without any login needed. Keep the box ticked for maximum security.

If you have chosen just to share the link, then choose ‘Get a Link’ and enable the edit or view only choice that best suits your needs.

The ‘Shared with’ will let you know who was given access via email invite to this document.

You can always come back in here and remove, change edit rights, or add others to this document.

NB – Click on the little Mobile Phone icon to create QR Code for your document. This is great for sharing with mobile users.

Upload

Sometimes you might want to share a document that you have already created in ‘offline’ or regular Microsoft Office Word. Using Office 365, this is a very easy process.

Firstly locate the document you want to use on your computer.

Click on ‘Upload’ in the documents area and follow the prompts to browse for your file. Alternatively you can just ‘drag and drop’ the file from your explorer folder into the documents area of Office 365.

Sync

To edit an earlier document, or one just uploaded, locate the file in your Documents area, then click on the name of the file.

The document will open in your browser. From here you can choose ‘edit document’ then choose from ‘Edit in Word Online’ and ‘Edit in Word’. What’s the difference? Easy, ‘Edit in Word Online’ is great for when you want instant collaboration, are mobile, or don’t have access to the full version of Office, and ‘Edit in Word’ is for documents you are working on alone or need the full operational potential of Office. ‘Edit in Word’ opens the document in full office, but still saves up into Office 365. Syncing of an offline doc is not as instant as an online doc, so if you have a group of students or peers working simultaneously, choose ‘edit in browser’.

NB – The process described above is the same for Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint.

Pip Cleaves 

28 Oct 2014 10:30 PM

21st Century Fluencies

This is an excellent article which first appeared in Global Citizen Education. The article explores the fluencies that are students will need to succeed in the 21st century and how they differ from those often expressed. 

The 21st Century Fluencies are not about hardware, they are about headware and heartware.

We need to move our thinking beyond our primary focus on traditional literacy to an additional set of 21st-century fluencies that reflect the times we live in. That’s the essence of the 21st Century Fluencies! Today, it’s essential that all of our students have a wide range of skills that develop the ability to function within a rapidly changing society—skills far beyond those that were needed in the 20th century. These skills are not about technological prowess. The essential 21st Century Fluencies are not about hardware; they are about headware and heartware! This means critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity, innovation, and so much more. These aren’t just for the students, though. The 21st Century Fluencies are process skills that we all need, and there is as much benefit in cultivating them within yourself as within your classroom.

The Processes

It’s easy for us to say that kids need exceptional problem-solving skills. But what do these skills look like in the real world? What do they look like in the classroom? How do we teach them? How can students learn them? How can we assess them? We had the same questions, which is what led to the creation of the 21st century Fluencies. These are all structured processes for developing essential skills that our students need to succeed, both today and in the future. Below is a brief overview of the Fluencies, which are outlined extensively in the book Literacy is Not Enough, (Crockett, Lee et. al.; 2011) and which you can experience in our professional learning opportunities.

Solution Fluency is the ability to think creatively to solve problems in real time by clearly defining the problem, designing an appropriate solution, delivering the solution and then evaluating the process and the outcome. This is about whole-brain thinking—creativity and problem solving applied on-demand.More about Solution Fluency …

Information Fluency is the ability to unconsciously and intuitively interpret information in all forms and formats in order to extract the essential knowledge, authenticate it, and perceive its meaning and significance. More about Information Fluency …

Creativity Fluency is the process by which artistic proficiency adds meaning through design, art, and storytelling. It is about using innovative design to add value to the function of a product though its form. More about Creativity Fluency …

There are two components of Media Fluency.  Firstly, the ability to look analytically at any communication to interpret the real message, and evaluate the efficacy of the chosen medium. Secondly, to create original communications by aligning the message and audience though the most appropriate and effective medium. More about Media Fluency …

Collaboration Fluency is team working proficiency that has reached the unconscious ability to work cooperatively with virtual and real partners in an online environment to solve problems and create original products. More about Collaboration Fluency …

All the 21st Century Fluencies are learned within the context of the Global Digital Citizen, using the guiding principles of leadership, ethics, altruistic service, environmental stewardship, global citizenship, digital citizenship, and personal responsibility. More about Global Digital Citizenship …

Digital learning: how technology is reshaping teaching

This is an interesting article by Sophie Curtis ( first published in the Telegraph) looking at the impact of technology on teaching.

Not so long ago, the back to school season was marked by a dash to Woolworths for exercise books and colouring pencils. Today it’s not just the shop that’s gone; books and pencils are joined by Chromebook laptops and tablet computers as educational essentials.

The children now entering school are fully fledged digital natives. Recent research by Ofcom found that six-year-olds have the same understanding of communications technology as 45-year-olds, and a ‘millennium generation’ of 14- and 15-year-olds are the most tech-savvy in the UK.

Over four in 10 households now have a tablet, meaning that children are becoming computer-literate before they’ve even started primary school – and we’ve all heard about the techno-babies who can handle an iPad before they have learnt how to tie their own shoelaces.

It is unsurprising, therefore, that technology is playing an increasingly central role in the classroom – not just in ICT lessons, where children will start learning to write code from the age of five this year, but in English, Maths and Science lessons as well.

I recently took part in an interactive experiment run by Argos and Intel, which involved sitting through two English lessons – one the old fashioned way without any kind of technology, and the second with all the latest gadgets at my disposal.

 

The first involved reading a scene from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, listening to the teacher talk through the themes and then writing my own analysis with pen and paper. The second involved watching a series of video clips depicting differing interpretations of the balcony scene from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, using the internet to research the themes, and then typing my own interpretation on a laptop.

While the first lesson required intense and sustained concentration, the second was undeniably more compelling. I’m not sure I learnt any more about Romeo and Juliet than I did about Macbeth, but at no point during the second lesson did I find my mind wandering, which is half the battle teachers fight every day.

John Lewis conducted a similar experiment, using iPads and an interactive smartboard to teach a maths lesson. A series of web-enabled apps were used to teach the class about the area and volume of shapes, allowing them to rotate digital 3D models on their screens and divide them into blocks.

As a pupil, I was also able to take part in quizzes and submit my answers digitally. The teacher was then able to pull up individual pupils’ answers on the smartboard and show them to the rest of the class.

Anyone who has been through a more traditional education system may find these techniques gimmicky, but many teachers now claim that flashy multimedia lessons are the only way to engage children whose ability to absorb information has been shaped by continuous exposure to technology from a young age.

Using technology in an educational environment not only better reflects children’s life outside the classroom, but also allows them to hone their digital skills in a way that will continue to be valuable throughout their adult life.

“The use of mobile digital technologies in the classroom might be largely unfamiliar to parents, but the benefits can be huge,” said Drew Buddie, senior vice chair at Naace, the association for the UK’s education technology community.

“It’s not about just shifting traditional lessons onto screens – it’s about allowing pupils to make use of their devices to truly enhance their learning while giving teachers better ways to track individual achievement and personalise lessons.”

By Sophie Curtis